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] | C_d4aea5e3e0c4436a8945e0129ec6e2f8_0 | What did they do | 7 | What did Rostam Batmanglij do after revealing what Mitsubishi Macchiato would feature? | Vampire Weekend | After remaining quiet following the conclusion of their Modern Vampires tour, on January 26, 2016, Rostam Batmanglij announced his departure from the band on Twitter. He noted that he and Koenig would continue to collaborate. Later the same day, Koenig announced that Vampire Weekend was in the studio working on their upcoming fourth album, with Batmanglij contributing to the record. The album's working title was revealed to be Mitsubishi Macchiato. In April 2016, the band briefly performed at a rally for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in Washington Park Square. Koenig has been a well-known supporter of Sanders, after discussions on his Beats 1 radio show, Time Crisis. The band performed live with Dave Longstreth of the Dirty Projectors, which marked their first performance as a trio. In late 2016, Koenig was reportedly in talks to sign the band with Columbia Records, as he reportedly "hit it off" with executive, Rob Stringer. Initially, this news was regarded a rumour, until the band's website revamp in 2018, in which a Sony Music copyright appeared on the site. In March 2017, Koenig revealed in an elaborate Instragram update that during 2016 he had spent countless hours researching and writing music in libraries with grad students. Additionally, he revealed that the album would feature a more 'spring-time' vibe and one of the songs would be entitled Flower Moon. Koenig revealed that LP4 would be partially inspired by the songwriting of country singer, Kacey Musgraves, after he attended one of her shows in September 2016. In an interview with Stereogum, he stated, "I'm the type of person who has spent hours poring over the avant-garde poetic lyrics of certain songwriters, and there was something that felt so good [about how] from the first verse, you knew who was singing, who they were singing to, what kind of situation they were in. After the show I realized there's not a ton of Vampire Weekend songs where you could listen to the first verse and immediately answer the question of who's singing and who are they singing to." Furthermore, in a September 2017 interview with Zane Lowe, Ezra briefly spoke about LP4 and stated that it was "about 80% done." He mentioned that the album would feature lead producer, Ariel Rechtshaid, with additional "guest appearances", one of which being Batmanglij. Lowe pushed Koenig for a release date, sighting Q1 2018 as a likely candidate. The band's first show since their hiatus was confirmed on January 31, 2018, when it was announced that the band would be headlining the UK music festival End of the Road. The festival will run from August 31 to September 3 and mark Vampire Weekend's first return to the stage in 4 years. Additionally, it was announced that they would headline the 2018 Fuji Rock Festival, scheduled for July 27 to 29. The band will also be performing at Lollapalooza 2018, which runs from August 2-5, 2018. CANNOTANSWER | Kacey Musgraves, after he attended one of her shows in September 2016. In an interview with Stereogum, he stated, | Vampire Weekend is an American rock band playing mainly post-punk pop from New York City, formed in 2006 and currently signed to Columbia Records. The band was formed by lead vocalist and guitarist Ezra Koenig, multi-instrumentalist Rostam Batmanglij, drummer Chris Tomson, and bassist Chris Baio. Batmanglij departed the group in early 2016.
The band's eponymous first album Vampire Weekend (2008)—which included charting singles "A-Punk" and "Oxford Comma"—showcased a blend of indie pop, Afropop influences, and chamber music elements. Their following album, Contra (2010), was similarly acclaimed and garnered strong commercial success; it featured the single "Holiday". Their subsequent studio albums Modern Vampires of the City (2013) and Father of the Bride (2019) each won the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album in their respective years.
History
Formation and early years (2006–2007)
The band members met while enrolled at Columbia University, beginning with a rap collaboration between Koenig and Tomson named "L'Homme Run". They bonded over a shared love of punk rock and African music. Koenig toured with The Dirty Projectors during a period of experimentation with African music, inspiring the band to incorporate world sounds into their earliest work. The band chose the name "Vampire Weekend" from the title of a short film project Koenig worked on during the summer between freshman and sophomore years in college. While home for the summer, Koenig watched the 1987 vampire film The Lost Boys and was inspired to make a Northeastern version of the film in which a man named Walcott travels to Cape Cod to warn the mayor that vampires are attacking the United States. Koenig abandoned the project after two days. The band began playing shows around Columbia University, starting with a battle of the bands at Lerner Hall in 2006. After graduating from college, the band self-produced their debut album while simultaneously working full-time jobs, Tomson as a music archivist and Koenig as a middle school English teacher.
In 2007, Vampire Weekend's song "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" was ranked 67th on Rolling Stone'''s list of the "100 Best Songs of the Year". In November 2007, they toured the UK with The Shins.
The then-nascent influence of blog hype and internet buzz played a role in their success and led to a large prerelease following sufficient to support them performing on three tours before their debut album was released. They were declared "The Year's Best New Band" by Spin magazine in the March 2008 issue, and were the first band to be shot for the cover of the magazine before releasing their debut album. The band made a television appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman on February 1, 2008, and on March 8, 2008, performed on Saturday Night Live. Four songs from the band's first album also made the Triple J Hottest 100, 2008. The internet hype had its backlash, however, as critics reacted against a perceived image of Vampire Weekend as privileged, upper-class Ivy League graduates stealing from foreign musicians. One critic went so far as to call Vampire Weekend the "whitest band in the world," to which they took exception, given their Ukrainian, Persian, Italian, and Hungarian heritages. Koenig responded in a November 2009 interview by saying, "Nobody in our band is a WASP." Furthermore, the backlash involving their social backgrounds was largely unfounded, as Koenig explained in the interview that the band members got into Columbia on scholarship and used student loans; he himself was still paying off student loans in 2009.
Vampire Weekend (2007–2009)
The band's first album, Vampire Weekend, was released January 29, 2008 and is ranked number 430 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It featured a blend of Afropop influences, indie pop, and chamber music elements. A success in the US and UK, it peaked at number 15 on the UK Albums Chart and number 17 on the Billboard 200. Four singles were released from the album; while "A-Punk" peaked at number 25 on the Billboard Modern rock chart and number 55 on the UK Singles Chart, "Oxford Comma" peaked at number 38 in the UK. "A-Punk" was ranked the 4th on Rolling Stone's Readers' Rock List: Best Songs of 2008. "A-Punk" was also used to open the Will Ferrell/John C. Reilly feature Step Brothers, and featured in the UK television show The Inbetweeners and the video games Guitar Hero 5, Just Dance 2 and Lego Rock Band.
Contra (2009–2010)
The band's second album, Contra, was released on January 11, 2010 in the UK and the following day in the US, after being pushed back from the original release date for the fall of 2009. The album's first single, "Horchata", was released on October 5, 2009. The album's second single, "Cousins", was released as a single on November 17, 2009. Initial copies of the CD and LP sold at independent record stores in the US included a 3-track bonus CD containing two "melts", which featured bits of album tracks and a remix.
It is the band's first album to reach number one on the Billboard 200, and the 12th independently distributed album in history to reach the number one spot on the Billboard 200 since Nielsen Soundscan began recording data in 1991, while also being the first independent artist to have done so without ever having signed with a major label, after already established rock bands Radiohead and Pearl Jam and before Arcade Fire's The Suburbs. The album sold 124,000 copies in its first week and was awarded Gold by the RIAA on November 21, 2011 which means it has sold over 500,000 units in the US alone. In 2010, it was awarded a diamond certification from the Independent Music Companies Association which indicated sales of at least 250,000 copies throughout Europe.
On January 9, 2010, the band did an acoustic show for MTV Unplugged. The following month, the band toured Europe and Canada with Canadian electro duo Fan Death as their support. The video for their next single "Giving Up the Gun" was also released on February 18, 2010 which included cameos from Joe Jonas, Lil Jon, RZA, and Jake Gyllenhaal.
They also played festivals across the USA such as Coachella, Bonnaroo, Austin City Limits Music Festival, All Points West, and the Groovin' The Moo festival in Australia. Their third single, "Holiday", was released on June 7, 2010.
On June 25, 2010, the band played the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury Festival, in Pilton, Somerset, UK. The band were also on the main stage at T in the Park 2010 at Balado Kinross, Scotland, on June 8, and played the Oxegen Festival in Ireland on July 9. They also headlined the Latitude Festival in Suffolk, UK on July 18. On July 16, the band headlined the Main Stage at the Festival Internacional de Benicàssim. In the summer of 2010 the band played at the Utopia stage on Peace and Love, Sweden's biggest Festival. On July 30, 2010, the band played at Jisan Valley Rock Festival in South Korea.
In 2010, Vampire Weekend embarked on a North American tour with Beach House and Dum Dum Girls. The tour started off on August 27, 2010, in Vancouver, British Columbia at the Malkin Bowl. Koenig mentioned to the audience that before this concert, the band had the longest "vacation period" that they had had in a while.Contra was nominated for a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album, but lost to The Black Keys's Brothers.
Modern Vampires of the City (2010–2014)
On November 11, 2011, it was revealed that Vampire Weekend had been in the studio, writing and recording material for their third album. On April 26, 2012, Rolling Stone reported that the new album could be released by the end of the year. Koenig said, "We do have a ton of stuff. It would be cool if it was [released] this year...We just never want to be in a position [where] when we put out something, we feel could've benefited from more time." Until its release, the band was discreet about the details of the next album, stating that a band "can give a bunch of interviews when they're working on stuff" but they "don't want something [they] said six months ago to influence how people hear it when it's done."
In January 2012, President Barack Obama added Vampire Weekend to a short list of musical artists that he sought support from for his re-election campaign. Vampire Weekend made it onto this list with Jay-Z, John Legend, and Alicia Keys.Modern Vampires of the City was released in May 2013, and written and recorded in various locations including SlowDeath Studios in New York, Echo Park "Back House" in Los Angeles, Vox Recording Studios in Hollywood, Rostam Batmanglij's New York apartment and a guest house on Martha's Vineyard. The album was co-produced by Batmanglij and Ariel Rechtshaid. After Batmanglij produced the first two albums himself, this marked the first time the band worked with an outside producer on any of their records.
In an interview for the February 2013 edition of Q (released in mid-January), Koenig described the upcoming album as "darker and more organic" and "very much the last of a trilogy." Said Koenig, "Things that we might have found boring in the past, we've started to find more fresh. This album has more piano and acoustic guitar and organ." Modern Vampires of the City also continued the use of digital voice modulation as heard in the songs "Diane Young" and "Ya Hey", a technique first used in the song "California English" on Contra The album was recorded and co-produced by Ariel Rechtshaid in his Los Angeles Studio (alongside Batmanglij). The band discussed the album with The FADER and appeared on the cover of the magazine's 84th issue. On March 16, 2013, the band played the closing show at Stubbs on the last day of the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. In the show they played two new songs from the upcoming album: "Diane Young" and "Ya Hey". On March 18, 2013, Vampire Weekend released a double-sided single, "Diane Young"/"Step". On May 11, 2013, Vampire Weekend were featured as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live with Kristen Wiig hosting, their third time on the show.
Released on May 14, 2013, the album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard chart, marking the second time Vampire Weekend has achieved the feat: its second album Contra also debuted at No. 1 in 2010, making them the first independent rock band to enter the charts at No. 1 with two consecutive releases. Modern Vampires of the City also shattered the previous record for first week vinyl sales, moving nearly 10,000 units on vinyl alone and debuting at No. 1 on the Soundscan Vinyl Charts. Additionally, the band charted #1 at Indie, Alternative, Digital and the top 200. In 2014, Modern Vampires of the City won a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album.
To promote the album, XL Recordings released "Diane Young" and "Step" as a double A-sided single on March 19, 2013. Modern Vampires of the City was released by XL on May 14. and Vampire Weekend played several concerts and music festivals shortly after, eventually embarking on a larger supporting tour throughout late 2013, beginning with a show at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia on September 19. John Gentile of Rolling Stone reported that the band headlined "some of their largest venues to date" on the tour.
In the album's first week of release, it debuted number one on the Billboard 200 and sold 134,000 copies in the United States. It was Vampire Weekend's second consecutive number-one record on the chart, as well as the nineteenth independently distributed album to top the Billboard 200 in the Nielsen SoundScan era (1991–present). The record entered the British album charts at number three with first-week sales of 27,805 copies, becoming the group's third consecutive top-twenty album in the United Kingdom. By December 2014, it had been certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America and sold 505,000 copies in the US. In 2014, it was awarded a diamond certification from the Independent Music Companies Association, which indicated sales of at least 200,000 copies throughout Europe.
On September 2020, Modern Vampires of the City was put by Rolling Stone in their new list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, ranking at position 328.
Departure of Batmanglij and Father of the Bride (2014–2019)
After remaining quiet following the conclusion of their Modern Vampires tour, which wrapped up in September 2014, it was revealed on January 26, 2016 that Rostam Batmanglij had departed the band. He noted that he and Koenig would continue to collaborate. Later the same day, Koenig announced that Vampire Weekend was in the studio working on their upcoming fourth album, with Batmanglij contributing to the record. The album's working title was revealed to be Mitsubishi Macchiato.
In January 2016, the band performed in Iowa for a Bernie Sanders rally two days before the Iowa primaries. The band members Rostam Batmanglij and Chris Baio were replaced by David Longstreth and Nat Baldwin (both from Dirty Projectors) and an all female a cappella group from the University of Iowa, due to Batmanglij's departure from the band and Baio being on tour with his side project. Lead vocalist Ezra Koenig expressed his support for the candidate in various ways through social media and on his Beats 1 show "Time Crisis".
In April 2016, the band briefly performed at a rally for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in Washington Square Park. Koenig has been a well-known supporter of Sanders, after discussions on his Beats 1 radio show, Time Crisis. The band performed live with Dave Longstreth of the Dirty Projectors, which marked their first performance as a trio.
In late 2016, Koenig was reportedly in talks to sign the band with Columbia Records, as he reportedly "hit it off" with executive Rob Stringer. Initially, this news was regarded a rumor, until the band's website revamp in 2018, in which a Sony Music copyright appeared on the site.
In March 2017, Koenig revealed in an elaborate Instagram update that during 2016 he had spent countless hours researching and writing music in libraries with grad students. Additionally, he revealed that the album, given the working title of "Mitsubishi Macchiato", would feature a more 'spring-time' vibe and one of the songs would be entitled Flower Moon. Koenig revealed that LP4 would be partially inspired by the songwriting of country singer, Kacey Musgraves, after he attended one of her shows in September 2016. In an interview with Stereogum, he stated, "I’m the type of person who has spent hours poring over the avant-garde poetic lyrics of certain songwriters, and there was something that felt so good [about how] from the first verse, you knew who was singing, who they were singing to, what kind of situation they were in. After the show I realized there’s not a ton of Vampire Weekend songs where you could listen to the first verse and immediately answer the question of who’s singing and who are they singing to.” Furthermore, in a September 2017 interview with Zane Lowe, Ezra briefly spoke about LP4 and stated that it was "about 80% done." He mentioned that the album would feature lead producer Ariel Rechtshaid with additional "guest appearances", one of which being Batmanglij. Lowe pushed Koenig for a release date, citing Q1 2018 as a likely candidate. In a December 2017 interview, Koenig noted that Batmanglij was involved in a few songs, some of which was material that they had started working on long ago, and that their method of collaboration had not changed despite the latter's departure from the band.
Vampire Weekend's first gigs since the hiatus took place in Ojai, California on June 16 & 17. On January 31, 2018, it was announced that the band would be headlining the UK music festival End of the Road. The festival ran from August 31 to September 3 and marked Vampire Weekend's first return to a festival stage in 4 years. On July 21, they performed in Byron Bay for the Australian festival, Splendour in the Grass. Additionally, it was announced that they would headline the 2018 Fuji Rock Festival, scheduled for July 27 to 29. For their live shows, the core trio of Koenig, Baio, and Tomson has been augmented by Greta Morgan on keyboards, guitar, and vocals, Brian Robert Jones on guitar, Garrett Ray on percussion, drums, and vocals, and Will Canzoneri on keyboards and vocals. During their August 4, 2018 performance at Lollapalooza, where the band played fan favorite "A-Punk" three times in a row, Koenig announced that Vampire Weekend's 4th album was done.
On January 17, 2019, Koenig announced the abbreviation of the band's fourth album title as FOTB, and revealed that the album would consist of 18 songs, running at approximately 59 minutes. Additionally, he announced that the album would be promoted by three monthly two-song releases, beginning the following week. On January 24, the songs "Harmony Hall" and "2021" were released, and Koenig confirmed the title of the album as Father of the Bride. He also said that the record would feature an array of collaborators, including Batmanglij, marking the first time the band has included guest vocalists in an album. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Koenig said, "We've had three albums of the same voice over and over again. I like the idea of opening up our world a little bit." He also confirmed that "2021" features a Haruomi Hosono sample, and said that he planned to start work on Vampire Weekend's fifth album. The band's current touring approach is influenced by Phish, the Grateful Dead and other jam bands. Contemporary fans mirror these influences in their Deadhead inspired creation of unofficial merchandise including shirts, shorts, tie-dyes, and bucket hats.
At the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards, the band received three nominations: Album of the Year and Best Alternative Music Album for Father of the Bride and Best Rock Song for "Harmony Hall". They won for Best Alternative Music Album (their second win in the category). In 2020, the Live in Florida EP featuring songs from the Father of the Bride Tour was released. On February 4, 2021, Vampire Weekend released the 40:42 EP featuring reinterpretations of their song "2021" from Father of the Bride. Two artists were commissioned to expand the song into twenty-minute and twenty-one-second versions.
Band members
Current members
Ezra Koenig – lead vocals, guitar, piano (2006–present)
Chris Baio – bass, backing vocals, occasional piano (2006–present)
Chris Tomson – drums, percussion, occasional guitar, backing vocals (2006–present)
Touring members
Will Canzoneri – keyboards, backing vocals (2018–present)
Brian Robert Jones – guitar, backing vocals (2018–present)
Greta Morgan – keyboards, guitar, percussion, backing vocals (2018–present)
Garrett Ray – percussion, drums, backing vocals (2018–present)
Former members
Rostam Batmanglij – keyboards, guitar, backing vocals, production, programmer, percussion, occasional lead vocals (2006–2016)
Timeline
Contra lawsuit
In 2010, the band, along with their record company XL Recordings and photographer Tod Scott Brody, were sued by Kirsten Kennis, the model on the cover of Contra, over the use of her image. Kennis's accusations were that the band used her image without her permission. Vampire Weekend settled with Kennis in 2011.
Other contributions
Vampire Weekend contributed a cover of "Exit Music (For a Film)" for Stereogum Presents... OKX: A Tribute to OK Computer (2007), a free tribute album celebrating 10 years of Radiohead's album OK Computer. They have also covered "Everywhere" by Fleetwood Mac, "Ça Plane Pour Moi" by Plastic Bertrand, "I'm Goin' Down" by Bruce Springsteen, "Have I the Right?" by The Honeycombs, "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke, "Fight For This Love" by Cheryl Cole, and "Ruby Soho" by Rancid.
The band also contributed the song "Ottoman" to the soundtrack to the 2008 film Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. That song was then sampled by alternative hip-hop artist Kid Cudi. Two tracks from their debut record also appeared in the 2009 comedy I Love You, Man. A new song, "Jonathan Low", was released on June 8, 2010, appearing on the soundtrack to the third installment of the Twilight Saga films, Eclipse. Their song "Worship You" appeared as a soundtrack in EA Sports football video game, FIFA 14.
In 2014, Vampire Weekend contributed a cover of "Con te Partiro" by Andrea Bocelli on the Valentine's Day compilation, Sweetheart 2014. Vampire Weekend also contributed a cover of Bruce Springsteen's "I'm Goin' Down" on the Girls Vol. 2 Soundtrack.
Discography
Studio albums
Vampire Weekend (2008)
Contra (2010)
Modern Vampires of the City (2013)
Father of the Bride'' (2019)
Awards and nominations
References
External links
2006 establishments in New York City
Musical quartets
American musical trios
Musical groups from New York City
Grammy Award winners
Indie rock musical groups from New York (state)
Musical groups established in 2006
Columbia Records artists
XL Recordings artists
Alternative rock groups from New York (state) | true | [
"\"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)",
"\"What Would Steve Do?\" is the second single released by Mumm-Ra on Columbia Records, which was released on February 19, 2007. It is a re-recorded version of the self-release they did in April 2006. It reached #40 in the UK Singles Chart, making it their highest charting single.\n\nTrack listings\nAll songs written by Mumm-Ra.\n\nCD\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"Cute As\"\n\"Without You\"\n\n7\"\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"What Would Steve Do? (Floorboard Mix)\"\n\nGatefold 7\"\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"Cute As\"\n\nReferences\n\n2007 singles\nMumm-Ra (band) songs\n2006 songs\nColumbia Records singles"
] |
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"When was it realesed",
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"What did they do",
"Kacey Musgraves, after he attended one of her shows in September 2016. In an interview with Stereogum, he stated,"
] | C_d4aea5e3e0c4436a8945e0129ec6e2f8_0 | What did they do | 8 | What did Kacey Musgraves do after Rostam Batmanglij attended Musgraves' show? | Vampire Weekend | After remaining quiet following the conclusion of their Modern Vampires tour, on January 26, 2016, Rostam Batmanglij announced his departure from the band on Twitter. He noted that he and Koenig would continue to collaborate. Later the same day, Koenig announced that Vampire Weekend was in the studio working on their upcoming fourth album, with Batmanglij contributing to the record. The album's working title was revealed to be Mitsubishi Macchiato. In April 2016, the band briefly performed at a rally for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in Washington Park Square. Koenig has been a well-known supporter of Sanders, after discussions on his Beats 1 radio show, Time Crisis. The band performed live with Dave Longstreth of the Dirty Projectors, which marked their first performance as a trio. In late 2016, Koenig was reportedly in talks to sign the band with Columbia Records, as he reportedly "hit it off" with executive, Rob Stringer. Initially, this news was regarded a rumour, until the band's website revamp in 2018, in which a Sony Music copyright appeared on the site. In March 2017, Koenig revealed in an elaborate Instragram update that during 2016 he had spent countless hours researching and writing music in libraries with grad students. Additionally, he revealed that the album would feature a more 'spring-time' vibe and one of the songs would be entitled Flower Moon. Koenig revealed that LP4 would be partially inspired by the songwriting of country singer, Kacey Musgraves, after he attended one of her shows in September 2016. In an interview with Stereogum, he stated, "I'm the type of person who has spent hours poring over the avant-garde poetic lyrics of certain songwriters, and there was something that felt so good [about how] from the first verse, you knew who was singing, who they were singing to, what kind of situation they were in. After the show I realized there's not a ton of Vampire Weekend songs where you could listen to the first verse and immediately answer the question of who's singing and who are they singing to." Furthermore, in a September 2017 interview with Zane Lowe, Ezra briefly spoke about LP4 and stated that it was "about 80% done." He mentioned that the album would feature lead producer, Ariel Rechtshaid, with additional "guest appearances", one of which being Batmanglij. Lowe pushed Koenig for a release date, sighting Q1 2018 as a likely candidate. The band's first show since their hiatus was confirmed on January 31, 2018, when it was announced that the band would be headlining the UK music festival End of the Road. The festival will run from August 31 to September 3 and mark Vampire Weekend's first return to the stage in 4 years. Additionally, it was announced that they would headline the 2018 Fuji Rock Festival, scheduled for July 27 to 29. The band will also be performing at Lollapalooza 2018, which runs from August 2-5, 2018. CANNOTANSWER | Kacey Musgraves, after he attended one of her shows in September 2016. In an interview with Stereogum, he stated, | Vampire Weekend is an American rock band playing mainly post-punk pop from New York City, formed in 2006 and currently signed to Columbia Records. The band was formed by lead vocalist and guitarist Ezra Koenig, multi-instrumentalist Rostam Batmanglij, drummer Chris Tomson, and bassist Chris Baio. Batmanglij departed the group in early 2016.
The band's eponymous first album Vampire Weekend (2008)—which included charting singles "A-Punk" and "Oxford Comma"—showcased a blend of indie pop, Afropop influences, and chamber music elements. Their following album, Contra (2010), was similarly acclaimed and garnered strong commercial success; it featured the single "Holiday". Their subsequent studio albums Modern Vampires of the City (2013) and Father of the Bride (2019) each won the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album in their respective years.
History
Formation and early years (2006–2007)
The band members met while enrolled at Columbia University, beginning with a rap collaboration between Koenig and Tomson named "L'Homme Run". They bonded over a shared love of punk rock and African music. Koenig toured with The Dirty Projectors during a period of experimentation with African music, inspiring the band to incorporate world sounds into their earliest work. The band chose the name "Vampire Weekend" from the title of a short film project Koenig worked on during the summer between freshman and sophomore years in college. While home for the summer, Koenig watched the 1987 vampire film The Lost Boys and was inspired to make a Northeastern version of the film in which a man named Walcott travels to Cape Cod to warn the mayor that vampires are attacking the United States. Koenig abandoned the project after two days. The band began playing shows around Columbia University, starting with a battle of the bands at Lerner Hall in 2006. After graduating from college, the band self-produced their debut album while simultaneously working full-time jobs, Tomson as a music archivist and Koenig as a middle school English teacher.
In 2007, Vampire Weekend's song "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" was ranked 67th on Rolling Stone'''s list of the "100 Best Songs of the Year". In November 2007, they toured the UK with The Shins.
The then-nascent influence of blog hype and internet buzz played a role in their success and led to a large prerelease following sufficient to support them performing on three tours before their debut album was released. They were declared "The Year's Best New Band" by Spin magazine in the March 2008 issue, and were the first band to be shot for the cover of the magazine before releasing their debut album. The band made a television appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman on February 1, 2008, and on March 8, 2008, performed on Saturday Night Live. Four songs from the band's first album also made the Triple J Hottest 100, 2008. The internet hype had its backlash, however, as critics reacted against a perceived image of Vampire Weekend as privileged, upper-class Ivy League graduates stealing from foreign musicians. One critic went so far as to call Vampire Weekend the "whitest band in the world," to which they took exception, given their Ukrainian, Persian, Italian, and Hungarian heritages. Koenig responded in a November 2009 interview by saying, "Nobody in our band is a WASP." Furthermore, the backlash involving their social backgrounds was largely unfounded, as Koenig explained in the interview that the band members got into Columbia on scholarship and used student loans; he himself was still paying off student loans in 2009.
Vampire Weekend (2007–2009)
The band's first album, Vampire Weekend, was released January 29, 2008 and is ranked number 430 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It featured a blend of Afropop influences, indie pop, and chamber music elements. A success in the US and UK, it peaked at number 15 on the UK Albums Chart and number 17 on the Billboard 200. Four singles were released from the album; while "A-Punk" peaked at number 25 on the Billboard Modern rock chart and number 55 on the UK Singles Chart, "Oxford Comma" peaked at number 38 in the UK. "A-Punk" was ranked the 4th on Rolling Stone's Readers' Rock List: Best Songs of 2008. "A-Punk" was also used to open the Will Ferrell/John C. Reilly feature Step Brothers, and featured in the UK television show The Inbetweeners and the video games Guitar Hero 5, Just Dance 2 and Lego Rock Band.
Contra (2009–2010)
The band's second album, Contra, was released on January 11, 2010 in the UK and the following day in the US, after being pushed back from the original release date for the fall of 2009. The album's first single, "Horchata", was released on October 5, 2009. The album's second single, "Cousins", was released as a single on November 17, 2009. Initial copies of the CD and LP sold at independent record stores in the US included a 3-track bonus CD containing two "melts", which featured bits of album tracks and a remix.
It is the band's first album to reach number one on the Billboard 200, and the 12th independently distributed album in history to reach the number one spot on the Billboard 200 since Nielsen Soundscan began recording data in 1991, while also being the first independent artist to have done so without ever having signed with a major label, after already established rock bands Radiohead and Pearl Jam and before Arcade Fire's The Suburbs. The album sold 124,000 copies in its first week and was awarded Gold by the RIAA on November 21, 2011 which means it has sold over 500,000 units in the US alone. In 2010, it was awarded a diamond certification from the Independent Music Companies Association which indicated sales of at least 250,000 copies throughout Europe.
On January 9, 2010, the band did an acoustic show for MTV Unplugged. The following month, the band toured Europe and Canada with Canadian electro duo Fan Death as their support. The video for their next single "Giving Up the Gun" was also released on February 18, 2010 which included cameos from Joe Jonas, Lil Jon, RZA, and Jake Gyllenhaal.
They also played festivals across the USA such as Coachella, Bonnaroo, Austin City Limits Music Festival, All Points West, and the Groovin' The Moo festival in Australia. Their third single, "Holiday", was released on June 7, 2010.
On June 25, 2010, the band played the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury Festival, in Pilton, Somerset, UK. The band were also on the main stage at T in the Park 2010 at Balado Kinross, Scotland, on June 8, and played the Oxegen Festival in Ireland on July 9. They also headlined the Latitude Festival in Suffolk, UK on July 18. On July 16, the band headlined the Main Stage at the Festival Internacional de Benicàssim. In the summer of 2010 the band played at the Utopia stage on Peace and Love, Sweden's biggest Festival. On July 30, 2010, the band played at Jisan Valley Rock Festival in South Korea.
In 2010, Vampire Weekend embarked on a North American tour with Beach House and Dum Dum Girls. The tour started off on August 27, 2010, in Vancouver, British Columbia at the Malkin Bowl. Koenig mentioned to the audience that before this concert, the band had the longest "vacation period" that they had had in a while.Contra was nominated for a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album, but lost to The Black Keys's Brothers.
Modern Vampires of the City (2010–2014)
On November 11, 2011, it was revealed that Vampire Weekend had been in the studio, writing and recording material for their third album. On April 26, 2012, Rolling Stone reported that the new album could be released by the end of the year. Koenig said, "We do have a ton of stuff. It would be cool if it was [released] this year...We just never want to be in a position [where] when we put out something, we feel could've benefited from more time." Until its release, the band was discreet about the details of the next album, stating that a band "can give a bunch of interviews when they're working on stuff" but they "don't want something [they] said six months ago to influence how people hear it when it's done."
In January 2012, President Barack Obama added Vampire Weekend to a short list of musical artists that he sought support from for his re-election campaign. Vampire Weekend made it onto this list with Jay-Z, John Legend, and Alicia Keys.Modern Vampires of the City was released in May 2013, and written and recorded in various locations including SlowDeath Studios in New York, Echo Park "Back House" in Los Angeles, Vox Recording Studios in Hollywood, Rostam Batmanglij's New York apartment and a guest house on Martha's Vineyard. The album was co-produced by Batmanglij and Ariel Rechtshaid. After Batmanglij produced the first two albums himself, this marked the first time the band worked with an outside producer on any of their records.
In an interview for the February 2013 edition of Q (released in mid-January), Koenig described the upcoming album as "darker and more organic" and "very much the last of a trilogy." Said Koenig, "Things that we might have found boring in the past, we've started to find more fresh. This album has more piano and acoustic guitar and organ." Modern Vampires of the City also continued the use of digital voice modulation as heard in the songs "Diane Young" and "Ya Hey", a technique first used in the song "California English" on Contra The album was recorded and co-produced by Ariel Rechtshaid in his Los Angeles Studio (alongside Batmanglij). The band discussed the album with The FADER and appeared on the cover of the magazine's 84th issue. On March 16, 2013, the band played the closing show at Stubbs on the last day of the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. In the show they played two new songs from the upcoming album: "Diane Young" and "Ya Hey". On March 18, 2013, Vampire Weekend released a double-sided single, "Diane Young"/"Step". On May 11, 2013, Vampire Weekend were featured as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live with Kristen Wiig hosting, their third time on the show.
Released on May 14, 2013, the album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard chart, marking the second time Vampire Weekend has achieved the feat: its second album Contra also debuted at No. 1 in 2010, making them the first independent rock band to enter the charts at No. 1 with two consecutive releases. Modern Vampires of the City also shattered the previous record for first week vinyl sales, moving nearly 10,000 units on vinyl alone and debuting at No. 1 on the Soundscan Vinyl Charts. Additionally, the band charted #1 at Indie, Alternative, Digital and the top 200. In 2014, Modern Vampires of the City won a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album.
To promote the album, XL Recordings released "Diane Young" and "Step" as a double A-sided single on March 19, 2013. Modern Vampires of the City was released by XL on May 14. and Vampire Weekend played several concerts and music festivals shortly after, eventually embarking on a larger supporting tour throughout late 2013, beginning with a show at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia on September 19. John Gentile of Rolling Stone reported that the band headlined "some of their largest venues to date" on the tour.
In the album's first week of release, it debuted number one on the Billboard 200 and sold 134,000 copies in the United States. It was Vampire Weekend's second consecutive number-one record on the chart, as well as the nineteenth independently distributed album to top the Billboard 200 in the Nielsen SoundScan era (1991–present). The record entered the British album charts at number three with first-week sales of 27,805 copies, becoming the group's third consecutive top-twenty album in the United Kingdom. By December 2014, it had been certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America and sold 505,000 copies in the US. In 2014, it was awarded a diamond certification from the Independent Music Companies Association, which indicated sales of at least 200,000 copies throughout Europe.
On September 2020, Modern Vampires of the City was put by Rolling Stone in their new list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, ranking at position 328.
Departure of Batmanglij and Father of the Bride (2014–2019)
After remaining quiet following the conclusion of their Modern Vampires tour, which wrapped up in September 2014, it was revealed on January 26, 2016 that Rostam Batmanglij had departed the band. He noted that he and Koenig would continue to collaborate. Later the same day, Koenig announced that Vampire Weekend was in the studio working on their upcoming fourth album, with Batmanglij contributing to the record. The album's working title was revealed to be Mitsubishi Macchiato.
In January 2016, the band performed in Iowa for a Bernie Sanders rally two days before the Iowa primaries. The band members Rostam Batmanglij and Chris Baio were replaced by David Longstreth and Nat Baldwin (both from Dirty Projectors) and an all female a cappella group from the University of Iowa, due to Batmanglij's departure from the band and Baio being on tour with his side project. Lead vocalist Ezra Koenig expressed his support for the candidate in various ways through social media and on his Beats 1 show "Time Crisis".
In April 2016, the band briefly performed at a rally for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in Washington Square Park. Koenig has been a well-known supporter of Sanders, after discussions on his Beats 1 radio show, Time Crisis. The band performed live with Dave Longstreth of the Dirty Projectors, which marked their first performance as a trio.
In late 2016, Koenig was reportedly in talks to sign the band with Columbia Records, as he reportedly "hit it off" with executive Rob Stringer. Initially, this news was regarded a rumor, until the band's website revamp in 2018, in which a Sony Music copyright appeared on the site.
In March 2017, Koenig revealed in an elaborate Instagram update that during 2016 he had spent countless hours researching and writing music in libraries with grad students. Additionally, he revealed that the album, given the working title of "Mitsubishi Macchiato", would feature a more 'spring-time' vibe and one of the songs would be entitled Flower Moon. Koenig revealed that LP4 would be partially inspired by the songwriting of country singer, Kacey Musgraves, after he attended one of her shows in September 2016. In an interview with Stereogum, he stated, "I’m the type of person who has spent hours poring over the avant-garde poetic lyrics of certain songwriters, and there was something that felt so good [about how] from the first verse, you knew who was singing, who they were singing to, what kind of situation they were in. After the show I realized there’s not a ton of Vampire Weekend songs where you could listen to the first verse and immediately answer the question of who’s singing and who are they singing to.” Furthermore, in a September 2017 interview with Zane Lowe, Ezra briefly spoke about LP4 and stated that it was "about 80% done." He mentioned that the album would feature lead producer Ariel Rechtshaid with additional "guest appearances", one of which being Batmanglij. Lowe pushed Koenig for a release date, citing Q1 2018 as a likely candidate. In a December 2017 interview, Koenig noted that Batmanglij was involved in a few songs, some of which was material that they had started working on long ago, and that their method of collaboration had not changed despite the latter's departure from the band.
Vampire Weekend's first gigs since the hiatus took place in Ojai, California on June 16 & 17. On January 31, 2018, it was announced that the band would be headlining the UK music festival End of the Road. The festival ran from August 31 to September 3 and marked Vampire Weekend's first return to a festival stage in 4 years. On July 21, they performed in Byron Bay for the Australian festival, Splendour in the Grass. Additionally, it was announced that they would headline the 2018 Fuji Rock Festival, scheduled for July 27 to 29. For their live shows, the core trio of Koenig, Baio, and Tomson has been augmented by Greta Morgan on keyboards, guitar, and vocals, Brian Robert Jones on guitar, Garrett Ray on percussion, drums, and vocals, and Will Canzoneri on keyboards and vocals. During their August 4, 2018 performance at Lollapalooza, where the band played fan favorite "A-Punk" three times in a row, Koenig announced that Vampire Weekend's 4th album was done.
On January 17, 2019, Koenig announced the abbreviation of the band's fourth album title as FOTB, and revealed that the album would consist of 18 songs, running at approximately 59 minutes. Additionally, he announced that the album would be promoted by three monthly two-song releases, beginning the following week. On January 24, the songs "Harmony Hall" and "2021" were released, and Koenig confirmed the title of the album as Father of the Bride. He also said that the record would feature an array of collaborators, including Batmanglij, marking the first time the band has included guest vocalists in an album. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Koenig said, "We've had three albums of the same voice over and over again. I like the idea of opening up our world a little bit." He also confirmed that "2021" features a Haruomi Hosono sample, and said that he planned to start work on Vampire Weekend's fifth album. The band's current touring approach is influenced by Phish, the Grateful Dead and other jam bands. Contemporary fans mirror these influences in their Deadhead inspired creation of unofficial merchandise including shirts, shorts, tie-dyes, and bucket hats.
At the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards, the band received three nominations: Album of the Year and Best Alternative Music Album for Father of the Bride and Best Rock Song for "Harmony Hall". They won for Best Alternative Music Album (their second win in the category). In 2020, the Live in Florida EP featuring songs from the Father of the Bride Tour was released. On February 4, 2021, Vampire Weekend released the 40:42 EP featuring reinterpretations of their song "2021" from Father of the Bride. Two artists were commissioned to expand the song into twenty-minute and twenty-one-second versions.
Band members
Current members
Ezra Koenig – lead vocals, guitar, piano (2006–present)
Chris Baio – bass, backing vocals, occasional piano (2006–present)
Chris Tomson – drums, percussion, occasional guitar, backing vocals (2006–present)
Touring members
Will Canzoneri – keyboards, backing vocals (2018–present)
Brian Robert Jones – guitar, backing vocals (2018–present)
Greta Morgan – keyboards, guitar, percussion, backing vocals (2018–present)
Garrett Ray – percussion, drums, backing vocals (2018–present)
Former members
Rostam Batmanglij – keyboards, guitar, backing vocals, production, programmer, percussion, occasional lead vocals (2006–2016)
Timeline
Contra lawsuit
In 2010, the band, along with their record company XL Recordings and photographer Tod Scott Brody, were sued by Kirsten Kennis, the model on the cover of Contra, over the use of her image. Kennis's accusations were that the band used her image without her permission. Vampire Weekend settled with Kennis in 2011.
Other contributions
Vampire Weekend contributed a cover of "Exit Music (For a Film)" for Stereogum Presents... OKX: A Tribute to OK Computer (2007), a free tribute album celebrating 10 years of Radiohead's album OK Computer. They have also covered "Everywhere" by Fleetwood Mac, "Ça Plane Pour Moi" by Plastic Bertrand, "I'm Goin' Down" by Bruce Springsteen, "Have I the Right?" by The Honeycombs, "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke, "Fight For This Love" by Cheryl Cole, and "Ruby Soho" by Rancid.
The band also contributed the song "Ottoman" to the soundtrack to the 2008 film Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. That song was then sampled by alternative hip-hop artist Kid Cudi. Two tracks from their debut record also appeared in the 2009 comedy I Love You, Man. A new song, "Jonathan Low", was released on June 8, 2010, appearing on the soundtrack to the third installment of the Twilight Saga films, Eclipse. Their song "Worship You" appeared as a soundtrack in EA Sports football video game, FIFA 14.
In 2014, Vampire Weekend contributed a cover of "Con te Partiro" by Andrea Bocelli on the Valentine's Day compilation, Sweetheart 2014. Vampire Weekend also contributed a cover of Bruce Springsteen's "I'm Goin' Down" on the Girls Vol. 2 Soundtrack.
Discography
Studio albums
Vampire Weekend (2008)
Contra (2010)
Modern Vampires of the City (2013)
Father of the Bride'' (2019)
Awards and nominations
References
External links
2006 establishments in New York City
Musical quartets
American musical trios
Musical groups from New York City
Grammy Award winners
Indie rock musical groups from New York (state)
Musical groups established in 2006
Columbia Records artists
XL Recordings artists
Alternative rock groups from New York (state) | true | [
"\"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)",
"\"What Would Steve Do?\" is the second single released by Mumm-Ra on Columbia Records, which was released on February 19, 2007. It is a re-recorded version of the self-release they did in April 2006. It reached #40 in the UK Singles Chart, making it their highest charting single.\n\nTrack listings\nAll songs written by Mumm-Ra.\n\nCD\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"Cute As\"\n\"Without You\"\n\n7\"\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"What Would Steve Do? (Floorboard Mix)\"\n\nGatefold 7\"\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"Cute As\"\n\nReferences\n\n2007 singles\nMumm-Ra (band) songs\n2006 songs\nColumbia Records singles"
] |
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"What did he move on to",
"Koenig revealed in an elaborate Instragram update that during 2016 he had spent countless hours researching and writing music in libraries with grad students.",
"When was it realesed",
"Initially, this news was regarded a rumour, until the band's website revamp in 2018, in which a Sony Music copyright appeared on the site.",
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] | C_d4aea5e3e0c4436a8945e0129ec6e2f8_0 | What date was it | 9 | What date was Vampire Weekend's first show since hiatus? | Vampire Weekend | After remaining quiet following the conclusion of their Modern Vampires tour, on January 26, 2016, Rostam Batmanglij announced his departure from the band on Twitter. He noted that he and Koenig would continue to collaborate. Later the same day, Koenig announced that Vampire Weekend was in the studio working on their upcoming fourth album, with Batmanglij contributing to the record. The album's working title was revealed to be Mitsubishi Macchiato. In April 2016, the band briefly performed at a rally for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in Washington Park Square. Koenig has been a well-known supporter of Sanders, after discussions on his Beats 1 radio show, Time Crisis. The band performed live with Dave Longstreth of the Dirty Projectors, which marked their first performance as a trio. In late 2016, Koenig was reportedly in talks to sign the band with Columbia Records, as he reportedly "hit it off" with executive, Rob Stringer. Initially, this news was regarded a rumour, until the band's website revamp in 2018, in which a Sony Music copyright appeared on the site. In March 2017, Koenig revealed in an elaborate Instragram update that during 2016 he had spent countless hours researching and writing music in libraries with grad students. Additionally, he revealed that the album would feature a more 'spring-time' vibe and one of the songs would be entitled Flower Moon. Koenig revealed that LP4 would be partially inspired by the songwriting of country singer, Kacey Musgraves, after he attended one of her shows in September 2016. In an interview with Stereogum, he stated, "I'm the type of person who has spent hours poring over the avant-garde poetic lyrics of certain songwriters, and there was something that felt so good [about how] from the first verse, you knew who was singing, who they were singing to, what kind of situation they were in. After the show I realized there's not a ton of Vampire Weekend songs where you could listen to the first verse and immediately answer the question of who's singing and who are they singing to." Furthermore, in a September 2017 interview with Zane Lowe, Ezra briefly spoke about LP4 and stated that it was "about 80% done." He mentioned that the album would feature lead producer, Ariel Rechtshaid, with additional "guest appearances", one of which being Batmanglij. Lowe pushed Koenig for a release date, sighting Q1 2018 as a likely candidate. The band's first show since their hiatus was confirmed on January 31, 2018, when it was announced that the band would be headlining the UK music festival End of the Road. The festival will run from August 31 to September 3 and mark Vampire Weekend's first return to the stage in 4 years. Additionally, it was announced that they would headline the 2018 Fuji Rock Festival, scheduled for July 27 to 29. The band will also be performing at Lollapalooza 2018, which runs from August 2-5, 2018. CANNOTANSWER | January 31, 2018, | Vampire Weekend is an American rock band playing mainly post-punk pop from New York City, formed in 2006 and currently signed to Columbia Records. The band was formed by lead vocalist and guitarist Ezra Koenig, multi-instrumentalist Rostam Batmanglij, drummer Chris Tomson, and bassist Chris Baio. Batmanglij departed the group in early 2016.
The band's eponymous first album Vampire Weekend (2008)—which included charting singles "A-Punk" and "Oxford Comma"—showcased a blend of indie pop, Afropop influences, and chamber music elements. Their following album, Contra (2010), was similarly acclaimed and garnered strong commercial success; it featured the single "Holiday". Their subsequent studio albums Modern Vampires of the City (2013) and Father of the Bride (2019) each won the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album in their respective years.
History
Formation and early years (2006–2007)
The band members met while enrolled at Columbia University, beginning with a rap collaboration between Koenig and Tomson named "L'Homme Run". They bonded over a shared love of punk rock and African music. Koenig toured with The Dirty Projectors during a period of experimentation with African music, inspiring the band to incorporate world sounds into their earliest work. The band chose the name "Vampire Weekend" from the title of a short film project Koenig worked on during the summer between freshman and sophomore years in college. While home for the summer, Koenig watched the 1987 vampire film The Lost Boys and was inspired to make a Northeastern version of the film in which a man named Walcott travels to Cape Cod to warn the mayor that vampires are attacking the United States. Koenig abandoned the project after two days. The band began playing shows around Columbia University, starting with a battle of the bands at Lerner Hall in 2006. After graduating from college, the band self-produced their debut album while simultaneously working full-time jobs, Tomson as a music archivist and Koenig as a middle school English teacher.
In 2007, Vampire Weekend's song "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" was ranked 67th on Rolling Stone'''s list of the "100 Best Songs of the Year". In November 2007, they toured the UK with The Shins.
The then-nascent influence of blog hype and internet buzz played a role in their success and led to a large prerelease following sufficient to support them performing on three tours before their debut album was released. They were declared "The Year's Best New Band" by Spin magazine in the March 2008 issue, and were the first band to be shot for the cover of the magazine before releasing their debut album. The band made a television appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman on February 1, 2008, and on March 8, 2008, performed on Saturday Night Live. Four songs from the band's first album also made the Triple J Hottest 100, 2008. The internet hype had its backlash, however, as critics reacted against a perceived image of Vampire Weekend as privileged, upper-class Ivy League graduates stealing from foreign musicians. One critic went so far as to call Vampire Weekend the "whitest band in the world," to which they took exception, given their Ukrainian, Persian, Italian, and Hungarian heritages. Koenig responded in a November 2009 interview by saying, "Nobody in our band is a WASP." Furthermore, the backlash involving their social backgrounds was largely unfounded, as Koenig explained in the interview that the band members got into Columbia on scholarship and used student loans; he himself was still paying off student loans in 2009.
Vampire Weekend (2007–2009)
The band's first album, Vampire Weekend, was released January 29, 2008 and is ranked number 430 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It featured a blend of Afropop influences, indie pop, and chamber music elements. A success in the US and UK, it peaked at number 15 on the UK Albums Chart and number 17 on the Billboard 200. Four singles were released from the album; while "A-Punk" peaked at number 25 on the Billboard Modern rock chart and number 55 on the UK Singles Chart, "Oxford Comma" peaked at number 38 in the UK. "A-Punk" was ranked the 4th on Rolling Stone's Readers' Rock List: Best Songs of 2008. "A-Punk" was also used to open the Will Ferrell/John C. Reilly feature Step Brothers, and featured in the UK television show The Inbetweeners and the video games Guitar Hero 5, Just Dance 2 and Lego Rock Band.
Contra (2009–2010)
The band's second album, Contra, was released on January 11, 2010 in the UK and the following day in the US, after being pushed back from the original release date for the fall of 2009. The album's first single, "Horchata", was released on October 5, 2009. The album's second single, "Cousins", was released as a single on November 17, 2009. Initial copies of the CD and LP sold at independent record stores in the US included a 3-track bonus CD containing two "melts", which featured bits of album tracks and a remix.
It is the band's first album to reach number one on the Billboard 200, and the 12th independently distributed album in history to reach the number one spot on the Billboard 200 since Nielsen Soundscan began recording data in 1991, while also being the first independent artist to have done so without ever having signed with a major label, after already established rock bands Radiohead and Pearl Jam and before Arcade Fire's The Suburbs. The album sold 124,000 copies in its first week and was awarded Gold by the RIAA on November 21, 2011 which means it has sold over 500,000 units in the US alone. In 2010, it was awarded a diamond certification from the Independent Music Companies Association which indicated sales of at least 250,000 copies throughout Europe.
On January 9, 2010, the band did an acoustic show for MTV Unplugged. The following month, the band toured Europe and Canada with Canadian electro duo Fan Death as their support. The video for their next single "Giving Up the Gun" was also released on February 18, 2010 which included cameos from Joe Jonas, Lil Jon, RZA, and Jake Gyllenhaal.
They also played festivals across the USA such as Coachella, Bonnaroo, Austin City Limits Music Festival, All Points West, and the Groovin' The Moo festival in Australia. Their third single, "Holiday", was released on June 7, 2010.
On June 25, 2010, the band played the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury Festival, in Pilton, Somerset, UK. The band were also on the main stage at T in the Park 2010 at Balado Kinross, Scotland, on June 8, and played the Oxegen Festival in Ireland on July 9. They also headlined the Latitude Festival in Suffolk, UK on July 18. On July 16, the band headlined the Main Stage at the Festival Internacional de Benicàssim. In the summer of 2010 the band played at the Utopia stage on Peace and Love, Sweden's biggest Festival. On July 30, 2010, the band played at Jisan Valley Rock Festival in South Korea.
In 2010, Vampire Weekend embarked on a North American tour with Beach House and Dum Dum Girls. The tour started off on August 27, 2010, in Vancouver, British Columbia at the Malkin Bowl. Koenig mentioned to the audience that before this concert, the band had the longest "vacation period" that they had had in a while.Contra was nominated for a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album, but lost to The Black Keys's Brothers.
Modern Vampires of the City (2010–2014)
On November 11, 2011, it was revealed that Vampire Weekend had been in the studio, writing and recording material for their third album. On April 26, 2012, Rolling Stone reported that the new album could be released by the end of the year. Koenig said, "We do have a ton of stuff. It would be cool if it was [released] this year...We just never want to be in a position [where] when we put out something, we feel could've benefited from more time." Until its release, the band was discreet about the details of the next album, stating that a band "can give a bunch of interviews when they're working on stuff" but they "don't want something [they] said six months ago to influence how people hear it when it's done."
In January 2012, President Barack Obama added Vampire Weekend to a short list of musical artists that he sought support from for his re-election campaign. Vampire Weekend made it onto this list with Jay-Z, John Legend, and Alicia Keys.Modern Vampires of the City was released in May 2013, and written and recorded in various locations including SlowDeath Studios in New York, Echo Park "Back House" in Los Angeles, Vox Recording Studios in Hollywood, Rostam Batmanglij's New York apartment and a guest house on Martha's Vineyard. The album was co-produced by Batmanglij and Ariel Rechtshaid. After Batmanglij produced the first two albums himself, this marked the first time the band worked with an outside producer on any of their records.
In an interview for the February 2013 edition of Q (released in mid-January), Koenig described the upcoming album as "darker and more organic" and "very much the last of a trilogy." Said Koenig, "Things that we might have found boring in the past, we've started to find more fresh. This album has more piano and acoustic guitar and organ." Modern Vampires of the City also continued the use of digital voice modulation as heard in the songs "Diane Young" and "Ya Hey", a technique first used in the song "California English" on Contra The album was recorded and co-produced by Ariel Rechtshaid in his Los Angeles Studio (alongside Batmanglij). The band discussed the album with The FADER and appeared on the cover of the magazine's 84th issue. On March 16, 2013, the band played the closing show at Stubbs on the last day of the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. In the show they played two new songs from the upcoming album: "Diane Young" and "Ya Hey". On March 18, 2013, Vampire Weekend released a double-sided single, "Diane Young"/"Step". On May 11, 2013, Vampire Weekend were featured as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live with Kristen Wiig hosting, their third time on the show.
Released on May 14, 2013, the album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard chart, marking the second time Vampire Weekend has achieved the feat: its second album Contra also debuted at No. 1 in 2010, making them the first independent rock band to enter the charts at No. 1 with two consecutive releases. Modern Vampires of the City also shattered the previous record for first week vinyl sales, moving nearly 10,000 units on vinyl alone and debuting at No. 1 on the Soundscan Vinyl Charts. Additionally, the band charted #1 at Indie, Alternative, Digital and the top 200. In 2014, Modern Vampires of the City won a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album.
To promote the album, XL Recordings released "Diane Young" and "Step" as a double A-sided single on March 19, 2013. Modern Vampires of the City was released by XL on May 14. and Vampire Weekend played several concerts and music festivals shortly after, eventually embarking on a larger supporting tour throughout late 2013, beginning with a show at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia on September 19. John Gentile of Rolling Stone reported that the band headlined "some of their largest venues to date" on the tour.
In the album's first week of release, it debuted number one on the Billboard 200 and sold 134,000 copies in the United States. It was Vampire Weekend's second consecutive number-one record on the chart, as well as the nineteenth independently distributed album to top the Billboard 200 in the Nielsen SoundScan era (1991–present). The record entered the British album charts at number three with first-week sales of 27,805 copies, becoming the group's third consecutive top-twenty album in the United Kingdom. By December 2014, it had been certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America and sold 505,000 copies in the US. In 2014, it was awarded a diamond certification from the Independent Music Companies Association, which indicated sales of at least 200,000 copies throughout Europe.
On September 2020, Modern Vampires of the City was put by Rolling Stone in their new list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, ranking at position 328.
Departure of Batmanglij and Father of the Bride (2014–2019)
After remaining quiet following the conclusion of their Modern Vampires tour, which wrapped up in September 2014, it was revealed on January 26, 2016 that Rostam Batmanglij had departed the band. He noted that he and Koenig would continue to collaborate. Later the same day, Koenig announced that Vampire Weekend was in the studio working on their upcoming fourth album, with Batmanglij contributing to the record. The album's working title was revealed to be Mitsubishi Macchiato.
In January 2016, the band performed in Iowa for a Bernie Sanders rally two days before the Iowa primaries. The band members Rostam Batmanglij and Chris Baio were replaced by David Longstreth and Nat Baldwin (both from Dirty Projectors) and an all female a cappella group from the University of Iowa, due to Batmanglij's departure from the band and Baio being on tour with his side project. Lead vocalist Ezra Koenig expressed his support for the candidate in various ways through social media and on his Beats 1 show "Time Crisis".
In April 2016, the band briefly performed at a rally for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in Washington Square Park. Koenig has been a well-known supporter of Sanders, after discussions on his Beats 1 radio show, Time Crisis. The band performed live with Dave Longstreth of the Dirty Projectors, which marked their first performance as a trio.
In late 2016, Koenig was reportedly in talks to sign the band with Columbia Records, as he reportedly "hit it off" with executive Rob Stringer. Initially, this news was regarded a rumor, until the band's website revamp in 2018, in which a Sony Music copyright appeared on the site.
In March 2017, Koenig revealed in an elaborate Instagram update that during 2016 he had spent countless hours researching and writing music in libraries with grad students. Additionally, he revealed that the album, given the working title of "Mitsubishi Macchiato", would feature a more 'spring-time' vibe and one of the songs would be entitled Flower Moon. Koenig revealed that LP4 would be partially inspired by the songwriting of country singer, Kacey Musgraves, after he attended one of her shows in September 2016. In an interview with Stereogum, he stated, "I’m the type of person who has spent hours poring over the avant-garde poetic lyrics of certain songwriters, and there was something that felt so good [about how] from the first verse, you knew who was singing, who they were singing to, what kind of situation they were in. After the show I realized there’s not a ton of Vampire Weekend songs where you could listen to the first verse and immediately answer the question of who’s singing and who are they singing to.” Furthermore, in a September 2017 interview with Zane Lowe, Ezra briefly spoke about LP4 and stated that it was "about 80% done." He mentioned that the album would feature lead producer Ariel Rechtshaid with additional "guest appearances", one of which being Batmanglij. Lowe pushed Koenig for a release date, citing Q1 2018 as a likely candidate. In a December 2017 interview, Koenig noted that Batmanglij was involved in a few songs, some of which was material that they had started working on long ago, and that their method of collaboration had not changed despite the latter's departure from the band.
Vampire Weekend's first gigs since the hiatus took place in Ojai, California on June 16 & 17. On January 31, 2018, it was announced that the band would be headlining the UK music festival End of the Road. The festival ran from August 31 to September 3 and marked Vampire Weekend's first return to a festival stage in 4 years. On July 21, they performed in Byron Bay for the Australian festival, Splendour in the Grass. Additionally, it was announced that they would headline the 2018 Fuji Rock Festival, scheduled for July 27 to 29. For their live shows, the core trio of Koenig, Baio, and Tomson has been augmented by Greta Morgan on keyboards, guitar, and vocals, Brian Robert Jones on guitar, Garrett Ray on percussion, drums, and vocals, and Will Canzoneri on keyboards and vocals. During their August 4, 2018 performance at Lollapalooza, where the band played fan favorite "A-Punk" three times in a row, Koenig announced that Vampire Weekend's 4th album was done.
On January 17, 2019, Koenig announced the abbreviation of the band's fourth album title as FOTB, and revealed that the album would consist of 18 songs, running at approximately 59 minutes. Additionally, he announced that the album would be promoted by three monthly two-song releases, beginning the following week. On January 24, the songs "Harmony Hall" and "2021" were released, and Koenig confirmed the title of the album as Father of the Bride. He also said that the record would feature an array of collaborators, including Batmanglij, marking the first time the band has included guest vocalists in an album. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Koenig said, "We've had three albums of the same voice over and over again. I like the idea of opening up our world a little bit." He also confirmed that "2021" features a Haruomi Hosono sample, and said that he planned to start work on Vampire Weekend's fifth album. The band's current touring approach is influenced by Phish, the Grateful Dead and other jam bands. Contemporary fans mirror these influences in their Deadhead inspired creation of unofficial merchandise including shirts, shorts, tie-dyes, and bucket hats.
At the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards, the band received three nominations: Album of the Year and Best Alternative Music Album for Father of the Bride and Best Rock Song for "Harmony Hall". They won for Best Alternative Music Album (their second win in the category). In 2020, the Live in Florida EP featuring songs from the Father of the Bride Tour was released. On February 4, 2021, Vampire Weekend released the 40:42 EP featuring reinterpretations of their song "2021" from Father of the Bride. Two artists were commissioned to expand the song into twenty-minute and twenty-one-second versions.
Band members
Current members
Ezra Koenig – lead vocals, guitar, piano (2006–present)
Chris Baio – bass, backing vocals, occasional piano (2006–present)
Chris Tomson – drums, percussion, occasional guitar, backing vocals (2006–present)
Touring members
Will Canzoneri – keyboards, backing vocals (2018–present)
Brian Robert Jones – guitar, backing vocals (2018–present)
Greta Morgan – keyboards, guitar, percussion, backing vocals (2018–present)
Garrett Ray – percussion, drums, backing vocals (2018–present)
Former members
Rostam Batmanglij – keyboards, guitar, backing vocals, production, programmer, percussion, occasional lead vocals (2006–2016)
Timeline
Contra lawsuit
In 2010, the band, along with their record company XL Recordings and photographer Tod Scott Brody, were sued by Kirsten Kennis, the model on the cover of Contra, over the use of her image. Kennis's accusations were that the band used her image without her permission. Vampire Weekend settled with Kennis in 2011.
Other contributions
Vampire Weekend contributed a cover of "Exit Music (For a Film)" for Stereogum Presents... OKX: A Tribute to OK Computer (2007), a free tribute album celebrating 10 years of Radiohead's album OK Computer. They have also covered "Everywhere" by Fleetwood Mac, "Ça Plane Pour Moi" by Plastic Bertrand, "I'm Goin' Down" by Bruce Springsteen, "Have I the Right?" by The Honeycombs, "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke, "Fight For This Love" by Cheryl Cole, and "Ruby Soho" by Rancid.
The band also contributed the song "Ottoman" to the soundtrack to the 2008 film Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. That song was then sampled by alternative hip-hop artist Kid Cudi. Two tracks from their debut record also appeared in the 2009 comedy I Love You, Man. A new song, "Jonathan Low", was released on June 8, 2010, appearing on the soundtrack to the third installment of the Twilight Saga films, Eclipse. Their song "Worship You" appeared as a soundtrack in EA Sports football video game, FIFA 14.
In 2014, Vampire Weekend contributed a cover of "Con te Partiro" by Andrea Bocelli on the Valentine's Day compilation, Sweetheart 2014. Vampire Weekend also contributed a cover of Bruce Springsteen's "I'm Goin' Down" on the Girls Vol. 2 Soundtrack.
Discography
Studio albums
Vampire Weekend (2008)
Contra (2010)
Modern Vampires of the City (2013)
Father of the Bride'' (2019)
Awards and nominations
References
External links
2006 establishments in New York City
Musical quartets
American musical trios
Musical groups from New York City
Grammy Award winners
Indie rock musical groups from New York (state)
Musical groups established in 2006
Columbia Records artists
XL Recordings artists
Alternative rock groups from New York (state) | true | [
"was a Japanese daimyō of Iwanuma Domain in Mutsu Province of early-Edo period Japan\n\nMuneyoshi was the third son of Date Tadamune, the 2nd daimyō of Sendai Domain. His mother, Fusa, was a concubine and the daughter of Mitamura Matauemon. His childhood name was . From 1639, under his father's orders, he was raised by Suzuki Motonobu, a vassal of Sendai Domain, in Ōsaki, Shida District, as heir to the Suzuki clan. In 1649, at the time of his genpuku ceremony, he changed his name to .\n\nHowever, in 1653, the Tamura clan was revived, as requested by Megohime (Muneyoshi's grandmother, Date Masamune's wife) via her will, and Muneyoshi became Tamura Muneyoshi, with holdings totalling 10,000 koku in Iwagasaki, Kurihara, in what is now Miyagi Prefecture.\n\nIn 1658, following the death of Date Tadamune, the second daimyō of Sendai Domain. Sendai Domain was inherited by the young and impressionable Date Tsunamune, and the clan elders appointed Muneyoshi and his half-brother, Date Munekatsu as guardians. In 1660, Muneyoshi gained an additional 20,000 koku in what is now Ichinoseki, along with the courtesy title of Ukyō-no-daifu and Court rank of Junior Fifth Rank, Lower Grade. Munekatsu's daughter-in-law was the daughter of Tairō Sakai Tadakiyo. Through these connections, the Date Munekatsu and Tamura Muneyoshi accused Tadamune of drunkenness and debauchery, who then removed from office for misrule and was confined to a secondary clan residence in Edo.\n\nThe infant Date Tsunamura was made daimyō of Sendai under the guardianship of his uncles. In 1662, Muneyoshi transferred his seat to what is now the city of Iwanuma, Miyagi and officially became daimyō of Iwanuma Domain, a subsidiary domain of Sendai, based in what is now the city of Iwanuma, Miyagi. He received the courtesy title of Oki-no-kami in 1670. According to waka poetry written about him, Muneyoshi had a mild personality and was popular, in contrast to the events of the Date Sōdō.\n\nThe ten years during which Date Munekatsu and Tamura Muneyoshi ruled in place of the under-age Date Tsunamura were marked by violence and conflict in Sendai Domain. Events reached a climax in 1671 when Aki Muneshige, a powerful relative of the Date clan, complained to the shogunate of the mismanagement of the fief under Tsunamura and his uncles. In the ensuring Date Sōdō, Muneyoshi was relieved of his offices in 1671 and placed under house arrest. He was pardoned in 1672. In 1678, he died at the clan's Edo residence at the age of 42. He died at age 42, and his grave is at the clan mortuary temple of Tōzen-ji in Takanawa, Edo.\n\nSee also\n Tamura clan\n Date clan\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \"Ichinoseki\" at Edo 300 \n\n1637 births\n1678 deaths\nTozama daimyo\nPeople of Edo-period Japan\nDate clan\nTamura clan",
"The was a Japanese samurai clan who ruled Ichinoseki Domain in Mutsu Province during the Edo period Tokugawa shogunate. The family was closely related to the Date clan of Sendai Domain through intermarriage.\n\nOrigins\nThe Tamura clan claimed descent from Sakanoue no Tamuramaro, and were local gōzoku controlling Tamura shōen (later Tamura District) in what is now central Fukushima Prefecture since the Heian period.\n\nSengoku period\nThe clan rose to become a minor daimyō during the Sengoku period. In 1504, the Tamura clan moved from Moriyama to Miharu Castle in what is now Miharu, Fukushima. As a defense network, the clan set up its retainers in forty-eight subsidiary castles and outposts in the area.\n\nHowever, although the Tamura clan pledged allegiance to Toyotomi Hideyoshi at the Siege of Odawara, Hideyoshi felt that their efforts were insufficient, and dispossessed the clan in 1598, giving their territory to the Date clan. The Tamura survived as retainers to the Date.\n\nEdo period\nThe wife of Date Masamune was Megohime (1568–1653), also known as Lady Tamura, since she was the daughter and only child of Tamura Kiyoaki. Her paternal grandmother and maternal grandmother were also both daughters of Date Tanemune, making her Masamune’s second cousin. She had four children, the eldest of which (Date Tadamune) was Masamune’s successor to Sendai Domain. Although Masamune had agreed that their second son should succeed to the Tamura clan, this son (Date Munetsuna) died at the age of 16. In order to restore the Tamura clan, Date Tadamune’s son Date Muneyoshi was ordered to take the Tamura surname.\n\nThe restored Tamura clan was given 10,000 koku in Iwagasaki, Kurihara in what is now Miyagi Prefecture. When the young Date Tsunamura became daimyō of Sendai in 1660, Muneyoshi gained an additional 20,000 koku from territories in what is now Ichinoseki, Iwate. In addition, he became a guardian of Date Tsunamura together with Date Munekatsu. In 1662, Muneyoshi was transferred to the newly-created Iwanuma Domain in the Natori District, becoming daimyō of a subsidiary domain to Sendai Domain.\n\nIn 1695, his son Tamura Tatsuaki, transferred the seat of the domain to Ichinoseki Domain (30,000 koku). The clan remained at Ichinoseki until the Meiji restoration. The Ichinoseki holdings were completely surrounded by Sendai Domain.\n\nIchinoseki domain forces took part in the Ōuetsu Reppan Dōmei's attack on the Akita Domain in the late summer of 1868.\n\nIn the Meiji era, the former daimyō of Ichinoseki, Tamura Takaaki, was created viscount in the new kazoku peerage system.\n\nFamily Heads\nTamura Kiyoaki\n\nMain line (Ichinoseki)\n\nAs lord of Iwanuma\nTamura Muneyoshi (1637–1678)\nTamura Tatsuaki (1656–1708)\nAs lord of Ichinoseki\nTamura Takeaki (1656–1708)\n\nTamura Nobuaki (1670–1727)\nTamura Muneaki (1707–1755)\nTamura Murataka (1737–1782)\nTamura Murasuke (1763–1808)\nTamura Muneaki (1784–1827)\n\nTamura Kuniaki (1817–1840)\nTamura Kuniyuki (1820–1857)\nTamura Yukiaki (1850–1867)\nTamura Kuniyoshi (1852–1887)\nTamura Takaaki (1858–1922)\nAdmiral Tamura Hiroaki (1875-1945)\n\nSee also\n\nIchinoseki Domain\nSendai Domain\n\nNotes\n\nFurther reading\nKoyasu Nobushige (1880). Buke kazoku meiyoden 武家家族名誉伝 Volume 1. Tokyo: Koyasu Nobushige. (Accessed from National Diet Library, 13 August 2008)\nOnodera, Eikō (2005). Boshin Nanboku sensō to Tōhoku seiken. Sendai: Kita no Mori.\n\nExternal links\n 田村氏 at Harimaya.com \n\n \nJapanese clans"
] |
[
"Stewart Copeland",
"The Police (1977-1986)"
] | C_2f61fdc69d1f4707a0c6b5ca6670aa46_1 | What is the relation between Stewart and The police? | 1 | What is the relation between Stewart Copeland and the police? | Stewart Copeland | In late 1976, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the 1980s. The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he sang lead vocals too), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself". Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymously titled 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recorded at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at #48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978. In 1982 Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)--a collaboration between Copeland and singer/songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo--that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year. The Police stopped touring in 1984, and during this brief hiatus he released a solo album, The Rhythmatist. The record was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. He also starred in the film, which is "A musical odyssey through the heart of Africa in search of the roots of rock & roll." (Copeland is seen playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.) The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart. CANNOTANSWER | 1976, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands | Stewart Armstrong Copeland (born July 16, 1952) is an American musician and composer. He rose to prominence as the drummer of the British rock band The Police. He has also produced many film and video game soundtracks and written various pieces of music for ballet, opera, and orchestra. His composing work includes the films Wall Street (1987), Good Burger (1997), and We Are Your Friends (2015); the television series The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, and The Amanda Show; and the video games Alone in the Dark 4 and the Spyro series.
According to MusicRadar, Copeland's "distinctive drum sound and uniqueness of style has made him one of the most popular drummers to ever get behind a drumset". He was ranked the 10th best drummer of all time by Rolling Stone in 2016. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Police in 2003, the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2005, and the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013.
Early life
Stewart Armstrong Copeland was born in Alexandria, Virginia, on July 16, 1952, the youngest of four children of Scottish archaeologist Lorraine Adie and Alabama-born CIA officer Miles Copeland Jr. According to his 1989 biography and files released by the CIA in 2008, his father was a founding member of the OSS and the CIA. The family moved to Cairo a few months after Copeland's birth. When he was five years old, the family moved to Beirut, where he attended the American Community School. He started taking drum lessons at age 12 and was playing drums for school dances within a year. He later moved to England, attending the American School in London and Millfield boarding school in Somerset from 1967 to 1969. He went to college in California, enrolling at Alliant International University and the University of California, Berkeley. His eldest brother, Miles Copeland III, founded I.R.S. Records and became the manager of the Police. He has also overseen Copeland's interests in other music projects. His other brother, the late Ian Copeland, was a pioneering booking agent who represented the Police and many others.
Career
Curved Air (1975–1976)
Returning to England, Copeland worked as road manager for the progressive rock band Curved Air's 1974 reunion tour, and then as drummer for the band during 1975 and 1976. The band kicked off with a European tour, which started poorly. Band leader Darryl Way, a notorious perfectionist, grew impatient with the struggling of his bandmates, especially novice drummer Copeland. Then, for reasons no one could pinpoint, the musicians suddenly "clicked" with each other and the band caught fire, quickly becoming a popular and acclaimed live act.
The Police (1977–1986)
In early 1977, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Copeland was the youngest member of the band. The Police's early track list (before their album debut) was largely Copeland compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B-side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs together with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he also sang lead vocals), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself".
Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymous 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recording at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at No. 48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978.
In 1982, Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)—a collaboration between Copeland and singer-songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo—that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year.
The Rhythmatist record of 1985 was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. Copeland is seen in the film playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.
The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart.
Solo projects and movie soundtracks (1987–1998)
After the Police disbanded, Copeland established a career composing soundtracks for movies (Airborne, Talk Radio, Wall Street, Riff Raff, Raining Stones, Surviving the Game, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Highlander II: The Quickening, She's Having a Baby, The First Power, Fresh, Taking Care of Business, West Beirut, I am David, Riding the Bus with My Sister, Good Burger), television (The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, Star Wars: Droids, the pilot for Babylon 5 (1993), Nickelodeon's The Amanda Show, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee), operas (Holy Blood and Crescent Moon, commissioned by Cleveland Opera) and ballets (Prey' Ballet Oklahoma, Casque of Amontillado, Noah's Ark/Solcheeka, commissioned by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, King Lear, commissioned by the San Francisco Ballet Company, Emilio). In 1996, Copeland provided the score for The Leopard Son, Discovery Channel's its first commercially released full-length feature film, made by wildlife filmmaker Hugo van Lawick.
Copeland also occasionally played drums for other artists. Peter Gabriel employed Copeland to perform on his song "Red Rain" from his 1986 album So because of his "hi-hat mastery". He has also performed with Mike Rutherford and Tom Waits. That year he also teamed with Adam Ant to record the title track and video for the Anthony Michael Hall movie Out of Bounds. In 1989, Copeland formed Animal Logic with jazz bassist Stanley Clarke and singer-songwriter Deborah Holland. The trio had success with their first album and world tour but the follow-up recording sold poorly, and the band did not continue.
In 1993 he composed the music for Channel 4's Horse Opera and director Bob Baldwin, and in 1999, he provided the voice of an additional American soldier in the animated musical comedy war film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999).
Spyro the Dragon soundtracks (1998–2002, 2018)
He was commissioned by Insomniac Games in 1998 to make the musical score for the hit PlayStation game Spyro the Dragon. Copeland would play through the levels first to get a feel for each one before composing the soundtrack. He also stayed with the project to create the musical scores for the remaining Insomniac sequels Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. The franchise shifted over to Universal for the fourth title, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, which would be Copeland's last outing with the series. While the soundtracks never saw commercial release, the limited edition of the fourth game came packaged with a bonus CD, containing unused tracks. The soundtracks were very well received, and one track would later appear on the 2007 compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology. Copeland composed a new title theme for Spyro Reignited Trilogy.
This period also saw Copeland compose the soundtrack for Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, his only video game soundtrack outside of the Spyro franchise to date. In 2000, he combined with Les Claypool of Primus (with whom he produced a track on the Primus album Antipop) and Trey Anastasio of Phish to create the band Oysterhead. That same year, he was approached by director Adam Collis to assemble the score for the film Sunset Strip.
Collaborations (2002–2006)
In 2002, Copeland was hired by Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors to play with them for a new album and tour, but after an injury sidelined Copeland, the arrangement ended in reciprocal lawsuits. In 2005, Copeland released "Orchestralli", a live recording of chamber ensemble music which he had composed during a short tour of Italy in 2002. Also in 2005, Copeland started Gizmo, a new project with avant-garde guitarist David Fiuczynski, multi-instrumentalist Vittorio Cosma, singer Raiz and bassist Max Gazzè. The band made their U.S debut on September 16, 2006, at the Modern Drummer Drum Festival. In January 2006, Copeland premiered his film about the Police called Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out at the Sundance Film Festival. In February and March, he appeared as one of the judges on the BBC television show Just the Two of Us (a role he later reprised for a second series in January 2007).
The Police reunion (2007–2008)
At the 2007 Grammy Awards, Copeland, Andy Summers and Sting performed the song "Roxanne" together again as the Police. This marked the band's first public performance since 1986 (they had previously reunited only for an improvised set at Sting's wedding party in 1992 and for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003). One day later, the band announced that in celebration of the Police's 30th anniversary, they would be embarking on what turned out to be a one-off reunion tour on May 28, 2007. During the tour, Copeland also released his compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology, which was composed of his independent work.
In 2007, the French government appointed Copeland (along with Police bandmates Summers and Sting) a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
The group performed 151 dates across five continents, concluding with a final show in August 2008 at Madison Square Garden, New York.
Projects (2008–present)
In 2008, RIM commissioned Copeland to write a "soundtrack" for the BlackBerry Bold smart phone. He created a highly percussive theme of one minute's length from which he evolved six ringtones and a softer 'alarm tone' that are preloaded on the device.
In March 2008, he premiered his orchestral composition "Celeste" at "An Evening with Stewart Copeland", part of the Savannah Music Festival. The performance featured classical violinist Daniel Hope. His appearance at Savannah included a screening of Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out and a question and answer session. Also in 2008, he was commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to create a percussion piece involving primarily Indonesian instruments. "Gamelan D'Drum" was first performed in Dallas on February 5, 2012, and had its European Premiere at the Royal Academy of Music in London in July 2012.
On August 21, 2009, at SummerFest 2009, Copeland unveiled the composition "Retail Therapy", which was commissioned by the Music Society. He performed three more original works: "Kaya", "Celeste", and "Gene Pool", the last accompanied by San Diego-based percussion ensemble red fish blue fish. He attended a composer's roundtable and a question and answer discussion in conjunction with the festival. Copeland wrote the score for a theatrical presentation of Ben-Hur, which premiered on September 17, 2009, at the O2 Arena in London. He provided English-language narration of the production, which is performed in Latin and Aramaic. His memoir Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies was released by Harper Collins in September 2009. The book chronicles events in his life from childhood through his work with the Police and to the present. In October 2009, he was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion program on BBC Radio 3.
On May 24, 2011, he started a YouTube channel devoted to his videos and project updates. On this channel, he uploads performances with various musicians, including Primus, Andy Summers, Jeff Lynne, Snoop Dogg, and others in his home studio, which he refers to as the Sacred Grove. On August 24, 2011, he was a featured soloist on the Late Show with David Letterman, as part of their second "Drum Solo Week".
On January 10, 2012, he appeared on an episode of the A&E reality series Storage Wars to appraise a drum set for Barry Weiss, buying a Turkish cymbal from the set for $40. In July he reunited with former Animal Logic bandmate Stanley Clarke for a European tour.
In May 2013, he and the Long Beach Opera premiered The Tale Tell Heart, an opera based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe.
On November 26, 2013, he appeared in the first episode of The Tim Ferriss Experiment.
In 2017, he formed the supergroup Gizmodrome with Adrian Belew, Vittorio Cosma, and Mark King and released an album of the same name.
On September 5, 2021, the opera Electric Saint about the life of Nikola Tesla by Copeland with libretto by Jonathan Moore premiered at the National Theater of Weimar.
Personal life
Copeland grew up in Beirut. In 1974, he became romantically involved with Curved Air vocalist Sonja Kristina; they were married from 1982 to 1991. He adopted her son Sven from a previous relationship, and they had two sons of their own named Jordan and Scott. In 1981, he fathered a son named Patrick with Marina Guinness, the daughter of Irish author Desmond Guinness. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his second wife, Fiona Dent, with whom he has three children named Eve, Grace, and Celeste.
Copeland's hobbies include rollerskating, cycling along the beach in Santa Monica, California, filmmaking, and playing polo. He is also active on his YouTube channel, where he uploads videos of himself and other musicians during jam sessions in his studio, the Sacred Grove.
Drumming style
Copeland grew up listening to a combination of Lebanese music, rock and roll, jazz, and reggae, but he selected from these styles what he needed rather than imitating them. In the 1980s, when many musicians were looking for bigger sound from bigger drums, he added Octobans. Invented by Tama Drums in 1978, Octobans consisted of eight six-inch drums in the shape of narrow tubes. He used another innovation, a splash cymbal based on a toy that he owned and that he helped Paiste design. He relied heavily on his 13" hi-hats.
Despite being left-handed, Copeland plays a right-handed drum kit, placing the hi-hats on his left and ride cymbal and floor toms on his right. He uses a wide dynamic range and demonstrates a proficiency of jazz-style articulation in his snare drum playing, interspersing strong back-beats with soft rim comping. During his years with the Police, he became known for engaging only the hi-hat with the bass drum to keep the beat.
In an interview with Modern Drummer, Copeland has cited Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience as a prime musical influence. He states that as a child, whenever he had a song or melody pop in his head, he would walk around wondering how Mitch Mitchell would drum to that particular tune. He also named Sandy Nelson and Ginger Baker as other fundamental influences in the youth years. He has stated that due to his 'enforced listening' of Buddy Rich, he considers himself 'allergic to jazz.'
He is noted for his strong emphasis on the groove as a complement to the song, rather than as its core component. He once drove this point home at a drum clinic: Copeland announced that he would show the audience something "that very few modern drummers can do" and proceeded to play a simple rock beat for two minutes. Nonetheless, his playing often incorporates spectacular fills and subtle inflections which greatly augment the groove. Compared to most of his 1980s contemporaries, his snare sound was bright and cutting. He is also one of the few rock drummers to use traditional grip rather than matched grip. He is also noted for syncopation in his drumming.
Equipment
Copeland's equipment includes Tama drums, Paiste cymbals, Remo drum heads, and Vater signature drum sticks.
Original live kit set-up (1984)
Tama Imperialstar Mahogany Drums (9-ply) and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Midnight Blue
10x8" Rack Tom
12x8" Rack Tom
13x9" Rack Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
14x5" Pearl Chrome over Brass Snare
22x14" Bass Drum
Tama Octobans Low Pitch (x4)
Cowbell
Wood Blocks
Cymbals – Paiste
13" Formula 602 Medium Hi-Hats
16" 2002 Crash
8" 2002 Bell
7.5 Ufip Ictus Bell
8" 2002 Splash (x2)
11" 2002 Splash
14" (or 16") Rude Crash/Ride
16" (or 18") Rude Crash/Ride
18" 2002 Medium
24" Rude Ride/Crash
20" 2002 China
Simmons (x2) Pads (to his left)
Assorted Percussion
Stewart also used Calato Regal Tip Rock Wood Tipped Drumsticks
The Police Reunion (2007–2008) tour kit
Tama Starclassic Maple Drums and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Custom Police Blue Sparkle Maple Wood
10x8" Tom
12x8" Tom (To the left of his snare drum)
13x9" Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
18x16" Floor Tom
20x14" Tama Gong Drum
22x18" Bass Drum
14x5" Tama SC145 Stewart Copeland Signature Snare
Tama Custom Police Blue Sparkle Octobans (x4) (custom made for Copeland)
Cymbals – Paiste
12" Prototype Micro Hi-Hats
16" Signature Full Crash
17" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Full Crash
18" 2002 Flat Ride (prototype)
22" Signature Blue Bell Ride
10" Signature Splash
8" Signature Bell
8" Signature Prototype Splash
Assorted percussion
Stewart also uses his own Vater Stewart Copeland Standard Sticks.
Discography
Studio albums
Film scores
TV series
Video games
See also
List of drummers
Membranophone (list of drums)
References
External links
Copeland's official site
1952 births
Living people
A&M Records artists
American expatriates in Egypt
American expatriates in Lebanon
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American film score composers
American male film score composers
American people of Scottish descent
American rock drummers
The Police members
Curved Air members
People educated at Millfield
Musicians from Alexandria, Virginia
Musicians from Beirut
Video game composers
United States International University alumni
Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
Copeland family
Oysterhead members
Gizmodrome members
Strontium 90 (band) members | false | [
"Extelligence is a term coined by Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen in their 1997 book Figments of Reality. They define it as the cultural capital that is available to us in the form of external media (e.g. tribal legends, folklore, nursery rhymes, books, videotapes, CD-ROMs, etc.)\n\nThey contrast extelligence with intelligence, or the knowledge and cognitive processes within the brain. Furthermore, they regard the 'complicity' of extelligence and intelligence as fundamental to the development of consciousness in evolutionary terms for both the species and the individual. 'Complicity' is a combination of complexity and simplicity, and Cohen and Stewart use it to express the interdependent relationship between knowledge-inside-one's-head and knowledge-outside-one's-head that can be readily accessed.\n\nAlthough Cohen's and Stewart's respective disciplines are biology and mathematics, their description of the complicity of intelligence and extelligence is in the tradition of Jean Piaget, Belinda Dewar and David A. Kolb. Philosophers, notably Popper, have also considered the relation between subjective knowledge (which he calls world 2), objective knowledge (world 1) and the knowledge represented by man-made artifacts (world 3).\n\nOne of Cohen and Stewart's contributions is the way they relate, through the idea of complicity, the individual to the sum of human knowledge. From the mathematics of complexity and game theory, they use the idea of phase space and talk about extelligence space. There is a total phase space (intelligence space) for the human race, which consists of everything that can be known and represented. Within this there is a smaller set of what is known at any given time. Cohen and Stewart propose the idea that each individual can access the parts of the extelligence space with which their intelligence is complicit.\n\nIn other words, there has to be, at some level, an appreciation of what is out there and what it means. Much of this 'appreciation' falls into the category of tacit knowledge and social and cultural learning. As an example, a dictionary may contain definitions of many words, but only some subset of those definitions might be understood by any particular reader.\n\nSee also \n Extended mind thesis\n Externalism\n Intelligence augmentation\n\nReferences \n\nIntelligence\n1990s neologisms\nConcepts in social philosophy",
"The pedagogical relation refers to special kind of personal relationship between adult and child or adult or student for the sake of the child or student. The pedagogical relation is described by Hermann Nohl, Klaus Mollenhauer, and others in the Northern European human science pedagogical tradition. It has been discussed more recently in English by Max van Manen, Norm Friesen, Tone Saevi and others..\n\nIn the pedagogical relation, adult and child encounter each other in ways that are different from other relationships (e.g., friendship)\n\nIn the pedagogical relation the adult is directed toward the child. The relation is asymmetrical.. The adult is \"there\" for the child in a way that the child is not \"there\" for the adult.\nIn the pedagogical relation the adult wants or intends both what is good for the child in the present and in the future. This relationship is oriented to what the child or young person may become (without trying to predetermine it), but without ignoring what is important for the child in the present. These two, present needs and the likely requirements of the future, exist in constant tension this relation.\nThe pedagogical relation comes to an end. The child grows up and the asymmetry of the relation dissolves. As Klaus Mollenhauer explains, \"upbringing comes to an end when the child no longer needs to be \"called\" to self-activity, but instead has the wherewithal to educate himself.\"\nIn the pedagogical relation the adult is tactful. It is not about following rules and guidelines, but rather, about acting and also not acting according to what is appropriate for both the present and the future of a specific child in question.\nIn the pedagogical relation, the adult mediates the relationship of the child with the world. This can happen by protecting the child from certain aspects of the world; it often happens by simplifying certain aspects of the world for the child, by directing the child's attention through gestures of pointing and guiding.\n\nIn a text from 1933, educationist Herman Nohl describes the pedagogical relation as a relationship between a particular stance of the educator in relationship to the one being educated (educand):\n\nThe pedagogical relation, finally, has as its interest not necessarily the \"success\" of the student, but rather their \"subjectivation\"--their becoming a subject, a person, something that is to be pursued as an end in itself.\n\nReferences\nBiesta, G. (2012). No education without hesitation: Exploring the limits of educational relations. Keynote address to the Society for the Philosophy of Education. Philosophy of Education. Retrieved from\n\nFriesen, N. (2017). The pedagogical relation past and present: experience, subjectivity and failure. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 49(6), 743-756.\n\nNohl, H. (1933/2019). The Pedagogical Relation and the Community of Formation. Unpublished translation by Norm Friesen and Sophia Zedlitz.\n\nPedagogy\nInterpersonal relationships"
] |
[
"Stewart Copeland",
"The Police (1977-1986)",
"What is the relation between Stewart and The police?",
"1976, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands"
] | C_2f61fdc69d1f4707a0c6b5ca6670aa46_1 | Which song did the band release? | 2 | Which song did the Police release? | Stewart Copeland | In late 1976, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the 1980s. The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he sang lead vocals too), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself". Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymously titled 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recorded at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at #48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978. In 1982 Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)--a collaboration between Copeland and singer/songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo--that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year. The Police stopped touring in 1984, and during this brief hiatus he released a solo album, The Rhythmatist. The record was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. He also starred in the film, which is "A musical odyssey through the heart of Africa in search of the roots of rock & roll." (Copeland is seen playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.) The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart. CANNOTANSWER | The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B side "Nothing Achieving". | Stewart Armstrong Copeland (born July 16, 1952) is an American musician and composer. He rose to prominence as the drummer of the British rock band The Police. He has also produced many film and video game soundtracks and written various pieces of music for ballet, opera, and orchestra. His composing work includes the films Wall Street (1987), Good Burger (1997), and We Are Your Friends (2015); the television series The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, and The Amanda Show; and the video games Alone in the Dark 4 and the Spyro series.
According to MusicRadar, Copeland's "distinctive drum sound and uniqueness of style has made him one of the most popular drummers to ever get behind a drumset". He was ranked the 10th best drummer of all time by Rolling Stone in 2016. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Police in 2003, the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2005, and the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013.
Early life
Stewart Armstrong Copeland was born in Alexandria, Virginia, on July 16, 1952, the youngest of four children of Scottish archaeologist Lorraine Adie and Alabama-born CIA officer Miles Copeland Jr. According to his 1989 biography and files released by the CIA in 2008, his father was a founding member of the OSS and the CIA. The family moved to Cairo a few months after Copeland's birth. When he was five years old, the family moved to Beirut, where he attended the American Community School. He started taking drum lessons at age 12 and was playing drums for school dances within a year. He later moved to England, attending the American School in London and Millfield boarding school in Somerset from 1967 to 1969. He went to college in California, enrolling at Alliant International University and the University of California, Berkeley. His eldest brother, Miles Copeland III, founded I.R.S. Records and became the manager of the Police. He has also overseen Copeland's interests in other music projects. His other brother, the late Ian Copeland, was a pioneering booking agent who represented the Police and many others.
Career
Curved Air (1975–1976)
Returning to England, Copeland worked as road manager for the progressive rock band Curved Air's 1974 reunion tour, and then as drummer for the band during 1975 and 1976. The band kicked off with a European tour, which started poorly. Band leader Darryl Way, a notorious perfectionist, grew impatient with the struggling of his bandmates, especially novice drummer Copeland. Then, for reasons no one could pinpoint, the musicians suddenly "clicked" with each other and the band caught fire, quickly becoming a popular and acclaimed live act.
The Police (1977–1986)
In early 1977, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Copeland was the youngest member of the band. The Police's early track list (before their album debut) was largely Copeland compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B-side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs together with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he also sang lead vocals), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself".
Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymous 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recording at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at No. 48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978.
In 1982, Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)—a collaboration between Copeland and singer-songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo—that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year.
The Rhythmatist record of 1985 was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. Copeland is seen in the film playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.
The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart.
Solo projects and movie soundtracks (1987–1998)
After the Police disbanded, Copeland established a career composing soundtracks for movies (Airborne, Talk Radio, Wall Street, Riff Raff, Raining Stones, Surviving the Game, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Highlander II: The Quickening, She's Having a Baby, The First Power, Fresh, Taking Care of Business, West Beirut, I am David, Riding the Bus with My Sister, Good Burger), television (The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, Star Wars: Droids, the pilot for Babylon 5 (1993), Nickelodeon's The Amanda Show, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee), operas (Holy Blood and Crescent Moon, commissioned by Cleveland Opera) and ballets (Prey' Ballet Oklahoma, Casque of Amontillado, Noah's Ark/Solcheeka, commissioned by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, King Lear, commissioned by the San Francisco Ballet Company, Emilio). In 1996, Copeland provided the score for The Leopard Son, Discovery Channel's its first commercially released full-length feature film, made by wildlife filmmaker Hugo van Lawick.
Copeland also occasionally played drums for other artists. Peter Gabriel employed Copeland to perform on his song "Red Rain" from his 1986 album So because of his "hi-hat mastery". He has also performed with Mike Rutherford and Tom Waits. That year he also teamed with Adam Ant to record the title track and video for the Anthony Michael Hall movie Out of Bounds. In 1989, Copeland formed Animal Logic with jazz bassist Stanley Clarke and singer-songwriter Deborah Holland. The trio had success with their first album and world tour but the follow-up recording sold poorly, and the band did not continue.
In 1993 he composed the music for Channel 4's Horse Opera and director Bob Baldwin, and in 1999, he provided the voice of an additional American soldier in the animated musical comedy war film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999).
Spyro the Dragon soundtracks (1998–2002, 2018)
He was commissioned by Insomniac Games in 1998 to make the musical score for the hit PlayStation game Spyro the Dragon. Copeland would play through the levels first to get a feel for each one before composing the soundtrack. He also stayed with the project to create the musical scores for the remaining Insomniac sequels Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. The franchise shifted over to Universal for the fourth title, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, which would be Copeland's last outing with the series. While the soundtracks never saw commercial release, the limited edition of the fourth game came packaged with a bonus CD, containing unused tracks. The soundtracks were very well received, and one track would later appear on the 2007 compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology. Copeland composed a new title theme for Spyro Reignited Trilogy.
This period also saw Copeland compose the soundtrack for Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, his only video game soundtrack outside of the Spyro franchise to date. In 2000, he combined with Les Claypool of Primus (with whom he produced a track on the Primus album Antipop) and Trey Anastasio of Phish to create the band Oysterhead. That same year, he was approached by director Adam Collis to assemble the score for the film Sunset Strip.
Collaborations (2002–2006)
In 2002, Copeland was hired by Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors to play with them for a new album and tour, but after an injury sidelined Copeland, the arrangement ended in reciprocal lawsuits. In 2005, Copeland released "Orchestralli", a live recording of chamber ensemble music which he had composed during a short tour of Italy in 2002. Also in 2005, Copeland started Gizmo, a new project with avant-garde guitarist David Fiuczynski, multi-instrumentalist Vittorio Cosma, singer Raiz and bassist Max Gazzè. The band made their U.S debut on September 16, 2006, at the Modern Drummer Drum Festival. In January 2006, Copeland premiered his film about the Police called Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out at the Sundance Film Festival. In February and March, he appeared as one of the judges on the BBC television show Just the Two of Us (a role he later reprised for a second series in January 2007).
The Police reunion (2007–2008)
At the 2007 Grammy Awards, Copeland, Andy Summers and Sting performed the song "Roxanne" together again as the Police. This marked the band's first public performance since 1986 (they had previously reunited only for an improvised set at Sting's wedding party in 1992 and for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003). One day later, the band announced that in celebration of the Police's 30th anniversary, they would be embarking on what turned out to be a one-off reunion tour on May 28, 2007. During the tour, Copeland also released his compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology, which was composed of his independent work.
In 2007, the French government appointed Copeland (along with Police bandmates Summers and Sting) a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
The group performed 151 dates across five continents, concluding with a final show in August 2008 at Madison Square Garden, New York.
Projects (2008–present)
In 2008, RIM commissioned Copeland to write a "soundtrack" for the BlackBerry Bold smart phone. He created a highly percussive theme of one minute's length from which he evolved six ringtones and a softer 'alarm tone' that are preloaded on the device.
In March 2008, he premiered his orchestral composition "Celeste" at "An Evening with Stewart Copeland", part of the Savannah Music Festival. The performance featured classical violinist Daniel Hope. His appearance at Savannah included a screening of Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out and a question and answer session. Also in 2008, he was commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to create a percussion piece involving primarily Indonesian instruments. "Gamelan D'Drum" was first performed in Dallas on February 5, 2012, and had its European Premiere at the Royal Academy of Music in London in July 2012.
On August 21, 2009, at SummerFest 2009, Copeland unveiled the composition "Retail Therapy", which was commissioned by the Music Society. He performed three more original works: "Kaya", "Celeste", and "Gene Pool", the last accompanied by San Diego-based percussion ensemble red fish blue fish. He attended a composer's roundtable and a question and answer discussion in conjunction with the festival. Copeland wrote the score for a theatrical presentation of Ben-Hur, which premiered on September 17, 2009, at the O2 Arena in London. He provided English-language narration of the production, which is performed in Latin and Aramaic. His memoir Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies was released by Harper Collins in September 2009. The book chronicles events in his life from childhood through his work with the Police and to the present. In October 2009, he was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion program on BBC Radio 3.
On May 24, 2011, he started a YouTube channel devoted to his videos and project updates. On this channel, he uploads performances with various musicians, including Primus, Andy Summers, Jeff Lynne, Snoop Dogg, and others in his home studio, which he refers to as the Sacred Grove. On August 24, 2011, he was a featured soloist on the Late Show with David Letterman, as part of their second "Drum Solo Week".
On January 10, 2012, he appeared on an episode of the A&E reality series Storage Wars to appraise a drum set for Barry Weiss, buying a Turkish cymbal from the set for $40. In July he reunited with former Animal Logic bandmate Stanley Clarke for a European tour.
In May 2013, he and the Long Beach Opera premiered The Tale Tell Heart, an opera based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe.
On November 26, 2013, he appeared in the first episode of The Tim Ferriss Experiment.
In 2017, he formed the supergroup Gizmodrome with Adrian Belew, Vittorio Cosma, and Mark King and released an album of the same name.
On September 5, 2021, the opera Electric Saint about the life of Nikola Tesla by Copeland with libretto by Jonathan Moore premiered at the National Theater of Weimar.
Personal life
Copeland grew up in Beirut. In 1974, he became romantically involved with Curved Air vocalist Sonja Kristina; they were married from 1982 to 1991. He adopted her son Sven from a previous relationship, and they had two sons of their own named Jordan and Scott. In 1981, he fathered a son named Patrick with Marina Guinness, the daughter of Irish author Desmond Guinness. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his second wife, Fiona Dent, with whom he has three children named Eve, Grace, and Celeste.
Copeland's hobbies include rollerskating, cycling along the beach in Santa Monica, California, filmmaking, and playing polo. He is also active on his YouTube channel, where he uploads videos of himself and other musicians during jam sessions in his studio, the Sacred Grove.
Drumming style
Copeland grew up listening to a combination of Lebanese music, rock and roll, jazz, and reggae, but he selected from these styles what he needed rather than imitating them. In the 1980s, when many musicians were looking for bigger sound from bigger drums, he added Octobans. Invented by Tama Drums in 1978, Octobans consisted of eight six-inch drums in the shape of narrow tubes. He used another innovation, a splash cymbal based on a toy that he owned and that he helped Paiste design. He relied heavily on his 13" hi-hats.
Despite being left-handed, Copeland plays a right-handed drum kit, placing the hi-hats on his left and ride cymbal and floor toms on his right. He uses a wide dynamic range and demonstrates a proficiency of jazz-style articulation in his snare drum playing, interspersing strong back-beats with soft rim comping. During his years with the Police, he became known for engaging only the hi-hat with the bass drum to keep the beat.
In an interview with Modern Drummer, Copeland has cited Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience as a prime musical influence. He states that as a child, whenever he had a song or melody pop in his head, he would walk around wondering how Mitch Mitchell would drum to that particular tune. He also named Sandy Nelson and Ginger Baker as other fundamental influences in the youth years. He has stated that due to his 'enforced listening' of Buddy Rich, he considers himself 'allergic to jazz.'
He is noted for his strong emphasis on the groove as a complement to the song, rather than as its core component. He once drove this point home at a drum clinic: Copeland announced that he would show the audience something "that very few modern drummers can do" and proceeded to play a simple rock beat for two minutes. Nonetheless, his playing often incorporates spectacular fills and subtle inflections which greatly augment the groove. Compared to most of his 1980s contemporaries, his snare sound was bright and cutting. He is also one of the few rock drummers to use traditional grip rather than matched grip. He is also noted for syncopation in his drumming.
Equipment
Copeland's equipment includes Tama drums, Paiste cymbals, Remo drum heads, and Vater signature drum sticks.
Original live kit set-up (1984)
Tama Imperialstar Mahogany Drums (9-ply) and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Midnight Blue
10x8" Rack Tom
12x8" Rack Tom
13x9" Rack Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
14x5" Pearl Chrome over Brass Snare
22x14" Bass Drum
Tama Octobans Low Pitch (x4)
Cowbell
Wood Blocks
Cymbals – Paiste
13" Formula 602 Medium Hi-Hats
16" 2002 Crash
8" 2002 Bell
7.5 Ufip Ictus Bell
8" 2002 Splash (x2)
11" 2002 Splash
14" (or 16") Rude Crash/Ride
16" (or 18") Rude Crash/Ride
18" 2002 Medium
24" Rude Ride/Crash
20" 2002 China
Simmons (x2) Pads (to his left)
Assorted Percussion
Stewart also used Calato Regal Tip Rock Wood Tipped Drumsticks
The Police Reunion (2007–2008) tour kit
Tama Starclassic Maple Drums and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Custom Police Blue Sparkle Maple Wood
10x8" Tom
12x8" Tom (To the left of his snare drum)
13x9" Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
18x16" Floor Tom
20x14" Tama Gong Drum
22x18" Bass Drum
14x5" Tama SC145 Stewart Copeland Signature Snare
Tama Custom Police Blue Sparkle Octobans (x4) (custom made for Copeland)
Cymbals – Paiste
12" Prototype Micro Hi-Hats
16" Signature Full Crash
17" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Full Crash
18" 2002 Flat Ride (prototype)
22" Signature Blue Bell Ride
10" Signature Splash
8" Signature Bell
8" Signature Prototype Splash
Assorted percussion
Stewart also uses his own Vater Stewart Copeland Standard Sticks.
Discography
Studio albums
Film scores
TV series
Video games
See also
List of drummers
Membranophone (list of drums)
References
External links
Copeland's official site
1952 births
Living people
A&M Records artists
American expatriates in Egypt
American expatriates in Lebanon
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American film score composers
American male film score composers
American people of Scottish descent
American rock drummers
The Police members
Curved Air members
People educated at Millfield
Musicians from Alexandria, Virginia
Musicians from Beirut
Video game composers
United States International University alumni
Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
Copeland family
Oysterhead members
Gizmodrome members
Strontium 90 (band) members | false | [
"\"Crashed\" is the third U.S. rock single, (the fifth overall), from the band Daughtry's debut album. It was released only to U.S. rock stations on September 5, 2007. Upon its release the song got adds at those stations, along with some Alternative and Top 40 stations.\n\nThe song's release is like the release of \"What I Want\" in that while \"Over You\" was the mainstream third single, \"Crashed\" was the third single on U.S. rock stations.\n\nMusic video\nLike \"What I Want\" it did not have an official video, since the band made one for the main third single, \"Over You\" instead. It did however have an unofficial promo video that mixes black and white scenes of the band performing with clips from the ACC and SEC College Football season, which the song was used to open. This video can be viewed here.\n\nSong usage and live performances\nThe song, as mentioned, has been used to open the ACC and SEC College Football season and has been the opening number for the band's shows. In the United States, it was used in the Lego Bionicle advertisements featuring sets named \"Toa Mahri\".\n\nThey recently performed the track at the Rock And Roll 400, as well as on Late Show with David Letterman.\n\nChart performance\nThe song debuted on the Mainstream Rock chart for the week of October 6, 2007 at number 35, and peaked at number 24 on the chart.\n\nReferences\n\n2006 songs\n2007 singles\nDaughtry (band) songs\nSongs written by Chris Daughtry\nSong recordings produced by Howard Benson\n19 Recordings singles\nRCA Records singles",
", also known by its French language title \"Beaucoup de Bruit pour Rien\", is a song by Japanese rock band Tokyo Jihen, led by musician Ringo Sheena. It was a promotional song for the band's final original release, the extended play Color Bars, released on January 18, 2012.\n\nBackground and development \n\nIn 2010, the band performed their Discovery tour for their fifth album Dai Hakken. The extended play Color Bars was first announced on November 15, 2011, as a release featuring five songs each written by a different member of the band. \"Kon'ya wa Karasawagi\" represented the song vocalist Ringo Sheena wrote for the release. Vocalist Ringo Sheena made their first performance at the 62nd NHK Kōhaku Uta Gassen on December 31, 2011, at which she and the band performed a medley of \"Onna no Ko wa Dare Demo\" and Sheena's solo song \"Carnation\".\n\nWriting and production \n\nThe song features lyrics and music by Sheena. The other Color Bars songs were songs that had existed before the release that were suggested but did not appear on other releases. \"Kon'ya wa Karasawagi\" was the final song, which Sheena struggled over on the best way to express. She wrote the lyrics in the image of Tokyo, and wrote the melody in the most natural way she composes songs, without deviating.\n\nPromotion and release \n\nThe song was first performed by the band during the Discovery tour, from September 30 until December 26, 2011. It was also a part of their Bon Voyage farewell tour in February 2012. At Sheena's mini-tour Chotto Shita Recohatsu 2014 to promote her album Gyakuyunyū: Kōwankyoku (2014), Sheena performed the song as a solo artist as the final song of the encore. The band also made an appearance on Music Station to perform the song on January 20, 2012.\n\nA music video for the song directed by Yuichi Kodama was unveiled on January 1, 2012. It features each band member in a different style of 1800s clothing, in a wooden building. Several scenes feature money being thrown into the air, and each member sits at a wooden desk signing their name to a contract. Sheena loads a rifle and shoots a member in a bathroom, followed by scenes of the band performing the song in a dance hall. The video was nominated for the Best Video of the Year award at the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards Japan.\n\nCritical reception \n\nCDJournal called the song a \"rhythmic and stylish pop song, injected with a jazzy essence by a Hammond organ-style piano sound, and felt the song was a homage for \"ever-changing Tokyo\". Listenmusic reviewer Yoshiki Aoyuki felt the song had a \"Shōwa latin kayō taste\" not unlike Sheena's solo songs \"Kabukichō no Joō\" (1998) \"Marunouchi Sadistic\" (1999). Both reviewer Reiko Tsuzura and Yuya Shimizu of Rolling Stone Japan called the \"jazz kayō\".\n\nChart rankings\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences \n\n2012 songs\nJapanese-language songs\nSongs written by Ringo Sheena\nTokyo Jihen songs\nMusic videos directed by Yuichi Kodama\n2011 songs"
] |
[
"Stewart Copeland",
"The Police (1977-1986)",
"What is the relation between Stewart and The police?",
"1976, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands",
"Which song did the band release?",
"The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions, including the band's first single \"Fall Out\" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B side \"Nothing Achieving\"."
] | C_2f61fdc69d1f4707a0c6b5ca6670aa46_1 | Were the songs successful? | 3 | Were the songs "Fall Out" and "Nothing Achieving" successful? | Stewart Copeland | In late 1976, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the 1980s. The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he sang lead vocals too), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself". Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymously titled 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recorded at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at #48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978. In 1982 Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)--a collaboration between Copeland and singer/songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo--that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year. The Police stopped touring in 1984, and during this brief hiatus he released a solo album, The Rhythmatist. The record was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. He also starred in the film, which is "A musical odyssey through the heart of Africa in search of the roots of rock & roll." (Copeland is seen playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.) The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart. CANNOTANSWER | Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs | Stewart Armstrong Copeland (born July 16, 1952) is an American musician and composer. He rose to prominence as the drummer of the British rock band The Police. He has also produced many film and video game soundtracks and written various pieces of music for ballet, opera, and orchestra. His composing work includes the films Wall Street (1987), Good Burger (1997), and We Are Your Friends (2015); the television series The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, and The Amanda Show; and the video games Alone in the Dark 4 and the Spyro series.
According to MusicRadar, Copeland's "distinctive drum sound and uniqueness of style has made him one of the most popular drummers to ever get behind a drumset". He was ranked the 10th best drummer of all time by Rolling Stone in 2016. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Police in 2003, the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2005, and the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013.
Early life
Stewart Armstrong Copeland was born in Alexandria, Virginia, on July 16, 1952, the youngest of four children of Scottish archaeologist Lorraine Adie and Alabama-born CIA officer Miles Copeland Jr. According to his 1989 biography and files released by the CIA in 2008, his father was a founding member of the OSS and the CIA. The family moved to Cairo a few months after Copeland's birth. When he was five years old, the family moved to Beirut, where he attended the American Community School. He started taking drum lessons at age 12 and was playing drums for school dances within a year. He later moved to England, attending the American School in London and Millfield boarding school in Somerset from 1967 to 1969. He went to college in California, enrolling at Alliant International University and the University of California, Berkeley. His eldest brother, Miles Copeland III, founded I.R.S. Records and became the manager of the Police. He has also overseen Copeland's interests in other music projects. His other brother, the late Ian Copeland, was a pioneering booking agent who represented the Police and many others.
Career
Curved Air (1975–1976)
Returning to England, Copeland worked as road manager for the progressive rock band Curved Air's 1974 reunion tour, and then as drummer for the band during 1975 and 1976. The band kicked off with a European tour, which started poorly. Band leader Darryl Way, a notorious perfectionist, grew impatient with the struggling of his bandmates, especially novice drummer Copeland. Then, for reasons no one could pinpoint, the musicians suddenly "clicked" with each other and the band caught fire, quickly becoming a popular and acclaimed live act.
The Police (1977–1986)
In early 1977, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Copeland was the youngest member of the band. The Police's early track list (before their album debut) was largely Copeland compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B-side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs together with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he also sang lead vocals), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself".
Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymous 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recording at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at No. 48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978.
In 1982, Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)—a collaboration between Copeland and singer-songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo—that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year.
The Rhythmatist record of 1985 was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. Copeland is seen in the film playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.
The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart.
Solo projects and movie soundtracks (1987–1998)
After the Police disbanded, Copeland established a career composing soundtracks for movies (Airborne, Talk Radio, Wall Street, Riff Raff, Raining Stones, Surviving the Game, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Highlander II: The Quickening, She's Having a Baby, The First Power, Fresh, Taking Care of Business, West Beirut, I am David, Riding the Bus with My Sister, Good Burger), television (The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, Star Wars: Droids, the pilot for Babylon 5 (1993), Nickelodeon's The Amanda Show, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee), operas (Holy Blood and Crescent Moon, commissioned by Cleveland Opera) and ballets (Prey' Ballet Oklahoma, Casque of Amontillado, Noah's Ark/Solcheeka, commissioned by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, King Lear, commissioned by the San Francisco Ballet Company, Emilio). In 1996, Copeland provided the score for The Leopard Son, Discovery Channel's its first commercially released full-length feature film, made by wildlife filmmaker Hugo van Lawick.
Copeland also occasionally played drums for other artists. Peter Gabriel employed Copeland to perform on his song "Red Rain" from his 1986 album So because of his "hi-hat mastery". He has also performed with Mike Rutherford and Tom Waits. That year he also teamed with Adam Ant to record the title track and video for the Anthony Michael Hall movie Out of Bounds. In 1989, Copeland formed Animal Logic with jazz bassist Stanley Clarke and singer-songwriter Deborah Holland. The trio had success with their first album and world tour but the follow-up recording sold poorly, and the band did not continue.
In 1993 he composed the music for Channel 4's Horse Opera and director Bob Baldwin, and in 1999, he provided the voice of an additional American soldier in the animated musical comedy war film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999).
Spyro the Dragon soundtracks (1998–2002, 2018)
He was commissioned by Insomniac Games in 1998 to make the musical score for the hit PlayStation game Spyro the Dragon. Copeland would play through the levels first to get a feel for each one before composing the soundtrack. He also stayed with the project to create the musical scores for the remaining Insomniac sequels Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. The franchise shifted over to Universal for the fourth title, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, which would be Copeland's last outing with the series. While the soundtracks never saw commercial release, the limited edition of the fourth game came packaged with a bonus CD, containing unused tracks. The soundtracks were very well received, and one track would later appear on the 2007 compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology. Copeland composed a new title theme for Spyro Reignited Trilogy.
This period also saw Copeland compose the soundtrack for Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, his only video game soundtrack outside of the Spyro franchise to date. In 2000, he combined with Les Claypool of Primus (with whom he produced a track on the Primus album Antipop) and Trey Anastasio of Phish to create the band Oysterhead. That same year, he was approached by director Adam Collis to assemble the score for the film Sunset Strip.
Collaborations (2002–2006)
In 2002, Copeland was hired by Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors to play with them for a new album and tour, but after an injury sidelined Copeland, the arrangement ended in reciprocal lawsuits. In 2005, Copeland released "Orchestralli", a live recording of chamber ensemble music which he had composed during a short tour of Italy in 2002. Also in 2005, Copeland started Gizmo, a new project with avant-garde guitarist David Fiuczynski, multi-instrumentalist Vittorio Cosma, singer Raiz and bassist Max Gazzè. The band made their U.S debut on September 16, 2006, at the Modern Drummer Drum Festival. In January 2006, Copeland premiered his film about the Police called Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out at the Sundance Film Festival. In February and March, he appeared as one of the judges on the BBC television show Just the Two of Us (a role he later reprised for a second series in January 2007).
The Police reunion (2007–2008)
At the 2007 Grammy Awards, Copeland, Andy Summers and Sting performed the song "Roxanne" together again as the Police. This marked the band's first public performance since 1986 (they had previously reunited only for an improvised set at Sting's wedding party in 1992 and for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003). One day later, the band announced that in celebration of the Police's 30th anniversary, they would be embarking on what turned out to be a one-off reunion tour on May 28, 2007. During the tour, Copeland also released his compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology, which was composed of his independent work.
In 2007, the French government appointed Copeland (along with Police bandmates Summers and Sting) a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
The group performed 151 dates across five continents, concluding with a final show in August 2008 at Madison Square Garden, New York.
Projects (2008–present)
In 2008, RIM commissioned Copeland to write a "soundtrack" for the BlackBerry Bold smart phone. He created a highly percussive theme of one minute's length from which he evolved six ringtones and a softer 'alarm tone' that are preloaded on the device.
In March 2008, he premiered his orchestral composition "Celeste" at "An Evening with Stewart Copeland", part of the Savannah Music Festival. The performance featured classical violinist Daniel Hope. His appearance at Savannah included a screening of Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out and a question and answer session. Also in 2008, he was commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to create a percussion piece involving primarily Indonesian instruments. "Gamelan D'Drum" was first performed in Dallas on February 5, 2012, and had its European Premiere at the Royal Academy of Music in London in July 2012.
On August 21, 2009, at SummerFest 2009, Copeland unveiled the composition "Retail Therapy", which was commissioned by the Music Society. He performed three more original works: "Kaya", "Celeste", and "Gene Pool", the last accompanied by San Diego-based percussion ensemble red fish blue fish. He attended a composer's roundtable and a question and answer discussion in conjunction with the festival. Copeland wrote the score for a theatrical presentation of Ben-Hur, which premiered on September 17, 2009, at the O2 Arena in London. He provided English-language narration of the production, which is performed in Latin and Aramaic. His memoir Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies was released by Harper Collins in September 2009. The book chronicles events in his life from childhood through his work with the Police and to the present. In October 2009, he was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion program on BBC Radio 3.
On May 24, 2011, he started a YouTube channel devoted to his videos and project updates. On this channel, he uploads performances with various musicians, including Primus, Andy Summers, Jeff Lynne, Snoop Dogg, and others in his home studio, which he refers to as the Sacred Grove. On August 24, 2011, he was a featured soloist on the Late Show with David Letterman, as part of their second "Drum Solo Week".
On January 10, 2012, he appeared on an episode of the A&E reality series Storage Wars to appraise a drum set for Barry Weiss, buying a Turkish cymbal from the set for $40. In July he reunited with former Animal Logic bandmate Stanley Clarke for a European tour.
In May 2013, he and the Long Beach Opera premiered The Tale Tell Heart, an opera based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe.
On November 26, 2013, he appeared in the first episode of The Tim Ferriss Experiment.
In 2017, he formed the supergroup Gizmodrome with Adrian Belew, Vittorio Cosma, and Mark King and released an album of the same name.
On September 5, 2021, the opera Electric Saint about the life of Nikola Tesla by Copeland with libretto by Jonathan Moore premiered at the National Theater of Weimar.
Personal life
Copeland grew up in Beirut. In 1974, he became romantically involved with Curved Air vocalist Sonja Kristina; they were married from 1982 to 1991. He adopted her son Sven from a previous relationship, and they had two sons of their own named Jordan and Scott. In 1981, he fathered a son named Patrick with Marina Guinness, the daughter of Irish author Desmond Guinness. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his second wife, Fiona Dent, with whom he has three children named Eve, Grace, and Celeste.
Copeland's hobbies include rollerskating, cycling along the beach in Santa Monica, California, filmmaking, and playing polo. He is also active on his YouTube channel, where he uploads videos of himself and other musicians during jam sessions in his studio, the Sacred Grove.
Drumming style
Copeland grew up listening to a combination of Lebanese music, rock and roll, jazz, and reggae, but he selected from these styles what he needed rather than imitating them. In the 1980s, when many musicians were looking for bigger sound from bigger drums, he added Octobans. Invented by Tama Drums in 1978, Octobans consisted of eight six-inch drums in the shape of narrow tubes. He used another innovation, a splash cymbal based on a toy that he owned and that he helped Paiste design. He relied heavily on his 13" hi-hats.
Despite being left-handed, Copeland plays a right-handed drum kit, placing the hi-hats on his left and ride cymbal and floor toms on his right. He uses a wide dynamic range and demonstrates a proficiency of jazz-style articulation in his snare drum playing, interspersing strong back-beats with soft rim comping. During his years with the Police, he became known for engaging only the hi-hat with the bass drum to keep the beat.
In an interview with Modern Drummer, Copeland has cited Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience as a prime musical influence. He states that as a child, whenever he had a song or melody pop in his head, he would walk around wondering how Mitch Mitchell would drum to that particular tune. He also named Sandy Nelson and Ginger Baker as other fundamental influences in the youth years. He has stated that due to his 'enforced listening' of Buddy Rich, he considers himself 'allergic to jazz.'
He is noted for his strong emphasis on the groove as a complement to the song, rather than as its core component. He once drove this point home at a drum clinic: Copeland announced that he would show the audience something "that very few modern drummers can do" and proceeded to play a simple rock beat for two minutes. Nonetheless, his playing often incorporates spectacular fills and subtle inflections which greatly augment the groove. Compared to most of his 1980s contemporaries, his snare sound was bright and cutting. He is also one of the few rock drummers to use traditional grip rather than matched grip. He is also noted for syncopation in his drumming.
Equipment
Copeland's equipment includes Tama drums, Paiste cymbals, Remo drum heads, and Vater signature drum sticks.
Original live kit set-up (1984)
Tama Imperialstar Mahogany Drums (9-ply) and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Midnight Blue
10x8" Rack Tom
12x8" Rack Tom
13x9" Rack Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
14x5" Pearl Chrome over Brass Snare
22x14" Bass Drum
Tama Octobans Low Pitch (x4)
Cowbell
Wood Blocks
Cymbals – Paiste
13" Formula 602 Medium Hi-Hats
16" 2002 Crash
8" 2002 Bell
7.5 Ufip Ictus Bell
8" 2002 Splash (x2)
11" 2002 Splash
14" (or 16") Rude Crash/Ride
16" (or 18") Rude Crash/Ride
18" 2002 Medium
24" Rude Ride/Crash
20" 2002 China
Simmons (x2) Pads (to his left)
Assorted Percussion
Stewart also used Calato Regal Tip Rock Wood Tipped Drumsticks
The Police Reunion (2007–2008) tour kit
Tama Starclassic Maple Drums and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Custom Police Blue Sparkle Maple Wood
10x8" Tom
12x8" Tom (To the left of his snare drum)
13x9" Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
18x16" Floor Tom
20x14" Tama Gong Drum
22x18" Bass Drum
14x5" Tama SC145 Stewart Copeland Signature Snare
Tama Custom Police Blue Sparkle Octobans (x4) (custom made for Copeland)
Cymbals – Paiste
12" Prototype Micro Hi-Hats
16" Signature Full Crash
17" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Full Crash
18" 2002 Flat Ride (prototype)
22" Signature Blue Bell Ride
10" Signature Splash
8" Signature Bell
8" Signature Prototype Splash
Assorted percussion
Stewart also uses his own Vater Stewart Copeland Standard Sticks.
Discography
Studio albums
Film scores
TV series
Video games
See also
List of drummers
Membranophone (list of drums)
References
External links
Copeland's official site
1952 births
Living people
A&M Records artists
American expatriates in Egypt
American expatriates in Lebanon
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American film score composers
American male film score composers
American people of Scottish descent
American rock drummers
The Police members
Curved Air members
People educated at Millfield
Musicians from Alexandria, Virginia
Musicians from Beirut
Video game composers
United States International University alumni
Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
Copeland family
Oysterhead members
Gizmodrome members
Strontium 90 (band) members | true | [
"American singer, songwriter and record producer R. Kelly has released 12 studio albums, 5 compilation albums and 3 collaboration albums. Kelly has sold over 100 million records, making him the most successful R&B male artist of the 1990s and also one of the best selling musical artists of all time. He is listed by Billboard as the most successful R&B/Hip Hop artist of the past 25 years (1985–2010) and also the most successful R&B artist in history.\n\nThis is a list of unreleased songs recorded by R. Kelly.\n\nSongs\n\nSee also\n\n List of songs recorded by R. Kelly\n\nReferences\n\nR. Kelly songs\n\nKelly, R",
"\"She's on the Left\" is a 1988 single by Jeffrey Osborne. The single was the most successful of Osborne's solo career, reaching the number-one spot on the Black Singles chart and becoming his only number one. \"She's on the Left\" was his last release to make the Hot 100 peaking at number forty-eight. The single also became one of Osborne's most successful on the dance chart peaking at number six.\n\nReferences\n \n\n1988 singles\nJeffrey Osborne songs\nSongs written by Tony Haynes\nSongs written by Jeffrey Osborne\n1988 songs\nSongs written by Robert Brookins"
] |
[
"Stewart Copeland",
"The Police (1977-1986)",
"What is the relation between Stewart and The police?",
"1976, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands",
"Which song did the band release?",
"The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions, including the band's first single \"Fall Out\" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B side \"Nothing Achieving\".",
"Were the songs successful?",
"Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs"
] | C_2f61fdc69d1f4707a0c6b5ca6670aa46_1 | Which of his songs were more successful than the other? | 4 | Which of Stewart Copeland's songs were more successful than the other? | Stewart Copeland | In late 1976, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the 1980s. The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he sang lead vocals too), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself". Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymously titled 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recorded at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at #48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978. In 1982 Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)--a collaboration between Copeland and singer/songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo--that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year. The Police stopped touring in 1984, and during this brief hiatus he released a solo album, The Rhythmatist. The record was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. He also starred in the film, which is "A musical odyssey through the heart of Africa in search of the roots of rock & roll." (Copeland is seen playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.) The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart. CANNOTANSWER | Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he sang lead vocals too), "Does Everyone Stare" ( | Stewart Armstrong Copeland (born July 16, 1952) is an American musician and composer. He rose to prominence as the drummer of the British rock band The Police. He has also produced many film and video game soundtracks and written various pieces of music for ballet, opera, and orchestra. His composing work includes the films Wall Street (1987), Good Burger (1997), and We Are Your Friends (2015); the television series The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, and The Amanda Show; and the video games Alone in the Dark 4 and the Spyro series.
According to MusicRadar, Copeland's "distinctive drum sound and uniqueness of style has made him one of the most popular drummers to ever get behind a drumset". He was ranked the 10th best drummer of all time by Rolling Stone in 2016. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Police in 2003, the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2005, and the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013.
Early life
Stewart Armstrong Copeland was born in Alexandria, Virginia, on July 16, 1952, the youngest of four children of Scottish archaeologist Lorraine Adie and Alabama-born CIA officer Miles Copeland Jr. According to his 1989 biography and files released by the CIA in 2008, his father was a founding member of the OSS and the CIA. The family moved to Cairo a few months after Copeland's birth. When he was five years old, the family moved to Beirut, where he attended the American Community School. He started taking drum lessons at age 12 and was playing drums for school dances within a year. He later moved to England, attending the American School in London and Millfield boarding school in Somerset from 1967 to 1969. He went to college in California, enrolling at Alliant International University and the University of California, Berkeley. His eldest brother, Miles Copeland III, founded I.R.S. Records and became the manager of the Police. He has also overseen Copeland's interests in other music projects. His other brother, the late Ian Copeland, was a pioneering booking agent who represented the Police and many others.
Career
Curved Air (1975–1976)
Returning to England, Copeland worked as road manager for the progressive rock band Curved Air's 1974 reunion tour, and then as drummer for the band during 1975 and 1976. The band kicked off with a European tour, which started poorly. Band leader Darryl Way, a notorious perfectionist, grew impatient with the struggling of his bandmates, especially novice drummer Copeland. Then, for reasons no one could pinpoint, the musicians suddenly "clicked" with each other and the band caught fire, quickly becoming a popular and acclaimed live act.
The Police (1977–1986)
In early 1977, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Copeland was the youngest member of the band. The Police's early track list (before their album debut) was largely Copeland compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B-side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs together with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he also sang lead vocals), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself".
Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymous 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recording at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at No. 48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978.
In 1982, Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)—a collaboration between Copeland and singer-songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo—that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year.
The Rhythmatist record of 1985 was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. Copeland is seen in the film playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.
The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart.
Solo projects and movie soundtracks (1987–1998)
After the Police disbanded, Copeland established a career composing soundtracks for movies (Airborne, Talk Radio, Wall Street, Riff Raff, Raining Stones, Surviving the Game, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Highlander II: The Quickening, She's Having a Baby, The First Power, Fresh, Taking Care of Business, West Beirut, I am David, Riding the Bus with My Sister, Good Burger), television (The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, Star Wars: Droids, the pilot for Babylon 5 (1993), Nickelodeon's The Amanda Show, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee), operas (Holy Blood and Crescent Moon, commissioned by Cleveland Opera) and ballets (Prey' Ballet Oklahoma, Casque of Amontillado, Noah's Ark/Solcheeka, commissioned by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, King Lear, commissioned by the San Francisco Ballet Company, Emilio). In 1996, Copeland provided the score for The Leopard Son, Discovery Channel's its first commercially released full-length feature film, made by wildlife filmmaker Hugo van Lawick.
Copeland also occasionally played drums for other artists. Peter Gabriel employed Copeland to perform on his song "Red Rain" from his 1986 album So because of his "hi-hat mastery". He has also performed with Mike Rutherford and Tom Waits. That year he also teamed with Adam Ant to record the title track and video for the Anthony Michael Hall movie Out of Bounds. In 1989, Copeland formed Animal Logic with jazz bassist Stanley Clarke and singer-songwriter Deborah Holland. The trio had success with their first album and world tour but the follow-up recording sold poorly, and the band did not continue.
In 1993 he composed the music for Channel 4's Horse Opera and director Bob Baldwin, and in 1999, he provided the voice of an additional American soldier in the animated musical comedy war film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999).
Spyro the Dragon soundtracks (1998–2002, 2018)
He was commissioned by Insomniac Games in 1998 to make the musical score for the hit PlayStation game Spyro the Dragon. Copeland would play through the levels first to get a feel for each one before composing the soundtrack. He also stayed with the project to create the musical scores for the remaining Insomniac sequels Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. The franchise shifted over to Universal for the fourth title, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, which would be Copeland's last outing with the series. While the soundtracks never saw commercial release, the limited edition of the fourth game came packaged with a bonus CD, containing unused tracks. The soundtracks were very well received, and one track would later appear on the 2007 compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology. Copeland composed a new title theme for Spyro Reignited Trilogy.
This period also saw Copeland compose the soundtrack for Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, his only video game soundtrack outside of the Spyro franchise to date. In 2000, he combined with Les Claypool of Primus (with whom he produced a track on the Primus album Antipop) and Trey Anastasio of Phish to create the band Oysterhead. That same year, he was approached by director Adam Collis to assemble the score for the film Sunset Strip.
Collaborations (2002–2006)
In 2002, Copeland was hired by Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors to play with them for a new album and tour, but after an injury sidelined Copeland, the arrangement ended in reciprocal lawsuits. In 2005, Copeland released "Orchestralli", a live recording of chamber ensemble music which he had composed during a short tour of Italy in 2002. Also in 2005, Copeland started Gizmo, a new project with avant-garde guitarist David Fiuczynski, multi-instrumentalist Vittorio Cosma, singer Raiz and bassist Max Gazzè. The band made their U.S debut on September 16, 2006, at the Modern Drummer Drum Festival. In January 2006, Copeland premiered his film about the Police called Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out at the Sundance Film Festival. In February and March, he appeared as one of the judges on the BBC television show Just the Two of Us (a role he later reprised for a second series in January 2007).
The Police reunion (2007–2008)
At the 2007 Grammy Awards, Copeland, Andy Summers and Sting performed the song "Roxanne" together again as the Police. This marked the band's first public performance since 1986 (they had previously reunited only for an improvised set at Sting's wedding party in 1992 and for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003). One day later, the band announced that in celebration of the Police's 30th anniversary, they would be embarking on what turned out to be a one-off reunion tour on May 28, 2007. During the tour, Copeland also released his compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology, which was composed of his independent work.
In 2007, the French government appointed Copeland (along with Police bandmates Summers and Sting) a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
The group performed 151 dates across five continents, concluding with a final show in August 2008 at Madison Square Garden, New York.
Projects (2008–present)
In 2008, RIM commissioned Copeland to write a "soundtrack" for the BlackBerry Bold smart phone. He created a highly percussive theme of one minute's length from which he evolved six ringtones and a softer 'alarm tone' that are preloaded on the device.
In March 2008, he premiered his orchestral composition "Celeste" at "An Evening with Stewart Copeland", part of the Savannah Music Festival. The performance featured classical violinist Daniel Hope. His appearance at Savannah included a screening of Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out and a question and answer session. Also in 2008, he was commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to create a percussion piece involving primarily Indonesian instruments. "Gamelan D'Drum" was first performed in Dallas on February 5, 2012, and had its European Premiere at the Royal Academy of Music in London in July 2012.
On August 21, 2009, at SummerFest 2009, Copeland unveiled the composition "Retail Therapy", which was commissioned by the Music Society. He performed three more original works: "Kaya", "Celeste", and "Gene Pool", the last accompanied by San Diego-based percussion ensemble red fish blue fish. He attended a composer's roundtable and a question and answer discussion in conjunction with the festival. Copeland wrote the score for a theatrical presentation of Ben-Hur, which premiered on September 17, 2009, at the O2 Arena in London. He provided English-language narration of the production, which is performed in Latin and Aramaic. His memoir Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies was released by Harper Collins in September 2009. The book chronicles events in his life from childhood through his work with the Police and to the present. In October 2009, he was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion program on BBC Radio 3.
On May 24, 2011, he started a YouTube channel devoted to his videos and project updates. On this channel, he uploads performances with various musicians, including Primus, Andy Summers, Jeff Lynne, Snoop Dogg, and others in his home studio, which he refers to as the Sacred Grove. On August 24, 2011, he was a featured soloist on the Late Show with David Letterman, as part of their second "Drum Solo Week".
On January 10, 2012, he appeared on an episode of the A&E reality series Storage Wars to appraise a drum set for Barry Weiss, buying a Turkish cymbal from the set for $40. In July he reunited with former Animal Logic bandmate Stanley Clarke for a European tour.
In May 2013, he and the Long Beach Opera premiered The Tale Tell Heart, an opera based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe.
On November 26, 2013, he appeared in the first episode of The Tim Ferriss Experiment.
In 2017, he formed the supergroup Gizmodrome with Adrian Belew, Vittorio Cosma, and Mark King and released an album of the same name.
On September 5, 2021, the opera Electric Saint about the life of Nikola Tesla by Copeland with libretto by Jonathan Moore premiered at the National Theater of Weimar.
Personal life
Copeland grew up in Beirut. In 1974, he became romantically involved with Curved Air vocalist Sonja Kristina; they were married from 1982 to 1991. He adopted her son Sven from a previous relationship, and they had two sons of their own named Jordan and Scott. In 1981, he fathered a son named Patrick with Marina Guinness, the daughter of Irish author Desmond Guinness. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his second wife, Fiona Dent, with whom he has three children named Eve, Grace, and Celeste.
Copeland's hobbies include rollerskating, cycling along the beach in Santa Monica, California, filmmaking, and playing polo. He is also active on his YouTube channel, where he uploads videos of himself and other musicians during jam sessions in his studio, the Sacred Grove.
Drumming style
Copeland grew up listening to a combination of Lebanese music, rock and roll, jazz, and reggae, but he selected from these styles what he needed rather than imitating them. In the 1980s, when many musicians were looking for bigger sound from bigger drums, he added Octobans. Invented by Tama Drums in 1978, Octobans consisted of eight six-inch drums in the shape of narrow tubes. He used another innovation, a splash cymbal based on a toy that he owned and that he helped Paiste design. He relied heavily on his 13" hi-hats.
Despite being left-handed, Copeland plays a right-handed drum kit, placing the hi-hats on his left and ride cymbal and floor toms on his right. He uses a wide dynamic range and demonstrates a proficiency of jazz-style articulation in his snare drum playing, interspersing strong back-beats with soft rim comping. During his years with the Police, he became known for engaging only the hi-hat with the bass drum to keep the beat.
In an interview with Modern Drummer, Copeland has cited Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience as a prime musical influence. He states that as a child, whenever he had a song or melody pop in his head, he would walk around wondering how Mitch Mitchell would drum to that particular tune. He also named Sandy Nelson and Ginger Baker as other fundamental influences in the youth years. He has stated that due to his 'enforced listening' of Buddy Rich, he considers himself 'allergic to jazz.'
He is noted for his strong emphasis on the groove as a complement to the song, rather than as its core component. He once drove this point home at a drum clinic: Copeland announced that he would show the audience something "that very few modern drummers can do" and proceeded to play a simple rock beat for two minutes. Nonetheless, his playing often incorporates spectacular fills and subtle inflections which greatly augment the groove. Compared to most of his 1980s contemporaries, his snare sound was bright and cutting. He is also one of the few rock drummers to use traditional grip rather than matched grip. He is also noted for syncopation in his drumming.
Equipment
Copeland's equipment includes Tama drums, Paiste cymbals, Remo drum heads, and Vater signature drum sticks.
Original live kit set-up (1984)
Tama Imperialstar Mahogany Drums (9-ply) and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Midnight Blue
10x8" Rack Tom
12x8" Rack Tom
13x9" Rack Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
14x5" Pearl Chrome over Brass Snare
22x14" Bass Drum
Tama Octobans Low Pitch (x4)
Cowbell
Wood Blocks
Cymbals – Paiste
13" Formula 602 Medium Hi-Hats
16" 2002 Crash
8" 2002 Bell
7.5 Ufip Ictus Bell
8" 2002 Splash (x2)
11" 2002 Splash
14" (or 16") Rude Crash/Ride
16" (or 18") Rude Crash/Ride
18" 2002 Medium
24" Rude Ride/Crash
20" 2002 China
Simmons (x2) Pads (to his left)
Assorted Percussion
Stewart also used Calato Regal Tip Rock Wood Tipped Drumsticks
The Police Reunion (2007–2008) tour kit
Tama Starclassic Maple Drums and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Custom Police Blue Sparkle Maple Wood
10x8" Tom
12x8" Tom (To the left of his snare drum)
13x9" Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
18x16" Floor Tom
20x14" Tama Gong Drum
22x18" Bass Drum
14x5" Tama SC145 Stewart Copeland Signature Snare
Tama Custom Police Blue Sparkle Octobans (x4) (custom made for Copeland)
Cymbals – Paiste
12" Prototype Micro Hi-Hats
16" Signature Full Crash
17" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Full Crash
18" 2002 Flat Ride (prototype)
22" Signature Blue Bell Ride
10" Signature Splash
8" Signature Bell
8" Signature Prototype Splash
Assorted percussion
Stewart also uses his own Vater Stewart Copeland Standard Sticks.
Discography
Studio albums
Film scores
TV series
Video games
See also
List of drummers
Membranophone (list of drums)
References
External links
Copeland's official site
1952 births
Living people
A&M Records artists
American expatriates in Egypt
American expatriates in Lebanon
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American film score composers
American male film score composers
American people of Scottish descent
American rock drummers
The Police members
Curved Air members
People educated at Millfield
Musicians from Alexandria, Virginia
Musicians from Beirut
Video game composers
United States International University alumni
Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
Copeland family
Oysterhead members
Gizmodrome members
Strontium 90 (band) members | false | [
"Zdenko Runjić (26 October 1942 – 27 October 2004) was a Croatian songwriter. In his long career, he established himself as one of the most prolific and most popular songwriters of former Yugoslavia and Croatia.\n\nBiography\nRunjić was born on 26 October 1942 in the village of Garčin near Slavonski Brod. Many of his songs were inspired by the folk traditions of Dalmatia. The songs became classics and Runjić helped the careers of many notable Croatian musicians such as Oliver Dragojević, Doris Dragović and Meri Cetinić. He was especially successful at the prestigious Split Music Festival. He wrote almost 700 songs which sold several million copies in both albums and singles. More than 200 songs were written for Dragojević alone. He was also a successful businessman and music producer. He owned a record company called Skalinada which became one of the most prominent record companies of Croatia.\n\nIn 1993, following the dispute with the Split Music Festival organisers, he founded the rival music festival called Melodije Hrvatskog Jadrana (Melodies of the Croatian Adriatic) and it soon became the key music festival of the country. On 27 October 2004, Runjić died in Krapinske Toplice from a stroke while recovering from a heart attack.\n\nSee also\nCroatian music\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nDiscography of Zdenko Runjić\nSome audio clips\n\nCroatian songwriters\n1942 births\n2004 deaths\nPeople from Slavonski Brod\nMusicians from Split, Croatia",
"The discography of Radwimps consists of twelve studio albums, four video albums and 26 singles. Radwimps debuted as a musical act in 2003 through independent label Newtraxx, releasing the albums Radwimps (2003) and Radwimps 2: Hatten Tojō (2005). After being signed to major label Toshiba EMI, the band released their album Radwimps 3: Mujintō ni Motte Ikiwasureta Ichimai to increasing commercial success.\n\nRadwimps have had several commercially successful songs, including \"Futarigoto\" (2006) which was certified Platinum by the RIAJ. Their singles \"Order Made\" (2008) and \"Dada\" (2011) both peaked at the top of Oricon's singles charts. Many Radwimps songs that were not released as singles were successful in the digital market, and have been certified gold.\n\nTheir 2016 single \"Zenzenzense\" is the most popular song by the band, having reached more than 150 million views on their YouTube channel. The song was used as one of the four theme songs to the anime film , and was one of 26 songs the band composed for the film's soundtrack. It reached number-one on the Billboard Japan Hot 100 and charted for 63 weeks. It also received a digital download song certification of Triple Platinum from the Recording Industry Association of Japan for sales of 750,000.\n\nStudio albums\n\nCompilation albums\n\nExtended plays\n\nSingles\n\nPromotional singles\n\nOther charted songs\n\nVideo albums\n\nMusic videos\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nDiscographies of Japanese artists\nRock music group discographies"
] |
[
"Stewart Copeland",
"The Police (1977-1986)",
"What is the relation between Stewart and The police?",
"1976, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands",
"Which song did the band release?",
"The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions, including the band's first single \"Fall Out\" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B side \"Nothing Achieving\".",
"Were the songs successful?",
"Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs",
"Which of his songs were more successful than the other?",
"Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are \"On Any Other Day\" (where he sang lead vocals too), \"Does Everyone Stare\" ("
] | C_2f61fdc69d1f4707a0c6b5ca6670aa46_1 | Did he work with other people outside his band? | 5 | Besides the Police, did Stewart Copeland work with other people outside his band? | Stewart Copeland | In late 1976, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the 1980s. The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he sang lead vocals too), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself". Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymously titled 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recorded at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at #48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978. In 1982 Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)--a collaboration between Copeland and singer/songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo--that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year. The Police stopped touring in 1984, and during this brief hiatus he released a solo album, The Rhythmatist. The record was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. He also starred in the film, which is "A musical odyssey through the heart of Africa in search of the roots of rock & roll." (Copeland is seen playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.) The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart. CANNOTANSWER | Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, | Stewart Armstrong Copeland (born July 16, 1952) is an American musician and composer. He rose to prominence as the drummer of the British rock band The Police. He has also produced many film and video game soundtracks and written various pieces of music for ballet, opera, and orchestra. His composing work includes the films Wall Street (1987), Good Burger (1997), and We Are Your Friends (2015); the television series The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, and The Amanda Show; and the video games Alone in the Dark 4 and the Spyro series.
According to MusicRadar, Copeland's "distinctive drum sound and uniqueness of style has made him one of the most popular drummers to ever get behind a drumset". He was ranked the 10th best drummer of all time by Rolling Stone in 2016. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Police in 2003, the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2005, and the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013.
Early life
Stewart Armstrong Copeland was born in Alexandria, Virginia, on July 16, 1952, the youngest of four children of Scottish archaeologist Lorraine Adie and Alabama-born CIA officer Miles Copeland Jr. According to his 1989 biography and files released by the CIA in 2008, his father was a founding member of the OSS and the CIA. The family moved to Cairo a few months after Copeland's birth. When he was five years old, the family moved to Beirut, where he attended the American Community School. He started taking drum lessons at age 12 and was playing drums for school dances within a year. He later moved to England, attending the American School in London and Millfield boarding school in Somerset from 1967 to 1969. He went to college in California, enrolling at Alliant International University and the University of California, Berkeley. His eldest brother, Miles Copeland III, founded I.R.S. Records and became the manager of the Police. He has also overseen Copeland's interests in other music projects. His other brother, the late Ian Copeland, was a pioneering booking agent who represented the Police and many others.
Career
Curved Air (1975–1976)
Returning to England, Copeland worked as road manager for the progressive rock band Curved Air's 1974 reunion tour, and then as drummer for the band during 1975 and 1976. The band kicked off with a European tour, which started poorly. Band leader Darryl Way, a notorious perfectionist, grew impatient with the struggling of his bandmates, especially novice drummer Copeland. Then, for reasons no one could pinpoint, the musicians suddenly "clicked" with each other and the band caught fire, quickly becoming a popular and acclaimed live act.
The Police (1977–1986)
In early 1977, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Copeland was the youngest member of the band. The Police's early track list (before their album debut) was largely Copeland compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B-side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs together with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he also sang lead vocals), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself".
Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymous 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recording at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at No. 48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978.
In 1982, Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)—a collaboration between Copeland and singer-songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo—that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year.
The Rhythmatist record of 1985 was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. Copeland is seen in the film playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.
The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart.
Solo projects and movie soundtracks (1987–1998)
After the Police disbanded, Copeland established a career composing soundtracks for movies (Airborne, Talk Radio, Wall Street, Riff Raff, Raining Stones, Surviving the Game, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Highlander II: The Quickening, She's Having a Baby, The First Power, Fresh, Taking Care of Business, West Beirut, I am David, Riding the Bus with My Sister, Good Burger), television (The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, Star Wars: Droids, the pilot for Babylon 5 (1993), Nickelodeon's The Amanda Show, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee), operas (Holy Blood and Crescent Moon, commissioned by Cleveland Opera) and ballets (Prey' Ballet Oklahoma, Casque of Amontillado, Noah's Ark/Solcheeka, commissioned by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, King Lear, commissioned by the San Francisco Ballet Company, Emilio). In 1996, Copeland provided the score for The Leopard Son, Discovery Channel's its first commercially released full-length feature film, made by wildlife filmmaker Hugo van Lawick.
Copeland also occasionally played drums for other artists. Peter Gabriel employed Copeland to perform on his song "Red Rain" from his 1986 album So because of his "hi-hat mastery". He has also performed with Mike Rutherford and Tom Waits. That year he also teamed with Adam Ant to record the title track and video for the Anthony Michael Hall movie Out of Bounds. In 1989, Copeland formed Animal Logic with jazz bassist Stanley Clarke and singer-songwriter Deborah Holland. The trio had success with their first album and world tour but the follow-up recording sold poorly, and the band did not continue.
In 1993 he composed the music for Channel 4's Horse Opera and director Bob Baldwin, and in 1999, he provided the voice of an additional American soldier in the animated musical comedy war film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999).
Spyro the Dragon soundtracks (1998–2002, 2018)
He was commissioned by Insomniac Games in 1998 to make the musical score for the hit PlayStation game Spyro the Dragon. Copeland would play through the levels first to get a feel for each one before composing the soundtrack. He also stayed with the project to create the musical scores for the remaining Insomniac sequels Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. The franchise shifted over to Universal for the fourth title, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, which would be Copeland's last outing with the series. While the soundtracks never saw commercial release, the limited edition of the fourth game came packaged with a bonus CD, containing unused tracks. The soundtracks were very well received, and one track would later appear on the 2007 compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology. Copeland composed a new title theme for Spyro Reignited Trilogy.
This period also saw Copeland compose the soundtrack for Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, his only video game soundtrack outside of the Spyro franchise to date. In 2000, he combined with Les Claypool of Primus (with whom he produced a track on the Primus album Antipop) and Trey Anastasio of Phish to create the band Oysterhead. That same year, he was approached by director Adam Collis to assemble the score for the film Sunset Strip.
Collaborations (2002–2006)
In 2002, Copeland was hired by Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors to play with them for a new album and tour, but after an injury sidelined Copeland, the arrangement ended in reciprocal lawsuits. In 2005, Copeland released "Orchestralli", a live recording of chamber ensemble music which he had composed during a short tour of Italy in 2002. Also in 2005, Copeland started Gizmo, a new project with avant-garde guitarist David Fiuczynski, multi-instrumentalist Vittorio Cosma, singer Raiz and bassist Max Gazzè. The band made their U.S debut on September 16, 2006, at the Modern Drummer Drum Festival. In January 2006, Copeland premiered his film about the Police called Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out at the Sundance Film Festival. In February and March, he appeared as one of the judges on the BBC television show Just the Two of Us (a role he later reprised for a second series in January 2007).
The Police reunion (2007–2008)
At the 2007 Grammy Awards, Copeland, Andy Summers and Sting performed the song "Roxanne" together again as the Police. This marked the band's first public performance since 1986 (they had previously reunited only for an improvised set at Sting's wedding party in 1992 and for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003). One day later, the band announced that in celebration of the Police's 30th anniversary, they would be embarking on what turned out to be a one-off reunion tour on May 28, 2007. During the tour, Copeland also released his compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology, which was composed of his independent work.
In 2007, the French government appointed Copeland (along with Police bandmates Summers and Sting) a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
The group performed 151 dates across five continents, concluding with a final show in August 2008 at Madison Square Garden, New York.
Projects (2008–present)
In 2008, RIM commissioned Copeland to write a "soundtrack" for the BlackBerry Bold smart phone. He created a highly percussive theme of one minute's length from which he evolved six ringtones and a softer 'alarm tone' that are preloaded on the device.
In March 2008, he premiered his orchestral composition "Celeste" at "An Evening with Stewart Copeland", part of the Savannah Music Festival. The performance featured classical violinist Daniel Hope. His appearance at Savannah included a screening of Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out and a question and answer session. Also in 2008, he was commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to create a percussion piece involving primarily Indonesian instruments. "Gamelan D'Drum" was first performed in Dallas on February 5, 2012, and had its European Premiere at the Royal Academy of Music in London in July 2012.
On August 21, 2009, at SummerFest 2009, Copeland unveiled the composition "Retail Therapy", which was commissioned by the Music Society. He performed three more original works: "Kaya", "Celeste", and "Gene Pool", the last accompanied by San Diego-based percussion ensemble red fish blue fish. He attended a composer's roundtable and a question and answer discussion in conjunction with the festival. Copeland wrote the score for a theatrical presentation of Ben-Hur, which premiered on September 17, 2009, at the O2 Arena in London. He provided English-language narration of the production, which is performed in Latin and Aramaic. His memoir Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies was released by Harper Collins in September 2009. The book chronicles events in his life from childhood through his work with the Police and to the present. In October 2009, he was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion program on BBC Radio 3.
On May 24, 2011, he started a YouTube channel devoted to his videos and project updates. On this channel, he uploads performances with various musicians, including Primus, Andy Summers, Jeff Lynne, Snoop Dogg, and others in his home studio, which he refers to as the Sacred Grove. On August 24, 2011, he was a featured soloist on the Late Show with David Letterman, as part of their second "Drum Solo Week".
On January 10, 2012, he appeared on an episode of the A&E reality series Storage Wars to appraise a drum set for Barry Weiss, buying a Turkish cymbal from the set for $40. In July he reunited with former Animal Logic bandmate Stanley Clarke for a European tour.
In May 2013, he and the Long Beach Opera premiered The Tale Tell Heart, an opera based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe.
On November 26, 2013, he appeared in the first episode of The Tim Ferriss Experiment.
In 2017, he formed the supergroup Gizmodrome with Adrian Belew, Vittorio Cosma, and Mark King and released an album of the same name.
On September 5, 2021, the opera Electric Saint about the life of Nikola Tesla by Copeland with libretto by Jonathan Moore premiered at the National Theater of Weimar.
Personal life
Copeland grew up in Beirut. In 1974, he became romantically involved with Curved Air vocalist Sonja Kristina; they were married from 1982 to 1991. He adopted her son Sven from a previous relationship, and they had two sons of their own named Jordan and Scott. In 1981, he fathered a son named Patrick with Marina Guinness, the daughter of Irish author Desmond Guinness. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his second wife, Fiona Dent, with whom he has three children named Eve, Grace, and Celeste.
Copeland's hobbies include rollerskating, cycling along the beach in Santa Monica, California, filmmaking, and playing polo. He is also active on his YouTube channel, where he uploads videos of himself and other musicians during jam sessions in his studio, the Sacred Grove.
Drumming style
Copeland grew up listening to a combination of Lebanese music, rock and roll, jazz, and reggae, but he selected from these styles what he needed rather than imitating them. In the 1980s, when many musicians were looking for bigger sound from bigger drums, he added Octobans. Invented by Tama Drums in 1978, Octobans consisted of eight six-inch drums in the shape of narrow tubes. He used another innovation, a splash cymbal based on a toy that he owned and that he helped Paiste design. He relied heavily on his 13" hi-hats.
Despite being left-handed, Copeland plays a right-handed drum kit, placing the hi-hats on his left and ride cymbal and floor toms on his right. He uses a wide dynamic range and demonstrates a proficiency of jazz-style articulation in his snare drum playing, interspersing strong back-beats with soft rim comping. During his years with the Police, he became known for engaging only the hi-hat with the bass drum to keep the beat.
In an interview with Modern Drummer, Copeland has cited Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience as a prime musical influence. He states that as a child, whenever he had a song or melody pop in his head, he would walk around wondering how Mitch Mitchell would drum to that particular tune. He also named Sandy Nelson and Ginger Baker as other fundamental influences in the youth years. He has stated that due to his 'enforced listening' of Buddy Rich, he considers himself 'allergic to jazz.'
He is noted for his strong emphasis on the groove as a complement to the song, rather than as its core component. He once drove this point home at a drum clinic: Copeland announced that he would show the audience something "that very few modern drummers can do" and proceeded to play a simple rock beat for two minutes. Nonetheless, his playing often incorporates spectacular fills and subtle inflections which greatly augment the groove. Compared to most of his 1980s contemporaries, his snare sound was bright and cutting. He is also one of the few rock drummers to use traditional grip rather than matched grip. He is also noted for syncopation in his drumming.
Equipment
Copeland's equipment includes Tama drums, Paiste cymbals, Remo drum heads, and Vater signature drum sticks.
Original live kit set-up (1984)
Tama Imperialstar Mahogany Drums (9-ply) and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Midnight Blue
10x8" Rack Tom
12x8" Rack Tom
13x9" Rack Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
14x5" Pearl Chrome over Brass Snare
22x14" Bass Drum
Tama Octobans Low Pitch (x4)
Cowbell
Wood Blocks
Cymbals – Paiste
13" Formula 602 Medium Hi-Hats
16" 2002 Crash
8" 2002 Bell
7.5 Ufip Ictus Bell
8" 2002 Splash (x2)
11" 2002 Splash
14" (or 16") Rude Crash/Ride
16" (or 18") Rude Crash/Ride
18" 2002 Medium
24" Rude Ride/Crash
20" 2002 China
Simmons (x2) Pads (to his left)
Assorted Percussion
Stewart also used Calato Regal Tip Rock Wood Tipped Drumsticks
The Police Reunion (2007–2008) tour kit
Tama Starclassic Maple Drums and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Custom Police Blue Sparkle Maple Wood
10x8" Tom
12x8" Tom (To the left of his snare drum)
13x9" Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
18x16" Floor Tom
20x14" Tama Gong Drum
22x18" Bass Drum
14x5" Tama SC145 Stewart Copeland Signature Snare
Tama Custom Police Blue Sparkle Octobans (x4) (custom made for Copeland)
Cymbals – Paiste
12" Prototype Micro Hi-Hats
16" Signature Full Crash
17" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Full Crash
18" 2002 Flat Ride (prototype)
22" Signature Blue Bell Ride
10" Signature Splash
8" Signature Bell
8" Signature Prototype Splash
Assorted percussion
Stewart also uses his own Vater Stewart Copeland Standard Sticks.
Discography
Studio albums
Film scores
TV series
Video games
See also
List of drummers
Membranophone (list of drums)
References
External links
Copeland's official site
1952 births
Living people
A&M Records artists
American expatriates in Egypt
American expatriates in Lebanon
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American film score composers
American male film score composers
American people of Scottish descent
American rock drummers
The Police members
Curved Air members
People educated at Millfield
Musicians from Alexandria, Virginia
Musicians from Beirut
Video game composers
United States International University alumni
Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
Copeland family
Oysterhead members
Gizmodrome members
Strontium 90 (band) members | true | [
"Gary Lee Conner (born Lee Gary Conner, August 22, 1962) is an American rock musician, best known as the guitarist for Screaming Trees.\n\nCareer \nOriginally from Ellensburg, Washington, Conner formed the band Explosive Generation with his brother Van Conner and Mark Pickerel in the early 1980s. That band later evolved into Screaming Trees with the addition of singer Mark Lanegan in 1985. The band moved to Seattle in the late 1980s to join that city's burgeoning alternative rock scene. Conner played on seven studio albums with Screaming Trees until the band split in 2000.\n\nConner released the album Mystery Lane in 1990, under the group name The Purple Outside. During the 1990s he made regular guest appearances on recordings by other alternative rock acts. After the demise of Screaming Trees, Conner retired from music for ten years, and re-emerged with a new band called The Microdot Gnome. That band released the album 4D Sugarcubes in 2010. Starting in 2016 he began releasing albums under his own name, most recently Revelations in Fuzz in 2021.\n\nSelected discography\nFor his work with Screaming Trees, see Screaming Trees discography.\nMystery Lane (The Purple Outside, 1990)\n4D Sugarcubes (The Microdot Gnome, 2010)\nEther Trippers (solo, 2016)\nUnicorn Curry (solo, 2018)\nRevelations in Fuzz (solo, 2021)\n\nReferences \n\nScreaming Trees members\nAmerican rock guitarists\nAmerican male guitarists\nGrunge musicians\n1962 births\nLiving people\nPeople from Kittitas County, Washington\n20th-century American guitarists\nPeople from San Bernardino County, California\n20th-century American male musicians",
"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"
] |
[
"Stewart Copeland",
"The Police (1977-1986)",
"What is the relation between Stewart and The police?",
"1976, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands",
"Which song did the band release?",
"The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions, including the band's first single \"Fall Out\" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B side \"Nothing Achieving\".",
"Were the songs successful?",
"Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs",
"Which of his songs were more successful than the other?",
"Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are \"On Any Other Day\" (where he sang lead vocals too), \"Does Everyone Stare\" (",
"Did he work with other people outside his band?",
"Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one (\"Don't Care\") entering the UK Singles Chart that year,"
] | C_2f61fdc69d1f4707a0c6b5ca6670aa46_1 | Were the songs successfull? | 6 | Were Stewart Copeland's UK singles in 1978 successful? | Stewart Copeland | In late 1976, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the 1980s. The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he sang lead vocals too), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself". Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymously titled 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recorded at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at #48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978. In 1982 Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)--a collaboration between Copeland and singer/songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo--that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year. The Police stopped touring in 1984, and during this brief hiatus he released a solo album, The Rhythmatist. The record was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. He also starred in the film, which is "A musical odyssey through the heart of Africa in search of the roots of rock & roll." (Copeland is seen playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.) The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart. CANNOTANSWER | Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at #48 UK in August 1978, | Stewart Armstrong Copeland (born July 16, 1952) is an American musician and composer. He rose to prominence as the drummer of the British rock band The Police. He has also produced many film and video game soundtracks and written various pieces of music for ballet, opera, and orchestra. His composing work includes the films Wall Street (1987), Good Burger (1997), and We Are Your Friends (2015); the television series The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, and The Amanda Show; and the video games Alone in the Dark 4 and the Spyro series.
According to MusicRadar, Copeland's "distinctive drum sound and uniqueness of style has made him one of the most popular drummers to ever get behind a drumset". He was ranked the 10th best drummer of all time by Rolling Stone in 2016. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Police in 2003, the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2005, and the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013.
Early life
Stewart Armstrong Copeland was born in Alexandria, Virginia, on July 16, 1952, the youngest of four children of Scottish archaeologist Lorraine Adie and Alabama-born CIA officer Miles Copeland Jr. According to his 1989 biography and files released by the CIA in 2008, his father was a founding member of the OSS and the CIA. The family moved to Cairo a few months after Copeland's birth. When he was five years old, the family moved to Beirut, where he attended the American Community School. He started taking drum lessons at age 12 and was playing drums for school dances within a year. He later moved to England, attending the American School in London and Millfield boarding school in Somerset from 1967 to 1969. He went to college in California, enrolling at Alliant International University and the University of California, Berkeley. His eldest brother, Miles Copeland III, founded I.R.S. Records and became the manager of the Police. He has also overseen Copeland's interests in other music projects. His other brother, the late Ian Copeland, was a pioneering booking agent who represented the Police and many others.
Career
Curved Air (1975–1976)
Returning to England, Copeland worked as road manager for the progressive rock band Curved Air's 1974 reunion tour, and then as drummer for the band during 1975 and 1976. The band kicked off with a European tour, which started poorly. Band leader Darryl Way, a notorious perfectionist, grew impatient with the struggling of his bandmates, especially novice drummer Copeland. Then, for reasons no one could pinpoint, the musicians suddenly "clicked" with each other and the band caught fire, quickly becoming a popular and acclaimed live act.
The Police (1977–1986)
In early 1977, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Copeland was the youngest member of the band. The Police's early track list (before their album debut) was largely Copeland compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B-side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs together with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he also sang lead vocals), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself".
Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymous 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recording at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at No. 48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978.
In 1982, Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)—a collaboration between Copeland and singer-songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo—that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year.
The Rhythmatist record of 1985 was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. Copeland is seen in the film playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.
The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart.
Solo projects and movie soundtracks (1987–1998)
After the Police disbanded, Copeland established a career composing soundtracks for movies (Airborne, Talk Radio, Wall Street, Riff Raff, Raining Stones, Surviving the Game, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Highlander II: The Quickening, She's Having a Baby, The First Power, Fresh, Taking Care of Business, West Beirut, I am David, Riding the Bus with My Sister, Good Burger), television (The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, Star Wars: Droids, the pilot for Babylon 5 (1993), Nickelodeon's The Amanda Show, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee), operas (Holy Blood and Crescent Moon, commissioned by Cleveland Opera) and ballets (Prey' Ballet Oklahoma, Casque of Amontillado, Noah's Ark/Solcheeka, commissioned by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, King Lear, commissioned by the San Francisco Ballet Company, Emilio). In 1996, Copeland provided the score for The Leopard Son, Discovery Channel's its first commercially released full-length feature film, made by wildlife filmmaker Hugo van Lawick.
Copeland also occasionally played drums for other artists. Peter Gabriel employed Copeland to perform on his song "Red Rain" from his 1986 album So because of his "hi-hat mastery". He has also performed with Mike Rutherford and Tom Waits. That year he also teamed with Adam Ant to record the title track and video for the Anthony Michael Hall movie Out of Bounds. In 1989, Copeland formed Animal Logic with jazz bassist Stanley Clarke and singer-songwriter Deborah Holland. The trio had success with their first album and world tour but the follow-up recording sold poorly, and the band did not continue.
In 1993 he composed the music for Channel 4's Horse Opera and director Bob Baldwin, and in 1999, he provided the voice of an additional American soldier in the animated musical comedy war film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999).
Spyro the Dragon soundtracks (1998–2002, 2018)
He was commissioned by Insomniac Games in 1998 to make the musical score for the hit PlayStation game Spyro the Dragon. Copeland would play through the levels first to get a feel for each one before composing the soundtrack. He also stayed with the project to create the musical scores for the remaining Insomniac sequels Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. The franchise shifted over to Universal for the fourth title, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, which would be Copeland's last outing with the series. While the soundtracks never saw commercial release, the limited edition of the fourth game came packaged with a bonus CD, containing unused tracks. The soundtracks were very well received, and one track would later appear on the 2007 compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology. Copeland composed a new title theme for Spyro Reignited Trilogy.
This period also saw Copeland compose the soundtrack for Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, his only video game soundtrack outside of the Spyro franchise to date. In 2000, he combined with Les Claypool of Primus (with whom he produced a track on the Primus album Antipop) and Trey Anastasio of Phish to create the band Oysterhead. That same year, he was approached by director Adam Collis to assemble the score for the film Sunset Strip.
Collaborations (2002–2006)
In 2002, Copeland was hired by Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors to play with them for a new album and tour, but after an injury sidelined Copeland, the arrangement ended in reciprocal lawsuits. In 2005, Copeland released "Orchestralli", a live recording of chamber ensemble music which he had composed during a short tour of Italy in 2002. Also in 2005, Copeland started Gizmo, a new project with avant-garde guitarist David Fiuczynski, multi-instrumentalist Vittorio Cosma, singer Raiz and bassist Max Gazzè. The band made their U.S debut on September 16, 2006, at the Modern Drummer Drum Festival. In January 2006, Copeland premiered his film about the Police called Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out at the Sundance Film Festival. In February and March, he appeared as one of the judges on the BBC television show Just the Two of Us (a role he later reprised for a second series in January 2007).
The Police reunion (2007–2008)
At the 2007 Grammy Awards, Copeland, Andy Summers and Sting performed the song "Roxanne" together again as the Police. This marked the band's first public performance since 1986 (they had previously reunited only for an improvised set at Sting's wedding party in 1992 and for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003). One day later, the band announced that in celebration of the Police's 30th anniversary, they would be embarking on what turned out to be a one-off reunion tour on May 28, 2007. During the tour, Copeland also released his compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology, which was composed of his independent work.
In 2007, the French government appointed Copeland (along with Police bandmates Summers and Sting) a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
The group performed 151 dates across five continents, concluding with a final show in August 2008 at Madison Square Garden, New York.
Projects (2008–present)
In 2008, RIM commissioned Copeland to write a "soundtrack" for the BlackBerry Bold smart phone. He created a highly percussive theme of one minute's length from which he evolved six ringtones and a softer 'alarm tone' that are preloaded on the device.
In March 2008, he premiered his orchestral composition "Celeste" at "An Evening with Stewart Copeland", part of the Savannah Music Festival. The performance featured classical violinist Daniel Hope. His appearance at Savannah included a screening of Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out and a question and answer session. Also in 2008, he was commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to create a percussion piece involving primarily Indonesian instruments. "Gamelan D'Drum" was first performed in Dallas on February 5, 2012, and had its European Premiere at the Royal Academy of Music in London in July 2012.
On August 21, 2009, at SummerFest 2009, Copeland unveiled the composition "Retail Therapy", which was commissioned by the Music Society. He performed three more original works: "Kaya", "Celeste", and "Gene Pool", the last accompanied by San Diego-based percussion ensemble red fish blue fish. He attended a composer's roundtable and a question and answer discussion in conjunction with the festival. Copeland wrote the score for a theatrical presentation of Ben-Hur, which premiered on September 17, 2009, at the O2 Arena in London. He provided English-language narration of the production, which is performed in Latin and Aramaic. His memoir Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies was released by Harper Collins in September 2009. The book chronicles events in his life from childhood through his work with the Police and to the present. In October 2009, he was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion program on BBC Radio 3.
On May 24, 2011, he started a YouTube channel devoted to his videos and project updates. On this channel, he uploads performances with various musicians, including Primus, Andy Summers, Jeff Lynne, Snoop Dogg, and others in his home studio, which he refers to as the Sacred Grove. On August 24, 2011, he was a featured soloist on the Late Show with David Letterman, as part of their second "Drum Solo Week".
On January 10, 2012, he appeared on an episode of the A&E reality series Storage Wars to appraise a drum set for Barry Weiss, buying a Turkish cymbal from the set for $40. In July he reunited with former Animal Logic bandmate Stanley Clarke for a European tour.
In May 2013, he and the Long Beach Opera premiered The Tale Tell Heart, an opera based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe.
On November 26, 2013, he appeared in the first episode of The Tim Ferriss Experiment.
In 2017, he formed the supergroup Gizmodrome with Adrian Belew, Vittorio Cosma, and Mark King and released an album of the same name.
On September 5, 2021, the opera Electric Saint about the life of Nikola Tesla by Copeland with libretto by Jonathan Moore premiered at the National Theater of Weimar.
Personal life
Copeland grew up in Beirut. In 1974, he became romantically involved with Curved Air vocalist Sonja Kristina; they were married from 1982 to 1991. He adopted her son Sven from a previous relationship, and they had two sons of their own named Jordan and Scott. In 1981, he fathered a son named Patrick with Marina Guinness, the daughter of Irish author Desmond Guinness. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his second wife, Fiona Dent, with whom he has three children named Eve, Grace, and Celeste.
Copeland's hobbies include rollerskating, cycling along the beach in Santa Monica, California, filmmaking, and playing polo. He is also active on his YouTube channel, where he uploads videos of himself and other musicians during jam sessions in his studio, the Sacred Grove.
Drumming style
Copeland grew up listening to a combination of Lebanese music, rock and roll, jazz, and reggae, but he selected from these styles what he needed rather than imitating them. In the 1980s, when many musicians were looking for bigger sound from bigger drums, he added Octobans. Invented by Tama Drums in 1978, Octobans consisted of eight six-inch drums in the shape of narrow tubes. He used another innovation, a splash cymbal based on a toy that he owned and that he helped Paiste design. He relied heavily on his 13" hi-hats.
Despite being left-handed, Copeland plays a right-handed drum kit, placing the hi-hats on his left and ride cymbal and floor toms on his right. He uses a wide dynamic range and demonstrates a proficiency of jazz-style articulation in his snare drum playing, interspersing strong back-beats with soft rim comping. During his years with the Police, he became known for engaging only the hi-hat with the bass drum to keep the beat.
In an interview with Modern Drummer, Copeland has cited Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience as a prime musical influence. He states that as a child, whenever he had a song or melody pop in his head, he would walk around wondering how Mitch Mitchell would drum to that particular tune. He also named Sandy Nelson and Ginger Baker as other fundamental influences in the youth years. He has stated that due to his 'enforced listening' of Buddy Rich, he considers himself 'allergic to jazz.'
He is noted for his strong emphasis on the groove as a complement to the song, rather than as its core component. He once drove this point home at a drum clinic: Copeland announced that he would show the audience something "that very few modern drummers can do" and proceeded to play a simple rock beat for two minutes. Nonetheless, his playing often incorporates spectacular fills and subtle inflections which greatly augment the groove. Compared to most of his 1980s contemporaries, his snare sound was bright and cutting. He is also one of the few rock drummers to use traditional grip rather than matched grip. He is also noted for syncopation in his drumming.
Equipment
Copeland's equipment includes Tama drums, Paiste cymbals, Remo drum heads, and Vater signature drum sticks.
Original live kit set-up (1984)
Tama Imperialstar Mahogany Drums (9-ply) and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Midnight Blue
10x8" Rack Tom
12x8" Rack Tom
13x9" Rack Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
14x5" Pearl Chrome over Brass Snare
22x14" Bass Drum
Tama Octobans Low Pitch (x4)
Cowbell
Wood Blocks
Cymbals – Paiste
13" Formula 602 Medium Hi-Hats
16" 2002 Crash
8" 2002 Bell
7.5 Ufip Ictus Bell
8" 2002 Splash (x2)
11" 2002 Splash
14" (or 16") Rude Crash/Ride
16" (or 18") Rude Crash/Ride
18" 2002 Medium
24" Rude Ride/Crash
20" 2002 China
Simmons (x2) Pads (to his left)
Assorted Percussion
Stewart also used Calato Regal Tip Rock Wood Tipped Drumsticks
The Police Reunion (2007–2008) tour kit
Tama Starclassic Maple Drums and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Custom Police Blue Sparkle Maple Wood
10x8" Tom
12x8" Tom (To the left of his snare drum)
13x9" Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
18x16" Floor Tom
20x14" Tama Gong Drum
22x18" Bass Drum
14x5" Tama SC145 Stewart Copeland Signature Snare
Tama Custom Police Blue Sparkle Octobans (x4) (custom made for Copeland)
Cymbals – Paiste
12" Prototype Micro Hi-Hats
16" Signature Full Crash
17" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Full Crash
18" 2002 Flat Ride (prototype)
22" Signature Blue Bell Ride
10" Signature Splash
8" Signature Bell
8" Signature Prototype Splash
Assorted percussion
Stewart also uses his own Vater Stewart Copeland Standard Sticks.
Discography
Studio albums
Film scores
TV series
Video games
See also
List of drummers
Membranophone (list of drums)
References
External links
Copeland's official site
1952 births
Living people
A&M Records artists
American expatriates in Egypt
American expatriates in Lebanon
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American film score composers
American male film score composers
American people of Scottish descent
American rock drummers
The Police members
Curved Air members
People educated at Millfield
Musicians from Alexandria, Virginia
Musicians from Beirut
Video game composers
United States International University alumni
Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
Copeland family
Oysterhead members
Gizmodrome members
Strontium 90 (band) members | false | [
"Hidden Valley is an unincorporated community in Jefferson Township, Somerset County, Pennsylvania, United States. The Hidden Valley Foundation is a large HOA (Home Owners Association) which comprises Hidden Valley, PA (15502) and the 1185 homes within its boundaries. The community is governed by an elected Board of Directors and is managed by a professional staff within the South Ridge Center. Hidden Valley provides the community with 24/7/365 services including private roads, grounds maintenance, security, social & recreational programs, amenities (pools, tennis courts, pickleball courts, play grounds, parks, trails, the Mountain Metric Bike Race, and others), Architectural Control and enforcement of the CCR's (Conditions, Covenants, and Restrictions) to maintain the HOA.\n\nFormally, Hidden Valley Foundation and the Hidden Valley Resort were one entity under developer control while Hidden Valley was building out. The developers control was sunsetted per the Declaration and as of January 1, 2020, the community of Hidden Valley through the Hidden Valley Foundation became a self governing community. The Hidden Valley Resort, a ski resort is located within the community, but is not part of the Hidden Valley Foundation (the HOA) along the southern side of Pennsylvania Route 31. The Pennsylvania Turnpike (Interstates 70/76) is within a few miles of the community, which lies in the Laurel Highlands. They also were expanding on the north side but was never successfull. So does anyone know what happened yes! I know from former research that the map changed they sold their company and were loosing money so decided to give up and sell it. Then the other thing is that there was thunderbird lift and that is now gone. Why well again they were wasting money and not many people rode on it anyways. If you’re interested in seeing a lift car go to the coffee shop called silver horse across the street from jumping jack’s and next door from foxes pizza.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nhttp://www.wunderground.com/US/PA/Hidden_Valley.html\n\nUnincorporated communities in Somerset County, Pennsylvania\nUnincorporated communities in Pennsylvania",
"Freedom Songs were songs which were sung by participants in the civil rights movement. They are also called \"civil rights anthems\" or, in the case of songs which are more hymn-like, they are called \"civil rights hymns.\"\n\nFreedom songs were an important feature of the way of life which existed during the civil rights movement. The songs contained many meanings for all of the participants in the civil rights movement. Songs could embody sadness, happiness, joy, or determination among many other feelings. Freedom songs served as mechanisms for unity in the black community during the movement. The songs also served as a means of communication among the movement's participants when words were not enough. The song \"We Shall Overcome\" quickly became the unofficial anthem of the movement. Guy Carawan taught the popular freedom song during the spring of 1960 in a workshop held at Highlander Folk School, making the song extremely popular within the community.\n\nMusic of the civil rights era was crucial to the productivity of the movement. Music communicated unspeakable feelings and the desire for radical change across the nation. Music strengthened the movement, adding variety to different freedom progression strategies. Music was highly successful in that the songs were direct and repetitive, clearly and efficiently getting the message across. The melodies were simple with repetitious choruses, which allowed easy involvement within both black and white communities, furthering the spread of their message. There was often more singing than talking during protests and demonstrations, showing how powerful the songs really were. Nurturing those who came to participate in the movement was vital, and it would be done with songs. Participants in the movement felt a sense of connectedness with one another and through the songs, they also felt a sense of connectedness with the movement . Politically, freedom songs were often sung in order to grab the attention of the nation and force it to address the severity of racial segregation in the United States.\n\nFrequently, the songs had a Christian background, they were usually based on hymns. The words of hymns were slightly altered so their wording could be incorporated into civil rights protests, and reflect current situations as they were sung outside churches, particularly in the streets. Although most freedom songs were derived from hymns, some freedom songs were also derived from other genres. In order to accommodate people who were not very religious, rock and roll songs were altered and turned into freedom songs, this allowed a large number of activists to partake in the singing.\n\nIn several cases, these songs began as gospel songs or spirituals, the most famous of these songs were \"We Shall Overcome,\" \"Keep Your Eyes on the Prize\", \"This Little Light of Mine\", and \"Go Tell it on the Mountain\".\n\nNina Simone and other professional artists are also known for either writing or singing such songs. Two of these songs are:\n \"Mississippi Goddam\", from Nina Simone in Concert (1964).\n \"To Be Young, Gifted and Black\", from Black Gold (1970).\n\nActivist Fannie Lou Hamer is known for singing songs at marches or other types of protests, particularly \"This Little Light of Mine.\" Zilphia Horton also played a role in the conversion of spirituals to civil rights songs.\n\nAdditional freedom songs\nSome 100 or so songs were commonly sung during the Civil Rights Movement protests which occurred during the 1960s. Some of the best-known or the most-influential songs are:\n \"A Change Is Gonna Come (song)\": Composed and performed by Sam Cooke; #12 on the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list of Rolling Stone magazine\n \"Oh, Freedom\": a spiritual dating back to slavery times\n \"Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round\"\n \"Certainly Lord\": based on a spiritual\n \"Hold On\" (also known as \"Keep Your Eye On The Prize\"): Based on a spiritual\n \"How I Got Over\"\n \"I Love Everybody\", the most important song in the civil rights movement according to SCLC's James Bevel and Andrew Young, sometimes sung for an hour at a time.\n \"If You Miss Me at the Back of the Bus\": Adapted from a composition by Chico Neblett\n \"I'm Gonna Sit at the Welcome Table\": Adapted from a Spiritual\n \"I Woke Up This Mornin'\": Adapted from a Spiritual\n \"Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing\": Composed by James Weldon Johnson\n \"This Little Light of Mine\": Originally a spiritual, associated with Fannie Lou Hamer.\n \"We shall not be moved\": Also, likely originally, a labor union song.\n \"If I had a hammer\": A labor union song by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays.\n \"Hymn to Freedom\": Composed and performed by Oscar Peterson\n\nSee also\n Civil rights movement in popular culture\n Music in the movement against apartheid\n \"Strange Fruit,\" a significant anti-racist protest song from the 1930s\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n Everybody Says Freedom, by Pete Seeger & Bob Reiser. Norton, 1989\n When the Spirit Says Sing! The Role of Freedom Songs in the Civil Rights Movement, by Kerran Sanger. Taylor & Francis Inc, 1995\n Sing for Freedom: the Story of the Civil Rights Movement Through its Songs, by Guy and Candie Carawan, Sing Out Corporation 1990\n Goertzen, Chris. \"Freedom Songs.\" Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Beliefs, Customs, Tales, Music, and Art. Ed. Charlie T. McCormick and Kim Kennedy White. 2nd ed. Vol. 2. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2011. 586–588. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 13 May 2014.\n\nExternal links\n The Songs – University of Illinois\n \"People Get Ready\": Music and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s – History Now\n PBS\n Coco Jams\n About.com Top 10 Civil Rights Songs\n The Power of Freedom Songs ~ Civil Rights Movement Archive\n The Mix: Songs Inspired By The Civil Rights Movement – A collection of 150 songs that were either sung during the movement or, afterwards, inspired by the movement. This list was produced by NPR Music to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Movement.\n\nHistory of African-American civil rights\nCivil rights movement in popular culture"
] |
[
"Stewart Copeland",
"The Police (1977-1986)",
"What is the relation between Stewart and The police?",
"1976, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands",
"Which song did the band release?",
"The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions, including the band's first single \"Fall Out\" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B side \"Nothing Achieving\".",
"Were the songs successful?",
"Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs",
"Which of his songs were more successful than the other?",
"Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are \"On Any Other Day\" (where he sang lead vocals too), \"Does Everyone Stare\" (",
"Did he work with other people outside his band?",
"Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one (\"Don't Care\") entering the UK Singles Chart that year,",
"Were the songs successfull?",
"Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's \"Don't Care\", which peaked at #48 UK in August 1978,"
] | C_2f61fdc69d1f4707a0c6b5ca6670aa46_1 | Did the band go on a tour? | 7 | Did the Police go on a tour? | Stewart Copeland | In late 1976, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the 1980s. The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he sang lead vocals too), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself". Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymously titled 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recorded at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at #48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978. In 1982 Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)--a collaboration between Copeland and singer/songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo--that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year. The Police stopped touring in 1984, and during this brief hiatus he released a solo album, The Rhythmatist. The record was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. He also starred in the film, which is "A musical odyssey through the heart of Africa in search of the roots of rock & roll." (Copeland is seen playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.) The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart. CANNOTANSWER | The Police stopped touring in 1984, and during this brief hiatus he released a solo album, The Rhythmatist. | Stewart Armstrong Copeland (born July 16, 1952) is an American musician and composer. He rose to prominence as the drummer of the British rock band The Police. He has also produced many film and video game soundtracks and written various pieces of music for ballet, opera, and orchestra. His composing work includes the films Wall Street (1987), Good Burger (1997), and We Are Your Friends (2015); the television series The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, and The Amanda Show; and the video games Alone in the Dark 4 and the Spyro series.
According to MusicRadar, Copeland's "distinctive drum sound and uniqueness of style has made him one of the most popular drummers to ever get behind a drumset". He was ranked the 10th best drummer of all time by Rolling Stone in 2016. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Police in 2003, the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2005, and the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013.
Early life
Stewart Armstrong Copeland was born in Alexandria, Virginia, on July 16, 1952, the youngest of four children of Scottish archaeologist Lorraine Adie and Alabama-born CIA officer Miles Copeland Jr. According to his 1989 biography and files released by the CIA in 2008, his father was a founding member of the OSS and the CIA. The family moved to Cairo a few months after Copeland's birth. When he was five years old, the family moved to Beirut, where he attended the American Community School. He started taking drum lessons at age 12 and was playing drums for school dances within a year. He later moved to England, attending the American School in London and Millfield boarding school in Somerset from 1967 to 1969. He went to college in California, enrolling at Alliant International University and the University of California, Berkeley. His eldest brother, Miles Copeland III, founded I.R.S. Records and became the manager of the Police. He has also overseen Copeland's interests in other music projects. His other brother, the late Ian Copeland, was a pioneering booking agent who represented the Police and many others.
Career
Curved Air (1975–1976)
Returning to England, Copeland worked as road manager for the progressive rock band Curved Air's 1974 reunion tour, and then as drummer for the band during 1975 and 1976. The band kicked off with a European tour, which started poorly. Band leader Darryl Way, a notorious perfectionist, grew impatient with the struggling of his bandmates, especially novice drummer Copeland. Then, for reasons no one could pinpoint, the musicians suddenly "clicked" with each other and the band caught fire, quickly becoming a popular and acclaimed live act.
The Police (1977–1986)
In early 1977, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Copeland was the youngest member of the band. The Police's early track list (before their album debut) was largely Copeland compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B-side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs together with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he also sang lead vocals), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself".
Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymous 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recording at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at No. 48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978.
In 1982, Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)—a collaboration between Copeland and singer-songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo—that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year.
The Rhythmatist record of 1985 was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. Copeland is seen in the film playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.
The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart.
Solo projects and movie soundtracks (1987–1998)
After the Police disbanded, Copeland established a career composing soundtracks for movies (Airborne, Talk Radio, Wall Street, Riff Raff, Raining Stones, Surviving the Game, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Highlander II: The Quickening, She's Having a Baby, The First Power, Fresh, Taking Care of Business, West Beirut, I am David, Riding the Bus with My Sister, Good Burger), television (The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, Star Wars: Droids, the pilot for Babylon 5 (1993), Nickelodeon's The Amanda Show, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee), operas (Holy Blood and Crescent Moon, commissioned by Cleveland Opera) and ballets (Prey' Ballet Oklahoma, Casque of Amontillado, Noah's Ark/Solcheeka, commissioned by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, King Lear, commissioned by the San Francisco Ballet Company, Emilio). In 1996, Copeland provided the score for The Leopard Son, Discovery Channel's its first commercially released full-length feature film, made by wildlife filmmaker Hugo van Lawick.
Copeland also occasionally played drums for other artists. Peter Gabriel employed Copeland to perform on his song "Red Rain" from his 1986 album So because of his "hi-hat mastery". He has also performed with Mike Rutherford and Tom Waits. That year he also teamed with Adam Ant to record the title track and video for the Anthony Michael Hall movie Out of Bounds. In 1989, Copeland formed Animal Logic with jazz bassist Stanley Clarke and singer-songwriter Deborah Holland. The trio had success with their first album and world tour but the follow-up recording sold poorly, and the band did not continue.
In 1993 he composed the music for Channel 4's Horse Opera and director Bob Baldwin, and in 1999, he provided the voice of an additional American soldier in the animated musical comedy war film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999).
Spyro the Dragon soundtracks (1998–2002, 2018)
He was commissioned by Insomniac Games in 1998 to make the musical score for the hit PlayStation game Spyro the Dragon. Copeland would play through the levels first to get a feel for each one before composing the soundtrack. He also stayed with the project to create the musical scores for the remaining Insomniac sequels Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. The franchise shifted over to Universal for the fourth title, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, which would be Copeland's last outing with the series. While the soundtracks never saw commercial release, the limited edition of the fourth game came packaged with a bonus CD, containing unused tracks. The soundtracks were very well received, and one track would later appear on the 2007 compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology. Copeland composed a new title theme for Spyro Reignited Trilogy.
This period also saw Copeland compose the soundtrack for Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, his only video game soundtrack outside of the Spyro franchise to date. In 2000, he combined with Les Claypool of Primus (with whom he produced a track on the Primus album Antipop) and Trey Anastasio of Phish to create the band Oysterhead. That same year, he was approached by director Adam Collis to assemble the score for the film Sunset Strip.
Collaborations (2002–2006)
In 2002, Copeland was hired by Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors to play with them for a new album and tour, but after an injury sidelined Copeland, the arrangement ended in reciprocal lawsuits. In 2005, Copeland released "Orchestralli", a live recording of chamber ensemble music which he had composed during a short tour of Italy in 2002. Also in 2005, Copeland started Gizmo, a new project with avant-garde guitarist David Fiuczynski, multi-instrumentalist Vittorio Cosma, singer Raiz and bassist Max Gazzè. The band made their U.S debut on September 16, 2006, at the Modern Drummer Drum Festival. In January 2006, Copeland premiered his film about the Police called Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out at the Sundance Film Festival. In February and March, he appeared as one of the judges on the BBC television show Just the Two of Us (a role he later reprised for a second series in January 2007).
The Police reunion (2007–2008)
At the 2007 Grammy Awards, Copeland, Andy Summers and Sting performed the song "Roxanne" together again as the Police. This marked the band's first public performance since 1986 (they had previously reunited only for an improvised set at Sting's wedding party in 1992 and for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003). One day later, the band announced that in celebration of the Police's 30th anniversary, they would be embarking on what turned out to be a one-off reunion tour on May 28, 2007. During the tour, Copeland also released his compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology, which was composed of his independent work.
In 2007, the French government appointed Copeland (along with Police bandmates Summers and Sting) a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
The group performed 151 dates across five continents, concluding with a final show in August 2008 at Madison Square Garden, New York.
Projects (2008–present)
In 2008, RIM commissioned Copeland to write a "soundtrack" for the BlackBerry Bold smart phone. He created a highly percussive theme of one minute's length from which he evolved six ringtones and a softer 'alarm tone' that are preloaded on the device.
In March 2008, he premiered his orchestral composition "Celeste" at "An Evening with Stewart Copeland", part of the Savannah Music Festival. The performance featured classical violinist Daniel Hope. His appearance at Savannah included a screening of Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out and a question and answer session. Also in 2008, he was commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to create a percussion piece involving primarily Indonesian instruments. "Gamelan D'Drum" was first performed in Dallas on February 5, 2012, and had its European Premiere at the Royal Academy of Music in London in July 2012.
On August 21, 2009, at SummerFest 2009, Copeland unveiled the composition "Retail Therapy", which was commissioned by the Music Society. He performed three more original works: "Kaya", "Celeste", and "Gene Pool", the last accompanied by San Diego-based percussion ensemble red fish blue fish. He attended a composer's roundtable and a question and answer discussion in conjunction with the festival. Copeland wrote the score for a theatrical presentation of Ben-Hur, which premiered on September 17, 2009, at the O2 Arena in London. He provided English-language narration of the production, which is performed in Latin and Aramaic. His memoir Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies was released by Harper Collins in September 2009. The book chronicles events in his life from childhood through his work with the Police and to the present. In October 2009, he was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion program on BBC Radio 3.
On May 24, 2011, he started a YouTube channel devoted to his videos and project updates. On this channel, he uploads performances with various musicians, including Primus, Andy Summers, Jeff Lynne, Snoop Dogg, and others in his home studio, which he refers to as the Sacred Grove. On August 24, 2011, he was a featured soloist on the Late Show with David Letterman, as part of their second "Drum Solo Week".
On January 10, 2012, he appeared on an episode of the A&E reality series Storage Wars to appraise a drum set for Barry Weiss, buying a Turkish cymbal from the set for $40. In July he reunited with former Animal Logic bandmate Stanley Clarke for a European tour.
In May 2013, he and the Long Beach Opera premiered The Tale Tell Heart, an opera based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe.
On November 26, 2013, he appeared in the first episode of The Tim Ferriss Experiment.
In 2017, he formed the supergroup Gizmodrome with Adrian Belew, Vittorio Cosma, and Mark King and released an album of the same name.
On September 5, 2021, the opera Electric Saint about the life of Nikola Tesla by Copeland with libretto by Jonathan Moore premiered at the National Theater of Weimar.
Personal life
Copeland grew up in Beirut. In 1974, he became romantically involved with Curved Air vocalist Sonja Kristina; they were married from 1982 to 1991. He adopted her son Sven from a previous relationship, and they had two sons of their own named Jordan and Scott. In 1981, he fathered a son named Patrick with Marina Guinness, the daughter of Irish author Desmond Guinness. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his second wife, Fiona Dent, with whom he has three children named Eve, Grace, and Celeste.
Copeland's hobbies include rollerskating, cycling along the beach in Santa Monica, California, filmmaking, and playing polo. He is also active on his YouTube channel, where he uploads videos of himself and other musicians during jam sessions in his studio, the Sacred Grove.
Drumming style
Copeland grew up listening to a combination of Lebanese music, rock and roll, jazz, and reggae, but he selected from these styles what he needed rather than imitating them. In the 1980s, when many musicians were looking for bigger sound from bigger drums, he added Octobans. Invented by Tama Drums in 1978, Octobans consisted of eight six-inch drums in the shape of narrow tubes. He used another innovation, a splash cymbal based on a toy that he owned and that he helped Paiste design. He relied heavily on his 13" hi-hats.
Despite being left-handed, Copeland plays a right-handed drum kit, placing the hi-hats on his left and ride cymbal and floor toms on his right. He uses a wide dynamic range and demonstrates a proficiency of jazz-style articulation in his snare drum playing, interspersing strong back-beats with soft rim comping. During his years with the Police, he became known for engaging only the hi-hat with the bass drum to keep the beat.
In an interview with Modern Drummer, Copeland has cited Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience as a prime musical influence. He states that as a child, whenever he had a song or melody pop in his head, he would walk around wondering how Mitch Mitchell would drum to that particular tune. He also named Sandy Nelson and Ginger Baker as other fundamental influences in the youth years. He has stated that due to his 'enforced listening' of Buddy Rich, he considers himself 'allergic to jazz.'
He is noted for his strong emphasis on the groove as a complement to the song, rather than as its core component. He once drove this point home at a drum clinic: Copeland announced that he would show the audience something "that very few modern drummers can do" and proceeded to play a simple rock beat for two minutes. Nonetheless, his playing often incorporates spectacular fills and subtle inflections which greatly augment the groove. Compared to most of his 1980s contemporaries, his snare sound was bright and cutting. He is also one of the few rock drummers to use traditional grip rather than matched grip. He is also noted for syncopation in his drumming.
Equipment
Copeland's equipment includes Tama drums, Paiste cymbals, Remo drum heads, and Vater signature drum sticks.
Original live kit set-up (1984)
Tama Imperialstar Mahogany Drums (9-ply) and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Midnight Blue
10x8" Rack Tom
12x8" Rack Tom
13x9" Rack Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
14x5" Pearl Chrome over Brass Snare
22x14" Bass Drum
Tama Octobans Low Pitch (x4)
Cowbell
Wood Blocks
Cymbals – Paiste
13" Formula 602 Medium Hi-Hats
16" 2002 Crash
8" 2002 Bell
7.5 Ufip Ictus Bell
8" 2002 Splash (x2)
11" 2002 Splash
14" (or 16") Rude Crash/Ride
16" (or 18") Rude Crash/Ride
18" 2002 Medium
24" Rude Ride/Crash
20" 2002 China
Simmons (x2) Pads (to his left)
Assorted Percussion
Stewart also used Calato Regal Tip Rock Wood Tipped Drumsticks
The Police Reunion (2007–2008) tour kit
Tama Starclassic Maple Drums and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Custom Police Blue Sparkle Maple Wood
10x8" Tom
12x8" Tom (To the left of his snare drum)
13x9" Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
18x16" Floor Tom
20x14" Tama Gong Drum
22x18" Bass Drum
14x5" Tama SC145 Stewart Copeland Signature Snare
Tama Custom Police Blue Sparkle Octobans (x4) (custom made for Copeland)
Cymbals – Paiste
12" Prototype Micro Hi-Hats
16" Signature Full Crash
17" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Full Crash
18" 2002 Flat Ride (prototype)
22" Signature Blue Bell Ride
10" Signature Splash
8" Signature Bell
8" Signature Prototype Splash
Assorted percussion
Stewart also uses his own Vater Stewart Copeland Standard Sticks.
Discography
Studio albums
Film scores
TV series
Video games
See also
List of drummers
Membranophone (list of drums)
References
External links
Copeland's official site
1952 births
Living people
A&M Records artists
American expatriates in Egypt
American expatriates in Lebanon
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American film score composers
American male film score composers
American people of Scottish descent
American rock drummers
The Police members
Curved Air members
People educated at Millfield
Musicians from Alexandria, Virginia
Musicians from Beirut
Video game composers
United States International University alumni
Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
Copeland family
Oysterhead members
Gizmodrome members
Strontium 90 (band) members | false | [
"We All Need a Reason to Believe is the second studio album by American pop punk band Valencia. It was produced by Ariel Rechtshaid, who has done projects for We Are Scientists and Plain White T's. An early review from AbsolutePunk writer Drew Beringer stated the release proved Valencia is \"a band that can breathe new life into pop-punk\".\n\nThe album title comes from lyrics in the second track, \"Holiday\".\n\nRelease\nIn early April 2008, the band appeared at the Bamboozle Left festival. On April 8, the band posted a rough mix of \"Holiday\" online. It was mentioned that the track would feature on the band's next album, which was planned for release in late summer/early fall. In July, the band supported All Time Low on their headlining US tour. We All Need a Reason to Believe was made available for streaming on August 19 through the band's Myspace profile, before being released on August 26 through major label Columbia Records. In October and November, the band supported Bayside on their headlining US tour. On November 21, the band released a music video for \"Where Did You Go?\". In January and February 2009, the band went on a headlining tour of the US with support from Houston Calls. In February and March, the band toured Australia as part of the Soundwave festival. On April 30, a music video was released for \"The Good Life\". The band appeared at The Bamboozle festival in early May. Between late June and late August, the band performed on the Warped Tour.\n\nTrack listing\n \"Better Be Prepared\" — 3:09\n \"Holiday\" — 2:58\n \"Where Did You Go?\" (featuring Rachel Minton of Zolof the Rock & Roll Destroyer) — 3:21\n \"Head in Hands\" — 2:56\n \"Carry On\" — 3:41\n \"All at Once\" — 3:27\n \"Safe to Say\" — 3:21\n \"Listen Up\" (featuring Kenny Vasoli of The Starting Line) — 3:39 \n \"I Can't See Myself\" — 3:39\n \"The Good Life\" — 4:02\n \"Free\" — 4:18\n\nBonus track\n \"Running Away\" – 3:30\n\nWe All Need a Reason to B-Side\n \"When Words Fail, This Music Speaks\" — 2:41\n \"Working\" — 2:32\n \"Running Away\" — 3:33\n \"A Better Place to Land\" — 3:26\n\nPersonnel\n Shane Henderson — vocals\n JD Perry — guitar\n Maxim Soria — drums\n George Ciukurescu — bass\n Brendan Walter — guitar\n Kenny Vasoli (The Starting Line) — guest vocals on \"Listen Up\"\n Rachel Minton (Zolof the Rock & Roll Destroyer) — guest vocals on \"Where Did You Go?\"\n Dana Nielsen — engineer\n\nReferences\n\n2008 albums\nValencia (band) albums\nColumbia Records albums",
"Go Radio is an American rock band from Tallahassee, Florida, formed by former Mayday Parade vocalist, guitarist and lyricist Jason Lancaster in April 2007.\n\nThe band toured with The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, A Day to Remember, as well as Mayday Parade. They played the entire Vans Warped Tour in 2011, and again during 2013, which was their last tour as a band.\n\nThe band announced that they would break-up on October 6, 2013. The disbandment was apparently due to the lead singer, Jason Lancaster, setting priorities and putting his family first. Lancaster said in an interview on The Gunz Show that this reason for the band's break up was completely false. Jason has no intention of stopping with his music and is writing new music. Lancaster said that he felt Go Radio had run its course as a band and it was time to move on to the next chapter of his life. When they parted, each of the band members planned to continue making music on their own. \n\nIn September 2019, the band announced they had re-united and would begin making music again and were \"sharing ideas and working on songs.\"\n\nHistory\n\nFormation and Welcome to Life (2007–09)\nGo Radio formed in January 2007 before Jason Lancaster left Mayday Parade. Together with Matt 'Burns' Poulos, as well as Steven Kopacz and Patrick Hosey of the Florida band Don't Die Cindy, Lancaster started Go Radio. The name \"Go Radio\" was originally going to be the name of a Mayday Parade side project of Lancaster's. Hosey left the band in late 2007, and was replaced by Tony Planas.\n\nIn 2008 Go Radio released their debut EP Welcome to Life. Planas left the band in late 2008, and was replaced by Alex Reed, formerly of the Michigan band \"Carawae\". Reed contacted the band through Myspace and originally joined only as a touring guitarist, but was later promoted to a full-time member.\n\nDo Overs and Second Chances (2009–10)\nOn September 8, 2009 the band released their first studio update. They revealed that they were in the process of recording a new EP with producers Zack Odom and Kenneth Mount, both of whom produced Mayday Parade's A Lesson in Romantics (2007). On October 5, 2009, Go Radio released two of the songs from the EP on their Myspace. The band then signed to Fearless on January 21, 2010 and went on to release Do Overs and Second Chances as their Fearless debut on April 20, 2010.\n\nLucky Street (2010–11)\nIn the July 2010 issue of Alternative Press Lancaster revealed that he had begun writing for Go Radio's debut album for Fearless. On August 31, 2010 in Brooklyn, NY the band headed into the studio with Tim O'Heir. They finished recording on September 29, 2010. The resulting album, Lucky Street was released on March 1, 2011. The album was very well received by critics, and debuted number 77 on the US Billboard 200 and debuted within the top 20 of the US Billboard Rock, Independent, and Alternative Albums charts. On June 6, 2011, a music video for the single \"Any Other Heart\" premiered on Vevo.\n\nIn the summer of 2011 they played the entire Vans Warped Tour on the Nintendo 3DS Stage. Their next tour will be the first one that takes them overseas as they head to Australia to take part in the Soundwave Counter-Revolution mini-festival from September 24, 2011 until October 12, 2011.\n\nGo Radio announced the release of a deluxe edition of Lucky Street on October 24, 2011. It contains 8 tracks not seen on the original version of the album.\n\nClose the Distance (2012–13)\nIn early 2012 the band began demoing new songs for their second studio full length.\n\nOn March 1, 2012 Jason Lancaster announced that the band had finished recording. On April 20, 2012, the album is title Close the Distance was announced with a release date of August 14, 2012. The release date was pushed back to September 18, 2012. On July 16 the new release date was confirmed and the band announced their album art and track listing along with a preview for their first song \"Collide.\".\nTo promote their album, Go Radio started a share contest in which fans had the chance to unlock the new song off Close the Distance when the number of views, shares, and newsletter signups in total reached 20,000.\n\nOn July 18, two days after the contest started, fans had already reached the goal and the song premiered on Alternative Press magazine's website\n\nThe band joined the Vans Warped Tour for all of its 2013 tenure. This was their last major tour prior to their break up in October.\n\nHiatus (2013-19)\nOn October 6, 2013, the band announced their breakup, the band cited Lancaster's desire to settle down with his wife. Lancaster has stated that he will continue to make music on his own, realising his solo album, As You Are in mid-2014. Kopacz joined Anarbor as a touring drummer. Alex Reed joined another band from Tallahassee, Stages & Stereos as a guitarist.\n\nReunion (2019-present)\nOn September 29, 2019, the band announced that they have reunited and are currently working on new music. On November 25, 2019, the band released \"Goodnight Moon\", a fan favorite from Do Overs and Second Chances, as a single to celebrate their reunion. Paired with it was \"Say It Again\", their first new recording since their breakup in 2013. On July 24, 2020, the band released another single entitled \"So Love\".\n\nBand members\n\nCurrent members\n Jason Lancaster – lead vocals, piano, rhythm guitar (2007–13; 2019–present)\n Matt \"Burns\" Poulos – bass guitar, backing vocals (2007–13; 2019–present)\n Steven Kopacz – drums, percussion (2007–13; 2019–present)\n Alex Reed – lead guitar, backing vocals (2009–13; 2019–present)\n\nFormer members\n Patrick Hosey – lead guitar, backing vocals (2007)\n Tony Planas – lead guitar, backing vocals (2007–08)\n\nDiscography\n\nStudio albums\n\nEPs\n\nSingles\n\nEarly unreleased demos\n \"Hollie Ollie Oxen Free\"\n \"That California Song\"\n \"I Wish It Would Snow\"\n\nCompilation appearances\n 'Tis The Season To Be Fearless with \"O Holy Night\", originally composed by Adolphe Adam.\n Punk Goes Pop 4 with \"Rolling in the Deep\" (Adele cover)\n\nTours\n\n2008\n The Scenic, Lannen Fall, The July Week – To Catch a Preda-Tour (supporting act, U.S.)\n\n2009\n The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus – Kick Your Own Ass Tour (opening act, 5/5 - 5/28 and 8/02 - 8/22 and 9/18, U.S.)\n\n2010\n A Day to Remember – Toursick 2010 (opening act, 4/19 - 5/16, U.S.)\n The Dangerous Summer – Reach for the Sun Tour 2010 (supporting act, 7/10 - 7/17, U.S.)\nSecondhand Serenade – Summer Tour (opening act, 7/20 - 8/8, U.S.)\n Mayday Parade – Fearless Friends Tour (opening act, supporting act on select dates, 10/13 – 11/28, U.S.)\n\n2011\n Emarosa w/ Chiodos, Go Radio, Decoder (supporting act, 2/15 - 3/5, U.S.)\n A Rocket to the Moon – On Your Side Tour (supporting act, 3/15 - 4/23, U.S.)\n Go Radio w/ Sparks the Rescue, This Century, Select Start – District Lines Tour (headliner, 5/5 - 5/28, U.S.)\n Warped Tour 2011 – Warped Tour 2011 (6/24 - 8/14, U.S. and Canada)\n Counter-Revolution - Counter-Revolution - (9/24, 9/25, 9/30, 10/2, 10/3, Australia) \n Yellowcard - Yellowcard Fall Tour (supporting act, 10/8 - 11/18, U.S and Canada)\n\n2012\n Go Radio w/ This Providence, Tyler Carter (ex-Woe, Is Me), Simple As Surgery, and Ivory Lights - Lucky Street Tour (headliner, 3/20 - 5/13, U.S) \n SafetySuit - Fall Tour (direct support, 9/7 - 10/5, U.S)\n Go Radio w/ Paradise Fears and Stages and Stereos - #GoToHell Tour (headliner, 11/2 - 12/4, U.S)\n\n2013\n The Summer Set w/ We Are the In Crowd, Go Radio and For the Foxes - Wake Up & Be Awesome Tour (supporting act, 2/21 - 3/30, U.S)\n Warped Tour 2013 – Warped Tour 2013 (6/15 - 8/4, U.S. and Canada)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n\nAlternative rock groups from Florida\nAmerican pop rock music groups\nFearless Records artists\nMusical groups established in 2007\nMusical groups from Tallahassee, Florida\nMusical quartets\nMusical groups disestablished in 2013\nMusical groups reestablished in 2019\n2007 establishments in Florida\n2013 disestablishments in Florida"
] |
[
"Stewart Copeland",
"The Police (1977-1986)",
"What is the relation between Stewart and The police?",
"1976, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands",
"Which song did the band release?",
"The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions, including the band's first single \"Fall Out\" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B side \"Nothing Achieving\".",
"Were the songs successful?",
"Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs",
"Which of his songs were more successful than the other?",
"Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are \"On Any Other Day\" (where he sang lead vocals too), \"Does Everyone Stare\" (",
"Did he work with other people outside his band?",
"Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one (\"Don't Care\") entering the UK Singles Chart that year,",
"Were the songs successfull?",
"Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's \"Don't Care\", which peaked at #48 UK in August 1978,",
"Did the band go on a tour?",
"The Police stopped touring in 1984, and during this brief hiatus he released a solo album, The Rhythmatist."
] | C_2f61fdc69d1f4707a0c6b5ca6670aa46_1 | What did they do when they stopped touring? | 8 | What did the Police do when they stopped touring? | Stewart Copeland | In late 1976, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the 1980s. The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he sang lead vocals too), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself". Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymously titled 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recorded at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at #48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978. In 1982 Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)--a collaboration between Copeland and singer/songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo--that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year. The Police stopped touring in 1984, and during this brief hiatus he released a solo album, The Rhythmatist. The record was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. He also starred in the film, which is "A musical odyssey through the heart of Africa in search of the roots of rock & roll." (Copeland is seen playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.) The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart. CANNOTANSWER | The record was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments | Stewart Armstrong Copeland (born July 16, 1952) is an American musician and composer. He rose to prominence as the drummer of the British rock band The Police. He has also produced many film and video game soundtracks and written various pieces of music for ballet, opera, and orchestra. His composing work includes the films Wall Street (1987), Good Burger (1997), and We Are Your Friends (2015); the television series The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, and The Amanda Show; and the video games Alone in the Dark 4 and the Spyro series.
According to MusicRadar, Copeland's "distinctive drum sound and uniqueness of style has made him one of the most popular drummers to ever get behind a drumset". He was ranked the 10th best drummer of all time by Rolling Stone in 2016. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Police in 2003, the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2005, and the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013.
Early life
Stewart Armstrong Copeland was born in Alexandria, Virginia, on July 16, 1952, the youngest of four children of Scottish archaeologist Lorraine Adie and Alabama-born CIA officer Miles Copeland Jr. According to his 1989 biography and files released by the CIA in 2008, his father was a founding member of the OSS and the CIA. The family moved to Cairo a few months after Copeland's birth. When he was five years old, the family moved to Beirut, where he attended the American Community School. He started taking drum lessons at age 12 and was playing drums for school dances within a year. He later moved to England, attending the American School in London and Millfield boarding school in Somerset from 1967 to 1969. He went to college in California, enrolling at Alliant International University and the University of California, Berkeley. His eldest brother, Miles Copeland III, founded I.R.S. Records and became the manager of the Police. He has also overseen Copeland's interests in other music projects. His other brother, the late Ian Copeland, was a pioneering booking agent who represented the Police and many others.
Career
Curved Air (1975–1976)
Returning to England, Copeland worked as road manager for the progressive rock band Curved Air's 1974 reunion tour, and then as drummer for the band during 1975 and 1976. The band kicked off with a European tour, which started poorly. Band leader Darryl Way, a notorious perfectionist, grew impatient with the struggling of his bandmates, especially novice drummer Copeland. Then, for reasons no one could pinpoint, the musicians suddenly "clicked" with each other and the band caught fire, quickly becoming a popular and acclaimed live act.
The Police (1977–1986)
In early 1977, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Copeland was the youngest member of the band. The Police's early track list (before their album debut) was largely Copeland compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B-side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs together with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he also sang lead vocals), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself".
Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymous 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recording at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at No. 48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978.
In 1982, Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)—a collaboration between Copeland and singer-songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo—that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year.
The Rhythmatist record of 1985 was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. Copeland is seen in the film playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.
The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart.
Solo projects and movie soundtracks (1987–1998)
After the Police disbanded, Copeland established a career composing soundtracks for movies (Airborne, Talk Radio, Wall Street, Riff Raff, Raining Stones, Surviving the Game, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Highlander II: The Quickening, She's Having a Baby, The First Power, Fresh, Taking Care of Business, West Beirut, I am David, Riding the Bus with My Sister, Good Burger), television (The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, Star Wars: Droids, the pilot for Babylon 5 (1993), Nickelodeon's The Amanda Show, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee), operas (Holy Blood and Crescent Moon, commissioned by Cleveland Opera) and ballets (Prey' Ballet Oklahoma, Casque of Amontillado, Noah's Ark/Solcheeka, commissioned by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, King Lear, commissioned by the San Francisco Ballet Company, Emilio). In 1996, Copeland provided the score for The Leopard Son, Discovery Channel's its first commercially released full-length feature film, made by wildlife filmmaker Hugo van Lawick.
Copeland also occasionally played drums for other artists. Peter Gabriel employed Copeland to perform on his song "Red Rain" from his 1986 album So because of his "hi-hat mastery". He has also performed with Mike Rutherford and Tom Waits. That year he also teamed with Adam Ant to record the title track and video for the Anthony Michael Hall movie Out of Bounds. In 1989, Copeland formed Animal Logic with jazz bassist Stanley Clarke and singer-songwriter Deborah Holland. The trio had success with their first album and world tour but the follow-up recording sold poorly, and the band did not continue.
In 1993 he composed the music for Channel 4's Horse Opera and director Bob Baldwin, and in 1999, he provided the voice of an additional American soldier in the animated musical comedy war film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999).
Spyro the Dragon soundtracks (1998–2002, 2018)
He was commissioned by Insomniac Games in 1998 to make the musical score for the hit PlayStation game Spyro the Dragon. Copeland would play through the levels first to get a feel for each one before composing the soundtrack. He also stayed with the project to create the musical scores for the remaining Insomniac sequels Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. The franchise shifted over to Universal for the fourth title, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, which would be Copeland's last outing with the series. While the soundtracks never saw commercial release, the limited edition of the fourth game came packaged with a bonus CD, containing unused tracks. The soundtracks were very well received, and one track would later appear on the 2007 compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology. Copeland composed a new title theme for Spyro Reignited Trilogy.
This period also saw Copeland compose the soundtrack for Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, his only video game soundtrack outside of the Spyro franchise to date. In 2000, he combined with Les Claypool of Primus (with whom he produced a track on the Primus album Antipop) and Trey Anastasio of Phish to create the band Oysterhead. That same year, he was approached by director Adam Collis to assemble the score for the film Sunset Strip.
Collaborations (2002–2006)
In 2002, Copeland was hired by Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors to play with them for a new album and tour, but after an injury sidelined Copeland, the arrangement ended in reciprocal lawsuits. In 2005, Copeland released "Orchestralli", a live recording of chamber ensemble music which he had composed during a short tour of Italy in 2002. Also in 2005, Copeland started Gizmo, a new project with avant-garde guitarist David Fiuczynski, multi-instrumentalist Vittorio Cosma, singer Raiz and bassist Max Gazzè. The band made their U.S debut on September 16, 2006, at the Modern Drummer Drum Festival. In January 2006, Copeland premiered his film about the Police called Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out at the Sundance Film Festival. In February and March, he appeared as one of the judges on the BBC television show Just the Two of Us (a role he later reprised for a second series in January 2007).
The Police reunion (2007–2008)
At the 2007 Grammy Awards, Copeland, Andy Summers and Sting performed the song "Roxanne" together again as the Police. This marked the band's first public performance since 1986 (they had previously reunited only for an improvised set at Sting's wedding party in 1992 and for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003). One day later, the band announced that in celebration of the Police's 30th anniversary, they would be embarking on what turned out to be a one-off reunion tour on May 28, 2007. During the tour, Copeland also released his compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology, which was composed of his independent work.
In 2007, the French government appointed Copeland (along with Police bandmates Summers and Sting) a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
The group performed 151 dates across five continents, concluding with a final show in August 2008 at Madison Square Garden, New York.
Projects (2008–present)
In 2008, RIM commissioned Copeland to write a "soundtrack" for the BlackBerry Bold smart phone. He created a highly percussive theme of one minute's length from which he evolved six ringtones and a softer 'alarm tone' that are preloaded on the device.
In March 2008, he premiered his orchestral composition "Celeste" at "An Evening with Stewart Copeland", part of the Savannah Music Festival. The performance featured classical violinist Daniel Hope. His appearance at Savannah included a screening of Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out and a question and answer session. Also in 2008, he was commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to create a percussion piece involving primarily Indonesian instruments. "Gamelan D'Drum" was first performed in Dallas on February 5, 2012, and had its European Premiere at the Royal Academy of Music in London in July 2012.
On August 21, 2009, at SummerFest 2009, Copeland unveiled the composition "Retail Therapy", which was commissioned by the Music Society. He performed three more original works: "Kaya", "Celeste", and "Gene Pool", the last accompanied by San Diego-based percussion ensemble red fish blue fish. He attended a composer's roundtable and a question and answer discussion in conjunction with the festival. Copeland wrote the score for a theatrical presentation of Ben-Hur, which premiered on September 17, 2009, at the O2 Arena in London. He provided English-language narration of the production, which is performed in Latin and Aramaic. His memoir Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies was released by Harper Collins in September 2009. The book chronicles events in his life from childhood through his work with the Police and to the present. In October 2009, he was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion program on BBC Radio 3.
On May 24, 2011, he started a YouTube channel devoted to his videos and project updates. On this channel, he uploads performances with various musicians, including Primus, Andy Summers, Jeff Lynne, Snoop Dogg, and others in his home studio, which he refers to as the Sacred Grove. On August 24, 2011, he was a featured soloist on the Late Show with David Letterman, as part of their second "Drum Solo Week".
On January 10, 2012, he appeared on an episode of the A&E reality series Storage Wars to appraise a drum set for Barry Weiss, buying a Turkish cymbal from the set for $40. In July he reunited with former Animal Logic bandmate Stanley Clarke for a European tour.
In May 2013, he and the Long Beach Opera premiered The Tale Tell Heart, an opera based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe.
On November 26, 2013, he appeared in the first episode of The Tim Ferriss Experiment.
In 2017, he formed the supergroup Gizmodrome with Adrian Belew, Vittorio Cosma, and Mark King and released an album of the same name.
On September 5, 2021, the opera Electric Saint about the life of Nikola Tesla by Copeland with libretto by Jonathan Moore premiered at the National Theater of Weimar.
Personal life
Copeland grew up in Beirut. In 1974, he became romantically involved with Curved Air vocalist Sonja Kristina; they were married from 1982 to 1991. He adopted her son Sven from a previous relationship, and they had two sons of their own named Jordan and Scott. In 1981, he fathered a son named Patrick with Marina Guinness, the daughter of Irish author Desmond Guinness. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his second wife, Fiona Dent, with whom he has three children named Eve, Grace, and Celeste.
Copeland's hobbies include rollerskating, cycling along the beach in Santa Monica, California, filmmaking, and playing polo. He is also active on his YouTube channel, where he uploads videos of himself and other musicians during jam sessions in his studio, the Sacred Grove.
Drumming style
Copeland grew up listening to a combination of Lebanese music, rock and roll, jazz, and reggae, but he selected from these styles what he needed rather than imitating them. In the 1980s, when many musicians were looking for bigger sound from bigger drums, he added Octobans. Invented by Tama Drums in 1978, Octobans consisted of eight six-inch drums in the shape of narrow tubes. He used another innovation, a splash cymbal based on a toy that he owned and that he helped Paiste design. He relied heavily on his 13" hi-hats.
Despite being left-handed, Copeland plays a right-handed drum kit, placing the hi-hats on his left and ride cymbal and floor toms on his right. He uses a wide dynamic range and demonstrates a proficiency of jazz-style articulation in his snare drum playing, interspersing strong back-beats with soft rim comping. During his years with the Police, he became known for engaging only the hi-hat with the bass drum to keep the beat.
In an interview with Modern Drummer, Copeland has cited Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience as a prime musical influence. He states that as a child, whenever he had a song or melody pop in his head, he would walk around wondering how Mitch Mitchell would drum to that particular tune. He also named Sandy Nelson and Ginger Baker as other fundamental influences in the youth years. He has stated that due to his 'enforced listening' of Buddy Rich, he considers himself 'allergic to jazz.'
He is noted for his strong emphasis on the groove as a complement to the song, rather than as its core component. He once drove this point home at a drum clinic: Copeland announced that he would show the audience something "that very few modern drummers can do" and proceeded to play a simple rock beat for two minutes. Nonetheless, his playing often incorporates spectacular fills and subtle inflections which greatly augment the groove. Compared to most of his 1980s contemporaries, his snare sound was bright and cutting. He is also one of the few rock drummers to use traditional grip rather than matched grip. He is also noted for syncopation in his drumming.
Equipment
Copeland's equipment includes Tama drums, Paiste cymbals, Remo drum heads, and Vater signature drum sticks.
Original live kit set-up (1984)
Tama Imperialstar Mahogany Drums (9-ply) and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Midnight Blue
10x8" Rack Tom
12x8" Rack Tom
13x9" Rack Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
14x5" Pearl Chrome over Brass Snare
22x14" Bass Drum
Tama Octobans Low Pitch (x4)
Cowbell
Wood Blocks
Cymbals – Paiste
13" Formula 602 Medium Hi-Hats
16" 2002 Crash
8" 2002 Bell
7.5 Ufip Ictus Bell
8" 2002 Splash (x2)
11" 2002 Splash
14" (or 16") Rude Crash/Ride
16" (or 18") Rude Crash/Ride
18" 2002 Medium
24" Rude Ride/Crash
20" 2002 China
Simmons (x2) Pads (to his left)
Assorted Percussion
Stewart also used Calato Regal Tip Rock Wood Tipped Drumsticks
The Police Reunion (2007–2008) tour kit
Tama Starclassic Maple Drums and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Custom Police Blue Sparkle Maple Wood
10x8" Tom
12x8" Tom (To the left of his snare drum)
13x9" Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
18x16" Floor Tom
20x14" Tama Gong Drum
22x18" Bass Drum
14x5" Tama SC145 Stewart Copeland Signature Snare
Tama Custom Police Blue Sparkle Octobans (x4) (custom made for Copeland)
Cymbals – Paiste
12" Prototype Micro Hi-Hats
16" Signature Full Crash
17" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Full Crash
18" 2002 Flat Ride (prototype)
22" Signature Blue Bell Ride
10" Signature Splash
8" Signature Bell
8" Signature Prototype Splash
Assorted percussion
Stewart also uses his own Vater Stewart Copeland Standard Sticks.
Discography
Studio albums
Film scores
TV series
Video games
See also
List of drummers
Membranophone (list of drums)
References
External links
Copeland's official site
1952 births
Living people
A&M Records artists
American expatriates in Egypt
American expatriates in Lebanon
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American film score composers
American male film score composers
American people of Scottish descent
American rock drummers
The Police members
Curved Air members
People educated at Millfield
Musicians from Alexandria, Virginia
Musicians from Beirut
Video game composers
United States International University alumni
Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
Copeland family
Oysterhead members
Gizmodrome members
Strontium 90 (band) members | false | [
"The 2017 TCR Ibérico Touring Car Series season was the first season of the TCR Iberico Touring Car Series, a merger of the TCR Spain and TCR Portugal series. The championship started at Autódromo do Estoril in Portugal on 30 April and ended at Algarve International Circuit in Portugal on 22 October.\n\nTeams and drivers\nHankook is the official tyre supplier.\n\nCalendar and results\nThe 2017 schedule was announced on 8 November 2016, with four event in Portugal and three events in Spain. The Portuguese rounds will count towards the TCR Portugal standings, while the Spanish rounds will cound towards the TCR Spain standings. An overall title will also be available.\n\nChampionship standings\n\nTCR Ibérico Touring Car Series\n\nDrivers' championship\n\nScoring systems\n\n† – Drivers did not finish the race, but were classified as they completed over 75% of the race distance.\n\nClass 2\n\nTCR Portugal Touring Car Championship\n\nDrivers' championship\n\n† – Drivers did not finish the race, but were classified as they completed over 75% of the race distance.\n\nTCR Spain Touring Car Championship\n\nDrivers' championship\n\n† – Drivers did not finish the race, but were classified as they completed over 75% of the race distance.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n \n\nIbérico Touring Car Series\n2017 in Portuguese motorsport\n2017 in Spanish motorsport",
"This article describes some of the 2019 seasons of TCR Series across the world.\n\nVLN TCR Class\n\nThe 2019 Veranstaltergemeinschaft Langstreckenpokal Nürburgring TCR Class was the third season for the TCR Class in the championship.\n\nTeams and drivers\n\nSome TCR cars come in other VLN classes.\n\nCalendar and results\n\nUAE Touring Car Championship \nThe 2018–19 UAE Touring Car Championship (also called NGK UAE Touring Car Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the 11th season of the UAE Touring Car Championship and the first that TCR class was featured.\n\nTeams and drivers \nAll teams are UAE–registered.\n\nCalendar and results \nAll Rounds are held in the United Arab Emirates.\n\nChampionship standings\n\nTCR Baltic Trophy \nThe 2019 TCR Baltic Trophy will be the third season of TCR Baltic Trophy, which is contested within the Baltic Touring Car Championship events. There will be also a standalone endurance class, which is contested within the supporting NEZ Endurance Championship. The winner of TCR Baltic in 2019 was Džiugas Tovilavičius.\n\nTeams and drivers\n\nCalendar and results \n\nScoring system\n\nChampionship standings \n\n† – Drivers did not finish the race, but were classified as they completed over 75% of the race distance.\n\nTCR Ibérico Touring Car Series \nThe 2019 TCR Ibérico Touring Car Series season was the third season of the TCR Ibérico Touring Car Series. The championship started at Circuito do Estoril in Portugal on 13 April and ended at Algarve International Circuit in Portugal on 26 October.\n\nCalendar and results\n\nChampionship standings \n\n† – Drivers did not finish the race, but were classified as they completed over 75% of the race distance.\n\nTCR Spa 500\n\nFIA Motorsport Games Touring Car Cup\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n \n \n\n2019"
] |
[
"Alison Krauss",
"1992-1999: Rising success"
] | C_9547d7ab1ed8495b9e4084ea1f45e747_0 | what happened in 1992 | 1 | What happened in 1992 for Alison Krauss? | Alison Krauss | Krauss' second Union Station album Every Time You Say Goodbye was released in 1992, and she went on to win her second Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album of the year. She then joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1993 at the age of 21. She was the youngest cast member at the time, and the first bluegrass artist to join the Opry in twenty-nine years. She also collaborated on a project with the Cox Family in 1994, a bluegrass album called I Know Who Holds Tomorrow. Mandolin and guitar player Dan Tyminski replaced Tim Stafford in Union Station in 1994. Late in the year, Krauss recorded with the band Shenandoah on its single "Somewhere in the Vicinity of the Heart", which brought her to the country music Top Ten for the first time and it won the Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Also in 1994, Krauss collaborated with Suzy Bogguss, Kathy Mattea, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to contribute "Teach Your Children" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization. In 1997, she recorded vocals and violin for "Half a Mind", on Tommy Shaw's 7 Deadly Zens album. Now That I've Found You: A Collection, a compilation of older releases and some covers of her favorite works by other artists, was released in 1995. Some of these covers include Bad Company's "Oh Atlanta", The Foundations' & Dan Schafer's "Baby, Now That I've Found You", which was used in the Australian hit comedy movie The Castle, and The Beatles' "I Will". A cover of Keith Whitley's "When You Say Nothing at All" reached number three on the Billboard country chart; the album peaked in the top fifteen on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, and sold two million copies to become Krauss' first double-platinum album. Krauss also was nominated for four Country Music Association Awards and won all of them. So Long So Wrong, another Union Station album, was released in 1997 and won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. One critic said its sound was "rather untraditional" and "likely [to] change quite a few ... minds about bluegrass." Included on the album is the track "It Doesn't Matter", which was featured in the second-season premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and was included on the Buffy soundtrack in 1999. Her next solo release in 1999, Forget About It, included one of her two tracks to appear on the Billboard adult contemporary chart, "Stay". The album was certified gold and charted within the top seventy-five of the Billboard 200 and in the top five of the country chart. In addition, the track "That Kind of Love" was included in another episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. CANNOTANSWER | Krauss' second Union Station album Every Time You Say Goodbye was released in 1992, | Alison Maria Krauss (born July 23, 1971) is an American bluegrass-country singer and musician. She entered the music industry at an early age, winning local contests by the age of 10 and recording for the first time at 14. She signed with Rounder Records in 1985 and released her first solo album in 1987. She was invited to join the band with which she still performs, Alison Krauss and Union Station, and later released her first album with them as a group in 1989.
Krauss has released fourteen albums, appeared on numerous soundtracks, and sparked a renewed interest in bluegrass music in the United States. Her soundtrack performances have led to further popularity, including the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, and the Cold Mountain soundtrack, which led to her performance at the 2004 Academy Awards.
As of 2019, she has won 27 Grammy Awards from 42 nominations, ranking her fourth behind Beyoncé, Quincy Jones and classical conductor Georg Solti for most Grammy Award wins overall. Krauss was the most awarded singer and the most awarded female artist in Grammy history until Beyoncé won her 28th Grammy in 2021. When Krauss won her first Grammy in 1991, she was the second-youngest winner at that time.
On November 21, 2019, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. She was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in September 2021.
Early life
Alison Maria Krauss was born in Decatur, Illinois, to Fred and Louise Krauss. Her father was a German immigrant who came to the United States in 1952 at age 12, and taught his native language while he earned a doctorate in psychology. He later went into the business of real estate. Her mother, an American of German and Italian descent, is the daughter of artists, and works as an illustrator of magazines and textbooks. Fred and Louise met while they were studying at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. After a brief residence in nearby Decatur, the family settled in Champaign, where Krauss was raised with her older brother, Viktor.
Krauss's mother played banjo and acoustic guitar, so Krauss was exposed to folk music at home, and she heard rock and pop music on the radio: she liked Gary Numan's synth-pop song "Cars", and rock bands such as Foreigner, Bad Company, and Electric Light Orchestra. Her brother Viktor played piano and double bass in high school, launching a career as a jazz and rock multi-instrumentalist. At her mother's insistence, Krauss began studying classical violin at age five. Krauss was reluctant to spend time practicing, but she continued with classical lessons until she was eleven. Krauss said her mother "tried to find interesting things for me to do" and "wanted to get me involved in music, in addition to art and sports". Krauss was also very active in roller skating, and in her teens she finally decided on a career in music rather than roller derby.
In mid-1979, Krauss's mother saw a notice for an upcoming fiddle competition at the Champaign County Fair, so she bought a bluegrass fiddle instruction book and the 1977 bluegrass album Duets by violinist Richard Greene. Krauss learned by ear to play several songs from the album, including "Tennessee Waltz" which she practiced on violin with her mother accompanying on guitar. Krauss entered the talent contest in the novice category at the age of eight, placing fourth. (This is where she first met fiddler Andrea Zonn who won the junior division at age 10.) Krauss investigated the bluegrass genre more thoroughly after this, and she developed a knack for learning complex riffs by ear, quickly turning them into her own version. In 1981–82, Krauss performed with Marvin Lee Flessner's country dance band in which she fiddled and sang. In September 1983, her parents bought her a custom violin made by hand in Missouri – her first adult-sized instrument. At 13, she won the Walnut Valley Festival Fiddle Championship, and the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass in America named her the "Most Promising Fiddler in the Midwest". She was also called "virtuoso" by Vanity Fair magazine.
Krauss first met Dan Tyminski around 1984 at a festival held by the Society. Every current member of her band, Union Station, first met her at these festivals.
1985–1991: Early career
Krauss made her recording debut in 1986 on the independent album, Different Strokes, in collaboration with Swamp Weiss and Jim Hoiles, and featuring her brother Viktor Krauss. From the age of 12 she performed with bassist and songwriter John Pennell in a band called "Silver Rail", replacing Andrea Zonn. Pennell later changed the band's name to Union Station after another band was discovered with the name Silver Rail.
Later that year, she signed to Rounder Records, and in 1987, at 16, she released her debut album Too Late to Cry with Union Station as her backup band.
Krauss' debut solo album was quickly followed by her first group album with Union Station in 1989, Two Highways. The album includes the traditional tunes "Wild Bill Jones" and "Beaumont Rag", along with a bluegrass interpretation of the Allman Brothers' "Midnight Rider".
Krauss' contract with Rounder required her to alternate between releasing a solo album and an album with Union Station, and she released the solo album I've Got That Old Feeling in 1990. It was her first album to rise onto the Billboard charts, peaking in the top seventy-five on the country chart. The album also was a notable point in her career as she earned her first Grammy Award, the single "Steel Rails" was her first single tracked by Billboard, and the title single "I've Got That Old Feeling" was the first song for which she recorded a music video.
1992–1999: Rising success
Krauss' second Union Station album Every Time You Say Goodbye was released in 1992, and she went on to win her second Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album of the year. She then joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1993 at the age of 21. She was the youngest cast member at the time, and the first bluegrass artist to join the Opry in 29 years. She also collaborated on a project with the Cox Family in 1994, a bluegrass album called I Know Who Holds Tomorrow. Mandolin and guitar player Dan Tyminski replaced Tim Stafford in Union Station in 1994. Late in the year, Krauss recorded with the band Shenandoah on its single "Somewhere in the Vicinity of the Heart", which brought her to the country music Top Ten for the first time and it won the Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Also in 1994, Krauss collaborated with Suzy Bogguss, Kathy Mattea, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to contribute "Teach Your Children" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization. In 1997, she recorded vocals and violin for "Half a Mind", on Tommy Shaw's 7 Deadly Zens album.
Now That I've Found You: A Collection, a compilation of older releases and some covers of her favorite works by other artists, was released in 1995. Some of these covers include Bad Company's "Oh Atlanta", the Foundations' & Dan Schafer's "Baby, Now That I've Found You", which was used in the Australian hit comedy movie The Castle, and the Beatles' "I Will" with Tony Furtado. A cover of Keith Whitley's "When You Say Nothing at All" reached number three on the Billboard country chart; the album peaked in the top fifteen on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, and sold two million copies to become Krauss' first double-platinum album. Krauss also was nominated for four Country Music Association Awards and won all of them.
So Long So Wrong, another Union Station album, was released in 1997 and won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. One critic said its sound was "rather untraditional" and "likely [to] change quite a few ... minds about bluegrass". Included on the album is the track "It Doesn't Matter", which was featured in the second-season premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and was included on the Buffy soundtrack in 1999.
Her next solo release in 1999, Forget About It, included one of her two tracks to appear on the Billboard adult contemporary chart, "Stay". The album was certified gold and charted within the top seventy-five of the Billboard 200 and in the top five of the country chart. In addition, the track "That Kind of Love" was included in another episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
2000–present: Current career
Adam Steffey left Union Station in 1998, and was replaced with renowned dobro player Jerry Douglas. Douglas had provided studio back-up to Krauss' records since 1987's Too Late to Cry. Their next album, New Favorite, was released on August 14, 2001. The album went on to win the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album, with the single "The Lucky One" winning a Grammy as well. New Favorite was followed up by the double platinum double album Live in 2002 and a release of a DVD of the same live performance in 2003. Both the album and the DVD were recorded during a performance at The Louisville Palace and both the album and DVD have been certified double Platinum. Also in 2002 she played a singing voice for one of the characters in the animated comedy film Eight Crazy Nights.
Lonely Runs Both Ways was released in 2004, and eventually became another Alison Krauss & Union Station gold certified album. Ron Block described Lonely Runs Both Ways as "pretty much... what we've always done" in terms of song selection and the style, in which those songs were recorded. Krauss believes the group "was probably the most unprepared we've ever been" for the album and that songs were chosen as needed rather than planned beforehand. She also performed a duet with Brad Paisley on his album Mud on the Tires in the single "Whiskey Lullaby". The single was quickly ranked in the top fifty of the Billboard Hot 100 and the top five of the Hot Country Songs, and won the Country Music Association Awards for "Best Musical Event" and "Best Music Video" of the year.
In 2007, Krauss and Robert Plant released the collaborative album titled Raising Sand. RIAA-certified platinum, the album was nominated for and won 5 Grammy Awards at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album, and Record of the Year ("Please Read the Letter"). Krauss and Plant recorded a Crossroads special in October 2007 for the Country Music Television network, which first aired on February 12, 2008.
Returning with Union Station, Krauss released an album called Paper Airplane on April 12, 2011, the follow-up album to Lonely Runs Both Ways (2004). Mike Shipley, the recording and mixing engineer for the album, said that the album had a lengthy production time because of Krauss' non-stop migraines. Nevertheless, Paper Airplane became Krauss's highest-charting album in the U.S., reaching number three on the Billboard 200 on topping both the country and bluegrass album charts.
In 2014, Krauss and her band Union Station toured with Willie Nelson and Family, with special guests Kacey Musgraves, and the Devil Makes Three.
Capitol Records released Windy City, an album of country and bluegrass classics, produced by Buddy Cannon and her first solo release in 17 years, on February 17, 2017. Krauss received two nominations at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards for Best Country Solo Performance and Best American Roots Performance.
In August 2021, Krauss announced she was releasing a sequel album to Raising Sand with Robert Plant called Raise the Roof. In addition to the album, Krauss and Plant are planning a 2022 tour.
Other work
Krauss has made guest appearances on other records on lead vocals, harmony vocals, and fiddle. In 1987, at the age of 15, she played fiddle on the album The Western Illinois Rag by Americana musician Chris Vallillo. In 1993 she recorded vocals for the Phish song "If I Could" in Los Angeles. In 1997 she sang harmony vocals in both English and Irish on the album Runaway Sunday by Irish traditional band Altan. In 1998 she played and sang on the title track of Hawaiian slack-key artist Ledward Kaapana's album, Waltz of the Wind.
Krauss had her only number one hit in 2000, receiving vocal credit for "Buy Me a Rose". She has contributed to numerous motion picture soundtracks, most notably O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). She and Dan Tyminski contributed multiple tracks, including "I'll Fly Away" (with Gillian Welch), "Down to the River to Pray", and "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow". In the film, Tyminski's vocals on "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow" were used for George Clooney's character. The soundtrack sold over seven million copies and won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2002. Both Krauss and the surprisingly popular album were credited with reviving interest in bluegrass. She has said, however, that she believes Americans already liked bluegrass and other less-heard musical genres, and that the film merely provided easy exposure to the music. She did not appear in the movie, at her own request, because she was pregnant during its filming.
In 2007, Krauss released A Hundred Miles or More: A Collection, an album of new songs, soundtrack tunes, and duets with artists such as John Waite, James Taylor, Brad Paisley, and Natalie MacMaster. The album was successful commercially but given a lukewarm reception by critics. One of the tracks, "Missing You", a duet with Waite (and a cover of his hit single from 1984), was similarly received as a single. On August 11, television network Great American Country aired a one-hour special, Alison Krauss: A Hundred Miles or More, based on the album.
Krauss appeared on Heart's March 2010 concert DVD Night at Sky Church, providing the lead vocals for the song "These Dreams".
Other soundtracks for which Krauss has performed include Twister, The Prince of Egypt, Eight Crazy Nights, Mona Lisa Smile, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Alias, Bambi II and Cold Mountain. She contributed "Jubilee" to the 2004 documentary Paper Clips. The Cold Mountain songs she sang, "The Scarlet Tide" with T Bone Burnett and Elvis Costello, and "You Will Be My Ain True Love" with Sting, were each nominated for an Academy Award. She performed both songs at the 76th Academy Awards, the first with Costello and Burnett, and the other with Sting. She produced Nickel Creek's debut album (2000) and the follow-up This Side (2002), which won Krauss her first Grammy award as a producer.
Krauss performed on Moody Bluegrass: A Nashville Tribute to the Moody Blues.
She participated in Billy Childs' 2014 tribute album to Laura Nyro, Map to the Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro, performing on the track "And When I Die".
Reception and influences
Krauss' earliest musical experience was as an instrumentalist, though her style has grown to focus more on her vocals with a band providing most of the instrumentation. Musicians she enjoys include vocalists Lou Gramm of Foreigner and Paul Rodgers of Bad Company. Krauss' family listened to "folk records" while she was growing up, but she had friends who exposed her to groups such as AC/DC, Carly Simon, the Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and ELO. She cites Dolly Parton, with whom she has since collaborated a number of times, as a major influence. Some credit Krauss and Union Station, at least partially, with a recent revival of interest in bluegrass music in the United States. Despite being together for nearly two decades and winning numerous awards, she said the group was "just beginning right now" (in 2002) because "in spite of all the great things that have happened for the band, [she] feel[s] musically it's just really beginning". Although she alternates between solo releases and works with the band, she has said there is no difference in her involvement between the two.
As a group, AKUS have been called "American favourites", "world-beaters", and "the tightest band around". While they have been successful as a group, many reviews note Krauss still "remains the undisputed star and rock-solid foundation" and have described her as the "band's focus" with an "angelic" voice that "flows like honey". Her work has been compared to that of the Cox Family, Bill Monroe, and Del McCoury, and has in turn been credited with influencing various "Newgrass" artists including Nickel Creek, for which she acted as record producer on two of their albums. In addition to her work with Nickel Creek, she has acted as producer to the Cox Family, Reba McEntire and Alan Jackson. Adam Sweeting of The Guardian has said Krauss and Union Station are "superb, when they stick to hoedowns and hillbilly music, but much less convincing, when they lurch towards the middle of the road". Blender magazine has said the "flavorless repertoire [Krauss] sings... steers her toward Lite FM". In addition, Q magazine and The Onion AV Club have said their newer releases are "pretty much the usual", and that although Krauss is generally "adventurous", these recent releases contain nothing to "alienate the masses".
Voice, themes, and musical style
Krauss possesses a soprano voice, which has been described as "angelic".
She has said her musical influences include J. D. Crowe, Ricky Skaggs, and Tony Rice. Many of her songs are described as sad, and are often about love, especially lost love. Though Krauss has a close involvement with her group and a long career in music, she rarely performs music she has written herself. She has also described her general approach to constructing an album as starting with a single song and selecting other tracks based on the first, to give the final album a somewhat consistent theme and mood. She most commonly performs in the bluegrass and country genres, though she has had two songs on the adult contemporary charts, has worked with rock artists such as Phish and Sting, and is sometimes said to stray into pop music.
Music videos
Krauss did not think she would make music videos at the beginning of her career. After recording her first she was convinced it was so bad that she would never do another. Nonetheless, she has continued to make further videos. Many of the first videos she saw were by bluegrass artists. Dan Tyminski has noted that the video for Thriller was very popular at the time she was first exposed to music videos. She has made suggestions on the style or theme to some videos, though she tends to leave such decisions to the director of the particular video. The group chooses directors by seeking out people who have previously directed videos that band members have enjoyed. The director for a video to "If I Didn't Know Any Better" from Lonely Runs Both Ways, for example, was selected because Krauss enjoyed work he had done with Def Leppard and, she wondered, what he could do with their music. While style decisions are generally left to the various directors of the videos, many – including for "The Lucky One", "Restless", "Goodbye is All We Have", "New Favorite", and "If I Didn't Know Any Better" – follow a pattern. In all of these videos Krauss walks, sometimes interacting with other people, while the rest of the band follows her.
Performances
Krauss has said she used to dislike working in the studio, where she had to perform the same song repeatedly, but has come to like studio work roughly the same as live stage performances. Her own favorite concert experiences include watching three Foreigner concerts during a single tour, a Dolly Parton concert, and a Larry Sparks concert.
She appeared on Austin City Limits in 1992 and opened the show in 1995 with Union Station. The New Favorite tour, after AKUS' album of the same name, was planned to start September 12, 2001 in Cincinnati, Ohio, but was delayed until September 28 in Savannah, Georgia following the September 11 terrorist attacks. Krauss took part in the Down from the Mountain tour in 2002, which featured many artists from the O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack. Down from the Mountain was followed by the Great High Mountain Tour, which was composed of musicians from both O Brother and Cold Mountain, including Krauss. She has also given several notable smaller performances including at Carnegie Hall (with the Grand Ole Opry), on Lifetime Television in a concert of female performers, on the radio show A Prairie Home Companion, where she sang two songs not previously recorded on any of her albums, and a performance at the White House attended by then-President Bill Clinton and then-Vice President Al Gore. She has also been in the White House again, performing the song "When You Say Nothing at All" at country music performances. She also performed a tribute to the Everly Brothers at which she sang "All I Have to Do is Dream" with Emmylou Harris and "When Will I Be Loved" with Vince Gill. She was also invited by Taylor Swift to perform with her at the 2013 CMA's and by Joshua Bell to perform with him on a Christmas album; Bell said that "she (Krauss) is someone I've adored for so many years now". She performed at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. on January 10, 2015, as a part of "The Life and Songs of Emmylou Harris: An All Star Concert Celebration" which is a tribute to Emmylou Harris.
Awards and honors
Krauss has won twenty-seven Grammy Awards over the course of her career as a solo artist, as a group with Union Station, as a duet with Robert Plant, and as a record producer. As of 2021, she ranks fourth on the list of winners of the most Grammy Awards. She overtook Aretha Franklin for the most female wins at the 46th Grammy Awards, where Krauss won three, bringing her total at the time to seventeen (Franklin won her sixteenth that night). The Recording Academy (which presents the Grammy Awards) presented her with a special musical achievement honor in 2005. She has also won 14 International Bluegrass Music Association Awards, 9 Country Music Association Awards, 2 Gospel Music Association Awards, 2 CMT Music Awards, 2 Academy of Country Music Awards, and 1 Canadian Country Music Award. Country Music Television ranked Krauss 12th on their "40 Greatest Women of Country Music" list in 2002.
At the 76th Academy Awards in February 2004, where she performed two nominated songs from the Cold Mountain soundtrack, Krauss was chosen by Hollywood shoe designer Stuart Weitzman to wear a pair of $2 million 'Cinderella' sandals with 4½ inch clear glass stiletto heels and two straps adorned with 565 Kwiat diamonds set in platinum. Feeling like a rather unglamorous choice, Krauss said, "When I first heard, I was like, 'What were they thinking?' I have the worst feet of anybody who will be there that night!" In addition to the fairy-tale-inspired shoes, Weitzman outfitted Krauss with a Palm Trēo 600 smartphone, bejeweled with 3,000 clear-and-topaz-colored Swarovski crystals. The shoes were returned, but Krauss kept the crystal-covered phone. Weitzman chose Krauss to show off his fashions at the urging of his daughters, who are fans of Krauss' music.
In May 2012, Alison Krauss was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music.
In March 2015, her hometown of Champaign, Illinois, designated the 400 block of West Hill Street as "Honorary Alison Krauss Way".
Personal life
Krauss was married to musician Pat Bergeson from 1997 to 2001. Their son, Sam, was born in July 1999.
Discography
Studio albums
1986: Different Strokes (with Jim Hoiles and Swamp Weiss)
1987: Too Late to Cry
1989: Two Highways (with Union Station)
1990: I've Got That Old Feeling
1992: Every Time You Say Goodbye (with Union Station)
1994: I Know Who Holds Tomorrow (with the Cox Family)
1997: So Long So Wrong (with Union Station)
1999: Forget About It
2001: New Favorite (with Union Station)
2004: Lonely Runs Both Ways (with Union Station)
2007: Raising Sand (with Robert Plant)
2011: Paper Airplane (with Union Station)
2017: Windy City
2021: Raise the Roof (with Robert Plant)
Filmography
Notes
a. Sources vary on birth place; see talk page discussion
References
External links
Rounder Records site for Alison Krauss
[ Alison Krauss] on Allmusic database
1971 births
Living people
Union Station (band) members
American bluegrass fiddlers
American women country singers
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Champaign, Illinois
American people of German descent
American people of Italian descent
Grand Ole Opry members
American performers of Christian music
American sopranos
Rounder Records artists
Musicians from Decatur, Illinois
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
Country musicians from Illinois
United States National Medal of Arts recipients | 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"
] |
[
"Alison Krauss",
"1992-1999: Rising success",
"what happened in 1992",
"Krauss' second Union Station album Every Time You Say Goodbye was released in 1992,"
] | C_9547d7ab1ed8495b9e4084ea1f45e747_0 | how did it do | 2 | How did the album Every Time You Say Goodbye do finacially? | Alison Krauss | Krauss' second Union Station album Every Time You Say Goodbye was released in 1992, and she went on to win her second Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album of the year. She then joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1993 at the age of 21. She was the youngest cast member at the time, and the first bluegrass artist to join the Opry in twenty-nine years. She also collaborated on a project with the Cox Family in 1994, a bluegrass album called I Know Who Holds Tomorrow. Mandolin and guitar player Dan Tyminski replaced Tim Stafford in Union Station in 1994. Late in the year, Krauss recorded with the band Shenandoah on its single "Somewhere in the Vicinity of the Heart", which brought her to the country music Top Ten for the first time and it won the Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Also in 1994, Krauss collaborated with Suzy Bogguss, Kathy Mattea, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to contribute "Teach Your Children" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization. In 1997, she recorded vocals and violin for "Half a Mind", on Tommy Shaw's 7 Deadly Zens album. Now That I've Found You: A Collection, a compilation of older releases and some covers of her favorite works by other artists, was released in 1995. Some of these covers include Bad Company's "Oh Atlanta", The Foundations' & Dan Schafer's "Baby, Now That I've Found You", which was used in the Australian hit comedy movie The Castle, and The Beatles' "I Will". A cover of Keith Whitley's "When You Say Nothing at All" reached number three on the Billboard country chart; the album peaked in the top fifteen on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, and sold two million copies to become Krauss' first double-platinum album. Krauss also was nominated for four Country Music Association Awards and won all of them. So Long So Wrong, another Union Station album, was released in 1997 and won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. One critic said its sound was "rather untraditional" and "likely [to] change quite a few ... minds about bluegrass." Included on the album is the track "It Doesn't Matter", which was featured in the second-season premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and was included on the Buffy soundtrack in 1999. Her next solo release in 1999, Forget About It, included one of her two tracks to appear on the Billboard adult contemporary chart, "Stay". The album was certified gold and charted within the top seventy-five of the Billboard 200 and in the top five of the country chart. In addition, the track "That Kind of Love" was included in another episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. CANNOTANSWER | she went on to win her second Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album of the year. | Alison Maria Krauss (born July 23, 1971) is an American bluegrass-country singer and musician. She entered the music industry at an early age, winning local contests by the age of 10 and recording for the first time at 14. She signed with Rounder Records in 1985 and released her first solo album in 1987. She was invited to join the band with which she still performs, Alison Krauss and Union Station, and later released her first album with them as a group in 1989.
Krauss has released fourteen albums, appeared on numerous soundtracks, and sparked a renewed interest in bluegrass music in the United States. Her soundtrack performances have led to further popularity, including the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, and the Cold Mountain soundtrack, which led to her performance at the 2004 Academy Awards.
As of 2019, she has won 27 Grammy Awards from 42 nominations, ranking her fourth behind Beyoncé, Quincy Jones and classical conductor Georg Solti for most Grammy Award wins overall. Krauss was the most awarded singer and the most awarded female artist in Grammy history until Beyoncé won her 28th Grammy in 2021. When Krauss won her first Grammy in 1991, she was the second-youngest winner at that time.
On November 21, 2019, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. She was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in September 2021.
Early life
Alison Maria Krauss was born in Decatur, Illinois, to Fred and Louise Krauss. Her father was a German immigrant who came to the United States in 1952 at age 12, and taught his native language while he earned a doctorate in psychology. He later went into the business of real estate. Her mother, an American of German and Italian descent, is the daughter of artists, and works as an illustrator of magazines and textbooks. Fred and Louise met while they were studying at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. After a brief residence in nearby Decatur, the family settled in Champaign, where Krauss was raised with her older brother, Viktor.
Krauss's mother played banjo and acoustic guitar, so Krauss was exposed to folk music at home, and she heard rock and pop music on the radio: she liked Gary Numan's synth-pop song "Cars", and rock bands such as Foreigner, Bad Company, and Electric Light Orchestra. Her brother Viktor played piano and double bass in high school, launching a career as a jazz and rock multi-instrumentalist. At her mother's insistence, Krauss began studying classical violin at age five. Krauss was reluctant to spend time practicing, but she continued with classical lessons until she was eleven. Krauss said her mother "tried to find interesting things for me to do" and "wanted to get me involved in music, in addition to art and sports". Krauss was also very active in roller skating, and in her teens she finally decided on a career in music rather than roller derby.
In mid-1979, Krauss's mother saw a notice for an upcoming fiddle competition at the Champaign County Fair, so she bought a bluegrass fiddle instruction book and the 1977 bluegrass album Duets by violinist Richard Greene. Krauss learned by ear to play several songs from the album, including "Tennessee Waltz" which she practiced on violin with her mother accompanying on guitar. Krauss entered the talent contest in the novice category at the age of eight, placing fourth. (This is where she first met fiddler Andrea Zonn who won the junior division at age 10.) Krauss investigated the bluegrass genre more thoroughly after this, and she developed a knack for learning complex riffs by ear, quickly turning them into her own version. In 1981–82, Krauss performed with Marvin Lee Flessner's country dance band in which she fiddled and sang. In September 1983, her parents bought her a custom violin made by hand in Missouri – her first adult-sized instrument. At 13, she won the Walnut Valley Festival Fiddle Championship, and the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass in America named her the "Most Promising Fiddler in the Midwest". She was also called "virtuoso" by Vanity Fair magazine.
Krauss first met Dan Tyminski around 1984 at a festival held by the Society. Every current member of her band, Union Station, first met her at these festivals.
1985–1991: Early career
Krauss made her recording debut in 1986 on the independent album, Different Strokes, in collaboration with Swamp Weiss and Jim Hoiles, and featuring her brother Viktor Krauss. From the age of 12 she performed with bassist and songwriter John Pennell in a band called "Silver Rail", replacing Andrea Zonn. Pennell later changed the band's name to Union Station after another band was discovered with the name Silver Rail.
Later that year, she signed to Rounder Records, and in 1987, at 16, she released her debut album Too Late to Cry with Union Station as her backup band.
Krauss' debut solo album was quickly followed by her first group album with Union Station in 1989, Two Highways. The album includes the traditional tunes "Wild Bill Jones" and "Beaumont Rag", along with a bluegrass interpretation of the Allman Brothers' "Midnight Rider".
Krauss' contract with Rounder required her to alternate between releasing a solo album and an album with Union Station, and she released the solo album I've Got That Old Feeling in 1990. It was her first album to rise onto the Billboard charts, peaking in the top seventy-five on the country chart. The album also was a notable point in her career as she earned her first Grammy Award, the single "Steel Rails" was her first single tracked by Billboard, and the title single "I've Got That Old Feeling" was the first song for which she recorded a music video.
1992–1999: Rising success
Krauss' second Union Station album Every Time You Say Goodbye was released in 1992, and she went on to win her second Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album of the year. She then joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1993 at the age of 21. She was the youngest cast member at the time, and the first bluegrass artist to join the Opry in 29 years. She also collaborated on a project with the Cox Family in 1994, a bluegrass album called I Know Who Holds Tomorrow. Mandolin and guitar player Dan Tyminski replaced Tim Stafford in Union Station in 1994. Late in the year, Krauss recorded with the band Shenandoah on its single "Somewhere in the Vicinity of the Heart", which brought her to the country music Top Ten for the first time and it won the Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Also in 1994, Krauss collaborated with Suzy Bogguss, Kathy Mattea, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to contribute "Teach Your Children" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization. In 1997, she recorded vocals and violin for "Half a Mind", on Tommy Shaw's 7 Deadly Zens album.
Now That I've Found You: A Collection, a compilation of older releases and some covers of her favorite works by other artists, was released in 1995. Some of these covers include Bad Company's "Oh Atlanta", the Foundations' & Dan Schafer's "Baby, Now That I've Found You", which was used in the Australian hit comedy movie The Castle, and the Beatles' "I Will" with Tony Furtado. A cover of Keith Whitley's "When You Say Nothing at All" reached number three on the Billboard country chart; the album peaked in the top fifteen on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, and sold two million copies to become Krauss' first double-platinum album. Krauss also was nominated for four Country Music Association Awards and won all of them.
So Long So Wrong, another Union Station album, was released in 1997 and won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. One critic said its sound was "rather untraditional" and "likely [to] change quite a few ... minds about bluegrass". Included on the album is the track "It Doesn't Matter", which was featured in the second-season premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and was included on the Buffy soundtrack in 1999.
Her next solo release in 1999, Forget About It, included one of her two tracks to appear on the Billboard adult contemporary chart, "Stay". The album was certified gold and charted within the top seventy-five of the Billboard 200 and in the top five of the country chart. In addition, the track "That Kind of Love" was included in another episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
2000–present: Current career
Adam Steffey left Union Station in 1998, and was replaced with renowned dobro player Jerry Douglas. Douglas had provided studio back-up to Krauss' records since 1987's Too Late to Cry. Their next album, New Favorite, was released on August 14, 2001. The album went on to win the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album, with the single "The Lucky One" winning a Grammy as well. New Favorite was followed up by the double platinum double album Live in 2002 and a release of a DVD of the same live performance in 2003. Both the album and the DVD were recorded during a performance at The Louisville Palace and both the album and DVD have been certified double Platinum. Also in 2002 she played a singing voice for one of the characters in the animated comedy film Eight Crazy Nights.
Lonely Runs Both Ways was released in 2004, and eventually became another Alison Krauss & Union Station gold certified album. Ron Block described Lonely Runs Both Ways as "pretty much... what we've always done" in terms of song selection and the style, in which those songs were recorded. Krauss believes the group "was probably the most unprepared we've ever been" for the album and that songs were chosen as needed rather than planned beforehand. She also performed a duet with Brad Paisley on his album Mud on the Tires in the single "Whiskey Lullaby". The single was quickly ranked in the top fifty of the Billboard Hot 100 and the top five of the Hot Country Songs, and won the Country Music Association Awards for "Best Musical Event" and "Best Music Video" of the year.
In 2007, Krauss and Robert Plant released the collaborative album titled Raising Sand. RIAA-certified platinum, the album was nominated for and won 5 Grammy Awards at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album, and Record of the Year ("Please Read the Letter"). Krauss and Plant recorded a Crossroads special in October 2007 for the Country Music Television network, which first aired on February 12, 2008.
Returning with Union Station, Krauss released an album called Paper Airplane on April 12, 2011, the follow-up album to Lonely Runs Both Ways (2004). Mike Shipley, the recording and mixing engineer for the album, said that the album had a lengthy production time because of Krauss' non-stop migraines. Nevertheless, Paper Airplane became Krauss's highest-charting album in the U.S., reaching number three on the Billboard 200 on topping both the country and bluegrass album charts.
In 2014, Krauss and her band Union Station toured with Willie Nelson and Family, with special guests Kacey Musgraves, and the Devil Makes Three.
Capitol Records released Windy City, an album of country and bluegrass classics, produced by Buddy Cannon and her first solo release in 17 years, on February 17, 2017. Krauss received two nominations at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards for Best Country Solo Performance and Best American Roots Performance.
In August 2021, Krauss announced she was releasing a sequel album to Raising Sand with Robert Plant called Raise the Roof. In addition to the album, Krauss and Plant are planning a 2022 tour.
Other work
Krauss has made guest appearances on other records on lead vocals, harmony vocals, and fiddle. In 1987, at the age of 15, she played fiddle on the album The Western Illinois Rag by Americana musician Chris Vallillo. In 1993 she recorded vocals for the Phish song "If I Could" in Los Angeles. In 1997 she sang harmony vocals in both English and Irish on the album Runaway Sunday by Irish traditional band Altan. In 1998 she played and sang on the title track of Hawaiian slack-key artist Ledward Kaapana's album, Waltz of the Wind.
Krauss had her only number one hit in 2000, receiving vocal credit for "Buy Me a Rose". She has contributed to numerous motion picture soundtracks, most notably O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). She and Dan Tyminski contributed multiple tracks, including "I'll Fly Away" (with Gillian Welch), "Down to the River to Pray", and "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow". In the film, Tyminski's vocals on "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow" were used for George Clooney's character. The soundtrack sold over seven million copies and won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2002. Both Krauss and the surprisingly popular album were credited with reviving interest in bluegrass. She has said, however, that she believes Americans already liked bluegrass and other less-heard musical genres, and that the film merely provided easy exposure to the music. She did not appear in the movie, at her own request, because she was pregnant during its filming.
In 2007, Krauss released A Hundred Miles or More: A Collection, an album of new songs, soundtrack tunes, and duets with artists such as John Waite, James Taylor, Brad Paisley, and Natalie MacMaster. The album was successful commercially but given a lukewarm reception by critics. One of the tracks, "Missing You", a duet with Waite (and a cover of his hit single from 1984), was similarly received as a single. On August 11, television network Great American Country aired a one-hour special, Alison Krauss: A Hundred Miles or More, based on the album.
Krauss appeared on Heart's March 2010 concert DVD Night at Sky Church, providing the lead vocals for the song "These Dreams".
Other soundtracks for which Krauss has performed include Twister, The Prince of Egypt, Eight Crazy Nights, Mona Lisa Smile, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Alias, Bambi II and Cold Mountain. She contributed "Jubilee" to the 2004 documentary Paper Clips. The Cold Mountain songs she sang, "The Scarlet Tide" with T Bone Burnett and Elvis Costello, and "You Will Be My Ain True Love" with Sting, were each nominated for an Academy Award. She performed both songs at the 76th Academy Awards, the first with Costello and Burnett, and the other with Sting. She produced Nickel Creek's debut album (2000) and the follow-up This Side (2002), which won Krauss her first Grammy award as a producer.
Krauss performed on Moody Bluegrass: A Nashville Tribute to the Moody Blues.
She participated in Billy Childs' 2014 tribute album to Laura Nyro, Map to the Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro, performing on the track "And When I Die".
Reception and influences
Krauss' earliest musical experience was as an instrumentalist, though her style has grown to focus more on her vocals with a band providing most of the instrumentation. Musicians she enjoys include vocalists Lou Gramm of Foreigner and Paul Rodgers of Bad Company. Krauss' family listened to "folk records" while she was growing up, but she had friends who exposed her to groups such as AC/DC, Carly Simon, the Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and ELO. She cites Dolly Parton, with whom she has since collaborated a number of times, as a major influence. Some credit Krauss and Union Station, at least partially, with a recent revival of interest in bluegrass music in the United States. Despite being together for nearly two decades and winning numerous awards, she said the group was "just beginning right now" (in 2002) because "in spite of all the great things that have happened for the band, [she] feel[s] musically it's just really beginning". Although she alternates between solo releases and works with the band, she has said there is no difference in her involvement between the two.
As a group, AKUS have been called "American favourites", "world-beaters", and "the tightest band around". While they have been successful as a group, many reviews note Krauss still "remains the undisputed star and rock-solid foundation" and have described her as the "band's focus" with an "angelic" voice that "flows like honey". Her work has been compared to that of the Cox Family, Bill Monroe, and Del McCoury, and has in turn been credited with influencing various "Newgrass" artists including Nickel Creek, for which she acted as record producer on two of their albums. In addition to her work with Nickel Creek, she has acted as producer to the Cox Family, Reba McEntire and Alan Jackson. Adam Sweeting of The Guardian has said Krauss and Union Station are "superb, when they stick to hoedowns and hillbilly music, but much less convincing, when they lurch towards the middle of the road". Blender magazine has said the "flavorless repertoire [Krauss] sings... steers her toward Lite FM". In addition, Q magazine and The Onion AV Club have said their newer releases are "pretty much the usual", and that although Krauss is generally "adventurous", these recent releases contain nothing to "alienate the masses".
Voice, themes, and musical style
Krauss possesses a soprano voice, which has been described as "angelic".
She has said her musical influences include J. D. Crowe, Ricky Skaggs, and Tony Rice. Many of her songs are described as sad, and are often about love, especially lost love. Though Krauss has a close involvement with her group and a long career in music, she rarely performs music she has written herself. She has also described her general approach to constructing an album as starting with a single song and selecting other tracks based on the first, to give the final album a somewhat consistent theme and mood. She most commonly performs in the bluegrass and country genres, though she has had two songs on the adult contemporary charts, has worked with rock artists such as Phish and Sting, and is sometimes said to stray into pop music.
Music videos
Krauss did not think she would make music videos at the beginning of her career. After recording her first she was convinced it was so bad that she would never do another. Nonetheless, she has continued to make further videos. Many of the first videos she saw were by bluegrass artists. Dan Tyminski has noted that the video for Thriller was very popular at the time she was first exposed to music videos. She has made suggestions on the style or theme to some videos, though she tends to leave such decisions to the director of the particular video. The group chooses directors by seeking out people who have previously directed videos that band members have enjoyed. The director for a video to "If I Didn't Know Any Better" from Lonely Runs Both Ways, for example, was selected because Krauss enjoyed work he had done with Def Leppard and, she wondered, what he could do with their music. While style decisions are generally left to the various directors of the videos, many – including for "The Lucky One", "Restless", "Goodbye is All We Have", "New Favorite", and "If I Didn't Know Any Better" – follow a pattern. In all of these videos Krauss walks, sometimes interacting with other people, while the rest of the band follows her.
Performances
Krauss has said she used to dislike working in the studio, where she had to perform the same song repeatedly, but has come to like studio work roughly the same as live stage performances. Her own favorite concert experiences include watching three Foreigner concerts during a single tour, a Dolly Parton concert, and a Larry Sparks concert.
She appeared on Austin City Limits in 1992 and opened the show in 1995 with Union Station. The New Favorite tour, after AKUS' album of the same name, was planned to start September 12, 2001 in Cincinnati, Ohio, but was delayed until September 28 in Savannah, Georgia following the September 11 terrorist attacks. Krauss took part in the Down from the Mountain tour in 2002, which featured many artists from the O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack. Down from the Mountain was followed by the Great High Mountain Tour, which was composed of musicians from both O Brother and Cold Mountain, including Krauss. She has also given several notable smaller performances including at Carnegie Hall (with the Grand Ole Opry), on Lifetime Television in a concert of female performers, on the radio show A Prairie Home Companion, where she sang two songs not previously recorded on any of her albums, and a performance at the White House attended by then-President Bill Clinton and then-Vice President Al Gore. She has also been in the White House again, performing the song "When You Say Nothing at All" at country music performances. She also performed a tribute to the Everly Brothers at which she sang "All I Have to Do is Dream" with Emmylou Harris and "When Will I Be Loved" with Vince Gill. She was also invited by Taylor Swift to perform with her at the 2013 CMA's and by Joshua Bell to perform with him on a Christmas album; Bell said that "she (Krauss) is someone I've adored for so many years now". She performed at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. on January 10, 2015, as a part of "The Life and Songs of Emmylou Harris: An All Star Concert Celebration" which is a tribute to Emmylou Harris.
Awards and honors
Krauss has won twenty-seven Grammy Awards over the course of her career as a solo artist, as a group with Union Station, as a duet with Robert Plant, and as a record producer. As of 2021, she ranks fourth on the list of winners of the most Grammy Awards. She overtook Aretha Franklin for the most female wins at the 46th Grammy Awards, where Krauss won three, bringing her total at the time to seventeen (Franklin won her sixteenth that night). The Recording Academy (which presents the Grammy Awards) presented her with a special musical achievement honor in 2005. She has also won 14 International Bluegrass Music Association Awards, 9 Country Music Association Awards, 2 Gospel Music Association Awards, 2 CMT Music Awards, 2 Academy of Country Music Awards, and 1 Canadian Country Music Award. Country Music Television ranked Krauss 12th on their "40 Greatest Women of Country Music" list in 2002.
At the 76th Academy Awards in February 2004, where she performed two nominated songs from the Cold Mountain soundtrack, Krauss was chosen by Hollywood shoe designer Stuart Weitzman to wear a pair of $2 million 'Cinderella' sandals with 4½ inch clear glass stiletto heels and two straps adorned with 565 Kwiat diamonds set in platinum. Feeling like a rather unglamorous choice, Krauss said, "When I first heard, I was like, 'What were they thinking?' I have the worst feet of anybody who will be there that night!" In addition to the fairy-tale-inspired shoes, Weitzman outfitted Krauss with a Palm Trēo 600 smartphone, bejeweled with 3,000 clear-and-topaz-colored Swarovski crystals. The shoes were returned, but Krauss kept the crystal-covered phone. Weitzman chose Krauss to show off his fashions at the urging of his daughters, who are fans of Krauss' music.
In May 2012, Alison Krauss was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music.
In March 2015, her hometown of Champaign, Illinois, designated the 400 block of West Hill Street as "Honorary Alison Krauss Way".
Personal life
Krauss was married to musician Pat Bergeson from 1997 to 2001. Their son, Sam, was born in July 1999.
Discography
Studio albums
1986: Different Strokes (with Jim Hoiles and Swamp Weiss)
1987: Too Late to Cry
1989: Two Highways (with Union Station)
1990: I've Got That Old Feeling
1992: Every Time You Say Goodbye (with Union Station)
1994: I Know Who Holds Tomorrow (with the Cox Family)
1997: So Long So Wrong (with Union Station)
1999: Forget About It
2001: New Favorite (with Union Station)
2004: Lonely Runs Both Ways (with Union Station)
2007: Raising Sand (with Robert Plant)
2011: Paper Airplane (with Union Station)
2017: Windy City
2021: Raise the Roof (with Robert Plant)
Filmography
Notes
a. Sources vary on birth place; see talk page discussion
References
External links
Rounder Records site for Alison Krauss
[ Alison Krauss] on Allmusic database
1971 births
Living people
Union Station (band) members
American bluegrass fiddlers
American women country singers
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Champaign, Illinois
American people of German descent
American people of Italian descent
Grand Ole Opry members
American performers of Christian music
American sopranos
Rounder Records artists
Musicians from Decatur, Illinois
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
Country musicians from Illinois
United States National Medal of Arts recipients | true | [
"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",
"\"How Do I Deal\" is a song by American actress Jennifer Love Hewitt from the soundtrack to the film I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. The song was released as a single on November 17, 1998, with an accompanying music video. The single became Hewitt's one and only appearance on the US Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, peaking at number 59 in a seven-week run. Although not a big success in America, the single reached number five in New Zealand and peaked at number eight in Australia, where it is certified gold.\n\nTrack listings\nUS CD, 7-inch, and cassette single\n \"How Do I Deal\" (single version) – 3:23\n \"Try to Say Goodbye\" (performed by Jory Eve) – 3:36\n\nEuropean CD single\n \"How Do I Deal\" – 3:24\n \"Sugar Is Sweeter\" (performed by CJ Bolland) – 5:34\n\nAustralian CD single\n \"How Do I Deal\" – 3:23\n \"Sugar Is Sweeter\" (Danny Saber Remix featuring Justin Warfield, performed by CJ Bolland) – 4:57\n \"Try to Say Goodbye\" (performed by Jory Eve) – 3:35\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n143 Records singles\n1998 songs\n1999 singles\nJennifer Love Hewitt songs\nI Know What You Did Last Summer (franchise)\nMusic videos directed by Joseph Kahn\nSong recordings produced by Bruce Fairbairn\nSong recordings produced by David Foster\nSongs written for films\nWarner Records singles"
] |
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"1992-1999: Rising success",
"what happened in 1992",
"Krauss' second Union Station album Every Time You Say Goodbye was released in 1992,",
"how did it do",
"she went on to win her second Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album of the year."
] | C_9547d7ab1ed8495b9e4084ea1f45e747_0 | what were some songs on it | 3 | What were some songs on the album Every Time You Say Goodbye? | Alison Krauss | Krauss' second Union Station album Every Time You Say Goodbye was released in 1992, and she went on to win her second Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album of the year. She then joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1993 at the age of 21. She was the youngest cast member at the time, and the first bluegrass artist to join the Opry in twenty-nine years. She also collaborated on a project with the Cox Family in 1994, a bluegrass album called I Know Who Holds Tomorrow. Mandolin and guitar player Dan Tyminski replaced Tim Stafford in Union Station in 1994. Late in the year, Krauss recorded with the band Shenandoah on its single "Somewhere in the Vicinity of the Heart", which brought her to the country music Top Ten for the first time and it won the Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Also in 1994, Krauss collaborated with Suzy Bogguss, Kathy Mattea, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to contribute "Teach Your Children" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization. In 1997, she recorded vocals and violin for "Half a Mind", on Tommy Shaw's 7 Deadly Zens album. Now That I've Found You: A Collection, a compilation of older releases and some covers of her favorite works by other artists, was released in 1995. Some of these covers include Bad Company's "Oh Atlanta", The Foundations' & Dan Schafer's "Baby, Now That I've Found You", which was used in the Australian hit comedy movie The Castle, and The Beatles' "I Will". A cover of Keith Whitley's "When You Say Nothing at All" reached number three on the Billboard country chart; the album peaked in the top fifteen on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, and sold two million copies to become Krauss' first double-platinum album. Krauss also was nominated for four Country Music Association Awards and won all of them. So Long So Wrong, another Union Station album, was released in 1997 and won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. One critic said its sound was "rather untraditional" and "likely [to] change quite a few ... minds about bluegrass." Included on the album is the track "It Doesn't Matter", which was featured in the second-season premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and was included on the Buffy soundtrack in 1999. Her next solo release in 1999, Forget About It, included one of her two tracks to appear on the Billboard adult contemporary chart, "Stay". The album was certified gold and charted within the top seventy-five of the Billboard 200 and in the top five of the country chart. In addition, the track "That Kind of Love" was included in another episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Alison Maria Krauss (born July 23, 1971) is an American bluegrass-country singer and musician. She entered the music industry at an early age, winning local contests by the age of 10 and recording for the first time at 14. She signed with Rounder Records in 1985 and released her first solo album in 1987. She was invited to join the band with which she still performs, Alison Krauss and Union Station, and later released her first album with them as a group in 1989.
Krauss has released fourteen albums, appeared on numerous soundtracks, and sparked a renewed interest in bluegrass music in the United States. Her soundtrack performances have led to further popularity, including the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, and the Cold Mountain soundtrack, which led to her performance at the 2004 Academy Awards.
As of 2019, she has won 27 Grammy Awards from 42 nominations, ranking her fourth behind Beyoncé, Quincy Jones and classical conductor Georg Solti for most Grammy Award wins overall. Krauss was the most awarded singer and the most awarded female artist in Grammy history until Beyoncé won her 28th Grammy in 2021. When Krauss won her first Grammy in 1991, she was the second-youngest winner at that time.
On November 21, 2019, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. She was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in September 2021.
Early life
Alison Maria Krauss was born in Decatur, Illinois, to Fred and Louise Krauss. Her father was a German immigrant who came to the United States in 1952 at age 12, and taught his native language while he earned a doctorate in psychology. He later went into the business of real estate. Her mother, an American of German and Italian descent, is the daughter of artists, and works as an illustrator of magazines and textbooks. Fred and Louise met while they were studying at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. After a brief residence in nearby Decatur, the family settled in Champaign, where Krauss was raised with her older brother, Viktor.
Krauss's mother played banjo and acoustic guitar, so Krauss was exposed to folk music at home, and she heard rock and pop music on the radio: she liked Gary Numan's synth-pop song "Cars", and rock bands such as Foreigner, Bad Company, and Electric Light Orchestra. Her brother Viktor played piano and double bass in high school, launching a career as a jazz and rock multi-instrumentalist. At her mother's insistence, Krauss began studying classical violin at age five. Krauss was reluctant to spend time practicing, but she continued with classical lessons until she was eleven. Krauss said her mother "tried to find interesting things for me to do" and "wanted to get me involved in music, in addition to art and sports". Krauss was also very active in roller skating, and in her teens she finally decided on a career in music rather than roller derby.
In mid-1979, Krauss's mother saw a notice for an upcoming fiddle competition at the Champaign County Fair, so she bought a bluegrass fiddle instruction book and the 1977 bluegrass album Duets by violinist Richard Greene. Krauss learned by ear to play several songs from the album, including "Tennessee Waltz" which she practiced on violin with her mother accompanying on guitar. Krauss entered the talent contest in the novice category at the age of eight, placing fourth. (This is where she first met fiddler Andrea Zonn who won the junior division at age 10.) Krauss investigated the bluegrass genre more thoroughly after this, and she developed a knack for learning complex riffs by ear, quickly turning them into her own version. In 1981–82, Krauss performed with Marvin Lee Flessner's country dance band in which she fiddled and sang. In September 1983, her parents bought her a custom violin made by hand in Missouri – her first adult-sized instrument. At 13, she won the Walnut Valley Festival Fiddle Championship, and the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass in America named her the "Most Promising Fiddler in the Midwest". She was also called "virtuoso" by Vanity Fair magazine.
Krauss first met Dan Tyminski around 1984 at a festival held by the Society. Every current member of her band, Union Station, first met her at these festivals.
1985–1991: Early career
Krauss made her recording debut in 1986 on the independent album, Different Strokes, in collaboration with Swamp Weiss and Jim Hoiles, and featuring her brother Viktor Krauss. From the age of 12 she performed with bassist and songwriter John Pennell in a band called "Silver Rail", replacing Andrea Zonn. Pennell later changed the band's name to Union Station after another band was discovered with the name Silver Rail.
Later that year, she signed to Rounder Records, and in 1987, at 16, she released her debut album Too Late to Cry with Union Station as her backup band.
Krauss' debut solo album was quickly followed by her first group album with Union Station in 1989, Two Highways. The album includes the traditional tunes "Wild Bill Jones" and "Beaumont Rag", along with a bluegrass interpretation of the Allman Brothers' "Midnight Rider".
Krauss' contract with Rounder required her to alternate between releasing a solo album and an album with Union Station, and she released the solo album I've Got That Old Feeling in 1990. It was her first album to rise onto the Billboard charts, peaking in the top seventy-five on the country chart. The album also was a notable point in her career as she earned her first Grammy Award, the single "Steel Rails" was her first single tracked by Billboard, and the title single "I've Got That Old Feeling" was the first song for which she recorded a music video.
1992–1999: Rising success
Krauss' second Union Station album Every Time You Say Goodbye was released in 1992, and she went on to win her second Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album of the year. She then joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1993 at the age of 21. She was the youngest cast member at the time, and the first bluegrass artist to join the Opry in 29 years. She also collaborated on a project with the Cox Family in 1994, a bluegrass album called I Know Who Holds Tomorrow. Mandolin and guitar player Dan Tyminski replaced Tim Stafford in Union Station in 1994. Late in the year, Krauss recorded with the band Shenandoah on its single "Somewhere in the Vicinity of the Heart", which brought her to the country music Top Ten for the first time and it won the Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Also in 1994, Krauss collaborated with Suzy Bogguss, Kathy Mattea, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to contribute "Teach Your Children" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization. In 1997, she recorded vocals and violin for "Half a Mind", on Tommy Shaw's 7 Deadly Zens album.
Now That I've Found You: A Collection, a compilation of older releases and some covers of her favorite works by other artists, was released in 1995. Some of these covers include Bad Company's "Oh Atlanta", the Foundations' & Dan Schafer's "Baby, Now That I've Found You", which was used in the Australian hit comedy movie The Castle, and the Beatles' "I Will" with Tony Furtado. A cover of Keith Whitley's "When You Say Nothing at All" reached number three on the Billboard country chart; the album peaked in the top fifteen on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, and sold two million copies to become Krauss' first double-platinum album. Krauss also was nominated for four Country Music Association Awards and won all of them.
So Long So Wrong, another Union Station album, was released in 1997 and won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. One critic said its sound was "rather untraditional" and "likely [to] change quite a few ... minds about bluegrass". Included on the album is the track "It Doesn't Matter", which was featured in the second-season premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and was included on the Buffy soundtrack in 1999.
Her next solo release in 1999, Forget About It, included one of her two tracks to appear on the Billboard adult contemporary chart, "Stay". The album was certified gold and charted within the top seventy-five of the Billboard 200 and in the top five of the country chart. In addition, the track "That Kind of Love" was included in another episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
2000–present: Current career
Adam Steffey left Union Station in 1998, and was replaced with renowned dobro player Jerry Douglas. Douglas had provided studio back-up to Krauss' records since 1987's Too Late to Cry. Their next album, New Favorite, was released on August 14, 2001. The album went on to win the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album, with the single "The Lucky One" winning a Grammy as well. New Favorite was followed up by the double platinum double album Live in 2002 and a release of a DVD of the same live performance in 2003. Both the album and the DVD were recorded during a performance at The Louisville Palace and both the album and DVD have been certified double Platinum. Also in 2002 she played a singing voice for one of the characters in the animated comedy film Eight Crazy Nights.
Lonely Runs Both Ways was released in 2004, and eventually became another Alison Krauss & Union Station gold certified album. Ron Block described Lonely Runs Both Ways as "pretty much... what we've always done" in terms of song selection and the style, in which those songs were recorded. Krauss believes the group "was probably the most unprepared we've ever been" for the album and that songs were chosen as needed rather than planned beforehand. She also performed a duet with Brad Paisley on his album Mud on the Tires in the single "Whiskey Lullaby". The single was quickly ranked in the top fifty of the Billboard Hot 100 and the top five of the Hot Country Songs, and won the Country Music Association Awards for "Best Musical Event" and "Best Music Video" of the year.
In 2007, Krauss and Robert Plant released the collaborative album titled Raising Sand. RIAA-certified platinum, the album was nominated for and won 5 Grammy Awards at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album, and Record of the Year ("Please Read the Letter"). Krauss and Plant recorded a Crossroads special in October 2007 for the Country Music Television network, which first aired on February 12, 2008.
Returning with Union Station, Krauss released an album called Paper Airplane on April 12, 2011, the follow-up album to Lonely Runs Both Ways (2004). Mike Shipley, the recording and mixing engineer for the album, said that the album had a lengthy production time because of Krauss' non-stop migraines. Nevertheless, Paper Airplane became Krauss's highest-charting album in the U.S., reaching number three on the Billboard 200 on topping both the country and bluegrass album charts.
In 2014, Krauss and her band Union Station toured with Willie Nelson and Family, with special guests Kacey Musgraves, and the Devil Makes Three.
Capitol Records released Windy City, an album of country and bluegrass classics, produced by Buddy Cannon and her first solo release in 17 years, on February 17, 2017. Krauss received two nominations at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards for Best Country Solo Performance and Best American Roots Performance.
In August 2021, Krauss announced she was releasing a sequel album to Raising Sand with Robert Plant called Raise the Roof. In addition to the album, Krauss and Plant are planning a 2022 tour.
Other work
Krauss has made guest appearances on other records on lead vocals, harmony vocals, and fiddle. In 1987, at the age of 15, she played fiddle on the album The Western Illinois Rag by Americana musician Chris Vallillo. In 1993 she recorded vocals for the Phish song "If I Could" in Los Angeles. In 1997 she sang harmony vocals in both English and Irish on the album Runaway Sunday by Irish traditional band Altan. In 1998 she played and sang on the title track of Hawaiian slack-key artist Ledward Kaapana's album, Waltz of the Wind.
Krauss had her only number one hit in 2000, receiving vocal credit for "Buy Me a Rose". She has contributed to numerous motion picture soundtracks, most notably O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). She and Dan Tyminski contributed multiple tracks, including "I'll Fly Away" (with Gillian Welch), "Down to the River to Pray", and "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow". In the film, Tyminski's vocals on "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow" were used for George Clooney's character. The soundtrack sold over seven million copies and won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2002. Both Krauss and the surprisingly popular album were credited with reviving interest in bluegrass. She has said, however, that she believes Americans already liked bluegrass and other less-heard musical genres, and that the film merely provided easy exposure to the music. She did not appear in the movie, at her own request, because she was pregnant during its filming.
In 2007, Krauss released A Hundred Miles or More: A Collection, an album of new songs, soundtrack tunes, and duets with artists such as John Waite, James Taylor, Brad Paisley, and Natalie MacMaster. The album was successful commercially but given a lukewarm reception by critics. One of the tracks, "Missing You", a duet with Waite (and a cover of his hit single from 1984), was similarly received as a single. On August 11, television network Great American Country aired a one-hour special, Alison Krauss: A Hundred Miles or More, based on the album.
Krauss appeared on Heart's March 2010 concert DVD Night at Sky Church, providing the lead vocals for the song "These Dreams".
Other soundtracks for which Krauss has performed include Twister, The Prince of Egypt, Eight Crazy Nights, Mona Lisa Smile, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Alias, Bambi II and Cold Mountain. She contributed "Jubilee" to the 2004 documentary Paper Clips. The Cold Mountain songs she sang, "The Scarlet Tide" with T Bone Burnett and Elvis Costello, and "You Will Be My Ain True Love" with Sting, were each nominated for an Academy Award. She performed both songs at the 76th Academy Awards, the first with Costello and Burnett, and the other with Sting. She produced Nickel Creek's debut album (2000) and the follow-up This Side (2002), which won Krauss her first Grammy award as a producer.
Krauss performed on Moody Bluegrass: A Nashville Tribute to the Moody Blues.
She participated in Billy Childs' 2014 tribute album to Laura Nyro, Map to the Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro, performing on the track "And When I Die".
Reception and influences
Krauss' earliest musical experience was as an instrumentalist, though her style has grown to focus more on her vocals with a band providing most of the instrumentation. Musicians she enjoys include vocalists Lou Gramm of Foreigner and Paul Rodgers of Bad Company. Krauss' family listened to "folk records" while she was growing up, but she had friends who exposed her to groups such as AC/DC, Carly Simon, the Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and ELO. She cites Dolly Parton, with whom she has since collaborated a number of times, as a major influence. Some credit Krauss and Union Station, at least partially, with a recent revival of interest in bluegrass music in the United States. Despite being together for nearly two decades and winning numerous awards, she said the group was "just beginning right now" (in 2002) because "in spite of all the great things that have happened for the band, [she] feel[s] musically it's just really beginning". Although she alternates between solo releases and works with the band, she has said there is no difference in her involvement between the two.
As a group, AKUS have been called "American favourites", "world-beaters", and "the tightest band around". While they have been successful as a group, many reviews note Krauss still "remains the undisputed star and rock-solid foundation" and have described her as the "band's focus" with an "angelic" voice that "flows like honey". Her work has been compared to that of the Cox Family, Bill Monroe, and Del McCoury, and has in turn been credited with influencing various "Newgrass" artists including Nickel Creek, for which she acted as record producer on two of their albums. In addition to her work with Nickel Creek, she has acted as producer to the Cox Family, Reba McEntire and Alan Jackson. Adam Sweeting of The Guardian has said Krauss and Union Station are "superb, when they stick to hoedowns and hillbilly music, but much less convincing, when they lurch towards the middle of the road". Blender magazine has said the "flavorless repertoire [Krauss] sings... steers her toward Lite FM". In addition, Q magazine and The Onion AV Club have said their newer releases are "pretty much the usual", and that although Krauss is generally "adventurous", these recent releases contain nothing to "alienate the masses".
Voice, themes, and musical style
Krauss possesses a soprano voice, which has been described as "angelic".
She has said her musical influences include J. D. Crowe, Ricky Skaggs, and Tony Rice. Many of her songs are described as sad, and are often about love, especially lost love. Though Krauss has a close involvement with her group and a long career in music, she rarely performs music she has written herself. She has also described her general approach to constructing an album as starting with a single song and selecting other tracks based on the first, to give the final album a somewhat consistent theme and mood. She most commonly performs in the bluegrass and country genres, though she has had two songs on the adult contemporary charts, has worked with rock artists such as Phish and Sting, and is sometimes said to stray into pop music.
Music videos
Krauss did not think she would make music videos at the beginning of her career. After recording her first she was convinced it was so bad that she would never do another. Nonetheless, she has continued to make further videos. Many of the first videos she saw were by bluegrass artists. Dan Tyminski has noted that the video for Thriller was very popular at the time she was first exposed to music videos. She has made suggestions on the style or theme to some videos, though she tends to leave such decisions to the director of the particular video. The group chooses directors by seeking out people who have previously directed videos that band members have enjoyed. The director for a video to "If I Didn't Know Any Better" from Lonely Runs Both Ways, for example, was selected because Krauss enjoyed work he had done with Def Leppard and, she wondered, what he could do with their music. While style decisions are generally left to the various directors of the videos, many – including for "The Lucky One", "Restless", "Goodbye is All We Have", "New Favorite", and "If I Didn't Know Any Better" – follow a pattern. In all of these videos Krauss walks, sometimes interacting with other people, while the rest of the band follows her.
Performances
Krauss has said she used to dislike working in the studio, where she had to perform the same song repeatedly, but has come to like studio work roughly the same as live stage performances. Her own favorite concert experiences include watching three Foreigner concerts during a single tour, a Dolly Parton concert, and a Larry Sparks concert.
She appeared on Austin City Limits in 1992 and opened the show in 1995 with Union Station. The New Favorite tour, after AKUS' album of the same name, was planned to start September 12, 2001 in Cincinnati, Ohio, but was delayed until September 28 in Savannah, Georgia following the September 11 terrorist attacks. Krauss took part in the Down from the Mountain tour in 2002, which featured many artists from the O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack. Down from the Mountain was followed by the Great High Mountain Tour, which was composed of musicians from both O Brother and Cold Mountain, including Krauss. She has also given several notable smaller performances including at Carnegie Hall (with the Grand Ole Opry), on Lifetime Television in a concert of female performers, on the radio show A Prairie Home Companion, where she sang two songs not previously recorded on any of her albums, and a performance at the White House attended by then-President Bill Clinton and then-Vice President Al Gore. She has also been in the White House again, performing the song "When You Say Nothing at All" at country music performances. She also performed a tribute to the Everly Brothers at which she sang "All I Have to Do is Dream" with Emmylou Harris and "When Will I Be Loved" with Vince Gill. She was also invited by Taylor Swift to perform with her at the 2013 CMA's and by Joshua Bell to perform with him on a Christmas album; Bell said that "she (Krauss) is someone I've adored for so many years now". She performed at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. on January 10, 2015, as a part of "The Life and Songs of Emmylou Harris: An All Star Concert Celebration" which is a tribute to Emmylou Harris.
Awards and honors
Krauss has won twenty-seven Grammy Awards over the course of her career as a solo artist, as a group with Union Station, as a duet with Robert Plant, and as a record producer. As of 2021, she ranks fourth on the list of winners of the most Grammy Awards. She overtook Aretha Franklin for the most female wins at the 46th Grammy Awards, where Krauss won three, bringing her total at the time to seventeen (Franklin won her sixteenth that night). The Recording Academy (which presents the Grammy Awards) presented her with a special musical achievement honor in 2005. She has also won 14 International Bluegrass Music Association Awards, 9 Country Music Association Awards, 2 Gospel Music Association Awards, 2 CMT Music Awards, 2 Academy of Country Music Awards, and 1 Canadian Country Music Award. Country Music Television ranked Krauss 12th on their "40 Greatest Women of Country Music" list in 2002.
At the 76th Academy Awards in February 2004, where she performed two nominated songs from the Cold Mountain soundtrack, Krauss was chosen by Hollywood shoe designer Stuart Weitzman to wear a pair of $2 million 'Cinderella' sandals with 4½ inch clear glass stiletto heels and two straps adorned with 565 Kwiat diamonds set in platinum. Feeling like a rather unglamorous choice, Krauss said, "When I first heard, I was like, 'What were they thinking?' I have the worst feet of anybody who will be there that night!" In addition to the fairy-tale-inspired shoes, Weitzman outfitted Krauss with a Palm Trēo 600 smartphone, bejeweled with 3,000 clear-and-topaz-colored Swarovski crystals. The shoes were returned, but Krauss kept the crystal-covered phone. Weitzman chose Krauss to show off his fashions at the urging of his daughters, who are fans of Krauss' music.
In May 2012, Alison Krauss was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music.
In March 2015, her hometown of Champaign, Illinois, designated the 400 block of West Hill Street as "Honorary Alison Krauss Way".
Personal life
Krauss was married to musician Pat Bergeson from 1997 to 2001. Their son, Sam, was born in July 1999.
Discography
Studio albums
1986: Different Strokes (with Jim Hoiles and Swamp Weiss)
1987: Too Late to Cry
1989: Two Highways (with Union Station)
1990: I've Got That Old Feeling
1992: Every Time You Say Goodbye (with Union Station)
1994: I Know Who Holds Tomorrow (with the Cox Family)
1997: So Long So Wrong (with Union Station)
1999: Forget About It
2001: New Favorite (with Union Station)
2004: Lonely Runs Both Ways (with Union Station)
2007: Raising Sand (with Robert Plant)
2011: Paper Airplane (with Union Station)
2017: Windy City
2021: Raise the Roof (with Robert Plant)
Filmography
Notes
a. Sources vary on birth place; see talk page discussion
References
External links
Rounder Records site for Alison Krauss
[ Alison Krauss] on Allmusic database
1971 births
Living people
Union Station (band) members
American bluegrass fiddlers
American women country singers
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Champaign, Illinois
American people of German descent
American people of Italian descent
Grand Ole Opry members
American performers of Christian music
American sopranos
Rounder Records artists
Musicians from Decatur, Illinois
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
Country musicians from Illinois
United States National Medal of Arts recipients | false | [
"\"Make Some Noise\" is the second single from the album Make Some Noise by Krystal Meyers. The song was released in the United States and Japan in 2008.\n\nAbout \"Make Some Noise\"\n\"Make Some Noise\" was used by NBC in promoting its fall 2008 line-up. Its video made its world-wide internet video premiere on Yahoo Music on July 10, 2008. \"Make Some Noise\" was also recorded by Meyers with her singing portions of the song in Indonesian, Mandarin and Thai. These versions are available in the iTunes Worldwide Deluxe Edition and with the Make Some Noise bonus DVD.\n\n\"Make Some Noise\" is about making noise as you stand up for what is right. Krystal writes, \"I really want me and my generation to be a part of leaving a positive impact on the world, and that's what \"Make Some Noise\" is all about. We need to stand up for what we believe, and for who we are. Don't let anyone ignore you. Don't be afraid to take a stand, because we were born to make some noise!\" \n\nVideos of the song are available on the Make Some Noise bonus DVD.\n\nReferences\n\n2008 singles\nKrystal Meyers songs\nSongs written by Dave Derby\nSongs written by Vitamin C (singer)\nSongs written by Krystal Meyers\n2008 songs\nEssential Records (Christian) singles",
"\"If I Were You\" is a 1995 single written by k.d. lang and Ben Mink and performed by k.d. lang. The single was the first single released from lang's third studio album, All You Can Eat (1995), on 18 September 1995.\n\n\"If I Were You\" reached number 24 on the Canadian RPM Top Singles chart and number four on the RPM Adult Contemporary chart. On the US Billboard charts, the single reached number 15 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 and was lang's second and final number one on the Hot Dance Club Play chart. Overseas, \"If I Were You\" peaked at number 23 in Australia, number 50 in New Zealand, and number 53 in the United Kingdom. Billboard named it lang's sixth-best song.\n\nTrack listings\n\nUS 7-inch and CD single\n \"If I Were You\" – 3:38\n \"Get Some\" – 3:37\n\nEuropean CD single\n \"If I Were You\" – 3:58\n \"Get Some\" – 3:37\n \"What's New Pussycat\" (live) – 2:44\n\nAustralian maxi-single\n \"If I Were You\" (album version)\n \"If I Were You\" (Close to the Groove edit)\n \"If I Were You\" (Smokin' Lounge Mix)\n \"If I Were You\" (Junior's X-Beat Mix)\n \"If I Were You\" (album edit)\n \"What's New Pussycat\" (live)\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nRelease history\n\nSee also\n List of number-one dance singles of 1996 (U.S.)\n\nReferences\n\n1995 singles\n1995 songs\nK.d. lang songs\nMusic videos directed by Kevin Kerslake\nSongs written by Ben Mink\nSongs written by k.d. lang"
] |
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"1992-1999: Rising success",
"what happened in 1992",
"Krauss' second Union Station album Every Time You Say Goodbye was released in 1992,",
"how did it do",
"she went on to win her second Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album of the year.",
"what were some songs on it",
"I don't know."
] | C_9547d7ab1ed8495b9e4084ea1f45e747_0 | what happened in 1999 | 4 | What happened in 1999 for Alison Krauss? | Alison Krauss | Krauss' second Union Station album Every Time You Say Goodbye was released in 1992, and she went on to win her second Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album of the year. She then joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1993 at the age of 21. She was the youngest cast member at the time, and the first bluegrass artist to join the Opry in twenty-nine years. She also collaborated on a project with the Cox Family in 1994, a bluegrass album called I Know Who Holds Tomorrow. Mandolin and guitar player Dan Tyminski replaced Tim Stafford in Union Station in 1994. Late in the year, Krauss recorded with the band Shenandoah on its single "Somewhere in the Vicinity of the Heart", which brought her to the country music Top Ten for the first time and it won the Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Also in 1994, Krauss collaborated with Suzy Bogguss, Kathy Mattea, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to contribute "Teach Your Children" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization. In 1997, she recorded vocals and violin for "Half a Mind", on Tommy Shaw's 7 Deadly Zens album. Now That I've Found You: A Collection, a compilation of older releases and some covers of her favorite works by other artists, was released in 1995. Some of these covers include Bad Company's "Oh Atlanta", The Foundations' & Dan Schafer's "Baby, Now That I've Found You", which was used in the Australian hit comedy movie The Castle, and The Beatles' "I Will". A cover of Keith Whitley's "When You Say Nothing at All" reached number three on the Billboard country chart; the album peaked in the top fifteen on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, and sold two million copies to become Krauss' first double-platinum album. Krauss also was nominated for four Country Music Association Awards and won all of them. So Long So Wrong, another Union Station album, was released in 1997 and won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. One critic said its sound was "rather untraditional" and "likely [to] change quite a few ... minds about bluegrass." Included on the album is the track "It Doesn't Matter", which was featured in the second-season premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and was included on the Buffy soundtrack in 1999. Her next solo release in 1999, Forget About It, included one of her two tracks to appear on the Billboard adult contemporary chart, "Stay". The album was certified gold and charted within the top seventy-five of the Billboard 200 and in the top five of the country chart. In addition, the track "That Kind of Love" was included in another episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. CANNOTANSWER | "It Doesn't Matter", which was featured in the second-season premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer | Alison Maria Krauss (born July 23, 1971) is an American bluegrass-country singer and musician. She entered the music industry at an early age, winning local contests by the age of 10 and recording for the first time at 14. She signed with Rounder Records in 1985 and released her first solo album in 1987. She was invited to join the band with which she still performs, Alison Krauss and Union Station, and later released her first album with them as a group in 1989.
Krauss has released fourteen albums, appeared on numerous soundtracks, and sparked a renewed interest in bluegrass music in the United States. Her soundtrack performances have led to further popularity, including the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, and the Cold Mountain soundtrack, which led to her performance at the 2004 Academy Awards.
As of 2019, she has won 27 Grammy Awards from 42 nominations, ranking her fourth behind Beyoncé, Quincy Jones and classical conductor Georg Solti for most Grammy Award wins overall. Krauss was the most awarded singer and the most awarded female artist in Grammy history until Beyoncé won her 28th Grammy in 2021. When Krauss won her first Grammy in 1991, she was the second-youngest winner at that time.
On November 21, 2019, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. She was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in September 2021.
Early life
Alison Maria Krauss was born in Decatur, Illinois, to Fred and Louise Krauss. Her father was a German immigrant who came to the United States in 1952 at age 12, and taught his native language while he earned a doctorate in psychology. He later went into the business of real estate. Her mother, an American of German and Italian descent, is the daughter of artists, and works as an illustrator of magazines and textbooks. Fred and Louise met while they were studying at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. After a brief residence in nearby Decatur, the family settled in Champaign, where Krauss was raised with her older brother, Viktor.
Krauss's mother played banjo and acoustic guitar, so Krauss was exposed to folk music at home, and she heard rock and pop music on the radio: she liked Gary Numan's synth-pop song "Cars", and rock bands such as Foreigner, Bad Company, and Electric Light Orchestra. Her brother Viktor played piano and double bass in high school, launching a career as a jazz and rock multi-instrumentalist. At her mother's insistence, Krauss began studying classical violin at age five. Krauss was reluctant to spend time practicing, but she continued with classical lessons until she was eleven. Krauss said her mother "tried to find interesting things for me to do" and "wanted to get me involved in music, in addition to art and sports". Krauss was also very active in roller skating, and in her teens she finally decided on a career in music rather than roller derby.
In mid-1979, Krauss's mother saw a notice for an upcoming fiddle competition at the Champaign County Fair, so she bought a bluegrass fiddle instruction book and the 1977 bluegrass album Duets by violinist Richard Greene. Krauss learned by ear to play several songs from the album, including "Tennessee Waltz" which she practiced on violin with her mother accompanying on guitar. Krauss entered the talent contest in the novice category at the age of eight, placing fourth. (This is where she first met fiddler Andrea Zonn who won the junior division at age 10.) Krauss investigated the bluegrass genre more thoroughly after this, and she developed a knack for learning complex riffs by ear, quickly turning them into her own version. In 1981–82, Krauss performed with Marvin Lee Flessner's country dance band in which she fiddled and sang. In September 1983, her parents bought her a custom violin made by hand in Missouri – her first adult-sized instrument. At 13, she won the Walnut Valley Festival Fiddle Championship, and the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass in America named her the "Most Promising Fiddler in the Midwest". She was also called "virtuoso" by Vanity Fair magazine.
Krauss first met Dan Tyminski around 1984 at a festival held by the Society. Every current member of her band, Union Station, first met her at these festivals.
1985–1991: Early career
Krauss made her recording debut in 1986 on the independent album, Different Strokes, in collaboration with Swamp Weiss and Jim Hoiles, and featuring her brother Viktor Krauss. From the age of 12 she performed with bassist and songwriter John Pennell in a band called "Silver Rail", replacing Andrea Zonn. Pennell later changed the band's name to Union Station after another band was discovered with the name Silver Rail.
Later that year, she signed to Rounder Records, and in 1987, at 16, she released her debut album Too Late to Cry with Union Station as her backup band.
Krauss' debut solo album was quickly followed by her first group album with Union Station in 1989, Two Highways. The album includes the traditional tunes "Wild Bill Jones" and "Beaumont Rag", along with a bluegrass interpretation of the Allman Brothers' "Midnight Rider".
Krauss' contract with Rounder required her to alternate between releasing a solo album and an album with Union Station, and she released the solo album I've Got That Old Feeling in 1990. It was her first album to rise onto the Billboard charts, peaking in the top seventy-five on the country chart. The album also was a notable point in her career as she earned her first Grammy Award, the single "Steel Rails" was her first single tracked by Billboard, and the title single "I've Got That Old Feeling" was the first song for which she recorded a music video.
1992–1999: Rising success
Krauss' second Union Station album Every Time You Say Goodbye was released in 1992, and she went on to win her second Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album of the year. She then joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1993 at the age of 21. She was the youngest cast member at the time, and the first bluegrass artist to join the Opry in 29 years. She also collaborated on a project with the Cox Family in 1994, a bluegrass album called I Know Who Holds Tomorrow. Mandolin and guitar player Dan Tyminski replaced Tim Stafford in Union Station in 1994. Late in the year, Krauss recorded with the band Shenandoah on its single "Somewhere in the Vicinity of the Heart", which brought her to the country music Top Ten for the first time and it won the Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Also in 1994, Krauss collaborated with Suzy Bogguss, Kathy Mattea, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to contribute "Teach Your Children" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization. In 1997, she recorded vocals and violin for "Half a Mind", on Tommy Shaw's 7 Deadly Zens album.
Now That I've Found You: A Collection, a compilation of older releases and some covers of her favorite works by other artists, was released in 1995. Some of these covers include Bad Company's "Oh Atlanta", the Foundations' & Dan Schafer's "Baby, Now That I've Found You", which was used in the Australian hit comedy movie The Castle, and the Beatles' "I Will" with Tony Furtado. A cover of Keith Whitley's "When You Say Nothing at All" reached number three on the Billboard country chart; the album peaked in the top fifteen on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, and sold two million copies to become Krauss' first double-platinum album. Krauss also was nominated for four Country Music Association Awards and won all of them.
So Long So Wrong, another Union Station album, was released in 1997 and won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. One critic said its sound was "rather untraditional" and "likely [to] change quite a few ... minds about bluegrass". Included on the album is the track "It Doesn't Matter", which was featured in the second-season premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and was included on the Buffy soundtrack in 1999.
Her next solo release in 1999, Forget About It, included one of her two tracks to appear on the Billboard adult contemporary chart, "Stay". The album was certified gold and charted within the top seventy-five of the Billboard 200 and in the top five of the country chart. In addition, the track "That Kind of Love" was included in another episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
2000–present: Current career
Adam Steffey left Union Station in 1998, and was replaced with renowned dobro player Jerry Douglas. Douglas had provided studio back-up to Krauss' records since 1987's Too Late to Cry. Their next album, New Favorite, was released on August 14, 2001. The album went on to win the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album, with the single "The Lucky One" winning a Grammy as well. New Favorite was followed up by the double platinum double album Live in 2002 and a release of a DVD of the same live performance in 2003. Both the album and the DVD were recorded during a performance at The Louisville Palace and both the album and DVD have been certified double Platinum. Also in 2002 she played a singing voice for one of the characters in the animated comedy film Eight Crazy Nights.
Lonely Runs Both Ways was released in 2004, and eventually became another Alison Krauss & Union Station gold certified album. Ron Block described Lonely Runs Both Ways as "pretty much... what we've always done" in terms of song selection and the style, in which those songs were recorded. Krauss believes the group "was probably the most unprepared we've ever been" for the album and that songs were chosen as needed rather than planned beforehand. She also performed a duet with Brad Paisley on his album Mud on the Tires in the single "Whiskey Lullaby". The single was quickly ranked in the top fifty of the Billboard Hot 100 and the top five of the Hot Country Songs, and won the Country Music Association Awards for "Best Musical Event" and "Best Music Video" of the year.
In 2007, Krauss and Robert Plant released the collaborative album titled Raising Sand. RIAA-certified platinum, the album was nominated for and won 5 Grammy Awards at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album, and Record of the Year ("Please Read the Letter"). Krauss and Plant recorded a Crossroads special in October 2007 for the Country Music Television network, which first aired on February 12, 2008.
Returning with Union Station, Krauss released an album called Paper Airplane on April 12, 2011, the follow-up album to Lonely Runs Both Ways (2004). Mike Shipley, the recording and mixing engineer for the album, said that the album had a lengthy production time because of Krauss' non-stop migraines. Nevertheless, Paper Airplane became Krauss's highest-charting album in the U.S., reaching number three on the Billboard 200 on topping both the country and bluegrass album charts.
In 2014, Krauss and her band Union Station toured with Willie Nelson and Family, with special guests Kacey Musgraves, and the Devil Makes Three.
Capitol Records released Windy City, an album of country and bluegrass classics, produced by Buddy Cannon and her first solo release in 17 years, on February 17, 2017. Krauss received two nominations at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards for Best Country Solo Performance and Best American Roots Performance.
In August 2021, Krauss announced she was releasing a sequel album to Raising Sand with Robert Plant called Raise the Roof. In addition to the album, Krauss and Plant are planning a 2022 tour.
Other work
Krauss has made guest appearances on other records on lead vocals, harmony vocals, and fiddle. In 1987, at the age of 15, she played fiddle on the album The Western Illinois Rag by Americana musician Chris Vallillo. In 1993 she recorded vocals for the Phish song "If I Could" in Los Angeles. In 1997 she sang harmony vocals in both English and Irish on the album Runaway Sunday by Irish traditional band Altan. In 1998 she played and sang on the title track of Hawaiian slack-key artist Ledward Kaapana's album, Waltz of the Wind.
Krauss had her only number one hit in 2000, receiving vocal credit for "Buy Me a Rose". She has contributed to numerous motion picture soundtracks, most notably O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). She and Dan Tyminski contributed multiple tracks, including "I'll Fly Away" (with Gillian Welch), "Down to the River to Pray", and "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow". In the film, Tyminski's vocals on "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow" were used for George Clooney's character. The soundtrack sold over seven million copies and won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2002. Both Krauss and the surprisingly popular album were credited with reviving interest in bluegrass. She has said, however, that she believes Americans already liked bluegrass and other less-heard musical genres, and that the film merely provided easy exposure to the music. She did not appear in the movie, at her own request, because she was pregnant during its filming.
In 2007, Krauss released A Hundred Miles or More: A Collection, an album of new songs, soundtrack tunes, and duets with artists such as John Waite, James Taylor, Brad Paisley, and Natalie MacMaster. The album was successful commercially but given a lukewarm reception by critics. One of the tracks, "Missing You", a duet with Waite (and a cover of his hit single from 1984), was similarly received as a single. On August 11, television network Great American Country aired a one-hour special, Alison Krauss: A Hundred Miles or More, based on the album.
Krauss appeared on Heart's March 2010 concert DVD Night at Sky Church, providing the lead vocals for the song "These Dreams".
Other soundtracks for which Krauss has performed include Twister, The Prince of Egypt, Eight Crazy Nights, Mona Lisa Smile, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Alias, Bambi II and Cold Mountain. She contributed "Jubilee" to the 2004 documentary Paper Clips. The Cold Mountain songs she sang, "The Scarlet Tide" with T Bone Burnett and Elvis Costello, and "You Will Be My Ain True Love" with Sting, were each nominated for an Academy Award. She performed both songs at the 76th Academy Awards, the first with Costello and Burnett, and the other with Sting. She produced Nickel Creek's debut album (2000) and the follow-up This Side (2002), which won Krauss her first Grammy award as a producer.
Krauss performed on Moody Bluegrass: A Nashville Tribute to the Moody Blues.
She participated in Billy Childs' 2014 tribute album to Laura Nyro, Map to the Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro, performing on the track "And When I Die".
Reception and influences
Krauss' earliest musical experience was as an instrumentalist, though her style has grown to focus more on her vocals with a band providing most of the instrumentation. Musicians she enjoys include vocalists Lou Gramm of Foreigner and Paul Rodgers of Bad Company. Krauss' family listened to "folk records" while she was growing up, but she had friends who exposed her to groups such as AC/DC, Carly Simon, the Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and ELO. She cites Dolly Parton, with whom she has since collaborated a number of times, as a major influence. Some credit Krauss and Union Station, at least partially, with a recent revival of interest in bluegrass music in the United States. Despite being together for nearly two decades and winning numerous awards, she said the group was "just beginning right now" (in 2002) because "in spite of all the great things that have happened for the band, [she] feel[s] musically it's just really beginning". Although she alternates between solo releases and works with the band, she has said there is no difference in her involvement between the two.
As a group, AKUS have been called "American favourites", "world-beaters", and "the tightest band around". While they have been successful as a group, many reviews note Krauss still "remains the undisputed star and rock-solid foundation" and have described her as the "band's focus" with an "angelic" voice that "flows like honey". Her work has been compared to that of the Cox Family, Bill Monroe, and Del McCoury, and has in turn been credited with influencing various "Newgrass" artists including Nickel Creek, for which she acted as record producer on two of their albums. In addition to her work with Nickel Creek, she has acted as producer to the Cox Family, Reba McEntire and Alan Jackson. Adam Sweeting of The Guardian has said Krauss and Union Station are "superb, when they stick to hoedowns and hillbilly music, but much less convincing, when they lurch towards the middle of the road". Blender magazine has said the "flavorless repertoire [Krauss] sings... steers her toward Lite FM". In addition, Q magazine and The Onion AV Club have said their newer releases are "pretty much the usual", and that although Krauss is generally "adventurous", these recent releases contain nothing to "alienate the masses".
Voice, themes, and musical style
Krauss possesses a soprano voice, which has been described as "angelic".
She has said her musical influences include J. D. Crowe, Ricky Skaggs, and Tony Rice. Many of her songs are described as sad, and are often about love, especially lost love. Though Krauss has a close involvement with her group and a long career in music, she rarely performs music she has written herself. She has also described her general approach to constructing an album as starting with a single song and selecting other tracks based on the first, to give the final album a somewhat consistent theme and mood. She most commonly performs in the bluegrass and country genres, though she has had two songs on the adult contemporary charts, has worked with rock artists such as Phish and Sting, and is sometimes said to stray into pop music.
Music videos
Krauss did not think she would make music videos at the beginning of her career. After recording her first she was convinced it was so bad that she would never do another. Nonetheless, she has continued to make further videos. Many of the first videos she saw were by bluegrass artists. Dan Tyminski has noted that the video for Thriller was very popular at the time she was first exposed to music videos. She has made suggestions on the style or theme to some videos, though she tends to leave such decisions to the director of the particular video. The group chooses directors by seeking out people who have previously directed videos that band members have enjoyed. The director for a video to "If I Didn't Know Any Better" from Lonely Runs Both Ways, for example, was selected because Krauss enjoyed work he had done with Def Leppard and, she wondered, what he could do with their music. While style decisions are generally left to the various directors of the videos, many – including for "The Lucky One", "Restless", "Goodbye is All We Have", "New Favorite", and "If I Didn't Know Any Better" – follow a pattern. In all of these videos Krauss walks, sometimes interacting with other people, while the rest of the band follows her.
Performances
Krauss has said she used to dislike working in the studio, where she had to perform the same song repeatedly, but has come to like studio work roughly the same as live stage performances. Her own favorite concert experiences include watching three Foreigner concerts during a single tour, a Dolly Parton concert, and a Larry Sparks concert.
She appeared on Austin City Limits in 1992 and opened the show in 1995 with Union Station. The New Favorite tour, after AKUS' album of the same name, was planned to start September 12, 2001 in Cincinnati, Ohio, but was delayed until September 28 in Savannah, Georgia following the September 11 terrorist attacks. Krauss took part in the Down from the Mountain tour in 2002, which featured many artists from the O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack. Down from the Mountain was followed by the Great High Mountain Tour, which was composed of musicians from both O Brother and Cold Mountain, including Krauss. She has also given several notable smaller performances including at Carnegie Hall (with the Grand Ole Opry), on Lifetime Television in a concert of female performers, on the radio show A Prairie Home Companion, where she sang two songs not previously recorded on any of her albums, and a performance at the White House attended by then-President Bill Clinton and then-Vice President Al Gore. She has also been in the White House again, performing the song "When You Say Nothing at All" at country music performances. She also performed a tribute to the Everly Brothers at which she sang "All I Have to Do is Dream" with Emmylou Harris and "When Will I Be Loved" with Vince Gill. She was also invited by Taylor Swift to perform with her at the 2013 CMA's and by Joshua Bell to perform with him on a Christmas album; Bell said that "she (Krauss) is someone I've adored for so many years now". She performed at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. on January 10, 2015, as a part of "The Life and Songs of Emmylou Harris: An All Star Concert Celebration" which is a tribute to Emmylou Harris.
Awards and honors
Krauss has won twenty-seven Grammy Awards over the course of her career as a solo artist, as a group with Union Station, as a duet with Robert Plant, and as a record producer. As of 2021, she ranks fourth on the list of winners of the most Grammy Awards. She overtook Aretha Franklin for the most female wins at the 46th Grammy Awards, where Krauss won three, bringing her total at the time to seventeen (Franklin won her sixteenth that night). The Recording Academy (which presents the Grammy Awards) presented her with a special musical achievement honor in 2005. She has also won 14 International Bluegrass Music Association Awards, 9 Country Music Association Awards, 2 Gospel Music Association Awards, 2 CMT Music Awards, 2 Academy of Country Music Awards, and 1 Canadian Country Music Award. Country Music Television ranked Krauss 12th on their "40 Greatest Women of Country Music" list in 2002.
At the 76th Academy Awards in February 2004, where she performed two nominated songs from the Cold Mountain soundtrack, Krauss was chosen by Hollywood shoe designer Stuart Weitzman to wear a pair of $2 million 'Cinderella' sandals with 4½ inch clear glass stiletto heels and two straps adorned with 565 Kwiat diamonds set in platinum. Feeling like a rather unglamorous choice, Krauss said, "When I first heard, I was like, 'What were they thinking?' I have the worst feet of anybody who will be there that night!" In addition to the fairy-tale-inspired shoes, Weitzman outfitted Krauss with a Palm Trēo 600 smartphone, bejeweled with 3,000 clear-and-topaz-colored Swarovski crystals. The shoes were returned, but Krauss kept the crystal-covered phone. Weitzman chose Krauss to show off his fashions at the urging of his daughters, who are fans of Krauss' music.
In May 2012, Alison Krauss was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music.
In March 2015, her hometown of Champaign, Illinois, designated the 400 block of West Hill Street as "Honorary Alison Krauss Way".
Personal life
Krauss was married to musician Pat Bergeson from 1997 to 2001. Their son, Sam, was born in July 1999.
Discography
Studio albums
1986: Different Strokes (with Jim Hoiles and Swamp Weiss)
1987: Too Late to Cry
1989: Two Highways (with Union Station)
1990: I've Got That Old Feeling
1992: Every Time You Say Goodbye (with Union Station)
1994: I Know Who Holds Tomorrow (with the Cox Family)
1997: So Long So Wrong (with Union Station)
1999: Forget About It
2001: New Favorite (with Union Station)
2004: Lonely Runs Both Ways (with Union Station)
2007: Raising Sand (with Robert Plant)
2011: Paper Airplane (with Union Station)
2017: Windy City
2021: Raise the Roof (with Robert Plant)
Filmography
Notes
a. Sources vary on birth place; see talk page discussion
References
External links
Rounder Records site for Alison Krauss
[ Alison Krauss] on Allmusic database
1971 births
Living people
Union Station (band) members
American bluegrass fiddlers
American women country singers
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Champaign, Illinois
American people of German descent
American people of Italian descent
Grand Ole Opry members
American performers of Christian music
American sopranos
Rounder Records artists
Musicians from Decatur, Illinois
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
Country musicians from Illinois
United States National Medal of Arts recipients | 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"
] |
[
"Alison Krauss",
"1992-1999: Rising success",
"what happened in 1992",
"Krauss' second Union Station album Every Time You Say Goodbye was released in 1992,",
"how did it do",
"she went on to win her second Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album of the year.",
"what were some songs on it",
"I don't know.",
"what happened in 1999",
"\"It Doesn't Matter\", which was featured in the second-season premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer"
] | C_9547d7ab1ed8495b9e4084ea1f45e747_0 | anything else interesting between 92 and 99 | 5 | Did anything else interesting between 1992 and 1999 happen to Alison Krauss aside from her publicity in a hit TV show? | Alison Krauss | Krauss' second Union Station album Every Time You Say Goodbye was released in 1992, and she went on to win her second Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album of the year. She then joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1993 at the age of 21. She was the youngest cast member at the time, and the first bluegrass artist to join the Opry in twenty-nine years. She also collaborated on a project with the Cox Family in 1994, a bluegrass album called I Know Who Holds Tomorrow. Mandolin and guitar player Dan Tyminski replaced Tim Stafford in Union Station in 1994. Late in the year, Krauss recorded with the band Shenandoah on its single "Somewhere in the Vicinity of the Heart", which brought her to the country music Top Ten for the first time and it won the Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Also in 1994, Krauss collaborated with Suzy Bogguss, Kathy Mattea, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to contribute "Teach Your Children" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization. In 1997, she recorded vocals and violin for "Half a Mind", on Tommy Shaw's 7 Deadly Zens album. Now That I've Found You: A Collection, a compilation of older releases and some covers of her favorite works by other artists, was released in 1995. Some of these covers include Bad Company's "Oh Atlanta", The Foundations' & Dan Schafer's "Baby, Now That I've Found You", which was used in the Australian hit comedy movie The Castle, and The Beatles' "I Will". A cover of Keith Whitley's "When You Say Nothing at All" reached number three on the Billboard country chart; the album peaked in the top fifteen on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, and sold two million copies to become Krauss' first double-platinum album. Krauss also was nominated for four Country Music Association Awards and won all of them. So Long So Wrong, another Union Station album, was released in 1997 and won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. One critic said its sound was "rather untraditional" and "likely [to] change quite a few ... minds about bluegrass." Included on the album is the track "It Doesn't Matter", which was featured in the second-season premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and was included on the Buffy soundtrack in 1999. Her next solo release in 1999, Forget About It, included one of her two tracks to appear on the Billboard adult contemporary chart, "Stay". The album was certified gold and charted within the top seventy-five of the Billboard 200 and in the top five of the country chart. In addition, the track "That Kind of Love" was included in another episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. CANNOTANSWER | A Collection, a compilation of older releases and some covers of her favorite works by other artists, was released in 1995. | Alison Maria Krauss (born July 23, 1971) is an American bluegrass-country singer and musician. She entered the music industry at an early age, winning local contests by the age of 10 and recording for the first time at 14. She signed with Rounder Records in 1985 and released her first solo album in 1987. She was invited to join the band with which she still performs, Alison Krauss and Union Station, and later released her first album with them as a group in 1989.
Krauss has released fourteen albums, appeared on numerous soundtracks, and sparked a renewed interest in bluegrass music in the United States. Her soundtrack performances have led to further popularity, including the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, and the Cold Mountain soundtrack, which led to her performance at the 2004 Academy Awards.
As of 2019, she has won 27 Grammy Awards from 42 nominations, ranking her fourth behind Beyoncé, Quincy Jones and classical conductor Georg Solti for most Grammy Award wins overall. Krauss was the most awarded singer and the most awarded female artist in Grammy history until Beyoncé won her 28th Grammy in 2021. When Krauss won her first Grammy in 1991, she was the second-youngest winner at that time.
On November 21, 2019, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. She was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in September 2021.
Early life
Alison Maria Krauss was born in Decatur, Illinois, to Fred and Louise Krauss. Her father was a German immigrant who came to the United States in 1952 at age 12, and taught his native language while he earned a doctorate in psychology. He later went into the business of real estate. Her mother, an American of German and Italian descent, is the daughter of artists, and works as an illustrator of magazines and textbooks. Fred and Louise met while they were studying at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. After a brief residence in nearby Decatur, the family settled in Champaign, where Krauss was raised with her older brother, Viktor.
Krauss's mother played banjo and acoustic guitar, so Krauss was exposed to folk music at home, and she heard rock and pop music on the radio: she liked Gary Numan's synth-pop song "Cars", and rock bands such as Foreigner, Bad Company, and Electric Light Orchestra. Her brother Viktor played piano and double bass in high school, launching a career as a jazz and rock multi-instrumentalist. At her mother's insistence, Krauss began studying classical violin at age five. Krauss was reluctant to spend time practicing, but she continued with classical lessons until she was eleven. Krauss said her mother "tried to find interesting things for me to do" and "wanted to get me involved in music, in addition to art and sports". Krauss was also very active in roller skating, and in her teens she finally decided on a career in music rather than roller derby.
In mid-1979, Krauss's mother saw a notice for an upcoming fiddle competition at the Champaign County Fair, so she bought a bluegrass fiddle instruction book and the 1977 bluegrass album Duets by violinist Richard Greene. Krauss learned by ear to play several songs from the album, including "Tennessee Waltz" which she practiced on violin with her mother accompanying on guitar. Krauss entered the talent contest in the novice category at the age of eight, placing fourth. (This is where she first met fiddler Andrea Zonn who won the junior division at age 10.) Krauss investigated the bluegrass genre more thoroughly after this, and she developed a knack for learning complex riffs by ear, quickly turning them into her own version. In 1981–82, Krauss performed with Marvin Lee Flessner's country dance band in which she fiddled and sang. In September 1983, her parents bought her a custom violin made by hand in Missouri – her first adult-sized instrument. At 13, she won the Walnut Valley Festival Fiddle Championship, and the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass in America named her the "Most Promising Fiddler in the Midwest". She was also called "virtuoso" by Vanity Fair magazine.
Krauss first met Dan Tyminski around 1984 at a festival held by the Society. Every current member of her band, Union Station, first met her at these festivals.
1985–1991: Early career
Krauss made her recording debut in 1986 on the independent album, Different Strokes, in collaboration with Swamp Weiss and Jim Hoiles, and featuring her brother Viktor Krauss. From the age of 12 she performed with bassist and songwriter John Pennell in a band called "Silver Rail", replacing Andrea Zonn. Pennell later changed the band's name to Union Station after another band was discovered with the name Silver Rail.
Later that year, she signed to Rounder Records, and in 1987, at 16, she released her debut album Too Late to Cry with Union Station as her backup band.
Krauss' debut solo album was quickly followed by her first group album with Union Station in 1989, Two Highways. The album includes the traditional tunes "Wild Bill Jones" and "Beaumont Rag", along with a bluegrass interpretation of the Allman Brothers' "Midnight Rider".
Krauss' contract with Rounder required her to alternate between releasing a solo album and an album with Union Station, and she released the solo album I've Got That Old Feeling in 1990. It was her first album to rise onto the Billboard charts, peaking in the top seventy-five on the country chart. The album also was a notable point in her career as she earned her first Grammy Award, the single "Steel Rails" was her first single tracked by Billboard, and the title single "I've Got That Old Feeling" was the first song for which she recorded a music video.
1992–1999: Rising success
Krauss' second Union Station album Every Time You Say Goodbye was released in 1992, and she went on to win her second Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album of the year. She then joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1993 at the age of 21. She was the youngest cast member at the time, and the first bluegrass artist to join the Opry in 29 years. She also collaborated on a project with the Cox Family in 1994, a bluegrass album called I Know Who Holds Tomorrow. Mandolin and guitar player Dan Tyminski replaced Tim Stafford in Union Station in 1994. Late in the year, Krauss recorded with the band Shenandoah on its single "Somewhere in the Vicinity of the Heart", which brought her to the country music Top Ten for the first time and it won the Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Also in 1994, Krauss collaborated with Suzy Bogguss, Kathy Mattea, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to contribute "Teach Your Children" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization. In 1997, she recorded vocals and violin for "Half a Mind", on Tommy Shaw's 7 Deadly Zens album.
Now That I've Found You: A Collection, a compilation of older releases and some covers of her favorite works by other artists, was released in 1995. Some of these covers include Bad Company's "Oh Atlanta", the Foundations' & Dan Schafer's "Baby, Now That I've Found You", which was used in the Australian hit comedy movie The Castle, and the Beatles' "I Will" with Tony Furtado. A cover of Keith Whitley's "When You Say Nothing at All" reached number three on the Billboard country chart; the album peaked in the top fifteen on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, and sold two million copies to become Krauss' first double-platinum album. Krauss also was nominated for four Country Music Association Awards and won all of them.
So Long So Wrong, another Union Station album, was released in 1997 and won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. One critic said its sound was "rather untraditional" and "likely [to] change quite a few ... minds about bluegrass". Included on the album is the track "It Doesn't Matter", which was featured in the second-season premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and was included on the Buffy soundtrack in 1999.
Her next solo release in 1999, Forget About It, included one of her two tracks to appear on the Billboard adult contemporary chart, "Stay". The album was certified gold and charted within the top seventy-five of the Billboard 200 and in the top five of the country chart. In addition, the track "That Kind of Love" was included in another episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
2000–present: Current career
Adam Steffey left Union Station in 1998, and was replaced with renowned dobro player Jerry Douglas. Douglas had provided studio back-up to Krauss' records since 1987's Too Late to Cry. Their next album, New Favorite, was released on August 14, 2001. The album went on to win the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album, with the single "The Lucky One" winning a Grammy as well. New Favorite was followed up by the double platinum double album Live in 2002 and a release of a DVD of the same live performance in 2003. Both the album and the DVD were recorded during a performance at The Louisville Palace and both the album and DVD have been certified double Platinum. Also in 2002 she played a singing voice for one of the characters in the animated comedy film Eight Crazy Nights.
Lonely Runs Both Ways was released in 2004, and eventually became another Alison Krauss & Union Station gold certified album. Ron Block described Lonely Runs Both Ways as "pretty much... what we've always done" in terms of song selection and the style, in which those songs were recorded. Krauss believes the group "was probably the most unprepared we've ever been" for the album and that songs were chosen as needed rather than planned beforehand. She also performed a duet with Brad Paisley on his album Mud on the Tires in the single "Whiskey Lullaby". The single was quickly ranked in the top fifty of the Billboard Hot 100 and the top five of the Hot Country Songs, and won the Country Music Association Awards for "Best Musical Event" and "Best Music Video" of the year.
In 2007, Krauss and Robert Plant released the collaborative album titled Raising Sand. RIAA-certified platinum, the album was nominated for and won 5 Grammy Awards at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album, and Record of the Year ("Please Read the Letter"). Krauss and Plant recorded a Crossroads special in October 2007 for the Country Music Television network, which first aired on February 12, 2008.
Returning with Union Station, Krauss released an album called Paper Airplane on April 12, 2011, the follow-up album to Lonely Runs Both Ways (2004). Mike Shipley, the recording and mixing engineer for the album, said that the album had a lengthy production time because of Krauss' non-stop migraines. Nevertheless, Paper Airplane became Krauss's highest-charting album in the U.S., reaching number three on the Billboard 200 on topping both the country and bluegrass album charts.
In 2014, Krauss and her band Union Station toured with Willie Nelson and Family, with special guests Kacey Musgraves, and the Devil Makes Three.
Capitol Records released Windy City, an album of country and bluegrass classics, produced by Buddy Cannon and her first solo release in 17 years, on February 17, 2017. Krauss received two nominations at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards for Best Country Solo Performance and Best American Roots Performance.
In August 2021, Krauss announced she was releasing a sequel album to Raising Sand with Robert Plant called Raise the Roof. In addition to the album, Krauss and Plant are planning a 2022 tour.
Other work
Krauss has made guest appearances on other records on lead vocals, harmony vocals, and fiddle. In 1987, at the age of 15, she played fiddle on the album The Western Illinois Rag by Americana musician Chris Vallillo. In 1993 she recorded vocals for the Phish song "If I Could" in Los Angeles. In 1997 she sang harmony vocals in both English and Irish on the album Runaway Sunday by Irish traditional band Altan. In 1998 she played and sang on the title track of Hawaiian slack-key artist Ledward Kaapana's album, Waltz of the Wind.
Krauss had her only number one hit in 2000, receiving vocal credit for "Buy Me a Rose". She has contributed to numerous motion picture soundtracks, most notably O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). She and Dan Tyminski contributed multiple tracks, including "I'll Fly Away" (with Gillian Welch), "Down to the River to Pray", and "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow". In the film, Tyminski's vocals on "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow" were used for George Clooney's character. The soundtrack sold over seven million copies and won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2002. Both Krauss and the surprisingly popular album were credited with reviving interest in bluegrass. She has said, however, that she believes Americans already liked bluegrass and other less-heard musical genres, and that the film merely provided easy exposure to the music. She did not appear in the movie, at her own request, because she was pregnant during its filming.
In 2007, Krauss released A Hundred Miles or More: A Collection, an album of new songs, soundtrack tunes, and duets with artists such as John Waite, James Taylor, Brad Paisley, and Natalie MacMaster. The album was successful commercially but given a lukewarm reception by critics. One of the tracks, "Missing You", a duet with Waite (and a cover of his hit single from 1984), was similarly received as a single. On August 11, television network Great American Country aired a one-hour special, Alison Krauss: A Hundred Miles or More, based on the album.
Krauss appeared on Heart's March 2010 concert DVD Night at Sky Church, providing the lead vocals for the song "These Dreams".
Other soundtracks for which Krauss has performed include Twister, The Prince of Egypt, Eight Crazy Nights, Mona Lisa Smile, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Alias, Bambi II and Cold Mountain. She contributed "Jubilee" to the 2004 documentary Paper Clips. The Cold Mountain songs she sang, "The Scarlet Tide" with T Bone Burnett and Elvis Costello, and "You Will Be My Ain True Love" with Sting, were each nominated for an Academy Award. She performed both songs at the 76th Academy Awards, the first with Costello and Burnett, and the other with Sting. She produced Nickel Creek's debut album (2000) and the follow-up This Side (2002), which won Krauss her first Grammy award as a producer.
Krauss performed on Moody Bluegrass: A Nashville Tribute to the Moody Blues.
She participated in Billy Childs' 2014 tribute album to Laura Nyro, Map to the Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro, performing on the track "And When I Die".
Reception and influences
Krauss' earliest musical experience was as an instrumentalist, though her style has grown to focus more on her vocals with a band providing most of the instrumentation. Musicians she enjoys include vocalists Lou Gramm of Foreigner and Paul Rodgers of Bad Company. Krauss' family listened to "folk records" while she was growing up, but she had friends who exposed her to groups such as AC/DC, Carly Simon, the Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and ELO. She cites Dolly Parton, with whom she has since collaborated a number of times, as a major influence. Some credit Krauss and Union Station, at least partially, with a recent revival of interest in bluegrass music in the United States. Despite being together for nearly two decades and winning numerous awards, she said the group was "just beginning right now" (in 2002) because "in spite of all the great things that have happened for the band, [she] feel[s] musically it's just really beginning". Although she alternates between solo releases and works with the band, she has said there is no difference in her involvement between the two.
As a group, AKUS have been called "American favourites", "world-beaters", and "the tightest band around". While they have been successful as a group, many reviews note Krauss still "remains the undisputed star and rock-solid foundation" and have described her as the "band's focus" with an "angelic" voice that "flows like honey". Her work has been compared to that of the Cox Family, Bill Monroe, and Del McCoury, and has in turn been credited with influencing various "Newgrass" artists including Nickel Creek, for which she acted as record producer on two of their albums. In addition to her work with Nickel Creek, she has acted as producer to the Cox Family, Reba McEntire and Alan Jackson. Adam Sweeting of The Guardian has said Krauss and Union Station are "superb, when they stick to hoedowns and hillbilly music, but much less convincing, when they lurch towards the middle of the road". Blender magazine has said the "flavorless repertoire [Krauss] sings... steers her toward Lite FM". In addition, Q magazine and The Onion AV Club have said their newer releases are "pretty much the usual", and that although Krauss is generally "adventurous", these recent releases contain nothing to "alienate the masses".
Voice, themes, and musical style
Krauss possesses a soprano voice, which has been described as "angelic".
She has said her musical influences include J. D. Crowe, Ricky Skaggs, and Tony Rice. Many of her songs are described as sad, and are often about love, especially lost love. Though Krauss has a close involvement with her group and a long career in music, she rarely performs music she has written herself. She has also described her general approach to constructing an album as starting with a single song and selecting other tracks based on the first, to give the final album a somewhat consistent theme and mood. She most commonly performs in the bluegrass and country genres, though she has had two songs on the adult contemporary charts, has worked with rock artists such as Phish and Sting, and is sometimes said to stray into pop music.
Music videos
Krauss did not think she would make music videos at the beginning of her career. After recording her first she was convinced it was so bad that she would never do another. Nonetheless, she has continued to make further videos. Many of the first videos she saw were by bluegrass artists. Dan Tyminski has noted that the video for Thriller was very popular at the time she was first exposed to music videos. She has made suggestions on the style or theme to some videos, though she tends to leave such decisions to the director of the particular video. The group chooses directors by seeking out people who have previously directed videos that band members have enjoyed. The director for a video to "If I Didn't Know Any Better" from Lonely Runs Both Ways, for example, was selected because Krauss enjoyed work he had done with Def Leppard and, she wondered, what he could do with their music. While style decisions are generally left to the various directors of the videos, many – including for "The Lucky One", "Restless", "Goodbye is All We Have", "New Favorite", and "If I Didn't Know Any Better" – follow a pattern. In all of these videos Krauss walks, sometimes interacting with other people, while the rest of the band follows her.
Performances
Krauss has said she used to dislike working in the studio, where she had to perform the same song repeatedly, but has come to like studio work roughly the same as live stage performances. Her own favorite concert experiences include watching three Foreigner concerts during a single tour, a Dolly Parton concert, and a Larry Sparks concert.
She appeared on Austin City Limits in 1992 and opened the show in 1995 with Union Station. The New Favorite tour, after AKUS' album of the same name, was planned to start September 12, 2001 in Cincinnati, Ohio, but was delayed until September 28 in Savannah, Georgia following the September 11 terrorist attacks. Krauss took part in the Down from the Mountain tour in 2002, which featured many artists from the O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack. Down from the Mountain was followed by the Great High Mountain Tour, which was composed of musicians from both O Brother and Cold Mountain, including Krauss. She has also given several notable smaller performances including at Carnegie Hall (with the Grand Ole Opry), on Lifetime Television in a concert of female performers, on the radio show A Prairie Home Companion, where she sang two songs not previously recorded on any of her albums, and a performance at the White House attended by then-President Bill Clinton and then-Vice President Al Gore. She has also been in the White House again, performing the song "When You Say Nothing at All" at country music performances. She also performed a tribute to the Everly Brothers at which she sang "All I Have to Do is Dream" with Emmylou Harris and "When Will I Be Loved" with Vince Gill. She was also invited by Taylor Swift to perform with her at the 2013 CMA's and by Joshua Bell to perform with him on a Christmas album; Bell said that "she (Krauss) is someone I've adored for so many years now". She performed at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. on January 10, 2015, as a part of "The Life and Songs of Emmylou Harris: An All Star Concert Celebration" which is a tribute to Emmylou Harris.
Awards and honors
Krauss has won twenty-seven Grammy Awards over the course of her career as a solo artist, as a group with Union Station, as a duet with Robert Plant, and as a record producer. As of 2021, she ranks fourth on the list of winners of the most Grammy Awards. She overtook Aretha Franklin for the most female wins at the 46th Grammy Awards, where Krauss won three, bringing her total at the time to seventeen (Franklin won her sixteenth that night). The Recording Academy (which presents the Grammy Awards) presented her with a special musical achievement honor in 2005. She has also won 14 International Bluegrass Music Association Awards, 9 Country Music Association Awards, 2 Gospel Music Association Awards, 2 CMT Music Awards, 2 Academy of Country Music Awards, and 1 Canadian Country Music Award. Country Music Television ranked Krauss 12th on their "40 Greatest Women of Country Music" list in 2002.
At the 76th Academy Awards in February 2004, where she performed two nominated songs from the Cold Mountain soundtrack, Krauss was chosen by Hollywood shoe designer Stuart Weitzman to wear a pair of $2 million 'Cinderella' sandals with 4½ inch clear glass stiletto heels and two straps adorned with 565 Kwiat diamonds set in platinum. Feeling like a rather unglamorous choice, Krauss said, "When I first heard, I was like, 'What were they thinking?' I have the worst feet of anybody who will be there that night!" In addition to the fairy-tale-inspired shoes, Weitzman outfitted Krauss with a Palm Trēo 600 smartphone, bejeweled with 3,000 clear-and-topaz-colored Swarovski crystals. The shoes were returned, but Krauss kept the crystal-covered phone. Weitzman chose Krauss to show off his fashions at the urging of his daughters, who are fans of Krauss' music.
In May 2012, Alison Krauss was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music.
In March 2015, her hometown of Champaign, Illinois, designated the 400 block of West Hill Street as "Honorary Alison Krauss Way".
Personal life
Krauss was married to musician Pat Bergeson from 1997 to 2001. Their son, Sam, was born in July 1999.
Discography
Studio albums
1986: Different Strokes (with Jim Hoiles and Swamp Weiss)
1987: Too Late to Cry
1989: Two Highways (with Union Station)
1990: I've Got That Old Feeling
1992: Every Time You Say Goodbye (with Union Station)
1994: I Know Who Holds Tomorrow (with the Cox Family)
1997: So Long So Wrong (with Union Station)
1999: Forget About It
2001: New Favorite (with Union Station)
2004: Lonely Runs Both Ways (with Union Station)
2007: Raising Sand (with Robert Plant)
2011: Paper Airplane (with Union Station)
2017: Windy City
2021: Raise the Roof (with Robert Plant)
Filmography
Notes
a. Sources vary on birth place; see talk page discussion
References
External links
Rounder Records site for Alison Krauss
[ Alison Krauss] on Allmusic database
1971 births
Living people
Union Station (band) members
American bluegrass fiddlers
American women country singers
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Champaign, Illinois
American people of German descent
American people of Italian descent
Grand Ole Opry members
American performers of Christian music
American sopranos
Rounder Records artists
Musicians from Decatur, Illinois
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
Country musicians from Illinois
United States National Medal of Arts recipients | true | [
"\"How Interesting: A Tiny Man\" is a 2010 science fiction/magical realism short story by American writer Harlan Ellison. It was first published in Realms of Fantasy.\n\nPlot summary\nA scientist creates a tiny man. The tiny man is initially very popular, but then draws the hatred of the world, and so the tiny man must flee, together with the scientist (who is now likewise hated, for having created the tiny man).\n\nReception\n\"How Interesting: A Tiny Man\" won the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Short Story, tied with Kij Johnson's \"Ponies\". It was Ellison's final Nebula nomination and win, of his record-setting eight nominations and three wins.\n\nTor.com calls the story \"deceptively simple\", with \"execution (that) is flawless\" and a \"Geppetto-like\" narrator, while Publishers Weekly describes it as \"memorably depict(ing) humanity's smallness of spirit\". The SF Site, however, felt it was \"contrived and less than profound\".\n\nNick Mamatas compared \"How Interesting: A Tiny Man\" negatively to Ellison's other Nebula-winning short stories, and stated that the story's two mutually exclusive endings (in one, the tiny man is killed; in the other, he becomes God) are evocative of the process of writing short stories. Ben Peek considered it to be \"more allegory than (...) anything else\", and interpreted it as being about how the media \"give(s) everyone a voice\", and also about how Ellison was treated by science fiction fandom.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nAudio version of ''How Interesting: A Tiny Man, at StarShipSofa\nHow Interesting: A Tiny Man, at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database\n\nNebula Award for Best Short Story-winning works\nShort stories by Harlan Ellison",
"In baseball, a fair ball is a batted ball that entitles the batter to attempt to reach first base. By contrast, a foul ball is a batted ball that does not entitle the batter to attempt to reach first base. Whether a batted ball is fair or foul is determined by the location of the ball at the appropriate reference point, as follows:\n\n if the ball leaves the playing field without touching anything, the point where the ball leaves the field;\n else, if the ball first lands past first or third base without touching anything, the point where the ball lands;\n else, if the ball rolls or bounces past first or third base without touching anything other than the ground, the point where the ball passes the base;\n else, if the ball touches anything other than the ground (such as an umpire, a player, or any equipment left on the field) before any of the above happens, the point of such touching;\n else (the ball comes to a rest before reaching first or third base), the point where the ball comes to a rest.\n\nIf any part of the ball is on or above fair territory at the appropriate reference point, it is fair; else it is foul. Fair territory or fair ground is defined as the area of the playing field between the two foul lines, and includes the foul lines themselves and the foul poles. However, certain exceptions exist:\n\n A ball that touches first, second, or third base is always fair.\n Under Rule 5.09(a)(7)-(8), if a batted ball touches the batter or his bat while the batter is in the batter's box and not intentionally interfering with the course of the ball, the ball is foul.\n A ball that hits the foul pole without first having touched anything else off the bat is fair.\n Ground rules may provide whether a ball hitting specific objects (e.g. roof, overhead speaker) is fair or foul.\n\nOn a fair ball, the batter attempts to reach first base or any subsequent base, runners attempt to advance and fielders try to record outs. A fair ball is considered a live ball until the ball becomes dead by leaving the field or any other method.\n\nReferences\n\nBaseball rules"
] |
[
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"what happened in 1992",
"Krauss' second Union Station album Every Time You Say Goodbye was released in 1992,",
"how did it do",
"she went on to win her second Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album of the year.",
"what were some songs on it",
"I don't know.",
"what happened in 1999",
"\"It Doesn't Matter\", which was featured in the second-season premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer",
"anything else interesting between 92 and 99",
"A Collection, a compilation of older releases and some covers of her favorite works by other artists, was released in 1995."
] | C_9547d7ab1ed8495b9e4084ea1f45e747_0 | were there any popular songs on those? | 6 | Were there any popular Alison Krauss songs in the 1999 collection? | Alison Krauss | Krauss' second Union Station album Every Time You Say Goodbye was released in 1992, and she went on to win her second Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album of the year. She then joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1993 at the age of 21. She was the youngest cast member at the time, and the first bluegrass artist to join the Opry in twenty-nine years. She also collaborated on a project with the Cox Family in 1994, a bluegrass album called I Know Who Holds Tomorrow. Mandolin and guitar player Dan Tyminski replaced Tim Stafford in Union Station in 1994. Late in the year, Krauss recorded with the band Shenandoah on its single "Somewhere in the Vicinity of the Heart", which brought her to the country music Top Ten for the first time and it won the Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Also in 1994, Krauss collaborated with Suzy Bogguss, Kathy Mattea, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to contribute "Teach Your Children" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization. In 1997, she recorded vocals and violin for "Half a Mind", on Tommy Shaw's 7 Deadly Zens album. Now That I've Found You: A Collection, a compilation of older releases and some covers of her favorite works by other artists, was released in 1995. Some of these covers include Bad Company's "Oh Atlanta", The Foundations' & Dan Schafer's "Baby, Now That I've Found You", which was used in the Australian hit comedy movie The Castle, and The Beatles' "I Will". A cover of Keith Whitley's "When You Say Nothing at All" reached number three on the Billboard country chart; the album peaked in the top fifteen on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, and sold two million copies to become Krauss' first double-platinum album. Krauss also was nominated for four Country Music Association Awards and won all of them. So Long So Wrong, another Union Station album, was released in 1997 and won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. One critic said its sound was "rather untraditional" and "likely [to] change quite a few ... minds about bluegrass." Included on the album is the track "It Doesn't Matter", which was featured in the second-season premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and was included on the Buffy soundtrack in 1999. Her next solo release in 1999, Forget About It, included one of her two tracks to appear on the Billboard adult contemporary chart, "Stay". The album was certified gold and charted within the top seventy-five of the Billboard 200 and in the top five of the country chart. In addition, the track "That Kind of Love" was included in another episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. CANNOTANSWER | Some of these covers include Bad Company's "Oh Atlanta", | Alison Maria Krauss (born July 23, 1971) is an American bluegrass-country singer and musician. She entered the music industry at an early age, winning local contests by the age of 10 and recording for the first time at 14. She signed with Rounder Records in 1985 and released her first solo album in 1987. She was invited to join the band with which she still performs, Alison Krauss and Union Station, and later released her first album with them as a group in 1989.
Krauss has released fourteen albums, appeared on numerous soundtracks, and sparked a renewed interest in bluegrass music in the United States. Her soundtrack performances have led to further popularity, including the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, and the Cold Mountain soundtrack, which led to her performance at the 2004 Academy Awards.
As of 2019, she has won 27 Grammy Awards from 42 nominations, ranking her fourth behind Beyoncé, Quincy Jones and classical conductor Georg Solti for most Grammy Award wins overall. Krauss was the most awarded singer and the most awarded female artist in Grammy history until Beyoncé won her 28th Grammy in 2021. When Krauss won her first Grammy in 1991, she was the second-youngest winner at that time.
On November 21, 2019, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. She was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in September 2021.
Early life
Alison Maria Krauss was born in Decatur, Illinois, to Fred and Louise Krauss. Her father was a German immigrant who came to the United States in 1952 at age 12, and taught his native language while he earned a doctorate in psychology. He later went into the business of real estate. Her mother, an American of German and Italian descent, is the daughter of artists, and works as an illustrator of magazines and textbooks. Fred and Louise met while they were studying at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. After a brief residence in nearby Decatur, the family settled in Champaign, where Krauss was raised with her older brother, Viktor.
Krauss's mother played banjo and acoustic guitar, so Krauss was exposed to folk music at home, and she heard rock and pop music on the radio: she liked Gary Numan's synth-pop song "Cars", and rock bands such as Foreigner, Bad Company, and Electric Light Orchestra. Her brother Viktor played piano and double bass in high school, launching a career as a jazz and rock multi-instrumentalist. At her mother's insistence, Krauss began studying classical violin at age five. Krauss was reluctant to spend time practicing, but she continued with classical lessons until she was eleven. Krauss said her mother "tried to find interesting things for me to do" and "wanted to get me involved in music, in addition to art and sports". Krauss was also very active in roller skating, and in her teens she finally decided on a career in music rather than roller derby.
In mid-1979, Krauss's mother saw a notice for an upcoming fiddle competition at the Champaign County Fair, so she bought a bluegrass fiddle instruction book and the 1977 bluegrass album Duets by violinist Richard Greene. Krauss learned by ear to play several songs from the album, including "Tennessee Waltz" which she practiced on violin with her mother accompanying on guitar. Krauss entered the talent contest in the novice category at the age of eight, placing fourth. (This is where she first met fiddler Andrea Zonn who won the junior division at age 10.) Krauss investigated the bluegrass genre more thoroughly after this, and she developed a knack for learning complex riffs by ear, quickly turning them into her own version. In 1981–82, Krauss performed with Marvin Lee Flessner's country dance band in which she fiddled and sang. In September 1983, her parents bought her a custom violin made by hand in Missouri – her first adult-sized instrument. At 13, she won the Walnut Valley Festival Fiddle Championship, and the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass in America named her the "Most Promising Fiddler in the Midwest". She was also called "virtuoso" by Vanity Fair magazine.
Krauss first met Dan Tyminski around 1984 at a festival held by the Society. Every current member of her band, Union Station, first met her at these festivals.
1985–1991: Early career
Krauss made her recording debut in 1986 on the independent album, Different Strokes, in collaboration with Swamp Weiss and Jim Hoiles, and featuring her brother Viktor Krauss. From the age of 12 she performed with bassist and songwriter John Pennell in a band called "Silver Rail", replacing Andrea Zonn. Pennell later changed the band's name to Union Station after another band was discovered with the name Silver Rail.
Later that year, she signed to Rounder Records, and in 1987, at 16, she released her debut album Too Late to Cry with Union Station as her backup band.
Krauss' debut solo album was quickly followed by her first group album with Union Station in 1989, Two Highways. The album includes the traditional tunes "Wild Bill Jones" and "Beaumont Rag", along with a bluegrass interpretation of the Allman Brothers' "Midnight Rider".
Krauss' contract with Rounder required her to alternate between releasing a solo album and an album with Union Station, and she released the solo album I've Got That Old Feeling in 1990. It was her first album to rise onto the Billboard charts, peaking in the top seventy-five on the country chart. The album also was a notable point in her career as she earned her first Grammy Award, the single "Steel Rails" was her first single tracked by Billboard, and the title single "I've Got That Old Feeling" was the first song for which she recorded a music video.
1992–1999: Rising success
Krauss' second Union Station album Every Time You Say Goodbye was released in 1992, and she went on to win her second Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album of the year. She then joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1993 at the age of 21. She was the youngest cast member at the time, and the first bluegrass artist to join the Opry in 29 years. She also collaborated on a project with the Cox Family in 1994, a bluegrass album called I Know Who Holds Tomorrow. Mandolin and guitar player Dan Tyminski replaced Tim Stafford in Union Station in 1994. Late in the year, Krauss recorded with the band Shenandoah on its single "Somewhere in the Vicinity of the Heart", which brought her to the country music Top Ten for the first time and it won the Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Also in 1994, Krauss collaborated with Suzy Bogguss, Kathy Mattea, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to contribute "Teach Your Children" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization. In 1997, she recorded vocals and violin for "Half a Mind", on Tommy Shaw's 7 Deadly Zens album.
Now That I've Found You: A Collection, a compilation of older releases and some covers of her favorite works by other artists, was released in 1995. Some of these covers include Bad Company's "Oh Atlanta", the Foundations' & Dan Schafer's "Baby, Now That I've Found You", which was used in the Australian hit comedy movie The Castle, and the Beatles' "I Will" with Tony Furtado. A cover of Keith Whitley's "When You Say Nothing at All" reached number three on the Billboard country chart; the album peaked in the top fifteen on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, and sold two million copies to become Krauss' first double-platinum album. Krauss also was nominated for four Country Music Association Awards and won all of them.
So Long So Wrong, another Union Station album, was released in 1997 and won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. One critic said its sound was "rather untraditional" and "likely [to] change quite a few ... minds about bluegrass". Included on the album is the track "It Doesn't Matter", which was featured in the second-season premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and was included on the Buffy soundtrack in 1999.
Her next solo release in 1999, Forget About It, included one of her two tracks to appear on the Billboard adult contemporary chart, "Stay". The album was certified gold and charted within the top seventy-five of the Billboard 200 and in the top five of the country chart. In addition, the track "That Kind of Love" was included in another episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
2000–present: Current career
Adam Steffey left Union Station in 1998, and was replaced with renowned dobro player Jerry Douglas. Douglas had provided studio back-up to Krauss' records since 1987's Too Late to Cry. Their next album, New Favorite, was released on August 14, 2001. The album went on to win the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album, with the single "The Lucky One" winning a Grammy as well. New Favorite was followed up by the double platinum double album Live in 2002 and a release of a DVD of the same live performance in 2003. Both the album and the DVD were recorded during a performance at The Louisville Palace and both the album and DVD have been certified double Platinum. Also in 2002 she played a singing voice for one of the characters in the animated comedy film Eight Crazy Nights.
Lonely Runs Both Ways was released in 2004, and eventually became another Alison Krauss & Union Station gold certified album. Ron Block described Lonely Runs Both Ways as "pretty much... what we've always done" in terms of song selection and the style, in which those songs were recorded. Krauss believes the group "was probably the most unprepared we've ever been" for the album and that songs were chosen as needed rather than planned beforehand. She also performed a duet with Brad Paisley on his album Mud on the Tires in the single "Whiskey Lullaby". The single was quickly ranked in the top fifty of the Billboard Hot 100 and the top five of the Hot Country Songs, and won the Country Music Association Awards for "Best Musical Event" and "Best Music Video" of the year.
In 2007, Krauss and Robert Plant released the collaborative album titled Raising Sand. RIAA-certified platinum, the album was nominated for and won 5 Grammy Awards at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album, and Record of the Year ("Please Read the Letter"). Krauss and Plant recorded a Crossroads special in October 2007 for the Country Music Television network, which first aired on February 12, 2008.
Returning with Union Station, Krauss released an album called Paper Airplane on April 12, 2011, the follow-up album to Lonely Runs Both Ways (2004). Mike Shipley, the recording and mixing engineer for the album, said that the album had a lengthy production time because of Krauss' non-stop migraines. Nevertheless, Paper Airplane became Krauss's highest-charting album in the U.S., reaching number three on the Billboard 200 on topping both the country and bluegrass album charts.
In 2014, Krauss and her band Union Station toured with Willie Nelson and Family, with special guests Kacey Musgraves, and the Devil Makes Three.
Capitol Records released Windy City, an album of country and bluegrass classics, produced by Buddy Cannon and her first solo release in 17 years, on February 17, 2017. Krauss received two nominations at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards for Best Country Solo Performance and Best American Roots Performance.
In August 2021, Krauss announced she was releasing a sequel album to Raising Sand with Robert Plant called Raise the Roof. In addition to the album, Krauss and Plant are planning a 2022 tour.
Other work
Krauss has made guest appearances on other records on lead vocals, harmony vocals, and fiddle. In 1987, at the age of 15, she played fiddle on the album The Western Illinois Rag by Americana musician Chris Vallillo. In 1993 she recorded vocals for the Phish song "If I Could" in Los Angeles. In 1997 she sang harmony vocals in both English and Irish on the album Runaway Sunday by Irish traditional band Altan. In 1998 she played and sang on the title track of Hawaiian slack-key artist Ledward Kaapana's album, Waltz of the Wind.
Krauss had her only number one hit in 2000, receiving vocal credit for "Buy Me a Rose". She has contributed to numerous motion picture soundtracks, most notably O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). She and Dan Tyminski contributed multiple tracks, including "I'll Fly Away" (with Gillian Welch), "Down to the River to Pray", and "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow". In the film, Tyminski's vocals on "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow" were used for George Clooney's character. The soundtrack sold over seven million copies and won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2002. Both Krauss and the surprisingly popular album were credited with reviving interest in bluegrass. She has said, however, that she believes Americans already liked bluegrass and other less-heard musical genres, and that the film merely provided easy exposure to the music. She did not appear in the movie, at her own request, because she was pregnant during its filming.
In 2007, Krauss released A Hundred Miles or More: A Collection, an album of new songs, soundtrack tunes, and duets with artists such as John Waite, James Taylor, Brad Paisley, and Natalie MacMaster. The album was successful commercially but given a lukewarm reception by critics. One of the tracks, "Missing You", a duet with Waite (and a cover of his hit single from 1984), was similarly received as a single. On August 11, television network Great American Country aired a one-hour special, Alison Krauss: A Hundred Miles or More, based on the album.
Krauss appeared on Heart's March 2010 concert DVD Night at Sky Church, providing the lead vocals for the song "These Dreams".
Other soundtracks for which Krauss has performed include Twister, The Prince of Egypt, Eight Crazy Nights, Mona Lisa Smile, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Alias, Bambi II and Cold Mountain. She contributed "Jubilee" to the 2004 documentary Paper Clips. The Cold Mountain songs she sang, "The Scarlet Tide" with T Bone Burnett and Elvis Costello, and "You Will Be My Ain True Love" with Sting, were each nominated for an Academy Award. She performed both songs at the 76th Academy Awards, the first with Costello and Burnett, and the other with Sting. She produced Nickel Creek's debut album (2000) and the follow-up This Side (2002), which won Krauss her first Grammy award as a producer.
Krauss performed on Moody Bluegrass: A Nashville Tribute to the Moody Blues.
She participated in Billy Childs' 2014 tribute album to Laura Nyro, Map to the Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro, performing on the track "And When I Die".
Reception and influences
Krauss' earliest musical experience was as an instrumentalist, though her style has grown to focus more on her vocals with a band providing most of the instrumentation. Musicians she enjoys include vocalists Lou Gramm of Foreigner and Paul Rodgers of Bad Company. Krauss' family listened to "folk records" while she was growing up, but she had friends who exposed her to groups such as AC/DC, Carly Simon, the Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and ELO. She cites Dolly Parton, with whom she has since collaborated a number of times, as a major influence. Some credit Krauss and Union Station, at least partially, with a recent revival of interest in bluegrass music in the United States. Despite being together for nearly two decades and winning numerous awards, she said the group was "just beginning right now" (in 2002) because "in spite of all the great things that have happened for the band, [she] feel[s] musically it's just really beginning". Although she alternates between solo releases and works with the band, she has said there is no difference in her involvement between the two.
As a group, AKUS have been called "American favourites", "world-beaters", and "the tightest band around". While they have been successful as a group, many reviews note Krauss still "remains the undisputed star and rock-solid foundation" and have described her as the "band's focus" with an "angelic" voice that "flows like honey". Her work has been compared to that of the Cox Family, Bill Monroe, and Del McCoury, and has in turn been credited with influencing various "Newgrass" artists including Nickel Creek, for which she acted as record producer on two of their albums. In addition to her work with Nickel Creek, she has acted as producer to the Cox Family, Reba McEntire and Alan Jackson. Adam Sweeting of The Guardian has said Krauss and Union Station are "superb, when they stick to hoedowns and hillbilly music, but much less convincing, when they lurch towards the middle of the road". Blender magazine has said the "flavorless repertoire [Krauss] sings... steers her toward Lite FM". In addition, Q magazine and The Onion AV Club have said their newer releases are "pretty much the usual", and that although Krauss is generally "adventurous", these recent releases contain nothing to "alienate the masses".
Voice, themes, and musical style
Krauss possesses a soprano voice, which has been described as "angelic".
She has said her musical influences include J. D. Crowe, Ricky Skaggs, and Tony Rice. Many of her songs are described as sad, and are often about love, especially lost love. Though Krauss has a close involvement with her group and a long career in music, she rarely performs music she has written herself. She has also described her general approach to constructing an album as starting with a single song and selecting other tracks based on the first, to give the final album a somewhat consistent theme and mood. She most commonly performs in the bluegrass and country genres, though she has had two songs on the adult contemporary charts, has worked with rock artists such as Phish and Sting, and is sometimes said to stray into pop music.
Music videos
Krauss did not think she would make music videos at the beginning of her career. After recording her first she was convinced it was so bad that she would never do another. Nonetheless, she has continued to make further videos. Many of the first videos she saw were by bluegrass artists. Dan Tyminski has noted that the video for Thriller was very popular at the time she was first exposed to music videos. She has made suggestions on the style or theme to some videos, though she tends to leave such decisions to the director of the particular video. The group chooses directors by seeking out people who have previously directed videos that band members have enjoyed. The director for a video to "If I Didn't Know Any Better" from Lonely Runs Both Ways, for example, was selected because Krauss enjoyed work he had done with Def Leppard and, she wondered, what he could do with their music. While style decisions are generally left to the various directors of the videos, many – including for "The Lucky One", "Restless", "Goodbye is All We Have", "New Favorite", and "If I Didn't Know Any Better" – follow a pattern. In all of these videos Krauss walks, sometimes interacting with other people, while the rest of the band follows her.
Performances
Krauss has said she used to dislike working in the studio, where she had to perform the same song repeatedly, but has come to like studio work roughly the same as live stage performances. Her own favorite concert experiences include watching three Foreigner concerts during a single tour, a Dolly Parton concert, and a Larry Sparks concert.
She appeared on Austin City Limits in 1992 and opened the show in 1995 with Union Station. The New Favorite tour, after AKUS' album of the same name, was planned to start September 12, 2001 in Cincinnati, Ohio, but was delayed until September 28 in Savannah, Georgia following the September 11 terrorist attacks. Krauss took part in the Down from the Mountain tour in 2002, which featured many artists from the O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack. Down from the Mountain was followed by the Great High Mountain Tour, which was composed of musicians from both O Brother and Cold Mountain, including Krauss. She has also given several notable smaller performances including at Carnegie Hall (with the Grand Ole Opry), on Lifetime Television in a concert of female performers, on the radio show A Prairie Home Companion, where she sang two songs not previously recorded on any of her albums, and a performance at the White House attended by then-President Bill Clinton and then-Vice President Al Gore. She has also been in the White House again, performing the song "When You Say Nothing at All" at country music performances. She also performed a tribute to the Everly Brothers at which she sang "All I Have to Do is Dream" with Emmylou Harris and "When Will I Be Loved" with Vince Gill. She was also invited by Taylor Swift to perform with her at the 2013 CMA's and by Joshua Bell to perform with him on a Christmas album; Bell said that "she (Krauss) is someone I've adored for so many years now". She performed at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. on January 10, 2015, as a part of "The Life and Songs of Emmylou Harris: An All Star Concert Celebration" which is a tribute to Emmylou Harris.
Awards and honors
Krauss has won twenty-seven Grammy Awards over the course of her career as a solo artist, as a group with Union Station, as a duet with Robert Plant, and as a record producer. As of 2021, she ranks fourth on the list of winners of the most Grammy Awards. She overtook Aretha Franklin for the most female wins at the 46th Grammy Awards, where Krauss won three, bringing her total at the time to seventeen (Franklin won her sixteenth that night). The Recording Academy (which presents the Grammy Awards) presented her with a special musical achievement honor in 2005. She has also won 14 International Bluegrass Music Association Awards, 9 Country Music Association Awards, 2 Gospel Music Association Awards, 2 CMT Music Awards, 2 Academy of Country Music Awards, and 1 Canadian Country Music Award. Country Music Television ranked Krauss 12th on their "40 Greatest Women of Country Music" list in 2002.
At the 76th Academy Awards in February 2004, where she performed two nominated songs from the Cold Mountain soundtrack, Krauss was chosen by Hollywood shoe designer Stuart Weitzman to wear a pair of $2 million 'Cinderella' sandals with 4½ inch clear glass stiletto heels and two straps adorned with 565 Kwiat diamonds set in platinum. Feeling like a rather unglamorous choice, Krauss said, "When I first heard, I was like, 'What were they thinking?' I have the worst feet of anybody who will be there that night!" In addition to the fairy-tale-inspired shoes, Weitzman outfitted Krauss with a Palm Trēo 600 smartphone, bejeweled with 3,000 clear-and-topaz-colored Swarovski crystals. The shoes were returned, but Krauss kept the crystal-covered phone. Weitzman chose Krauss to show off his fashions at the urging of his daughters, who are fans of Krauss' music.
In May 2012, Alison Krauss was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music.
In March 2015, her hometown of Champaign, Illinois, designated the 400 block of West Hill Street as "Honorary Alison Krauss Way".
Personal life
Krauss was married to musician Pat Bergeson from 1997 to 2001. Their son, Sam, was born in July 1999.
Discography
Studio albums
1986: Different Strokes (with Jim Hoiles and Swamp Weiss)
1987: Too Late to Cry
1989: Two Highways (with Union Station)
1990: I've Got That Old Feeling
1992: Every Time You Say Goodbye (with Union Station)
1994: I Know Who Holds Tomorrow (with the Cox Family)
1997: So Long So Wrong (with Union Station)
1999: Forget About It
2001: New Favorite (with Union Station)
2004: Lonely Runs Both Ways (with Union Station)
2007: Raising Sand (with Robert Plant)
2011: Paper Airplane (with Union Station)
2017: Windy City
2021: Raise the Roof (with Robert Plant)
Filmography
Notes
a. Sources vary on birth place; see talk page discussion
References
External links
Rounder Records site for Alison Krauss
[ Alison Krauss] on Allmusic database
1971 births
Living people
Union Station (band) members
American bluegrass fiddlers
American women country singers
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Champaign, Illinois
American people of German descent
American people of Italian descent
Grand Ole Opry members
American performers of Christian music
American sopranos
Rounder Records artists
Musicians from Decatur, Illinois
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
Country musicians from Illinois
United States National Medal of Arts recipients | true | [
"\"Any Last Werdz\" is the second and final single from Eazy-E's EP, It's On (Dr. Dre) 187um Killa. It features Kokane and Cold 187um.\n\nThe single was released in 1994 as the follow-up to the popular \"Real Muthaphuckkin G's\" and was written by Eazy-E, Dirty Red and produced by Above the Law's Cold 187 um. Any Last Werdz did find some success on the charts, making it to #69 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and #5 on the Hot Rap Singles. The music video would be his last before his death.\n\nSingle Track Listing\n\"Any Last Werdz\" (Car Hop / Gunz) - 5:11 \n\"Any Last Werdz\" (Anotha Murder Version) - 5:11 \n\"Any Last Werdz\" (Street Version) - 5:11 \n\"Any Last Werdz\" (Radio Edit) - 3:30 \n\"Any Last Werdz\" (Car Hop / No Gunz) - 5:11 \n\"Any Last Werdz\" (Instrumental) - 5:11\n\nReferences\n\nEazy-E songs\n1994 singles\nGangsta rap songs\nHorrorcore songs\n1993 songs",
"Binaca Geetmala was a weekly countdown show of top filmi songs from Hindi cinema. It was popular and had millions of listeners. Binaca Geetmala was broadcast on Radio Ceylon from 1952 to 1988 and then shifted to the Vividh Bharati Service of All India Radio network in 1989 where it ran until 1994. It was the first radio countdown show of Indian film songs, and has been quoted as being the most popular radio program in India during its run. Its name reflects its sponsorship by Binaca. \nBinaca Geetmala, and its subsequent incarnations named after Cibaca—Cibaca Sangeetmala, Cibaca Geetmala, and Colgate Cibaca Sangeetmala—ran from 1954 to 1994 on Radio Ceylon and then on Vividh Bharati. They also broadcast annual year-end lists from 1954 to 1993.\n\nMost No of songs by singer\n\nAmeen Sayani and Radio Ceylon\nThe show was hosted throughout its entire run by Ameen Sayani. It was very popular in India, with estimated listenership ranging from 900,000 to 2,000,000. It greatly increased the popularity of Radio Ceylon, making it the primary source of popular film music on radio for the Indian subcontinent. After 1998, the show aired on Vividh Bharati and was on for half an hour on Monday nights.\n\nPopularity ratings method\nAt its onset in 1952, the program did not rank songs, but rather played seven contemporary songs in no particular order. Later, the program started ranking the most popular Hindi film songs. \nThe songs were initially ranked by a combination of the number of records sold in India and listener votes. Popularity was gauged by record sales, verdicts from record store owners, and popularity among the or 'listeners clubs'. Each week, the would send the radio station their list of popular songs. The clubs were formed because it was possible for a record to be sold out at stores and although there was interest to buy more, the interest would not show up in record sales.\n\nThe year-end lists were compiled based on points earned by songs through the year. Between 1966 and 1970 there would sometimes be no points on the weekly broadcast, but the year-end show would be based on point system.\n\nLists of top songs per year\n\nSilver jubilee and LP record\nOn 12 December 1977, Binaca Geetmala celebrated its 25-year anniversary in a social gathering organized in Bombay. Many well known composers, poets, and singers attended the show.\n\nThe top songs from 1953 to 1977 were compiled and released in a two record volume set. Volume 1 has songs from 1953 to 1964; volume 2 has songs from 1965 to 1977. Between the songs on the volume set, there is commentary by Ameen Sayani.\n\nSee also\nAmeen Sayani\nBollywood songs\nRadio Ceylon\n\nReferences\n8 Binaca Geetmala 1964 Songs List\n\nMusic chart shows\nIndian radio programmes\nAll India Radio"
] |
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"anything else interesting between 92 and 99",
"A Collection, a compilation of older releases and some covers of her favorite works by other artists, was released in 1995.",
"were there any popular songs on those?",
"Some of these covers include Bad Company's \"Oh Atlanta\","
] | C_9547d7ab1ed8495b9e4084ea1f45e747_0 | did the album win any awards | 7 | Did the album collection of 1999 win any awards for Alison Krauss? | Alison Krauss | Krauss' second Union Station album Every Time You Say Goodbye was released in 1992, and she went on to win her second Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album of the year. She then joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1993 at the age of 21. She was the youngest cast member at the time, and the first bluegrass artist to join the Opry in twenty-nine years. She also collaborated on a project with the Cox Family in 1994, a bluegrass album called I Know Who Holds Tomorrow. Mandolin and guitar player Dan Tyminski replaced Tim Stafford in Union Station in 1994. Late in the year, Krauss recorded with the band Shenandoah on its single "Somewhere in the Vicinity of the Heart", which brought her to the country music Top Ten for the first time and it won the Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Also in 1994, Krauss collaborated with Suzy Bogguss, Kathy Mattea, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to contribute "Teach Your Children" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization. In 1997, she recorded vocals and violin for "Half a Mind", on Tommy Shaw's 7 Deadly Zens album. Now That I've Found You: A Collection, a compilation of older releases and some covers of her favorite works by other artists, was released in 1995. Some of these covers include Bad Company's "Oh Atlanta", The Foundations' & Dan Schafer's "Baby, Now That I've Found You", which was used in the Australian hit comedy movie The Castle, and The Beatles' "I Will". A cover of Keith Whitley's "When You Say Nothing at All" reached number three on the Billboard country chart; the album peaked in the top fifteen on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, and sold two million copies to become Krauss' first double-platinum album. Krauss also was nominated for four Country Music Association Awards and won all of them. So Long So Wrong, another Union Station album, was released in 1997 and won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. One critic said its sound was "rather untraditional" and "likely [to] change quite a few ... minds about bluegrass." Included on the album is the track "It Doesn't Matter", which was featured in the second-season premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and was included on the Buffy soundtrack in 1999. Her next solo release in 1999, Forget About It, included one of her two tracks to appear on the Billboard adult contemporary chart, "Stay". The album was certified gold and charted within the top seventy-five of the Billboard 200 and in the top five of the country chart. In addition, the track "That Kind of Love" was included in another episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. CANNOTANSWER | Krauss also was nominated for four Country Music Association Awards and won all of them. | Alison Maria Krauss (born July 23, 1971) is an American bluegrass-country singer and musician. She entered the music industry at an early age, winning local contests by the age of 10 and recording for the first time at 14. She signed with Rounder Records in 1985 and released her first solo album in 1987. She was invited to join the band with which she still performs, Alison Krauss and Union Station, and later released her first album with them as a group in 1989.
Krauss has released fourteen albums, appeared on numerous soundtracks, and sparked a renewed interest in bluegrass music in the United States. Her soundtrack performances have led to further popularity, including the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, and the Cold Mountain soundtrack, which led to her performance at the 2004 Academy Awards.
As of 2019, she has won 27 Grammy Awards from 42 nominations, ranking her fourth behind Beyoncé, Quincy Jones and classical conductor Georg Solti for most Grammy Award wins overall. Krauss was the most awarded singer and the most awarded female artist in Grammy history until Beyoncé won her 28th Grammy in 2021. When Krauss won her first Grammy in 1991, she was the second-youngest winner at that time.
On November 21, 2019, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. She was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in September 2021.
Early life
Alison Maria Krauss was born in Decatur, Illinois, to Fred and Louise Krauss. Her father was a German immigrant who came to the United States in 1952 at age 12, and taught his native language while he earned a doctorate in psychology. He later went into the business of real estate. Her mother, an American of German and Italian descent, is the daughter of artists, and works as an illustrator of magazines and textbooks. Fred and Louise met while they were studying at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. After a brief residence in nearby Decatur, the family settled in Champaign, where Krauss was raised with her older brother, Viktor.
Krauss's mother played banjo and acoustic guitar, so Krauss was exposed to folk music at home, and she heard rock and pop music on the radio: she liked Gary Numan's synth-pop song "Cars", and rock bands such as Foreigner, Bad Company, and Electric Light Orchestra. Her brother Viktor played piano and double bass in high school, launching a career as a jazz and rock multi-instrumentalist. At her mother's insistence, Krauss began studying classical violin at age five. Krauss was reluctant to spend time practicing, but she continued with classical lessons until she was eleven. Krauss said her mother "tried to find interesting things for me to do" and "wanted to get me involved in music, in addition to art and sports". Krauss was also very active in roller skating, and in her teens she finally decided on a career in music rather than roller derby.
In mid-1979, Krauss's mother saw a notice for an upcoming fiddle competition at the Champaign County Fair, so she bought a bluegrass fiddle instruction book and the 1977 bluegrass album Duets by violinist Richard Greene. Krauss learned by ear to play several songs from the album, including "Tennessee Waltz" which she practiced on violin with her mother accompanying on guitar. Krauss entered the talent contest in the novice category at the age of eight, placing fourth. (This is where she first met fiddler Andrea Zonn who won the junior division at age 10.) Krauss investigated the bluegrass genre more thoroughly after this, and she developed a knack for learning complex riffs by ear, quickly turning them into her own version. In 1981–82, Krauss performed with Marvin Lee Flessner's country dance band in which she fiddled and sang. In September 1983, her parents bought her a custom violin made by hand in Missouri – her first adult-sized instrument. At 13, she won the Walnut Valley Festival Fiddle Championship, and the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass in America named her the "Most Promising Fiddler in the Midwest". She was also called "virtuoso" by Vanity Fair magazine.
Krauss first met Dan Tyminski around 1984 at a festival held by the Society. Every current member of her band, Union Station, first met her at these festivals.
1985–1991: Early career
Krauss made her recording debut in 1986 on the independent album, Different Strokes, in collaboration with Swamp Weiss and Jim Hoiles, and featuring her brother Viktor Krauss. From the age of 12 she performed with bassist and songwriter John Pennell in a band called "Silver Rail", replacing Andrea Zonn. Pennell later changed the band's name to Union Station after another band was discovered with the name Silver Rail.
Later that year, she signed to Rounder Records, and in 1987, at 16, she released her debut album Too Late to Cry with Union Station as her backup band.
Krauss' debut solo album was quickly followed by her first group album with Union Station in 1989, Two Highways. The album includes the traditional tunes "Wild Bill Jones" and "Beaumont Rag", along with a bluegrass interpretation of the Allman Brothers' "Midnight Rider".
Krauss' contract with Rounder required her to alternate between releasing a solo album and an album with Union Station, and she released the solo album I've Got That Old Feeling in 1990. It was her first album to rise onto the Billboard charts, peaking in the top seventy-five on the country chart. The album also was a notable point in her career as she earned her first Grammy Award, the single "Steel Rails" was her first single tracked by Billboard, and the title single "I've Got That Old Feeling" was the first song for which she recorded a music video.
1992–1999: Rising success
Krauss' second Union Station album Every Time You Say Goodbye was released in 1992, and she went on to win her second Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album of the year. She then joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1993 at the age of 21. She was the youngest cast member at the time, and the first bluegrass artist to join the Opry in 29 years. She also collaborated on a project with the Cox Family in 1994, a bluegrass album called I Know Who Holds Tomorrow. Mandolin and guitar player Dan Tyminski replaced Tim Stafford in Union Station in 1994. Late in the year, Krauss recorded with the band Shenandoah on its single "Somewhere in the Vicinity of the Heart", which brought her to the country music Top Ten for the first time and it won the Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Also in 1994, Krauss collaborated with Suzy Bogguss, Kathy Mattea, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to contribute "Teach Your Children" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization. In 1997, she recorded vocals and violin for "Half a Mind", on Tommy Shaw's 7 Deadly Zens album.
Now That I've Found You: A Collection, a compilation of older releases and some covers of her favorite works by other artists, was released in 1995. Some of these covers include Bad Company's "Oh Atlanta", the Foundations' & Dan Schafer's "Baby, Now That I've Found You", which was used in the Australian hit comedy movie The Castle, and the Beatles' "I Will" with Tony Furtado. A cover of Keith Whitley's "When You Say Nothing at All" reached number three on the Billboard country chart; the album peaked in the top fifteen on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, and sold two million copies to become Krauss' first double-platinum album. Krauss also was nominated for four Country Music Association Awards and won all of them.
So Long So Wrong, another Union Station album, was released in 1997 and won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. One critic said its sound was "rather untraditional" and "likely [to] change quite a few ... minds about bluegrass". Included on the album is the track "It Doesn't Matter", which was featured in the second-season premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and was included on the Buffy soundtrack in 1999.
Her next solo release in 1999, Forget About It, included one of her two tracks to appear on the Billboard adult contemporary chart, "Stay". The album was certified gold and charted within the top seventy-five of the Billboard 200 and in the top five of the country chart. In addition, the track "That Kind of Love" was included in another episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
2000–present: Current career
Adam Steffey left Union Station in 1998, and was replaced with renowned dobro player Jerry Douglas. Douglas had provided studio back-up to Krauss' records since 1987's Too Late to Cry. Their next album, New Favorite, was released on August 14, 2001. The album went on to win the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album, with the single "The Lucky One" winning a Grammy as well. New Favorite was followed up by the double platinum double album Live in 2002 and a release of a DVD of the same live performance in 2003. Both the album and the DVD were recorded during a performance at The Louisville Palace and both the album and DVD have been certified double Platinum. Also in 2002 she played a singing voice for one of the characters in the animated comedy film Eight Crazy Nights.
Lonely Runs Both Ways was released in 2004, and eventually became another Alison Krauss & Union Station gold certified album. Ron Block described Lonely Runs Both Ways as "pretty much... what we've always done" in terms of song selection and the style, in which those songs were recorded. Krauss believes the group "was probably the most unprepared we've ever been" for the album and that songs were chosen as needed rather than planned beforehand. She also performed a duet with Brad Paisley on his album Mud on the Tires in the single "Whiskey Lullaby". The single was quickly ranked in the top fifty of the Billboard Hot 100 and the top five of the Hot Country Songs, and won the Country Music Association Awards for "Best Musical Event" and "Best Music Video" of the year.
In 2007, Krauss and Robert Plant released the collaborative album titled Raising Sand. RIAA-certified platinum, the album was nominated for and won 5 Grammy Awards at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album, and Record of the Year ("Please Read the Letter"). Krauss and Plant recorded a Crossroads special in October 2007 for the Country Music Television network, which first aired on February 12, 2008.
Returning with Union Station, Krauss released an album called Paper Airplane on April 12, 2011, the follow-up album to Lonely Runs Both Ways (2004). Mike Shipley, the recording and mixing engineer for the album, said that the album had a lengthy production time because of Krauss' non-stop migraines. Nevertheless, Paper Airplane became Krauss's highest-charting album in the U.S., reaching number three on the Billboard 200 on topping both the country and bluegrass album charts.
In 2014, Krauss and her band Union Station toured with Willie Nelson and Family, with special guests Kacey Musgraves, and the Devil Makes Three.
Capitol Records released Windy City, an album of country and bluegrass classics, produced by Buddy Cannon and her first solo release in 17 years, on February 17, 2017. Krauss received two nominations at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards for Best Country Solo Performance and Best American Roots Performance.
In August 2021, Krauss announced she was releasing a sequel album to Raising Sand with Robert Plant called Raise the Roof. In addition to the album, Krauss and Plant are planning a 2022 tour.
Other work
Krauss has made guest appearances on other records on lead vocals, harmony vocals, and fiddle. In 1987, at the age of 15, she played fiddle on the album The Western Illinois Rag by Americana musician Chris Vallillo. In 1993 she recorded vocals for the Phish song "If I Could" in Los Angeles. In 1997 she sang harmony vocals in both English and Irish on the album Runaway Sunday by Irish traditional band Altan. In 1998 she played and sang on the title track of Hawaiian slack-key artist Ledward Kaapana's album, Waltz of the Wind.
Krauss had her only number one hit in 2000, receiving vocal credit for "Buy Me a Rose". She has contributed to numerous motion picture soundtracks, most notably O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). She and Dan Tyminski contributed multiple tracks, including "I'll Fly Away" (with Gillian Welch), "Down to the River to Pray", and "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow". In the film, Tyminski's vocals on "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow" were used for George Clooney's character. The soundtrack sold over seven million copies and won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2002. Both Krauss and the surprisingly popular album were credited with reviving interest in bluegrass. She has said, however, that she believes Americans already liked bluegrass and other less-heard musical genres, and that the film merely provided easy exposure to the music. She did not appear in the movie, at her own request, because she was pregnant during its filming.
In 2007, Krauss released A Hundred Miles or More: A Collection, an album of new songs, soundtrack tunes, and duets with artists such as John Waite, James Taylor, Brad Paisley, and Natalie MacMaster. The album was successful commercially but given a lukewarm reception by critics. One of the tracks, "Missing You", a duet with Waite (and a cover of his hit single from 1984), was similarly received as a single. On August 11, television network Great American Country aired a one-hour special, Alison Krauss: A Hundred Miles or More, based on the album.
Krauss appeared on Heart's March 2010 concert DVD Night at Sky Church, providing the lead vocals for the song "These Dreams".
Other soundtracks for which Krauss has performed include Twister, The Prince of Egypt, Eight Crazy Nights, Mona Lisa Smile, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Alias, Bambi II and Cold Mountain. She contributed "Jubilee" to the 2004 documentary Paper Clips. The Cold Mountain songs she sang, "The Scarlet Tide" with T Bone Burnett and Elvis Costello, and "You Will Be My Ain True Love" with Sting, were each nominated for an Academy Award. She performed both songs at the 76th Academy Awards, the first with Costello and Burnett, and the other with Sting. She produced Nickel Creek's debut album (2000) and the follow-up This Side (2002), which won Krauss her first Grammy award as a producer.
Krauss performed on Moody Bluegrass: A Nashville Tribute to the Moody Blues.
She participated in Billy Childs' 2014 tribute album to Laura Nyro, Map to the Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro, performing on the track "And When I Die".
Reception and influences
Krauss' earliest musical experience was as an instrumentalist, though her style has grown to focus more on her vocals with a band providing most of the instrumentation. Musicians she enjoys include vocalists Lou Gramm of Foreigner and Paul Rodgers of Bad Company. Krauss' family listened to "folk records" while she was growing up, but she had friends who exposed her to groups such as AC/DC, Carly Simon, the Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and ELO. She cites Dolly Parton, with whom she has since collaborated a number of times, as a major influence. Some credit Krauss and Union Station, at least partially, with a recent revival of interest in bluegrass music in the United States. Despite being together for nearly two decades and winning numerous awards, she said the group was "just beginning right now" (in 2002) because "in spite of all the great things that have happened for the band, [she] feel[s] musically it's just really beginning". Although she alternates between solo releases and works with the band, she has said there is no difference in her involvement between the two.
As a group, AKUS have been called "American favourites", "world-beaters", and "the tightest band around". While they have been successful as a group, many reviews note Krauss still "remains the undisputed star and rock-solid foundation" and have described her as the "band's focus" with an "angelic" voice that "flows like honey". Her work has been compared to that of the Cox Family, Bill Monroe, and Del McCoury, and has in turn been credited with influencing various "Newgrass" artists including Nickel Creek, for which she acted as record producer on two of their albums. In addition to her work with Nickel Creek, she has acted as producer to the Cox Family, Reba McEntire and Alan Jackson. Adam Sweeting of The Guardian has said Krauss and Union Station are "superb, when they stick to hoedowns and hillbilly music, but much less convincing, when they lurch towards the middle of the road". Blender magazine has said the "flavorless repertoire [Krauss] sings... steers her toward Lite FM". In addition, Q magazine and The Onion AV Club have said their newer releases are "pretty much the usual", and that although Krauss is generally "adventurous", these recent releases contain nothing to "alienate the masses".
Voice, themes, and musical style
Krauss possesses a soprano voice, which has been described as "angelic".
She has said her musical influences include J. D. Crowe, Ricky Skaggs, and Tony Rice. Many of her songs are described as sad, and are often about love, especially lost love. Though Krauss has a close involvement with her group and a long career in music, she rarely performs music she has written herself. She has also described her general approach to constructing an album as starting with a single song and selecting other tracks based on the first, to give the final album a somewhat consistent theme and mood. She most commonly performs in the bluegrass and country genres, though she has had two songs on the adult contemporary charts, has worked with rock artists such as Phish and Sting, and is sometimes said to stray into pop music.
Music videos
Krauss did not think she would make music videos at the beginning of her career. After recording her first she was convinced it was so bad that she would never do another. Nonetheless, she has continued to make further videos. Many of the first videos she saw were by bluegrass artists. Dan Tyminski has noted that the video for Thriller was very popular at the time she was first exposed to music videos. She has made suggestions on the style or theme to some videos, though she tends to leave such decisions to the director of the particular video. The group chooses directors by seeking out people who have previously directed videos that band members have enjoyed. The director for a video to "If I Didn't Know Any Better" from Lonely Runs Both Ways, for example, was selected because Krauss enjoyed work he had done with Def Leppard and, she wondered, what he could do with their music. While style decisions are generally left to the various directors of the videos, many – including for "The Lucky One", "Restless", "Goodbye is All We Have", "New Favorite", and "If I Didn't Know Any Better" – follow a pattern. In all of these videos Krauss walks, sometimes interacting with other people, while the rest of the band follows her.
Performances
Krauss has said she used to dislike working in the studio, where she had to perform the same song repeatedly, but has come to like studio work roughly the same as live stage performances. Her own favorite concert experiences include watching three Foreigner concerts during a single tour, a Dolly Parton concert, and a Larry Sparks concert.
She appeared on Austin City Limits in 1992 and opened the show in 1995 with Union Station. The New Favorite tour, after AKUS' album of the same name, was planned to start September 12, 2001 in Cincinnati, Ohio, but was delayed until September 28 in Savannah, Georgia following the September 11 terrorist attacks. Krauss took part in the Down from the Mountain tour in 2002, which featured many artists from the O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack. Down from the Mountain was followed by the Great High Mountain Tour, which was composed of musicians from both O Brother and Cold Mountain, including Krauss. She has also given several notable smaller performances including at Carnegie Hall (with the Grand Ole Opry), on Lifetime Television in a concert of female performers, on the radio show A Prairie Home Companion, where she sang two songs not previously recorded on any of her albums, and a performance at the White House attended by then-President Bill Clinton and then-Vice President Al Gore. She has also been in the White House again, performing the song "When You Say Nothing at All" at country music performances. She also performed a tribute to the Everly Brothers at which she sang "All I Have to Do is Dream" with Emmylou Harris and "When Will I Be Loved" with Vince Gill. She was also invited by Taylor Swift to perform with her at the 2013 CMA's and by Joshua Bell to perform with him on a Christmas album; Bell said that "she (Krauss) is someone I've adored for so many years now". She performed at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. on January 10, 2015, as a part of "The Life and Songs of Emmylou Harris: An All Star Concert Celebration" which is a tribute to Emmylou Harris.
Awards and honors
Krauss has won twenty-seven Grammy Awards over the course of her career as a solo artist, as a group with Union Station, as a duet with Robert Plant, and as a record producer. As of 2021, she ranks fourth on the list of winners of the most Grammy Awards. She overtook Aretha Franklin for the most female wins at the 46th Grammy Awards, where Krauss won three, bringing her total at the time to seventeen (Franklin won her sixteenth that night). The Recording Academy (which presents the Grammy Awards) presented her with a special musical achievement honor in 2005. She has also won 14 International Bluegrass Music Association Awards, 9 Country Music Association Awards, 2 Gospel Music Association Awards, 2 CMT Music Awards, 2 Academy of Country Music Awards, and 1 Canadian Country Music Award. Country Music Television ranked Krauss 12th on their "40 Greatest Women of Country Music" list in 2002.
At the 76th Academy Awards in February 2004, where she performed two nominated songs from the Cold Mountain soundtrack, Krauss was chosen by Hollywood shoe designer Stuart Weitzman to wear a pair of $2 million 'Cinderella' sandals with 4½ inch clear glass stiletto heels and two straps adorned with 565 Kwiat diamonds set in platinum. Feeling like a rather unglamorous choice, Krauss said, "When I first heard, I was like, 'What were they thinking?' I have the worst feet of anybody who will be there that night!" In addition to the fairy-tale-inspired shoes, Weitzman outfitted Krauss with a Palm Trēo 600 smartphone, bejeweled with 3,000 clear-and-topaz-colored Swarovski crystals. The shoes were returned, but Krauss kept the crystal-covered phone. Weitzman chose Krauss to show off his fashions at the urging of his daughters, who are fans of Krauss' music.
In May 2012, Alison Krauss was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music.
In March 2015, her hometown of Champaign, Illinois, designated the 400 block of West Hill Street as "Honorary Alison Krauss Way".
Personal life
Krauss was married to musician Pat Bergeson from 1997 to 2001. Their son, Sam, was born in July 1999.
Discography
Studio albums
1986: Different Strokes (with Jim Hoiles and Swamp Weiss)
1987: Too Late to Cry
1989: Two Highways (with Union Station)
1990: I've Got That Old Feeling
1992: Every Time You Say Goodbye (with Union Station)
1994: I Know Who Holds Tomorrow (with the Cox Family)
1997: So Long So Wrong (with Union Station)
1999: Forget About It
2001: New Favorite (with Union Station)
2004: Lonely Runs Both Ways (with Union Station)
2007: Raising Sand (with Robert Plant)
2011: Paper Airplane (with Union Station)
2017: Windy City
2021: Raise the Roof (with Robert Plant)
Filmography
Notes
a. Sources vary on birth place; see talk page discussion
References
External links
Rounder Records site for Alison Krauss
[ Alison Krauss] on Allmusic database
1971 births
Living people
Union Station (band) members
American bluegrass fiddlers
American women country singers
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Champaign, Illinois
American people of German descent
American people of Italian descent
Grand Ole Opry members
American performers of Christian music
American sopranos
Rounder Records artists
Musicians from Decatur, Illinois
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
Country musicians from Illinois
United States National Medal of Arts recipients | true | [
"Iz*One was a twelve-member South Korean and Japanese girl group formed in 2018 through Produce 48, a music competition reality show. The group achieved significant commercial success with its debut extended play Color*Iz (2018), released under Off the Record Entertainment, and won several new artist awards, including Best New Artist at the 20th Mnet Asian Music Awards, Rookie of the Year at the 33rd Golden Disc Awards, and the New Artist Award at the 28th Seoul Music Awards. The group's second EP, Heart*Iz (2019), was released to greater commercial success than its predecessor, and received Disc Bonsang nominations at the 34th Golden Disc Awards and the 29th Seoul Music Awards respectively. The EP's lead single, \"Violeta\", received a nomination for Song of the Year at the 21st Mnet Asian Music Awards.\n\nThe group earned its first ever daesang award nominations for its first studio album Bloom*Iz, released in February 2020. The album was nominated for Album of the Year at both the 12th Melon Music Awards and the 10th Gaon Chart Music Awards, while its lead single \"Fiesta\" was also nominated at both ceremonies for Best Dance – Female and Song of the Year – February respectively. Iz*One did not win any of the nominations but the group received its second Artist of the Year bonsang at the Melon Music Awards. Bloom*Iz garnered an additional Bonsang Award nomination at the 30th Seoul Music Awards. The group's follow-up EP, Oneiric Diary, released in June 2020, was also nominated alongside its predecessor at the Gaon Awards, for Album of the Year – 3rd Quarter. The group won its third Artist of the Year bonsang at the 3rd Fact Music Awards in December 2020.\n\nAwards and nominations\n\nNotes\n\nReferences \n\nIz*One\nAwards",
"The 54th Academy of Country Music Awards was held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada on April 7, 2019. Nominations were announced on February 20, 2019 by Reba McEntire during CBS This Morning, with Chris Stapleton and Dan + Shay leading with six nominations each. McEntire returned to host the awards for the sixteenth time.\n\nJason Aldean was presented with the ACM's rare honor \"Artist of the Decade\" by previous holder George Strait.\n\nWinners and Nominees \nThe winners are shown in bold.\n\nPerformances\n\nPresenters\n\nReception \nIn its review of the event, Rolling Stone Country praised that the ACMs took the opportunity to bring seasoned musicians Amanda Shires and Charlie Worsham \"into the fold\" by having them appear alongside Luke Combs and Keith Urban respectively but criticised that the ACMs did not introduce either of them or even feature them on screen. Worsham, who the reviewer believed should have been nominated for his own awards, performed \"mostly in the shadows\" and Shires, who \"helped transform [Combs' performance] with her lyrical playing\" was barely seen. Rolling Stone also praised Reba McEntire's hosting and the performances by Dierks Bentley and Brandi Carlile, Little Big Town, Miranda Lambert and Ashley McBryde but stated that it was \"baffling\" that Kacey Musgraves, who had five nominations and won the CMA Award for Album of the Year and four Grammy Awards including Best Country Album and the all-genre Album of the Year for Golden Hour, did not perform. Musgraves' win made her only the third artist (after Taylor Swift and the artists that appeared on Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?) to win the ACM, CMA and Grammy Awards for Best Country Album as well as the all-genre Grammy for Album of the Year.\n\nSee also\nAcademy of Country Music Awards\n\nReferences\n\nAcademy of Country Music Awards\nAcademy of Country Music Awards\nAcademy of Country Music Awards\nAcademy of Country Music Awards\nAcademy of Country Music Awards\nAcademy of Country Music Awards\nAcademy of Country Music Awards"
] |
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"A Collection, a compilation of older releases and some covers of her favorite works by other artists, was released in 1995.",
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] | C_9547d7ab1ed8495b9e4084ea1f45e747_0 | is she still making music today | 8 | Is Alison Krauss still making music today? | Alison Krauss | Krauss' second Union Station album Every Time You Say Goodbye was released in 1992, and she went on to win her second Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album of the year. She then joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1993 at the age of 21. She was the youngest cast member at the time, and the first bluegrass artist to join the Opry in twenty-nine years. She also collaborated on a project with the Cox Family in 1994, a bluegrass album called I Know Who Holds Tomorrow. Mandolin and guitar player Dan Tyminski replaced Tim Stafford in Union Station in 1994. Late in the year, Krauss recorded with the band Shenandoah on its single "Somewhere in the Vicinity of the Heart", which brought her to the country music Top Ten for the first time and it won the Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Also in 1994, Krauss collaborated with Suzy Bogguss, Kathy Mattea, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to contribute "Teach Your Children" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization. In 1997, she recorded vocals and violin for "Half a Mind", on Tommy Shaw's 7 Deadly Zens album. Now That I've Found You: A Collection, a compilation of older releases and some covers of her favorite works by other artists, was released in 1995. Some of these covers include Bad Company's "Oh Atlanta", The Foundations' & Dan Schafer's "Baby, Now That I've Found You", which was used in the Australian hit comedy movie The Castle, and The Beatles' "I Will". A cover of Keith Whitley's "When You Say Nothing at All" reached number three on the Billboard country chart; the album peaked in the top fifteen on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, and sold two million copies to become Krauss' first double-platinum album. Krauss also was nominated for four Country Music Association Awards and won all of them. So Long So Wrong, another Union Station album, was released in 1997 and won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. One critic said its sound was "rather untraditional" and "likely [to] change quite a few ... minds about bluegrass." Included on the album is the track "It Doesn't Matter", which was featured in the second-season premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and was included on the Buffy soundtrack in 1999. Her next solo release in 1999, Forget About It, included one of her two tracks to appear on the Billboard adult contemporary chart, "Stay". The album was certified gold and charted within the top seventy-five of the Billboard 200 and in the top five of the country chart. In addition, the track "That Kind of Love" was included in another episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Alison Maria Krauss (born July 23, 1971) is an American bluegrass-country singer and musician. She entered the music industry at an early age, winning local contests by the age of 10 and recording for the first time at 14. She signed with Rounder Records in 1985 and released her first solo album in 1987. She was invited to join the band with which she still performs, Alison Krauss and Union Station, and later released her first album with them as a group in 1989.
Krauss has released fourteen albums, appeared on numerous soundtracks, and sparked a renewed interest in bluegrass music in the United States. Her soundtrack performances have led to further popularity, including the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, and the Cold Mountain soundtrack, which led to her performance at the 2004 Academy Awards.
As of 2019, she has won 27 Grammy Awards from 42 nominations, ranking her fourth behind Beyoncé, Quincy Jones and classical conductor Georg Solti for most Grammy Award wins overall. Krauss was the most awarded singer and the most awarded female artist in Grammy history until Beyoncé won her 28th Grammy in 2021. When Krauss won her first Grammy in 1991, she was the second-youngest winner at that time.
On November 21, 2019, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. She was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in September 2021.
Early life
Alison Maria Krauss was born in Decatur, Illinois, to Fred and Louise Krauss. Her father was a German immigrant who came to the United States in 1952 at age 12, and taught his native language while he earned a doctorate in psychology. He later went into the business of real estate. Her mother, an American of German and Italian descent, is the daughter of artists, and works as an illustrator of magazines and textbooks. Fred and Louise met while they were studying at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. After a brief residence in nearby Decatur, the family settled in Champaign, where Krauss was raised with her older brother, Viktor.
Krauss's mother played banjo and acoustic guitar, so Krauss was exposed to folk music at home, and she heard rock and pop music on the radio: she liked Gary Numan's synth-pop song "Cars", and rock bands such as Foreigner, Bad Company, and Electric Light Orchestra. Her brother Viktor played piano and double bass in high school, launching a career as a jazz and rock multi-instrumentalist. At her mother's insistence, Krauss began studying classical violin at age five. Krauss was reluctant to spend time practicing, but she continued with classical lessons until she was eleven. Krauss said her mother "tried to find interesting things for me to do" and "wanted to get me involved in music, in addition to art and sports". Krauss was also very active in roller skating, and in her teens she finally decided on a career in music rather than roller derby.
In mid-1979, Krauss's mother saw a notice for an upcoming fiddle competition at the Champaign County Fair, so she bought a bluegrass fiddle instruction book and the 1977 bluegrass album Duets by violinist Richard Greene. Krauss learned by ear to play several songs from the album, including "Tennessee Waltz" which she practiced on violin with her mother accompanying on guitar. Krauss entered the talent contest in the novice category at the age of eight, placing fourth. (This is where she first met fiddler Andrea Zonn who won the junior division at age 10.) Krauss investigated the bluegrass genre more thoroughly after this, and she developed a knack for learning complex riffs by ear, quickly turning them into her own version. In 1981–82, Krauss performed with Marvin Lee Flessner's country dance band in which she fiddled and sang. In September 1983, her parents bought her a custom violin made by hand in Missouri – her first adult-sized instrument. At 13, she won the Walnut Valley Festival Fiddle Championship, and the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass in America named her the "Most Promising Fiddler in the Midwest". She was also called "virtuoso" by Vanity Fair magazine.
Krauss first met Dan Tyminski around 1984 at a festival held by the Society. Every current member of her band, Union Station, first met her at these festivals.
1985–1991: Early career
Krauss made her recording debut in 1986 on the independent album, Different Strokes, in collaboration with Swamp Weiss and Jim Hoiles, and featuring her brother Viktor Krauss. From the age of 12 she performed with bassist and songwriter John Pennell in a band called "Silver Rail", replacing Andrea Zonn. Pennell later changed the band's name to Union Station after another band was discovered with the name Silver Rail.
Later that year, she signed to Rounder Records, and in 1987, at 16, she released her debut album Too Late to Cry with Union Station as her backup band.
Krauss' debut solo album was quickly followed by her first group album with Union Station in 1989, Two Highways. The album includes the traditional tunes "Wild Bill Jones" and "Beaumont Rag", along with a bluegrass interpretation of the Allman Brothers' "Midnight Rider".
Krauss' contract with Rounder required her to alternate between releasing a solo album and an album with Union Station, and she released the solo album I've Got That Old Feeling in 1990. It was her first album to rise onto the Billboard charts, peaking in the top seventy-five on the country chart. The album also was a notable point in her career as she earned her first Grammy Award, the single "Steel Rails" was her first single tracked by Billboard, and the title single "I've Got That Old Feeling" was the first song for which she recorded a music video.
1992–1999: Rising success
Krauss' second Union Station album Every Time You Say Goodbye was released in 1992, and she went on to win her second Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album of the year. She then joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1993 at the age of 21. She was the youngest cast member at the time, and the first bluegrass artist to join the Opry in 29 years. She also collaborated on a project with the Cox Family in 1994, a bluegrass album called I Know Who Holds Tomorrow. Mandolin and guitar player Dan Tyminski replaced Tim Stafford in Union Station in 1994. Late in the year, Krauss recorded with the band Shenandoah on its single "Somewhere in the Vicinity of the Heart", which brought her to the country music Top Ten for the first time and it won the Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Also in 1994, Krauss collaborated with Suzy Bogguss, Kathy Mattea, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to contribute "Teach Your Children" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization. In 1997, she recorded vocals and violin for "Half a Mind", on Tommy Shaw's 7 Deadly Zens album.
Now That I've Found You: A Collection, a compilation of older releases and some covers of her favorite works by other artists, was released in 1995. Some of these covers include Bad Company's "Oh Atlanta", the Foundations' & Dan Schafer's "Baby, Now That I've Found You", which was used in the Australian hit comedy movie The Castle, and the Beatles' "I Will" with Tony Furtado. A cover of Keith Whitley's "When You Say Nothing at All" reached number three on the Billboard country chart; the album peaked in the top fifteen on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, and sold two million copies to become Krauss' first double-platinum album. Krauss also was nominated for four Country Music Association Awards and won all of them.
So Long So Wrong, another Union Station album, was released in 1997 and won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. One critic said its sound was "rather untraditional" and "likely [to] change quite a few ... minds about bluegrass". Included on the album is the track "It Doesn't Matter", which was featured in the second-season premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and was included on the Buffy soundtrack in 1999.
Her next solo release in 1999, Forget About It, included one of her two tracks to appear on the Billboard adult contemporary chart, "Stay". The album was certified gold and charted within the top seventy-five of the Billboard 200 and in the top five of the country chart. In addition, the track "That Kind of Love" was included in another episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
2000–present: Current career
Adam Steffey left Union Station in 1998, and was replaced with renowned dobro player Jerry Douglas. Douglas had provided studio back-up to Krauss' records since 1987's Too Late to Cry. Their next album, New Favorite, was released on August 14, 2001. The album went on to win the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album, with the single "The Lucky One" winning a Grammy as well. New Favorite was followed up by the double platinum double album Live in 2002 and a release of a DVD of the same live performance in 2003. Both the album and the DVD were recorded during a performance at The Louisville Palace and both the album and DVD have been certified double Platinum. Also in 2002 she played a singing voice for one of the characters in the animated comedy film Eight Crazy Nights.
Lonely Runs Both Ways was released in 2004, and eventually became another Alison Krauss & Union Station gold certified album. Ron Block described Lonely Runs Both Ways as "pretty much... what we've always done" in terms of song selection and the style, in which those songs were recorded. Krauss believes the group "was probably the most unprepared we've ever been" for the album and that songs were chosen as needed rather than planned beforehand. She also performed a duet with Brad Paisley on his album Mud on the Tires in the single "Whiskey Lullaby". The single was quickly ranked in the top fifty of the Billboard Hot 100 and the top five of the Hot Country Songs, and won the Country Music Association Awards for "Best Musical Event" and "Best Music Video" of the year.
In 2007, Krauss and Robert Plant released the collaborative album titled Raising Sand. RIAA-certified platinum, the album was nominated for and won 5 Grammy Awards at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album, and Record of the Year ("Please Read the Letter"). Krauss and Plant recorded a Crossroads special in October 2007 for the Country Music Television network, which first aired on February 12, 2008.
Returning with Union Station, Krauss released an album called Paper Airplane on April 12, 2011, the follow-up album to Lonely Runs Both Ways (2004). Mike Shipley, the recording and mixing engineer for the album, said that the album had a lengthy production time because of Krauss' non-stop migraines. Nevertheless, Paper Airplane became Krauss's highest-charting album in the U.S., reaching number three on the Billboard 200 on topping both the country and bluegrass album charts.
In 2014, Krauss and her band Union Station toured with Willie Nelson and Family, with special guests Kacey Musgraves, and the Devil Makes Three.
Capitol Records released Windy City, an album of country and bluegrass classics, produced by Buddy Cannon and her first solo release in 17 years, on February 17, 2017. Krauss received two nominations at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards for Best Country Solo Performance and Best American Roots Performance.
In August 2021, Krauss announced she was releasing a sequel album to Raising Sand with Robert Plant called Raise the Roof. In addition to the album, Krauss and Plant are planning a 2022 tour.
Other work
Krauss has made guest appearances on other records on lead vocals, harmony vocals, and fiddle. In 1987, at the age of 15, she played fiddle on the album The Western Illinois Rag by Americana musician Chris Vallillo. In 1993 she recorded vocals for the Phish song "If I Could" in Los Angeles. In 1997 she sang harmony vocals in both English and Irish on the album Runaway Sunday by Irish traditional band Altan. In 1998 she played and sang on the title track of Hawaiian slack-key artist Ledward Kaapana's album, Waltz of the Wind.
Krauss had her only number one hit in 2000, receiving vocal credit for "Buy Me a Rose". She has contributed to numerous motion picture soundtracks, most notably O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). She and Dan Tyminski contributed multiple tracks, including "I'll Fly Away" (with Gillian Welch), "Down to the River to Pray", and "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow". In the film, Tyminski's vocals on "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow" were used for George Clooney's character. The soundtrack sold over seven million copies and won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2002. Both Krauss and the surprisingly popular album were credited with reviving interest in bluegrass. She has said, however, that she believes Americans already liked bluegrass and other less-heard musical genres, and that the film merely provided easy exposure to the music. She did not appear in the movie, at her own request, because she was pregnant during its filming.
In 2007, Krauss released A Hundred Miles or More: A Collection, an album of new songs, soundtrack tunes, and duets with artists such as John Waite, James Taylor, Brad Paisley, and Natalie MacMaster. The album was successful commercially but given a lukewarm reception by critics. One of the tracks, "Missing You", a duet with Waite (and a cover of his hit single from 1984), was similarly received as a single. On August 11, television network Great American Country aired a one-hour special, Alison Krauss: A Hundred Miles or More, based on the album.
Krauss appeared on Heart's March 2010 concert DVD Night at Sky Church, providing the lead vocals for the song "These Dreams".
Other soundtracks for which Krauss has performed include Twister, The Prince of Egypt, Eight Crazy Nights, Mona Lisa Smile, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Alias, Bambi II and Cold Mountain. She contributed "Jubilee" to the 2004 documentary Paper Clips. The Cold Mountain songs she sang, "The Scarlet Tide" with T Bone Burnett and Elvis Costello, and "You Will Be My Ain True Love" with Sting, were each nominated for an Academy Award. She performed both songs at the 76th Academy Awards, the first with Costello and Burnett, and the other with Sting. She produced Nickel Creek's debut album (2000) and the follow-up This Side (2002), which won Krauss her first Grammy award as a producer.
Krauss performed on Moody Bluegrass: A Nashville Tribute to the Moody Blues.
She participated in Billy Childs' 2014 tribute album to Laura Nyro, Map to the Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro, performing on the track "And When I Die".
Reception and influences
Krauss' earliest musical experience was as an instrumentalist, though her style has grown to focus more on her vocals with a band providing most of the instrumentation. Musicians she enjoys include vocalists Lou Gramm of Foreigner and Paul Rodgers of Bad Company. Krauss' family listened to "folk records" while she was growing up, but she had friends who exposed her to groups such as AC/DC, Carly Simon, the Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and ELO. She cites Dolly Parton, with whom she has since collaborated a number of times, as a major influence. Some credit Krauss and Union Station, at least partially, with a recent revival of interest in bluegrass music in the United States. Despite being together for nearly two decades and winning numerous awards, she said the group was "just beginning right now" (in 2002) because "in spite of all the great things that have happened for the band, [she] feel[s] musically it's just really beginning". Although she alternates between solo releases and works with the band, she has said there is no difference in her involvement between the two.
As a group, AKUS have been called "American favourites", "world-beaters", and "the tightest band around". While they have been successful as a group, many reviews note Krauss still "remains the undisputed star and rock-solid foundation" and have described her as the "band's focus" with an "angelic" voice that "flows like honey". Her work has been compared to that of the Cox Family, Bill Monroe, and Del McCoury, and has in turn been credited with influencing various "Newgrass" artists including Nickel Creek, for which she acted as record producer on two of their albums. In addition to her work with Nickel Creek, she has acted as producer to the Cox Family, Reba McEntire and Alan Jackson. Adam Sweeting of The Guardian has said Krauss and Union Station are "superb, when they stick to hoedowns and hillbilly music, but much less convincing, when they lurch towards the middle of the road". Blender magazine has said the "flavorless repertoire [Krauss] sings... steers her toward Lite FM". In addition, Q magazine and The Onion AV Club have said their newer releases are "pretty much the usual", and that although Krauss is generally "adventurous", these recent releases contain nothing to "alienate the masses".
Voice, themes, and musical style
Krauss possesses a soprano voice, which has been described as "angelic".
She has said her musical influences include J. D. Crowe, Ricky Skaggs, and Tony Rice. Many of her songs are described as sad, and are often about love, especially lost love. Though Krauss has a close involvement with her group and a long career in music, she rarely performs music she has written herself. She has also described her general approach to constructing an album as starting with a single song and selecting other tracks based on the first, to give the final album a somewhat consistent theme and mood. She most commonly performs in the bluegrass and country genres, though she has had two songs on the adult contemporary charts, has worked with rock artists such as Phish and Sting, and is sometimes said to stray into pop music.
Music videos
Krauss did not think she would make music videos at the beginning of her career. After recording her first she was convinced it was so bad that she would never do another. Nonetheless, she has continued to make further videos. Many of the first videos she saw were by bluegrass artists. Dan Tyminski has noted that the video for Thriller was very popular at the time she was first exposed to music videos. She has made suggestions on the style or theme to some videos, though she tends to leave such decisions to the director of the particular video. The group chooses directors by seeking out people who have previously directed videos that band members have enjoyed. The director for a video to "If I Didn't Know Any Better" from Lonely Runs Both Ways, for example, was selected because Krauss enjoyed work he had done with Def Leppard and, she wondered, what he could do with their music. While style decisions are generally left to the various directors of the videos, many – including for "The Lucky One", "Restless", "Goodbye is All We Have", "New Favorite", and "If I Didn't Know Any Better" – follow a pattern. In all of these videos Krauss walks, sometimes interacting with other people, while the rest of the band follows her.
Performances
Krauss has said she used to dislike working in the studio, where she had to perform the same song repeatedly, but has come to like studio work roughly the same as live stage performances. Her own favorite concert experiences include watching three Foreigner concerts during a single tour, a Dolly Parton concert, and a Larry Sparks concert.
She appeared on Austin City Limits in 1992 and opened the show in 1995 with Union Station. The New Favorite tour, after AKUS' album of the same name, was planned to start September 12, 2001 in Cincinnati, Ohio, but was delayed until September 28 in Savannah, Georgia following the September 11 terrorist attacks. Krauss took part in the Down from the Mountain tour in 2002, which featured many artists from the O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack. Down from the Mountain was followed by the Great High Mountain Tour, which was composed of musicians from both O Brother and Cold Mountain, including Krauss. She has also given several notable smaller performances including at Carnegie Hall (with the Grand Ole Opry), on Lifetime Television in a concert of female performers, on the radio show A Prairie Home Companion, where she sang two songs not previously recorded on any of her albums, and a performance at the White House attended by then-President Bill Clinton and then-Vice President Al Gore. She has also been in the White House again, performing the song "When You Say Nothing at All" at country music performances. She also performed a tribute to the Everly Brothers at which she sang "All I Have to Do is Dream" with Emmylou Harris and "When Will I Be Loved" with Vince Gill. She was also invited by Taylor Swift to perform with her at the 2013 CMA's and by Joshua Bell to perform with him on a Christmas album; Bell said that "she (Krauss) is someone I've adored for so many years now". She performed at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. on January 10, 2015, as a part of "The Life and Songs of Emmylou Harris: An All Star Concert Celebration" which is a tribute to Emmylou Harris.
Awards and honors
Krauss has won twenty-seven Grammy Awards over the course of her career as a solo artist, as a group with Union Station, as a duet with Robert Plant, and as a record producer. As of 2021, she ranks fourth on the list of winners of the most Grammy Awards. She overtook Aretha Franklin for the most female wins at the 46th Grammy Awards, where Krauss won three, bringing her total at the time to seventeen (Franklin won her sixteenth that night). The Recording Academy (which presents the Grammy Awards) presented her with a special musical achievement honor in 2005. She has also won 14 International Bluegrass Music Association Awards, 9 Country Music Association Awards, 2 Gospel Music Association Awards, 2 CMT Music Awards, 2 Academy of Country Music Awards, and 1 Canadian Country Music Award. Country Music Television ranked Krauss 12th on their "40 Greatest Women of Country Music" list in 2002.
At the 76th Academy Awards in February 2004, where she performed two nominated songs from the Cold Mountain soundtrack, Krauss was chosen by Hollywood shoe designer Stuart Weitzman to wear a pair of $2 million 'Cinderella' sandals with 4½ inch clear glass stiletto heels and two straps adorned with 565 Kwiat diamonds set in platinum. Feeling like a rather unglamorous choice, Krauss said, "When I first heard, I was like, 'What were they thinking?' I have the worst feet of anybody who will be there that night!" In addition to the fairy-tale-inspired shoes, Weitzman outfitted Krauss with a Palm Trēo 600 smartphone, bejeweled with 3,000 clear-and-topaz-colored Swarovski crystals. The shoes were returned, but Krauss kept the crystal-covered phone. Weitzman chose Krauss to show off his fashions at the urging of his daughters, who are fans of Krauss' music.
In May 2012, Alison Krauss was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music.
In March 2015, her hometown of Champaign, Illinois, designated the 400 block of West Hill Street as "Honorary Alison Krauss Way".
Personal life
Krauss was married to musician Pat Bergeson from 1997 to 2001. Their son, Sam, was born in July 1999.
Discography
Studio albums
1986: Different Strokes (with Jim Hoiles and Swamp Weiss)
1987: Too Late to Cry
1989: Two Highways (with Union Station)
1990: I've Got That Old Feeling
1992: Every Time You Say Goodbye (with Union Station)
1994: I Know Who Holds Tomorrow (with the Cox Family)
1997: So Long So Wrong (with Union Station)
1999: Forget About It
2001: New Favorite (with Union Station)
2004: Lonely Runs Both Ways (with Union Station)
2007: Raising Sand (with Robert Plant)
2011: Paper Airplane (with Union Station)
2017: Windy City
2021: Raise the Roof (with Robert Plant)
Filmography
Notes
a. Sources vary on birth place; see talk page discussion
References
External links
Rounder Records site for Alison Krauss
[ Alison Krauss] on Allmusic database
1971 births
Living people
Union Station (band) members
American bluegrass fiddlers
American women country singers
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Champaign, Illinois
American people of German descent
American people of Italian descent
Grand Ole Opry members
American performers of Christian music
American sopranos
Rounder Records artists
Musicians from Decatur, Illinois
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
Country musicians from Illinois
United States National Medal of Arts recipients | false | [
"Sada Kristin Jackson (née, Irvine Spearman; born June 4, 1983) is an American Christian R&B and urban contemporary gospel artist and musician. She started her music career, in 2009, with the band Press Play, where she was the lead vocalist for two years. Her solo music career got underway, in 2015, with the release of the studio album, Long Story Short, independently, in 2015.\n\nEarly life\nSada Jackson was born Sada Kristin Irvine Spearman, on June 4, 1983, in Kansas City, Missouri, whose father is Grover and mother is Ileana, who raised her and her siblings, older brother, Justin, and younger brother, Ryan, in Kansas City, Kansas, at the Quindaro Church of God in Christ. This is where she would hone her singing acumen, at the age of three years. Her parents divorced in the mid-2000s. Her parents both got diagnosed with cancer, but are both still living, with her dad's in remission, while her mom's is still in the healing process.\n\nMusic career\nHer music recording career commenced in 2009, when she was a member of the Christian pop band, Press Play, where she was their lead vocalist for two years, until a catastrophic knee injury sidelined her, in June 2011. This caused her to depart the band, where she had to focus her efforts at healing the injury she sustained. She started her individual music recording career in 2015, with the studio album, Long Story Short, that released on January 27, 2015, independently. The album got reviewed by CCM Magazine, New Release Today and The Journal of Gospel Music, in three four star reviews. She sings the national anthem for the Kansas City Royals.\n\nPersonal life\nShe is married to Kenneth Roy \"Kenny\" Jackson, who is also her manager. They reside in Los Angeles, California.\n\nDiscography\nStudio albums\n Long Story Short (January 27, 2015, independent)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official Website\n\n1983 births\nLiving people\nAfrican-American songwriters\nAfrican-American Christians\nMusicians from Kansas City, Missouri\nMusicians from Kansas City, Kansas\nMusicians from Los Angeles\nSongwriters from Missouri\nSongwriters from Kansas\nSongwriters from California\n21st-century African-American people\n20th-century African-American people",
"Fatima Rainey (born 24 July 1967) is a Swedish pop singer.\n\nRainey has released two studio albums through Warner Music Group of Japan. She was married to the Swedish actor and stand-up comedian Claes Malmberg.\n\nHer 1998 song \"Hey\" became a huge hit in South Africa and still popular till today. Also a dance hit in the Philippines.\n\nDiscography\n\nAlbums\n1997: Love Is a Wonderful Thing\n2001: Celebration\n\nCompilations \n1997: The Remix Collection\n\nSingles\n1997: \"Love Is a Wonderful Thing\"\n1997: \"I Gave You the Best\" (Remix)\n1997: \"Find Our Way Back\"\n1998: \"Hey\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Warner Music Japan discography\n Interview with Fatima Rainey \n\n1967 births\nLiving people\nSwedish pop singers\nSwedish women singers\nEnglish-language singers from Sweden"
] |
[
"Alison Krauss",
"1992-1999: Rising success",
"what happened in 1992",
"Krauss' second Union Station album Every Time You Say Goodbye was released in 1992,",
"how did it do",
"she went on to win her second Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album of the year.",
"what were some songs on it",
"I don't know.",
"what happened in 1999",
"\"It Doesn't Matter\", which was featured in the second-season premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer",
"anything else interesting between 92 and 99",
"A Collection, a compilation of older releases and some covers of her favorite works by other artists, was released in 1995.",
"were there any popular songs on those?",
"Some of these covers include Bad Company's \"Oh Atlanta\",",
"did the album win any awards",
"Krauss also was nominated for four Country Music Association Awards and won all of them.",
"is she still making music today",
"I don't know."
] | C_9547d7ab1ed8495b9e4084ea1f45e747_0 | did she do anything else notable in that time period | 9 | Did Alison Krauss do anything else notable after the year 2000 aside from still singing today? | Alison Krauss | Krauss' second Union Station album Every Time You Say Goodbye was released in 1992, and she went on to win her second Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album of the year. She then joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1993 at the age of 21. She was the youngest cast member at the time, and the first bluegrass artist to join the Opry in twenty-nine years. She also collaborated on a project with the Cox Family in 1994, a bluegrass album called I Know Who Holds Tomorrow. Mandolin and guitar player Dan Tyminski replaced Tim Stafford in Union Station in 1994. Late in the year, Krauss recorded with the band Shenandoah on its single "Somewhere in the Vicinity of the Heart", which brought her to the country music Top Ten for the first time and it won the Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Also in 1994, Krauss collaborated with Suzy Bogguss, Kathy Mattea, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to contribute "Teach Your Children" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization. In 1997, she recorded vocals and violin for "Half a Mind", on Tommy Shaw's 7 Deadly Zens album. Now That I've Found You: A Collection, a compilation of older releases and some covers of her favorite works by other artists, was released in 1995. Some of these covers include Bad Company's "Oh Atlanta", The Foundations' & Dan Schafer's "Baby, Now That I've Found You", which was used in the Australian hit comedy movie The Castle, and The Beatles' "I Will". A cover of Keith Whitley's "When You Say Nothing at All" reached number three on the Billboard country chart; the album peaked in the top fifteen on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, and sold two million copies to become Krauss' first double-platinum album. Krauss also was nominated for four Country Music Association Awards and won all of them. So Long So Wrong, another Union Station album, was released in 1997 and won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. One critic said its sound was "rather untraditional" and "likely [to] change quite a few ... minds about bluegrass." Included on the album is the track "It Doesn't Matter", which was featured in the second-season premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and was included on the Buffy soundtrack in 1999. Her next solo release in 1999, Forget About It, included one of her two tracks to appear on the Billboard adult contemporary chart, "Stay". The album was certified gold and charted within the top seventy-five of the Billboard 200 and in the top five of the country chart. In addition, the track "That Kind of Love" was included in another episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. CANNOTANSWER | In addition, the track "That Kind of Love" was included in another episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. | Alison Maria Krauss (born July 23, 1971) is an American bluegrass-country singer and musician. She entered the music industry at an early age, winning local contests by the age of 10 and recording for the first time at 14. She signed with Rounder Records in 1985 and released her first solo album in 1987. She was invited to join the band with which she still performs, Alison Krauss and Union Station, and later released her first album with them as a group in 1989.
Krauss has released fourteen albums, appeared on numerous soundtracks, and sparked a renewed interest in bluegrass music in the United States. Her soundtrack performances have led to further popularity, including the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, and the Cold Mountain soundtrack, which led to her performance at the 2004 Academy Awards.
As of 2019, she has won 27 Grammy Awards from 42 nominations, ranking her fourth behind Beyoncé, Quincy Jones and classical conductor Georg Solti for most Grammy Award wins overall. Krauss was the most awarded singer and the most awarded female artist in Grammy history until Beyoncé won her 28th Grammy in 2021. When Krauss won her first Grammy in 1991, she was the second-youngest winner at that time.
On November 21, 2019, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. She was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in September 2021.
Early life
Alison Maria Krauss was born in Decatur, Illinois, to Fred and Louise Krauss. Her father was a German immigrant who came to the United States in 1952 at age 12, and taught his native language while he earned a doctorate in psychology. He later went into the business of real estate. Her mother, an American of German and Italian descent, is the daughter of artists, and works as an illustrator of magazines and textbooks. Fred and Louise met while they were studying at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. After a brief residence in nearby Decatur, the family settled in Champaign, where Krauss was raised with her older brother, Viktor.
Krauss's mother played banjo and acoustic guitar, so Krauss was exposed to folk music at home, and she heard rock and pop music on the radio: she liked Gary Numan's synth-pop song "Cars", and rock bands such as Foreigner, Bad Company, and Electric Light Orchestra. Her brother Viktor played piano and double bass in high school, launching a career as a jazz and rock multi-instrumentalist. At her mother's insistence, Krauss began studying classical violin at age five. Krauss was reluctant to spend time practicing, but she continued with classical lessons until she was eleven. Krauss said her mother "tried to find interesting things for me to do" and "wanted to get me involved in music, in addition to art and sports". Krauss was also very active in roller skating, and in her teens she finally decided on a career in music rather than roller derby.
In mid-1979, Krauss's mother saw a notice for an upcoming fiddle competition at the Champaign County Fair, so she bought a bluegrass fiddle instruction book and the 1977 bluegrass album Duets by violinist Richard Greene. Krauss learned by ear to play several songs from the album, including "Tennessee Waltz" which she practiced on violin with her mother accompanying on guitar. Krauss entered the talent contest in the novice category at the age of eight, placing fourth. (This is where she first met fiddler Andrea Zonn who won the junior division at age 10.) Krauss investigated the bluegrass genre more thoroughly after this, and she developed a knack for learning complex riffs by ear, quickly turning them into her own version. In 1981–82, Krauss performed with Marvin Lee Flessner's country dance band in which she fiddled and sang. In September 1983, her parents bought her a custom violin made by hand in Missouri – her first adult-sized instrument. At 13, she won the Walnut Valley Festival Fiddle Championship, and the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass in America named her the "Most Promising Fiddler in the Midwest". She was also called "virtuoso" by Vanity Fair magazine.
Krauss first met Dan Tyminski around 1984 at a festival held by the Society. Every current member of her band, Union Station, first met her at these festivals.
1985–1991: Early career
Krauss made her recording debut in 1986 on the independent album, Different Strokes, in collaboration with Swamp Weiss and Jim Hoiles, and featuring her brother Viktor Krauss. From the age of 12 she performed with bassist and songwriter John Pennell in a band called "Silver Rail", replacing Andrea Zonn. Pennell later changed the band's name to Union Station after another band was discovered with the name Silver Rail.
Later that year, she signed to Rounder Records, and in 1987, at 16, she released her debut album Too Late to Cry with Union Station as her backup band.
Krauss' debut solo album was quickly followed by her first group album with Union Station in 1989, Two Highways. The album includes the traditional tunes "Wild Bill Jones" and "Beaumont Rag", along with a bluegrass interpretation of the Allman Brothers' "Midnight Rider".
Krauss' contract with Rounder required her to alternate between releasing a solo album and an album with Union Station, and she released the solo album I've Got That Old Feeling in 1990. It was her first album to rise onto the Billboard charts, peaking in the top seventy-five on the country chart. The album also was a notable point in her career as she earned her first Grammy Award, the single "Steel Rails" was her first single tracked by Billboard, and the title single "I've Got That Old Feeling" was the first song for which she recorded a music video.
1992–1999: Rising success
Krauss' second Union Station album Every Time You Say Goodbye was released in 1992, and she went on to win her second Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album of the year. She then joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1993 at the age of 21. She was the youngest cast member at the time, and the first bluegrass artist to join the Opry in 29 years. She also collaborated on a project with the Cox Family in 1994, a bluegrass album called I Know Who Holds Tomorrow. Mandolin and guitar player Dan Tyminski replaced Tim Stafford in Union Station in 1994. Late in the year, Krauss recorded with the band Shenandoah on its single "Somewhere in the Vicinity of the Heart", which brought her to the country music Top Ten for the first time and it won the Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Also in 1994, Krauss collaborated with Suzy Bogguss, Kathy Mattea, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to contribute "Teach Your Children" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization. In 1997, she recorded vocals and violin for "Half a Mind", on Tommy Shaw's 7 Deadly Zens album.
Now That I've Found You: A Collection, a compilation of older releases and some covers of her favorite works by other artists, was released in 1995. Some of these covers include Bad Company's "Oh Atlanta", the Foundations' & Dan Schafer's "Baby, Now That I've Found You", which was used in the Australian hit comedy movie The Castle, and the Beatles' "I Will" with Tony Furtado. A cover of Keith Whitley's "When You Say Nothing at All" reached number three on the Billboard country chart; the album peaked in the top fifteen on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, and sold two million copies to become Krauss' first double-platinum album. Krauss also was nominated for four Country Music Association Awards and won all of them.
So Long So Wrong, another Union Station album, was released in 1997 and won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. One critic said its sound was "rather untraditional" and "likely [to] change quite a few ... minds about bluegrass". Included on the album is the track "It Doesn't Matter", which was featured in the second-season premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and was included on the Buffy soundtrack in 1999.
Her next solo release in 1999, Forget About It, included one of her two tracks to appear on the Billboard adult contemporary chart, "Stay". The album was certified gold and charted within the top seventy-five of the Billboard 200 and in the top five of the country chart. In addition, the track "That Kind of Love" was included in another episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
2000–present: Current career
Adam Steffey left Union Station in 1998, and was replaced with renowned dobro player Jerry Douglas. Douglas had provided studio back-up to Krauss' records since 1987's Too Late to Cry. Their next album, New Favorite, was released on August 14, 2001. The album went on to win the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album, with the single "The Lucky One" winning a Grammy as well. New Favorite was followed up by the double platinum double album Live in 2002 and a release of a DVD of the same live performance in 2003. Both the album and the DVD were recorded during a performance at The Louisville Palace and both the album and DVD have been certified double Platinum. Also in 2002 she played a singing voice for one of the characters in the animated comedy film Eight Crazy Nights.
Lonely Runs Both Ways was released in 2004, and eventually became another Alison Krauss & Union Station gold certified album. Ron Block described Lonely Runs Both Ways as "pretty much... what we've always done" in terms of song selection and the style, in which those songs were recorded. Krauss believes the group "was probably the most unprepared we've ever been" for the album and that songs were chosen as needed rather than planned beforehand. She also performed a duet with Brad Paisley on his album Mud on the Tires in the single "Whiskey Lullaby". The single was quickly ranked in the top fifty of the Billboard Hot 100 and the top five of the Hot Country Songs, and won the Country Music Association Awards for "Best Musical Event" and "Best Music Video" of the year.
In 2007, Krauss and Robert Plant released the collaborative album titled Raising Sand. RIAA-certified platinum, the album was nominated for and won 5 Grammy Awards at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album, and Record of the Year ("Please Read the Letter"). Krauss and Plant recorded a Crossroads special in October 2007 for the Country Music Television network, which first aired on February 12, 2008.
Returning with Union Station, Krauss released an album called Paper Airplane on April 12, 2011, the follow-up album to Lonely Runs Both Ways (2004). Mike Shipley, the recording and mixing engineer for the album, said that the album had a lengthy production time because of Krauss' non-stop migraines. Nevertheless, Paper Airplane became Krauss's highest-charting album in the U.S., reaching number three on the Billboard 200 on topping both the country and bluegrass album charts.
In 2014, Krauss and her band Union Station toured with Willie Nelson and Family, with special guests Kacey Musgraves, and the Devil Makes Three.
Capitol Records released Windy City, an album of country and bluegrass classics, produced by Buddy Cannon and her first solo release in 17 years, on February 17, 2017. Krauss received two nominations at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards for Best Country Solo Performance and Best American Roots Performance.
In August 2021, Krauss announced she was releasing a sequel album to Raising Sand with Robert Plant called Raise the Roof. In addition to the album, Krauss and Plant are planning a 2022 tour.
Other work
Krauss has made guest appearances on other records on lead vocals, harmony vocals, and fiddle. In 1987, at the age of 15, she played fiddle on the album The Western Illinois Rag by Americana musician Chris Vallillo. In 1993 she recorded vocals for the Phish song "If I Could" in Los Angeles. In 1997 she sang harmony vocals in both English and Irish on the album Runaway Sunday by Irish traditional band Altan. In 1998 she played and sang on the title track of Hawaiian slack-key artist Ledward Kaapana's album, Waltz of the Wind.
Krauss had her only number one hit in 2000, receiving vocal credit for "Buy Me a Rose". She has contributed to numerous motion picture soundtracks, most notably O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). She and Dan Tyminski contributed multiple tracks, including "I'll Fly Away" (with Gillian Welch), "Down to the River to Pray", and "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow". In the film, Tyminski's vocals on "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow" were used for George Clooney's character. The soundtrack sold over seven million copies and won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2002. Both Krauss and the surprisingly popular album were credited with reviving interest in bluegrass. She has said, however, that she believes Americans already liked bluegrass and other less-heard musical genres, and that the film merely provided easy exposure to the music. She did not appear in the movie, at her own request, because she was pregnant during its filming.
In 2007, Krauss released A Hundred Miles or More: A Collection, an album of new songs, soundtrack tunes, and duets with artists such as John Waite, James Taylor, Brad Paisley, and Natalie MacMaster. The album was successful commercially but given a lukewarm reception by critics. One of the tracks, "Missing You", a duet with Waite (and a cover of his hit single from 1984), was similarly received as a single. On August 11, television network Great American Country aired a one-hour special, Alison Krauss: A Hundred Miles or More, based on the album.
Krauss appeared on Heart's March 2010 concert DVD Night at Sky Church, providing the lead vocals for the song "These Dreams".
Other soundtracks for which Krauss has performed include Twister, The Prince of Egypt, Eight Crazy Nights, Mona Lisa Smile, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Alias, Bambi II and Cold Mountain. She contributed "Jubilee" to the 2004 documentary Paper Clips. The Cold Mountain songs she sang, "The Scarlet Tide" with T Bone Burnett and Elvis Costello, and "You Will Be My Ain True Love" with Sting, were each nominated for an Academy Award. She performed both songs at the 76th Academy Awards, the first with Costello and Burnett, and the other with Sting. She produced Nickel Creek's debut album (2000) and the follow-up This Side (2002), which won Krauss her first Grammy award as a producer.
Krauss performed on Moody Bluegrass: A Nashville Tribute to the Moody Blues.
She participated in Billy Childs' 2014 tribute album to Laura Nyro, Map to the Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro, performing on the track "And When I Die".
Reception and influences
Krauss' earliest musical experience was as an instrumentalist, though her style has grown to focus more on her vocals with a band providing most of the instrumentation. Musicians she enjoys include vocalists Lou Gramm of Foreigner and Paul Rodgers of Bad Company. Krauss' family listened to "folk records" while she was growing up, but she had friends who exposed her to groups such as AC/DC, Carly Simon, the Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and ELO. She cites Dolly Parton, with whom she has since collaborated a number of times, as a major influence. Some credit Krauss and Union Station, at least partially, with a recent revival of interest in bluegrass music in the United States. Despite being together for nearly two decades and winning numerous awards, she said the group was "just beginning right now" (in 2002) because "in spite of all the great things that have happened for the band, [she] feel[s] musically it's just really beginning". Although she alternates between solo releases and works with the band, she has said there is no difference in her involvement between the two.
As a group, AKUS have been called "American favourites", "world-beaters", and "the tightest band around". While they have been successful as a group, many reviews note Krauss still "remains the undisputed star and rock-solid foundation" and have described her as the "band's focus" with an "angelic" voice that "flows like honey". Her work has been compared to that of the Cox Family, Bill Monroe, and Del McCoury, and has in turn been credited with influencing various "Newgrass" artists including Nickel Creek, for which she acted as record producer on two of their albums. In addition to her work with Nickel Creek, she has acted as producer to the Cox Family, Reba McEntire and Alan Jackson. Adam Sweeting of The Guardian has said Krauss and Union Station are "superb, when they stick to hoedowns and hillbilly music, but much less convincing, when they lurch towards the middle of the road". Blender magazine has said the "flavorless repertoire [Krauss] sings... steers her toward Lite FM". In addition, Q magazine and The Onion AV Club have said their newer releases are "pretty much the usual", and that although Krauss is generally "adventurous", these recent releases contain nothing to "alienate the masses".
Voice, themes, and musical style
Krauss possesses a soprano voice, which has been described as "angelic".
She has said her musical influences include J. D. Crowe, Ricky Skaggs, and Tony Rice. Many of her songs are described as sad, and are often about love, especially lost love. Though Krauss has a close involvement with her group and a long career in music, she rarely performs music she has written herself. She has also described her general approach to constructing an album as starting with a single song and selecting other tracks based on the first, to give the final album a somewhat consistent theme and mood. She most commonly performs in the bluegrass and country genres, though she has had two songs on the adult contemporary charts, has worked with rock artists such as Phish and Sting, and is sometimes said to stray into pop music.
Music videos
Krauss did not think she would make music videos at the beginning of her career. After recording her first she was convinced it was so bad that she would never do another. Nonetheless, she has continued to make further videos. Many of the first videos she saw were by bluegrass artists. Dan Tyminski has noted that the video for Thriller was very popular at the time she was first exposed to music videos. She has made suggestions on the style or theme to some videos, though she tends to leave such decisions to the director of the particular video. The group chooses directors by seeking out people who have previously directed videos that band members have enjoyed. The director for a video to "If I Didn't Know Any Better" from Lonely Runs Both Ways, for example, was selected because Krauss enjoyed work he had done with Def Leppard and, she wondered, what he could do with their music. While style decisions are generally left to the various directors of the videos, many – including for "The Lucky One", "Restless", "Goodbye is All We Have", "New Favorite", and "If I Didn't Know Any Better" – follow a pattern. In all of these videos Krauss walks, sometimes interacting with other people, while the rest of the band follows her.
Performances
Krauss has said she used to dislike working in the studio, where she had to perform the same song repeatedly, but has come to like studio work roughly the same as live stage performances. Her own favorite concert experiences include watching three Foreigner concerts during a single tour, a Dolly Parton concert, and a Larry Sparks concert.
She appeared on Austin City Limits in 1992 and opened the show in 1995 with Union Station. The New Favorite tour, after AKUS' album of the same name, was planned to start September 12, 2001 in Cincinnati, Ohio, but was delayed until September 28 in Savannah, Georgia following the September 11 terrorist attacks. Krauss took part in the Down from the Mountain tour in 2002, which featured many artists from the O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack. Down from the Mountain was followed by the Great High Mountain Tour, which was composed of musicians from both O Brother and Cold Mountain, including Krauss. She has also given several notable smaller performances including at Carnegie Hall (with the Grand Ole Opry), on Lifetime Television in a concert of female performers, on the radio show A Prairie Home Companion, where she sang two songs not previously recorded on any of her albums, and a performance at the White House attended by then-President Bill Clinton and then-Vice President Al Gore. She has also been in the White House again, performing the song "When You Say Nothing at All" at country music performances. She also performed a tribute to the Everly Brothers at which she sang "All I Have to Do is Dream" with Emmylou Harris and "When Will I Be Loved" with Vince Gill. She was also invited by Taylor Swift to perform with her at the 2013 CMA's and by Joshua Bell to perform with him on a Christmas album; Bell said that "she (Krauss) is someone I've adored for so many years now". She performed at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. on January 10, 2015, as a part of "The Life and Songs of Emmylou Harris: An All Star Concert Celebration" which is a tribute to Emmylou Harris.
Awards and honors
Krauss has won twenty-seven Grammy Awards over the course of her career as a solo artist, as a group with Union Station, as a duet with Robert Plant, and as a record producer. As of 2021, she ranks fourth on the list of winners of the most Grammy Awards. She overtook Aretha Franklin for the most female wins at the 46th Grammy Awards, where Krauss won three, bringing her total at the time to seventeen (Franklin won her sixteenth that night). The Recording Academy (which presents the Grammy Awards) presented her with a special musical achievement honor in 2005. She has also won 14 International Bluegrass Music Association Awards, 9 Country Music Association Awards, 2 Gospel Music Association Awards, 2 CMT Music Awards, 2 Academy of Country Music Awards, and 1 Canadian Country Music Award. Country Music Television ranked Krauss 12th on their "40 Greatest Women of Country Music" list in 2002.
At the 76th Academy Awards in February 2004, where she performed two nominated songs from the Cold Mountain soundtrack, Krauss was chosen by Hollywood shoe designer Stuart Weitzman to wear a pair of $2 million 'Cinderella' sandals with 4½ inch clear glass stiletto heels and two straps adorned with 565 Kwiat diamonds set in platinum. Feeling like a rather unglamorous choice, Krauss said, "When I first heard, I was like, 'What were they thinking?' I have the worst feet of anybody who will be there that night!" In addition to the fairy-tale-inspired shoes, Weitzman outfitted Krauss with a Palm Trēo 600 smartphone, bejeweled with 3,000 clear-and-topaz-colored Swarovski crystals. The shoes were returned, but Krauss kept the crystal-covered phone. Weitzman chose Krauss to show off his fashions at the urging of his daughters, who are fans of Krauss' music.
In May 2012, Alison Krauss was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music.
In March 2015, her hometown of Champaign, Illinois, designated the 400 block of West Hill Street as "Honorary Alison Krauss Way".
Personal life
Krauss was married to musician Pat Bergeson from 1997 to 2001. Their son, Sam, was born in July 1999.
Discography
Studio albums
1986: Different Strokes (with Jim Hoiles and Swamp Weiss)
1987: Too Late to Cry
1989: Two Highways (with Union Station)
1990: I've Got That Old Feeling
1992: Every Time You Say Goodbye (with Union Station)
1994: I Know Who Holds Tomorrow (with the Cox Family)
1997: So Long So Wrong (with Union Station)
1999: Forget About It
2001: New Favorite (with Union Station)
2004: Lonely Runs Both Ways (with Union Station)
2007: Raising Sand (with Robert Plant)
2011: Paper Airplane (with Union Station)
2017: Windy City
2021: Raise the Roof (with Robert Plant)
Filmography
Notes
a. Sources vary on birth place; see talk page discussion
References
External links
Rounder Records site for Alison Krauss
[ Alison Krauss] on Allmusic database
1971 births
Living people
Union Station (band) members
American bluegrass fiddlers
American women country singers
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Champaign, Illinois
American people of German descent
American people of Italian descent
Grand Ole Opry members
American performers of Christian music
American sopranos
Rounder Records artists
Musicians from Decatur, Illinois
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
Country musicians from Illinois
United States National Medal of Arts recipients | true | [
"\"If You Can Do Anything Else\" is a song written by Billy Livsey and Don Schlitz, and recorded by American country music artist George Strait. It was released in February 2001 as the third and final single from his self-titled album. The song reached number 5 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart in July 2001. It also peaked at number 51 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.\n\nContent\nThe song is about man who is giving his woman the option to leave him. He gives her many different options for all the things she can do. At the end he gives her the option to stay with him if she really can’t find anything else to do. He says he will be alright if she leaves, but really it seems he wants her to stay.\n\nChart performance\n\"If You Can Do Anything Else\" debuted at number 60 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks for the week of March 3, 2001.\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\n2001 singles\n2000 songs\nGeorge Strait songs\nSongs written by Billy Livsey\nSongs written by Don Schlitz\nSong recordings produced by Tony Brown (record producer)\nMCA Nashville Records singles",
"Lorraine Crosby (born 27 November 1960) is an English singer and songwriter. She was the female vocalist on Meat Loaf's 1993 hit single \"I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)\". Her debut album, Mrs Loud was released in 2008.\n\nEarly life\nCrosby was born in Walker, Newcastle upon Tyne. Her father died in a road accident when his car collided with a bus when she was two years old, leaving her mother to raise Lorraine, her two sisters, and one brother. She attended Walker Comprehensive school. She sang in school and church choirs and played the violin in the orchestra, but did not start singing professionally until she was 20.\n\nWork with Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman\nInspired by Tina Turner, Crosby searched the noticeboard for bands wanting singers at the guitar shop Rock City in Newcastle. After joining several bands she set up a five-piece cabaret band which toured extensively, playing to British and American servicemen throughout the early 1980s.\n\nBack in Newcastle, she met Stuart Emerson, who was looking for a singer for his band. They began writing together, and also became a couple. In the early 1990s, Crosby sent songwriter and producer Jim Steinman some demos of songs she had written with Emerson. Steinman asked to meet them so they decided to move to New York. They then followed Steinman after he moved to Los Angeles. Steinman became their manager and secured them a contract with Meat Loaf's recording label MCA. While visiting the label's recording studios on Sunset Boulevard, Crosby was asked to provide guide vocals for Meat Loaf, who was recording the song \"I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)\". Cher, Melissa Etheridge and Bonnie Tyler were considered for the role. The song was a commercial success, becoming number one in 28 countries. However, as Crosby had recorded her part as guide vocals, she did not receive any payment for the recording but she receives royalties from PRS, and so the credit \"Mrs. Loud\" was used on the album. Also, Crosby did not appear in the Michael Bay-directed music video, where model Dana Patrick mimed her vocals. Meat Loaf promoted the single with American vocalist Patti Russo performing the live female vocals of this song at his promotional appearances and concerts. Crosby also sang additional and backing vocals on the songs \"Life Is a Lemon and I Want My Money Back\", \"Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are\", and \"Everything Louder Than Everything Else\" from the album Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell. On these three selections, she was credited under her real name rather than the alias of Mrs. Loud.\n\nSolo work\nCrosby regularly performed at holiday camps and social clubs in England until April 2005 when she took a break from live work.\n\nIn 2005, she sang a duet with Bonnie Tyler for the track \"I'll Stand by You\" from the album Wings. The song was written and composed by Stuart Emerson about Crosby's and Tyler's relationship. Also in 2005, Crosby appeared as a contestant on ITV's The X Factor. She performed \"You've Got a Friend\" and progressed to the second round after impressing judges Louis Walsh and Sharon Osbourne but Simon Cowell expressed doubt saying she \"lacked star quality.\"\n\nCrosby returned to live performances in April 2007. In November 2007, she appeared on the BBC Three television show Most Annoying Pop Songs We Hate to Love discussing the Meat Loaf track \"I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)\" which featured at No. 76.\n\nIn November 2008, Crosby appeared at Newcastle City Hall with special guest Bonnie Tyler to launch her self-produced album entitled Mrs Loud. The concert was later repeated in March 2011. In April 2009, she was also featured on The Justin Lee Collins Show and performed a duet with Justin, singing the Meat Loaf song \"Dead Ringer for Love\". She also performed \"I'd Do Anything for Love\" with Tim Healy for Sunday for Sammy in 2012.\n\nCrosby performs in cabaret shows with her band along with her partner Stuart Emerson.\n\nCrosby appeared in the first round of BBC's second series of The Voice on 6 April 2013. She failed to progress when she was rejected by all four coaches.\n\nOther work\nIn the mid-1990s, Crosby appeared as an extra in several television series episodes.\n\nIn 2019, she joined Steve Steinman Productions in the show Steve Steinman's Anything for Love which toured the UK during 2019 and 2020, performing hits such as \"Good Girls Go to Heaven\", \"Holding Out for a Hero\" and dueting with Steinman on \"What About Love\" and \"I'd Do Anything for Love\", amongst others.\n\nIn 2020, she released a duet with Bonnie Tyler, \"Through Thick and Thin (I'll Stand by You)\" as a charity single in aid of the charity Teenage Cancer Trust.\n\nDiscography\nCrosby has provided backing vocals on Bonnie Tyler's albums Free Spirit (1995) and Wings (2005).\n\nStudio albums\n Mrs Loud (2008)\n\nSingles\n \"I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)\" (with Meat Loaf) (1993)\n \"Through Thick and Thin (I'll Stand by You)\" (with Bonnie Tyler) (2020)\n\nOther recordings\n \"I'll Stand by You\" (with Bonnie Tyler) (2005)\n \"Double Take\" (with Frankie Miller) (2018)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n \n\n1960 births\nLiving people\nPeople from Newcastle upon Tyne (district)\nThe Voice UK contestants\n21st-century English women singers"
] |
[
"Alison Krauss",
"1992-1999: Rising success",
"what happened in 1992",
"Krauss' second Union Station album Every Time You Say Goodbye was released in 1992,",
"how did it do",
"she went on to win her second Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album of the year.",
"what were some songs on it",
"I don't know.",
"what happened in 1999",
"\"It Doesn't Matter\", which was featured in the second-season premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer",
"anything else interesting between 92 and 99",
"A Collection, a compilation of older releases and some covers of her favorite works by other artists, was released in 1995.",
"were there any popular songs on those?",
"Some of these covers include Bad Company's \"Oh Atlanta\",",
"did the album win any awards",
"Krauss also was nominated for four Country Music Association Awards and won all of them.",
"is she still making music today",
"I don't know.",
"did she do anything else notable in that time period",
"In addition, the track \"That Kind of Love\" was included in another episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer."
] | C_9547d7ab1ed8495b9e4084ea1f45e747_0 | did that help her popularity? | 10 | Did another track being played on a TV show help Alison Krauss's popularity? | Alison Krauss | Krauss' second Union Station album Every Time You Say Goodbye was released in 1992, and she went on to win her second Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album of the year. She then joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1993 at the age of 21. She was the youngest cast member at the time, and the first bluegrass artist to join the Opry in twenty-nine years. She also collaborated on a project with the Cox Family in 1994, a bluegrass album called I Know Who Holds Tomorrow. Mandolin and guitar player Dan Tyminski replaced Tim Stafford in Union Station in 1994. Late in the year, Krauss recorded with the band Shenandoah on its single "Somewhere in the Vicinity of the Heart", which brought her to the country music Top Ten for the first time and it won the Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Also in 1994, Krauss collaborated with Suzy Bogguss, Kathy Mattea, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to contribute "Teach Your Children" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization. In 1997, she recorded vocals and violin for "Half a Mind", on Tommy Shaw's 7 Deadly Zens album. Now That I've Found You: A Collection, a compilation of older releases and some covers of her favorite works by other artists, was released in 1995. Some of these covers include Bad Company's "Oh Atlanta", The Foundations' & Dan Schafer's "Baby, Now That I've Found You", which was used in the Australian hit comedy movie The Castle, and The Beatles' "I Will". A cover of Keith Whitley's "When You Say Nothing at All" reached number three on the Billboard country chart; the album peaked in the top fifteen on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, and sold two million copies to become Krauss' first double-platinum album. Krauss also was nominated for four Country Music Association Awards and won all of them. So Long So Wrong, another Union Station album, was released in 1997 and won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. One critic said its sound was "rather untraditional" and "likely [to] change quite a few ... minds about bluegrass." Included on the album is the track "It Doesn't Matter", which was featured in the second-season premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and was included on the Buffy soundtrack in 1999. Her next solo release in 1999, Forget About It, included one of her two tracks to appear on the Billboard adult contemporary chart, "Stay". The album was certified gold and charted within the top seventy-five of the Billboard 200 and in the top five of the country chart. In addition, the track "That Kind of Love" was included in another episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Alison Maria Krauss (born July 23, 1971) is an American bluegrass-country singer and musician. She entered the music industry at an early age, winning local contests by the age of 10 and recording for the first time at 14. She signed with Rounder Records in 1985 and released her first solo album in 1987. She was invited to join the band with which she still performs, Alison Krauss and Union Station, and later released her first album with them as a group in 1989.
Krauss has released fourteen albums, appeared on numerous soundtracks, and sparked a renewed interest in bluegrass music in the United States. Her soundtrack performances have led to further popularity, including the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, and the Cold Mountain soundtrack, which led to her performance at the 2004 Academy Awards.
As of 2019, she has won 27 Grammy Awards from 42 nominations, ranking her fourth behind Beyoncé, Quincy Jones and classical conductor Georg Solti for most Grammy Award wins overall. Krauss was the most awarded singer and the most awarded female artist in Grammy history until Beyoncé won her 28th Grammy in 2021. When Krauss won her first Grammy in 1991, she was the second-youngest winner at that time.
On November 21, 2019, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. She was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in September 2021.
Early life
Alison Maria Krauss was born in Decatur, Illinois, to Fred and Louise Krauss. Her father was a German immigrant who came to the United States in 1952 at age 12, and taught his native language while he earned a doctorate in psychology. He later went into the business of real estate. Her mother, an American of German and Italian descent, is the daughter of artists, and works as an illustrator of magazines and textbooks. Fred and Louise met while they were studying at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. After a brief residence in nearby Decatur, the family settled in Champaign, where Krauss was raised with her older brother, Viktor.
Krauss's mother played banjo and acoustic guitar, so Krauss was exposed to folk music at home, and she heard rock and pop music on the radio: she liked Gary Numan's synth-pop song "Cars", and rock bands such as Foreigner, Bad Company, and Electric Light Orchestra. Her brother Viktor played piano and double bass in high school, launching a career as a jazz and rock multi-instrumentalist. At her mother's insistence, Krauss began studying classical violin at age five. Krauss was reluctant to spend time practicing, but she continued with classical lessons until she was eleven. Krauss said her mother "tried to find interesting things for me to do" and "wanted to get me involved in music, in addition to art and sports". Krauss was also very active in roller skating, and in her teens she finally decided on a career in music rather than roller derby.
In mid-1979, Krauss's mother saw a notice for an upcoming fiddle competition at the Champaign County Fair, so she bought a bluegrass fiddle instruction book and the 1977 bluegrass album Duets by violinist Richard Greene. Krauss learned by ear to play several songs from the album, including "Tennessee Waltz" which she practiced on violin with her mother accompanying on guitar. Krauss entered the talent contest in the novice category at the age of eight, placing fourth. (This is where she first met fiddler Andrea Zonn who won the junior division at age 10.) Krauss investigated the bluegrass genre more thoroughly after this, and she developed a knack for learning complex riffs by ear, quickly turning them into her own version. In 1981–82, Krauss performed with Marvin Lee Flessner's country dance band in which she fiddled and sang. In September 1983, her parents bought her a custom violin made by hand in Missouri – her first adult-sized instrument. At 13, she won the Walnut Valley Festival Fiddle Championship, and the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass in America named her the "Most Promising Fiddler in the Midwest". She was also called "virtuoso" by Vanity Fair magazine.
Krauss first met Dan Tyminski around 1984 at a festival held by the Society. Every current member of her band, Union Station, first met her at these festivals.
1985–1991: Early career
Krauss made her recording debut in 1986 on the independent album, Different Strokes, in collaboration with Swamp Weiss and Jim Hoiles, and featuring her brother Viktor Krauss. From the age of 12 she performed with bassist and songwriter John Pennell in a band called "Silver Rail", replacing Andrea Zonn. Pennell later changed the band's name to Union Station after another band was discovered with the name Silver Rail.
Later that year, she signed to Rounder Records, and in 1987, at 16, she released her debut album Too Late to Cry with Union Station as her backup band.
Krauss' debut solo album was quickly followed by her first group album with Union Station in 1989, Two Highways. The album includes the traditional tunes "Wild Bill Jones" and "Beaumont Rag", along with a bluegrass interpretation of the Allman Brothers' "Midnight Rider".
Krauss' contract with Rounder required her to alternate between releasing a solo album and an album with Union Station, and she released the solo album I've Got That Old Feeling in 1990. It was her first album to rise onto the Billboard charts, peaking in the top seventy-five on the country chart. The album also was a notable point in her career as she earned her first Grammy Award, the single "Steel Rails" was her first single tracked by Billboard, and the title single "I've Got That Old Feeling" was the first song for which she recorded a music video.
1992–1999: Rising success
Krauss' second Union Station album Every Time You Say Goodbye was released in 1992, and she went on to win her second Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album of the year. She then joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1993 at the age of 21. She was the youngest cast member at the time, and the first bluegrass artist to join the Opry in 29 years. She also collaborated on a project with the Cox Family in 1994, a bluegrass album called I Know Who Holds Tomorrow. Mandolin and guitar player Dan Tyminski replaced Tim Stafford in Union Station in 1994. Late in the year, Krauss recorded with the band Shenandoah on its single "Somewhere in the Vicinity of the Heart", which brought her to the country music Top Ten for the first time and it won the Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Also in 1994, Krauss collaborated with Suzy Bogguss, Kathy Mattea, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to contribute "Teach Your Children" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization. In 1997, she recorded vocals and violin for "Half a Mind", on Tommy Shaw's 7 Deadly Zens album.
Now That I've Found You: A Collection, a compilation of older releases and some covers of her favorite works by other artists, was released in 1995. Some of these covers include Bad Company's "Oh Atlanta", the Foundations' & Dan Schafer's "Baby, Now That I've Found You", which was used in the Australian hit comedy movie The Castle, and the Beatles' "I Will" with Tony Furtado. A cover of Keith Whitley's "When You Say Nothing at All" reached number three on the Billboard country chart; the album peaked in the top fifteen on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, and sold two million copies to become Krauss' first double-platinum album. Krauss also was nominated for four Country Music Association Awards and won all of them.
So Long So Wrong, another Union Station album, was released in 1997 and won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. One critic said its sound was "rather untraditional" and "likely [to] change quite a few ... minds about bluegrass". Included on the album is the track "It Doesn't Matter", which was featured in the second-season premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and was included on the Buffy soundtrack in 1999.
Her next solo release in 1999, Forget About It, included one of her two tracks to appear on the Billboard adult contemporary chart, "Stay". The album was certified gold and charted within the top seventy-five of the Billboard 200 and in the top five of the country chart. In addition, the track "That Kind of Love" was included in another episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
2000–present: Current career
Adam Steffey left Union Station in 1998, and was replaced with renowned dobro player Jerry Douglas. Douglas had provided studio back-up to Krauss' records since 1987's Too Late to Cry. Their next album, New Favorite, was released on August 14, 2001. The album went on to win the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album, with the single "The Lucky One" winning a Grammy as well. New Favorite was followed up by the double platinum double album Live in 2002 and a release of a DVD of the same live performance in 2003. Both the album and the DVD were recorded during a performance at The Louisville Palace and both the album and DVD have been certified double Platinum. Also in 2002 she played a singing voice for one of the characters in the animated comedy film Eight Crazy Nights.
Lonely Runs Both Ways was released in 2004, and eventually became another Alison Krauss & Union Station gold certified album. Ron Block described Lonely Runs Both Ways as "pretty much... what we've always done" in terms of song selection and the style, in which those songs were recorded. Krauss believes the group "was probably the most unprepared we've ever been" for the album and that songs were chosen as needed rather than planned beforehand. She also performed a duet with Brad Paisley on his album Mud on the Tires in the single "Whiskey Lullaby". The single was quickly ranked in the top fifty of the Billboard Hot 100 and the top five of the Hot Country Songs, and won the Country Music Association Awards for "Best Musical Event" and "Best Music Video" of the year.
In 2007, Krauss and Robert Plant released the collaborative album titled Raising Sand. RIAA-certified platinum, the album was nominated for and won 5 Grammy Awards at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album, and Record of the Year ("Please Read the Letter"). Krauss and Plant recorded a Crossroads special in October 2007 for the Country Music Television network, which first aired on February 12, 2008.
Returning with Union Station, Krauss released an album called Paper Airplane on April 12, 2011, the follow-up album to Lonely Runs Both Ways (2004). Mike Shipley, the recording and mixing engineer for the album, said that the album had a lengthy production time because of Krauss' non-stop migraines. Nevertheless, Paper Airplane became Krauss's highest-charting album in the U.S., reaching number three on the Billboard 200 on topping both the country and bluegrass album charts.
In 2014, Krauss and her band Union Station toured with Willie Nelson and Family, with special guests Kacey Musgraves, and the Devil Makes Three.
Capitol Records released Windy City, an album of country and bluegrass classics, produced by Buddy Cannon and her first solo release in 17 years, on February 17, 2017. Krauss received two nominations at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards for Best Country Solo Performance and Best American Roots Performance.
In August 2021, Krauss announced she was releasing a sequel album to Raising Sand with Robert Plant called Raise the Roof. In addition to the album, Krauss and Plant are planning a 2022 tour.
Other work
Krauss has made guest appearances on other records on lead vocals, harmony vocals, and fiddle. In 1987, at the age of 15, she played fiddle on the album The Western Illinois Rag by Americana musician Chris Vallillo. In 1993 she recorded vocals for the Phish song "If I Could" in Los Angeles. In 1997 she sang harmony vocals in both English and Irish on the album Runaway Sunday by Irish traditional band Altan. In 1998 she played and sang on the title track of Hawaiian slack-key artist Ledward Kaapana's album, Waltz of the Wind.
Krauss had her only number one hit in 2000, receiving vocal credit for "Buy Me a Rose". She has contributed to numerous motion picture soundtracks, most notably O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). She and Dan Tyminski contributed multiple tracks, including "I'll Fly Away" (with Gillian Welch), "Down to the River to Pray", and "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow". In the film, Tyminski's vocals on "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow" were used for George Clooney's character. The soundtrack sold over seven million copies and won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2002. Both Krauss and the surprisingly popular album were credited with reviving interest in bluegrass. She has said, however, that she believes Americans already liked bluegrass and other less-heard musical genres, and that the film merely provided easy exposure to the music. She did not appear in the movie, at her own request, because she was pregnant during its filming.
In 2007, Krauss released A Hundred Miles or More: A Collection, an album of new songs, soundtrack tunes, and duets with artists such as John Waite, James Taylor, Brad Paisley, and Natalie MacMaster. The album was successful commercially but given a lukewarm reception by critics. One of the tracks, "Missing You", a duet with Waite (and a cover of his hit single from 1984), was similarly received as a single. On August 11, television network Great American Country aired a one-hour special, Alison Krauss: A Hundred Miles or More, based on the album.
Krauss appeared on Heart's March 2010 concert DVD Night at Sky Church, providing the lead vocals for the song "These Dreams".
Other soundtracks for which Krauss has performed include Twister, The Prince of Egypt, Eight Crazy Nights, Mona Lisa Smile, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Alias, Bambi II and Cold Mountain. She contributed "Jubilee" to the 2004 documentary Paper Clips. The Cold Mountain songs she sang, "The Scarlet Tide" with T Bone Burnett and Elvis Costello, and "You Will Be My Ain True Love" with Sting, were each nominated for an Academy Award. She performed both songs at the 76th Academy Awards, the first with Costello and Burnett, and the other with Sting. She produced Nickel Creek's debut album (2000) and the follow-up This Side (2002), which won Krauss her first Grammy award as a producer.
Krauss performed on Moody Bluegrass: A Nashville Tribute to the Moody Blues.
She participated in Billy Childs' 2014 tribute album to Laura Nyro, Map to the Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro, performing on the track "And When I Die".
Reception and influences
Krauss' earliest musical experience was as an instrumentalist, though her style has grown to focus more on her vocals with a band providing most of the instrumentation. Musicians she enjoys include vocalists Lou Gramm of Foreigner and Paul Rodgers of Bad Company. Krauss' family listened to "folk records" while she was growing up, but she had friends who exposed her to groups such as AC/DC, Carly Simon, the Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and ELO. She cites Dolly Parton, with whom she has since collaborated a number of times, as a major influence. Some credit Krauss and Union Station, at least partially, with a recent revival of interest in bluegrass music in the United States. Despite being together for nearly two decades and winning numerous awards, she said the group was "just beginning right now" (in 2002) because "in spite of all the great things that have happened for the band, [she] feel[s] musically it's just really beginning". Although she alternates between solo releases and works with the band, she has said there is no difference in her involvement between the two.
As a group, AKUS have been called "American favourites", "world-beaters", and "the tightest band around". While they have been successful as a group, many reviews note Krauss still "remains the undisputed star and rock-solid foundation" and have described her as the "band's focus" with an "angelic" voice that "flows like honey". Her work has been compared to that of the Cox Family, Bill Monroe, and Del McCoury, and has in turn been credited with influencing various "Newgrass" artists including Nickel Creek, for which she acted as record producer on two of their albums. In addition to her work with Nickel Creek, she has acted as producer to the Cox Family, Reba McEntire and Alan Jackson. Adam Sweeting of The Guardian has said Krauss and Union Station are "superb, when they stick to hoedowns and hillbilly music, but much less convincing, when they lurch towards the middle of the road". Blender magazine has said the "flavorless repertoire [Krauss] sings... steers her toward Lite FM". In addition, Q magazine and The Onion AV Club have said their newer releases are "pretty much the usual", and that although Krauss is generally "adventurous", these recent releases contain nothing to "alienate the masses".
Voice, themes, and musical style
Krauss possesses a soprano voice, which has been described as "angelic".
She has said her musical influences include J. D. Crowe, Ricky Skaggs, and Tony Rice. Many of her songs are described as sad, and are often about love, especially lost love. Though Krauss has a close involvement with her group and a long career in music, she rarely performs music she has written herself. She has also described her general approach to constructing an album as starting with a single song and selecting other tracks based on the first, to give the final album a somewhat consistent theme and mood. She most commonly performs in the bluegrass and country genres, though she has had two songs on the adult contemporary charts, has worked with rock artists such as Phish and Sting, and is sometimes said to stray into pop music.
Music videos
Krauss did not think she would make music videos at the beginning of her career. After recording her first she was convinced it was so bad that she would never do another. Nonetheless, she has continued to make further videos. Many of the first videos she saw were by bluegrass artists. Dan Tyminski has noted that the video for Thriller was very popular at the time she was first exposed to music videos. She has made suggestions on the style or theme to some videos, though she tends to leave such decisions to the director of the particular video. The group chooses directors by seeking out people who have previously directed videos that band members have enjoyed. The director for a video to "If I Didn't Know Any Better" from Lonely Runs Both Ways, for example, was selected because Krauss enjoyed work he had done with Def Leppard and, she wondered, what he could do with their music. While style decisions are generally left to the various directors of the videos, many – including for "The Lucky One", "Restless", "Goodbye is All We Have", "New Favorite", and "If I Didn't Know Any Better" – follow a pattern. In all of these videos Krauss walks, sometimes interacting with other people, while the rest of the band follows her.
Performances
Krauss has said she used to dislike working in the studio, where she had to perform the same song repeatedly, but has come to like studio work roughly the same as live stage performances. Her own favorite concert experiences include watching three Foreigner concerts during a single tour, a Dolly Parton concert, and a Larry Sparks concert.
She appeared on Austin City Limits in 1992 and opened the show in 1995 with Union Station. The New Favorite tour, after AKUS' album of the same name, was planned to start September 12, 2001 in Cincinnati, Ohio, but was delayed until September 28 in Savannah, Georgia following the September 11 terrorist attacks. Krauss took part in the Down from the Mountain tour in 2002, which featured many artists from the O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack. Down from the Mountain was followed by the Great High Mountain Tour, which was composed of musicians from both O Brother and Cold Mountain, including Krauss. She has also given several notable smaller performances including at Carnegie Hall (with the Grand Ole Opry), on Lifetime Television in a concert of female performers, on the radio show A Prairie Home Companion, where she sang two songs not previously recorded on any of her albums, and a performance at the White House attended by then-President Bill Clinton and then-Vice President Al Gore. She has also been in the White House again, performing the song "When You Say Nothing at All" at country music performances. She also performed a tribute to the Everly Brothers at which she sang "All I Have to Do is Dream" with Emmylou Harris and "When Will I Be Loved" with Vince Gill. She was also invited by Taylor Swift to perform with her at the 2013 CMA's and by Joshua Bell to perform with him on a Christmas album; Bell said that "she (Krauss) is someone I've adored for so many years now". She performed at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. on January 10, 2015, as a part of "The Life and Songs of Emmylou Harris: An All Star Concert Celebration" which is a tribute to Emmylou Harris.
Awards and honors
Krauss has won twenty-seven Grammy Awards over the course of her career as a solo artist, as a group with Union Station, as a duet with Robert Plant, and as a record producer. As of 2021, she ranks fourth on the list of winners of the most Grammy Awards. She overtook Aretha Franklin for the most female wins at the 46th Grammy Awards, where Krauss won three, bringing her total at the time to seventeen (Franklin won her sixteenth that night). The Recording Academy (which presents the Grammy Awards) presented her with a special musical achievement honor in 2005. She has also won 14 International Bluegrass Music Association Awards, 9 Country Music Association Awards, 2 Gospel Music Association Awards, 2 CMT Music Awards, 2 Academy of Country Music Awards, and 1 Canadian Country Music Award. Country Music Television ranked Krauss 12th on their "40 Greatest Women of Country Music" list in 2002.
At the 76th Academy Awards in February 2004, where she performed two nominated songs from the Cold Mountain soundtrack, Krauss was chosen by Hollywood shoe designer Stuart Weitzman to wear a pair of $2 million 'Cinderella' sandals with 4½ inch clear glass stiletto heels and two straps adorned with 565 Kwiat diamonds set in platinum. Feeling like a rather unglamorous choice, Krauss said, "When I first heard, I was like, 'What were they thinking?' I have the worst feet of anybody who will be there that night!" In addition to the fairy-tale-inspired shoes, Weitzman outfitted Krauss with a Palm Trēo 600 smartphone, bejeweled with 3,000 clear-and-topaz-colored Swarovski crystals. The shoes were returned, but Krauss kept the crystal-covered phone. Weitzman chose Krauss to show off his fashions at the urging of his daughters, who are fans of Krauss' music.
In May 2012, Alison Krauss was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music.
In March 2015, her hometown of Champaign, Illinois, designated the 400 block of West Hill Street as "Honorary Alison Krauss Way".
Personal life
Krauss was married to musician Pat Bergeson from 1997 to 2001. Their son, Sam, was born in July 1999.
Discography
Studio albums
1986: Different Strokes (with Jim Hoiles and Swamp Weiss)
1987: Too Late to Cry
1989: Two Highways (with Union Station)
1990: I've Got That Old Feeling
1992: Every Time You Say Goodbye (with Union Station)
1994: I Know Who Holds Tomorrow (with the Cox Family)
1997: So Long So Wrong (with Union Station)
1999: Forget About It
2001: New Favorite (with Union Station)
2004: Lonely Runs Both Ways (with Union Station)
2007: Raising Sand (with Robert Plant)
2011: Paper Airplane (with Union Station)
2017: Windy City
2021: Raise the Roof (with Robert Plant)
Filmography
Notes
a. Sources vary on birth place; see talk page discussion
References
External links
Rounder Records site for Alison Krauss
[ Alison Krauss] on Allmusic database
1971 births
Living people
Union Station (band) members
American bluegrass fiddlers
American women country singers
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Champaign, Illinois
American people of German descent
American people of Italian descent
Grand Ole Opry members
American performers of Christian music
American sopranos
Rounder Records artists
Musicians from Decatur, Illinois
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
Country musicians from Illinois
United States National Medal of Arts recipients | false | [
"Tai Orathai (; born March 27, 1980) is a Thai female luk thung (Thai country music) singer from Ubon Ratchatani, Thailand. She is also known as \"Sao Dok Yaah (Miss Grass Flower)\". The name \"Sao Dok Yahh\" comes from her debut album. The album sold more than two million copies in Thailand. Privately as well as on stage, she is recognized as a very polite person. That is one reason for her 10-year popularity. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in Faculty of Mass Communication from Ramkhamhaeng University.\n\nBiography\n\nEarly life \nTai's real name is Orathai Dabkham. She was born on 27 March 1980, in the village of Khum San Chani, Tambon Pohn Swan, Amphoe Na Chaluai, in the Ubon Ratchatani Province. She is the daughter of Mr Sang Dabhkam and Mrs Nittaya Kaewthong. Her parents separated when she was 11 years old, and from thereon she lived with her grandmother, Khun Yai Thongkham Kaewthong. She is the first of four siblings. At a young age she had to help her grandmother raise her three younger brothers, which also meant that she needed to help her grandmother to find a source of income.\n\nStudio albums\n\nSpecial albums\n\nFilmography\n\nTV Series\n\nOther songs\n โปงลางอีนางเด้อ (Pong Lang Ee Nang Der)\n โลโซโบว์รัก (Lo So Bow Luk)\n เอียงแก้มคอย (Iong Gam Koy)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n \n \n \n Tai Orathai ที่ Google\n\nTai Orathai\nTai Orathai\nLiving people\n1980 births\nTai Orathai\nLao-language singers\nIsan-language singers",
"A flower frog is a device used to help arrange flowers.\n\nSome, such as the Japanese kenzan, are utilitarian metal devices that fit into a vase or bowl and fix the stems by metal needles. Other designs use a number of holes or guides that stems could be fit through for arranging. A flurry of patents followed the metal flower frog popularity, all claiming to save the housewife time and allow her to quickly and creatively arrange flowers. Many types of flower frogs are art pieces with holes for flower stems and a container for holding water.\n\nExternal links\nFlower Frog Gazette\n\nFloristry"
] |
[
"Zelig",
"Production"
] | C_35e7452d26f2429e88ea03bb56cf71e1_1 | How did they make the film look like newsreels of the 1920s? | 1 | How did Zelig, Production make the film look like newsreels of the 1920s? | Zelig | Allen used newsreel footage and inserted himself and other actors into the footage using bluescreen technology. To provide an authentic look to his scenes, Allen and cinematographer Gordon Willis used a variety of techniques, including locating some of the antique film cameras and lenses used during the eras depicted in the film, and even going so far as to simulate damage, such as crinkles and scratches, on the negatives to make the finished product look more like vintage footage. The virtually seamless blending of old and new footage was achieved almost a decade before digital filmmaking technology made such techniques in films like Forrest Gump (1994) and various television advertisements much easier to accomplish. The film uses cameo appearances by real figures from academia and other fields for comic effect. Contrasting the film's vintage black-and-white film footage, these persons appear in color segments as themselves, commenting in the present day on the Zelig phenomenon as if it really happened. They include essayist Susan Sontag, psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow, political writer Irving Howe, historian John Morton Blum, and the Paris nightclub owner Bricktop. Also appearing in the film's vintage footage are Charles Lindbergh, Al Capone, Clara Bow, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, Charlie Chaplin, Josephine Baker, Fanny Brice, Carole Lombard, Dolores del Rio, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Goring, James Cagney, Jimmy Walker, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Adolphe Menjou, Claire Windsor, Tom Mix, Marie Dressler, Bobby Jones, and Pope Pius XI. In the time it took to complete the film's special effects, Allen filmed A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy and Broadway Danny Rose. CANNOTANSWER | Allen and cinematographer Gordon Willis used a variety of techniques, including locating some of the antique film cameras and lenses used during the eras | Zelig is a 1983 American mockumentary film written and directed by Woody Allen and starring Allen and Mia Farrow. Allen plays Leonard Zelig, a nondescript enigma, who, apparently out of his desire to fit in and be liked, unwittingly takes on the characteristics of strong personalities around him. The film, presented as a documentary, recounts his period of intense celebrity in the 1920s, including analyses by contemporary intellectuals.
The film was nominated for numerous awards, including the Academy Awards for Best Cinematography and Costume Design. It was well received by critics, receiving a 100% rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
Style
Zelig was photographed and narrated in the style of 1920s black-and-white newsreels, which are interwoven with archival footage from the era and re-enactments of real historical events. Color segments from the present day include interviews of real and fictional personages, including Saul Bellow and Susan Sontag.
Plot
Set in the 1920s and 1930s, the film concerns Leonard Zelig (Woody Allen), a nondescript man who has the ability to transform his appearance to that of the people who surround him. He is first observed at a party by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who notes that Zelig related to the affluent guests in a refined Boston accent and shared their Republican sympathies, but while in the kitchen with the servants, he adopted a coarser tone and seemed to be more of a Democrat. He soon gains international fame as a "human chameleon".
Interviewed in one of the witness shots, Bruno Bettelheim makes the following comment:
Dr. Eudora Fletcher (Mia Farrow) is a psychiatrist who wants to help Zelig with this strange disorder when he is admitted to her hospital. Through the use of hypnotism, she discovers Zelig yearns for approval so strongly that he physically changes to fit in with those around him. Dr. Fletcher eventually cures Zelig of his compulsion to assimilate, but goes too far in the other direction; for a brief period he is so intolerant of others' opinions that he gets into a brawl over whether or not it is a nice day.
Dr. Fletcher realizes that she is falling in love with Zelig. Because of the media coverage of the case, both patient and doctor become part of the popular culture of their time. However, fame is the main cause of their division. Numerous women claim that he married and impregnated them, causing a public scandal. The same society that made Zelig a hero destroys him.
Zelig's illness returns, and he tries to fit in once more, before he disappears. Dr. Fletcher finds him in Germany working with the Nazis before the outbreak of World War II. Together they escape, as Zelig uses his ability to imitate one more time, mimicking Fletcher's piloting skills and flying them back home across the Atlantic upside down. They eventually return to America, where they are proclaimed heroes and marry to live full happy lives.
Cast
With Susan Sontag, Irving Howe, Saul Bellow, Bricktop, Dr. Bruno Bettelheim, and Professor John Morton Blum as themselves.
Production
Allen used newsreel footage, and inserted himself and other actors into it, using bluescreen technology. To provide an authentic look to his scenes, Allen and cinematographer Gordon Willis used a variety of techniques, including locating some of the antique film cameras and lenses used during the eras depicted in the film, and even going so far as to simulate damage, such as crinkles and scratches, on the negatives to make the finished product look more like vintage footage. The virtually seamless blending of old and new footage was achieved almost a decade before digital filmmaking technology made such techniques in films like Forrest Gump (1994) and various television advertisements much easier to accomplish.
The film uses cameo appearances by real figures from academia and other fields for comic effect. Contrasting the film's vintage black-and-white film footage, these persons appear in color segments as themselves, commenting in the present day on the Zelig phenomenon as if it really happened. They include essayist Susan Sontag, psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow, political writer Irving Howe, historian John Morton Blum, and the Paris nightclub owner Bricktop.
Also appearing in the film's vintage footage are Charles Lindbergh, Al Capone, Clara Bow, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, Charlie Chaplin, Josephine Baker, Fanny Brice, Carole Lombard, Dolores del Río, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Göring, James Cagney, Jimmy Walker, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Adolphe Menjou, Claire Windsor, Tom Mix, Marie Dressler, Bobby Jones, and Pope Pius XI.
In the time it took to complete the film's special effects, Allen filmed A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy and Broadway Danny Rose. This is Orion Pictures' last film to be released through Warner Bros.
Release
Before being shown at the Venice Film Festival, the film opened on six screens in the US and grossed US$60,119 on its opening weekend; it eventually earned US$11.8 million in North America.
Critical reaction
Zelig has an approval rating of 100% on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 27 reviews, with an average score of 8/10. The site's consensus reads: "Wryly amusing, technically impressive, and ultimately thought-provoking, Zelig represents Woody Allen in complete command of his craft".
In his review in the New York Times, Vincent Canby observed:
Variety said the film was "consistently funny, though more academic than boulevardier", and the Christian Science Monitor called it "amazingly funny and poignant". Time Out described it as "a strong contender for Allen's most fascinating film", while TV Guide said, "Allen's ongoing struggles with psychoanalysis and his Jewish identity – stridently literal preoccupations in most of his work – are for once rendered allegorically. The result is deeply satisfying". Gene Siskel gave the film two stars out of four, calling it "a beautifully made but slight fable." Pauline Kael wrote that when the film was over "I felt good, but I was still a little hungry for a movie. There's a reason 'Zelig' seems small; there aren't any characters in it, not even Zelig."
Colin Greenland reviewed Zelig for Imagine magazine, and stated that "Woody Allen's most irresistable film for quite a while. He has found a new way to make fun of his own neuroses without exposing us to the egoism which became so overbearing in Manhattan or Stardust Memories."
It ranked 588th among critics, and 546th among directors, in the 2012 Sight & Sound polls of the greatest films ever made. Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly listed the work as one of Allen's finest, lauding it as "a spot-on homage to vintage newsreels and a seamless exercise in technique." The Daily Telegraph film critics Robbie Collin and Tim Robey also named it as a career highlight and argued, "The special effects, in which Allen is seamlessly inserted into vintage newsreels, are still astonishing, and draw out the aching tragicomedy of Zelig's plight. He's the original man who wasn't there." Calum Marsh of Slant magazine wrote, "We are infinitely pliable. That's the thesis of Zelig, Allen's wisest film, which has much to say about the way a person can be bent and contorted in the name of acceptance. Its ostensibly wacky conceit ... is grounded in an emotional and psychological reality all too familiar to shrug off as farce. We'll go very far out of our way to avoid conflict. Zelig seizes on that weakness and forces us to recognize it."
Awards and nominations
56th Academy Awards
Academy Award for Best Cinematography (Gordon Willis, nominee)
Academy Award for Best Costume Design (Santo Loquasto, nominee)
37th British Academy Film Awards
BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Special Visual Effects (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Editing (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Makeup (nominee)
Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen (nominee)
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Cinematography (Gordon Willis, nominee)
41st Golden Globe Awards
Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy (nominee)
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (Woody Allen, nominee)
Saturn Award for Best Direction (nominee)
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Cinematography (winner)
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress (Mia Farrow, winner; tied with Linda Hunt for The Year of Living Dangerously)
Belgian Film Critics Association: Grand Prix (winner)
David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Actor (Allen, winner)
Venice Film Festival Pasinetti Award for Best Film (winner)
Bodil Award for Best Non-European Film (winner)
Soundtrack
Leonard the Lizard (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Bernie Kuce, Steve Clayton and Tony Wells
Doin' the Chameleon (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Bernie Kuce, Steve Clayton and Tony Wells
Chameleon Days (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Performed by Mae Questel
You May Be Six People, But I Love You (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Bernie Kuce, Steve Clayton and Tony Wells
Reptile Eyes (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Rose Marie Jun
The Changing Man Concerto (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman
I've Got a Feeling I'm Falling (1929) - Music by Fats Waller (as Thomas 'Fats' Waller) and Harry Link - Sung by Roz Harris
I'm Sitting on Top of the World (1925) - Music by Ray Henderson - Sung by Norman Brooks
Ain't We Got Fun (1921) - Music by Richard A. Whiting - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
Sunny Side Up (1929) - Music and Lyrics by Ray Henderson, Lew Brown and Buddy G. DeSylva - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
I'll Get By (1928) - Music by Fred E. Ahlert - Performed by The Ben Bernie Orchestra
I Love My Baby, My Baby Loves Me (1925) - Music by Harry Warren - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
Runnin' Wild (1922) - Music by A.H. Gibbs - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
A Sailboat in the Moonlight (1937) - Written by Carmen Lombardo and John Jacob Loeb (as John Loeb) - Performed by The Guy Lombardo Orchestra
Charleston (1923) - Music by James P. Johnson - Performed by Dick Hyman
Chicago (That Toddlin' Town)(1922) - Written by Fred Fisher - Performed by Dick Hyman
Five Feet Two, Eyes of Blue (1925) - Music by Ray Henderson - Performed by Dick Hyman
Anchors Aweigh (1906) - Music by Charles A. Zimmerman - Modified by Domenico Savino (1950) - Performed by Dick Hyman
Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1908) - Music by Albert von Tilzer
The Internationale (1888) - Music by Pierre De Geyter
See also
Environmental dependency syndrome
The Belonging Kind
References
Bibliography
External links
American films
1983 films
American fantasy-comedy films
American independent films
American satirical films
American black-and-white films
1980s fantasy-comedy films
English-language films
Films directed by Woody Allen
Films set in the 1920s
Films set in 1928
Films set in 1929
Films set in the 1930s
Films set in 1930
Films set in 1931
Films set in 1932
Films set in New York City
Films shot in New Jersey
Great Depression films
American mockumentary films
Orion Pictures films
Films with screenplays by Woody Allen
Films produced by Robert Greenhut
Cultural depictions of Charles Lindbergh
Cultural depictions of Charlie Chaplin
Cultural depictions of Al Capone
Cultural depictions of William Randolph Hearst
Cultural depictions of Josephine Baker
Cultural depictions of Adolf Hitler
Cultural depictions of Hermann Göring
Cultural depictions of James Cagney
Cultural depictions of Babe Ruth
1983 comedy films | true | [
"Polish Film Chronicle () (1944–95) was a 10-minute-long newsreel shown in Polish cinemas prior to the main film. It continued the traditions of the pre-war Polish Telegraphic Agency, and in Communist Poland was often used as propaganda tool. The chronicle was for the first time presented in Polish cinemas on December 1, 1944. It was produced biweekly by Warsaw's Wytwornia Filmow Dokumentalnych i Fabularnych (Documentary and Feature Film Studio, WFDiF), with cooperation of Film Studio “Czolowka”.\n\nThe chronicle served as a propaganda tool of the government of the People's Republic of Poland. It presented current events, economy, sports and culture news, commentaries and opinion journalism, also entertainment, like private life of Irena Szewińska. Usually one newsreel consisted of five parts, each describing a different topic. In some cases, such as official holiday (e.g. International Workers' Day), whole newsreel was dedicated to the events of this holiday. Apart from cinemas, the chronicle was also presented in the 1960s by the Polish Television. In few selected cases the chronicle presented news from outside of Poland, but this was rare, as it concentrated on domestic issues. \n\nFirst editor-in-chief of the Polish Film Chronicle was Jerzy Bossak, and among its speakers were such renowned actors, as Władysław Hańcza and Andrzej Łapicki. Among other personalities who cooperated with the chronicle were Andrzej Munk and Władysław Szpilman. Almost all newsreels are black and white, although already in the 1950s, first colour productions were made, with the Sovcolor technology. Among colour newsreels are those which describe events of special importance, such as 1952 construction of the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, 1953 reconstruction of Warsaw Old Town, the 1000 years of Poland Parade (1966), or Mirosław Hermaszewski’s flight (1978). \n\nPolish Film Chronicle was cancelled at cinemas on January 1, 1995. Warsaw's Documentary and Feature Film Studio still exists, and continues to make newsreels.\n\nSources \n Historia o historii, czyli Polska Kronika Filmowa. Polish Radio article about the chronicle. 28.01.2013\n\nExternal links \n 1979 Polish Film Chronicle about winter of the century\n\nNewsreels\nBroadcasting in Poland\n1944 establishments in Poland\n1995 disestablishments in Europe\nShort film series",
"No-Do is the colloquial name for Noticiario y Documentales, (\"News and Documentaries\"), a state-controlled series of cinema newsreels produced in Spain from 1943 to 1981 and closely associated with the 1939–1975 Francisco Franco's dictatorial regime.\n\nIn their heyday, the No-Do newsreels predictably contained a good deal of propaganda and effervescent reporting in favour of the Francoist State. They were a way in which Franco could have a monopoly over the news and supply public information, censorship and propaganda for the formation of public opinion favorable to the Spanish State. \n\nThe No-Do newsreels, tainted by their indelible association with the Francoist State, fell out of favour within a few years of Spain's transition to democratic government after Franco's death. The last No-Do was produced in 1981 prior to the operation's absorption into RTVE, Spain's state-controlled television and radio broadcaster.\nThe No-Do archive is an important asset of RTVE and is often mined for nostalgia programmes.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nRTVE\nFilm series introduced in 1943\n1981 disestablishments in Spain\nFilm organisations in Spain\nFrancoist Spain\nNewsreels\nPropaganda film units\nState-owned film companies\nSpanish films\n1943 establishments in Spain"
] |
[
"Zelig",
"Production",
"How did they make the film look like newsreels of the 1920s?",
"Allen and cinematographer Gordon Willis used a variety of techniques, including locating some of the antique film cameras and lenses used during the eras"
] | C_35e7452d26f2429e88ea03bb56cf71e1_1 | Did they actually use any old footage? | 2 | Did Zelig, Production actually use any old footage of the film? | Zelig | Allen used newsreel footage and inserted himself and other actors into the footage using bluescreen technology. To provide an authentic look to his scenes, Allen and cinematographer Gordon Willis used a variety of techniques, including locating some of the antique film cameras and lenses used during the eras depicted in the film, and even going so far as to simulate damage, such as crinkles and scratches, on the negatives to make the finished product look more like vintage footage. The virtually seamless blending of old and new footage was achieved almost a decade before digital filmmaking technology made such techniques in films like Forrest Gump (1994) and various television advertisements much easier to accomplish. The film uses cameo appearances by real figures from academia and other fields for comic effect. Contrasting the film's vintage black-and-white film footage, these persons appear in color segments as themselves, commenting in the present day on the Zelig phenomenon as if it really happened. They include essayist Susan Sontag, psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow, political writer Irving Howe, historian John Morton Blum, and the Paris nightclub owner Bricktop. Also appearing in the film's vintage footage are Charles Lindbergh, Al Capone, Clara Bow, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, Charlie Chaplin, Josephine Baker, Fanny Brice, Carole Lombard, Dolores del Rio, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Goring, James Cagney, Jimmy Walker, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Adolphe Menjou, Claire Windsor, Tom Mix, Marie Dressler, Bobby Jones, and Pope Pius XI. In the time it took to complete the film's special effects, Allen filmed A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy and Broadway Danny Rose. CANNOTANSWER | even going so far as to simulate damage, such as crinkles and scratches, on the negatives to make the finished product look more like vintage footage. | Zelig is a 1983 American mockumentary film written and directed by Woody Allen and starring Allen and Mia Farrow. Allen plays Leonard Zelig, a nondescript enigma, who, apparently out of his desire to fit in and be liked, unwittingly takes on the characteristics of strong personalities around him. The film, presented as a documentary, recounts his period of intense celebrity in the 1920s, including analyses by contemporary intellectuals.
The film was nominated for numerous awards, including the Academy Awards for Best Cinematography and Costume Design. It was well received by critics, receiving a 100% rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
Style
Zelig was photographed and narrated in the style of 1920s black-and-white newsreels, which are interwoven with archival footage from the era and re-enactments of real historical events. Color segments from the present day include interviews of real and fictional personages, including Saul Bellow and Susan Sontag.
Plot
Set in the 1920s and 1930s, the film concerns Leonard Zelig (Woody Allen), a nondescript man who has the ability to transform his appearance to that of the people who surround him. He is first observed at a party by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who notes that Zelig related to the affluent guests in a refined Boston accent and shared their Republican sympathies, but while in the kitchen with the servants, he adopted a coarser tone and seemed to be more of a Democrat. He soon gains international fame as a "human chameleon".
Interviewed in one of the witness shots, Bruno Bettelheim makes the following comment:
Dr. Eudora Fletcher (Mia Farrow) is a psychiatrist who wants to help Zelig with this strange disorder when he is admitted to her hospital. Through the use of hypnotism, she discovers Zelig yearns for approval so strongly that he physically changes to fit in with those around him. Dr. Fletcher eventually cures Zelig of his compulsion to assimilate, but goes too far in the other direction; for a brief period he is so intolerant of others' opinions that he gets into a brawl over whether or not it is a nice day.
Dr. Fletcher realizes that she is falling in love with Zelig. Because of the media coverage of the case, both patient and doctor become part of the popular culture of their time. However, fame is the main cause of their division. Numerous women claim that he married and impregnated them, causing a public scandal. The same society that made Zelig a hero destroys him.
Zelig's illness returns, and he tries to fit in once more, before he disappears. Dr. Fletcher finds him in Germany working with the Nazis before the outbreak of World War II. Together they escape, as Zelig uses his ability to imitate one more time, mimicking Fletcher's piloting skills and flying them back home across the Atlantic upside down. They eventually return to America, where they are proclaimed heroes and marry to live full happy lives.
Cast
With Susan Sontag, Irving Howe, Saul Bellow, Bricktop, Dr. Bruno Bettelheim, and Professor John Morton Blum as themselves.
Production
Allen used newsreel footage, and inserted himself and other actors into it, using bluescreen technology. To provide an authentic look to his scenes, Allen and cinematographer Gordon Willis used a variety of techniques, including locating some of the antique film cameras and lenses used during the eras depicted in the film, and even going so far as to simulate damage, such as crinkles and scratches, on the negatives to make the finished product look more like vintage footage. The virtually seamless blending of old and new footage was achieved almost a decade before digital filmmaking technology made such techniques in films like Forrest Gump (1994) and various television advertisements much easier to accomplish.
The film uses cameo appearances by real figures from academia and other fields for comic effect. Contrasting the film's vintage black-and-white film footage, these persons appear in color segments as themselves, commenting in the present day on the Zelig phenomenon as if it really happened. They include essayist Susan Sontag, psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow, political writer Irving Howe, historian John Morton Blum, and the Paris nightclub owner Bricktop.
Also appearing in the film's vintage footage are Charles Lindbergh, Al Capone, Clara Bow, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, Charlie Chaplin, Josephine Baker, Fanny Brice, Carole Lombard, Dolores del Río, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Göring, James Cagney, Jimmy Walker, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Adolphe Menjou, Claire Windsor, Tom Mix, Marie Dressler, Bobby Jones, and Pope Pius XI.
In the time it took to complete the film's special effects, Allen filmed A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy and Broadway Danny Rose. This is Orion Pictures' last film to be released through Warner Bros.
Release
Before being shown at the Venice Film Festival, the film opened on six screens in the US and grossed US$60,119 on its opening weekend; it eventually earned US$11.8 million in North America.
Critical reaction
Zelig has an approval rating of 100% on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 27 reviews, with an average score of 8/10. The site's consensus reads: "Wryly amusing, technically impressive, and ultimately thought-provoking, Zelig represents Woody Allen in complete command of his craft".
In his review in the New York Times, Vincent Canby observed:
Variety said the film was "consistently funny, though more academic than boulevardier", and the Christian Science Monitor called it "amazingly funny and poignant". Time Out described it as "a strong contender for Allen's most fascinating film", while TV Guide said, "Allen's ongoing struggles with psychoanalysis and his Jewish identity – stridently literal preoccupations in most of his work – are for once rendered allegorically. The result is deeply satisfying". Gene Siskel gave the film two stars out of four, calling it "a beautifully made but slight fable." Pauline Kael wrote that when the film was over "I felt good, but I was still a little hungry for a movie. There's a reason 'Zelig' seems small; there aren't any characters in it, not even Zelig."
Colin Greenland reviewed Zelig for Imagine magazine, and stated that "Woody Allen's most irresistable film for quite a while. He has found a new way to make fun of his own neuroses without exposing us to the egoism which became so overbearing in Manhattan or Stardust Memories."
It ranked 588th among critics, and 546th among directors, in the 2012 Sight & Sound polls of the greatest films ever made. Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly listed the work as one of Allen's finest, lauding it as "a spot-on homage to vintage newsreels and a seamless exercise in technique." The Daily Telegraph film critics Robbie Collin and Tim Robey also named it as a career highlight and argued, "The special effects, in which Allen is seamlessly inserted into vintage newsreels, are still astonishing, and draw out the aching tragicomedy of Zelig's plight. He's the original man who wasn't there." Calum Marsh of Slant magazine wrote, "We are infinitely pliable. That's the thesis of Zelig, Allen's wisest film, which has much to say about the way a person can be bent and contorted in the name of acceptance. Its ostensibly wacky conceit ... is grounded in an emotional and psychological reality all too familiar to shrug off as farce. We'll go very far out of our way to avoid conflict. Zelig seizes on that weakness and forces us to recognize it."
Awards and nominations
56th Academy Awards
Academy Award for Best Cinematography (Gordon Willis, nominee)
Academy Award for Best Costume Design (Santo Loquasto, nominee)
37th British Academy Film Awards
BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Special Visual Effects (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Editing (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Makeup (nominee)
Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen (nominee)
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Cinematography (Gordon Willis, nominee)
41st Golden Globe Awards
Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy (nominee)
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (Woody Allen, nominee)
Saturn Award for Best Direction (nominee)
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Cinematography (winner)
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress (Mia Farrow, winner; tied with Linda Hunt for The Year of Living Dangerously)
Belgian Film Critics Association: Grand Prix (winner)
David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Actor (Allen, winner)
Venice Film Festival Pasinetti Award for Best Film (winner)
Bodil Award for Best Non-European Film (winner)
Soundtrack
Leonard the Lizard (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Bernie Kuce, Steve Clayton and Tony Wells
Doin' the Chameleon (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Bernie Kuce, Steve Clayton and Tony Wells
Chameleon Days (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Performed by Mae Questel
You May Be Six People, But I Love You (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Bernie Kuce, Steve Clayton and Tony Wells
Reptile Eyes (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Rose Marie Jun
The Changing Man Concerto (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman
I've Got a Feeling I'm Falling (1929) - Music by Fats Waller (as Thomas 'Fats' Waller) and Harry Link - Sung by Roz Harris
I'm Sitting on Top of the World (1925) - Music by Ray Henderson - Sung by Norman Brooks
Ain't We Got Fun (1921) - Music by Richard A. Whiting - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
Sunny Side Up (1929) - Music and Lyrics by Ray Henderson, Lew Brown and Buddy G. DeSylva - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
I'll Get By (1928) - Music by Fred E. Ahlert - Performed by The Ben Bernie Orchestra
I Love My Baby, My Baby Loves Me (1925) - Music by Harry Warren - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
Runnin' Wild (1922) - Music by A.H. Gibbs - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
A Sailboat in the Moonlight (1937) - Written by Carmen Lombardo and John Jacob Loeb (as John Loeb) - Performed by The Guy Lombardo Orchestra
Charleston (1923) - Music by James P. Johnson - Performed by Dick Hyman
Chicago (That Toddlin' Town)(1922) - Written by Fred Fisher - Performed by Dick Hyman
Five Feet Two, Eyes of Blue (1925) - Music by Ray Henderson - Performed by Dick Hyman
Anchors Aweigh (1906) - Music by Charles A. Zimmerman - Modified by Domenico Savino (1950) - Performed by Dick Hyman
Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1908) - Music by Albert von Tilzer
The Internationale (1888) - Music by Pierre De Geyter
See also
Environmental dependency syndrome
The Belonging Kind
References
Bibliography
External links
American films
1983 films
American fantasy-comedy films
American independent films
American satirical films
American black-and-white films
1980s fantasy-comedy films
English-language films
Films directed by Woody Allen
Films set in the 1920s
Films set in 1928
Films set in 1929
Films set in the 1930s
Films set in 1930
Films set in 1931
Films set in 1932
Films set in New York City
Films shot in New Jersey
Great Depression films
American mockumentary films
Orion Pictures films
Films with screenplays by Woody Allen
Films produced by Robert Greenhut
Cultural depictions of Charles Lindbergh
Cultural depictions of Charlie Chaplin
Cultural depictions of Al Capone
Cultural depictions of William Randolph Hearst
Cultural depictions of Josephine Baker
Cultural depictions of Adolf Hitler
Cultural depictions of Hermann Göring
Cultural depictions of James Cagney
Cultural depictions of Babe Ruth
1983 comedy films | true | [
"The shooting ratio or \"Bertolo code\" in filmmaking and television production is the ratio between the total duration of its footage created for possible use in a project and that which appears in its final cut.\n\nA film with a shooting ratio of 2:1 would have shot twice the amount of footage than was used in the film. In real terms this means that 120 minutes of footage would have been shot to produce a film of 60 minutes in length.\n\nWhile shooting ratios can vary greatly between productions, a typical shooting ratio for a production using film stock will be between 6:1 and 10:1, whereas a similar production using video is likely to be much higher. This is a direct result of the significant difference in price between video tape stock and film stock and the necessary processing. Although the decisions, styles and preferences of the filmmakers can affect the shooting ratio of a project greatly, the nature of the production (genre, form, single camera, multi-camera, etc.) greatly affects the typical range of the ratios seen – documentary films typically have the highest (often exceeding 100:1 following the rise of video and digital media) and animated films have the lowest (typically as close to 1:1 as possible, since the creation of footage frame by frame makes the time costs of animation extremely high compared to live action). Animated productions will often shoot acting reference (by animators of themselves and or others), location reference, and performance reference (taken of voice actors), but these pieces of reference footage are not regarded as counting towards the shooting ratio, as they were never intended to appear in the projects they were created for. Audition footage, screen tests, and location reference are similarly not counted towards a narrative film's shooting ratio, live action or animated, for the same reason. Since a documentary may potentially use any footage that is shot at any point for any reason, documentary productions do not have similar exceptions. Head slates, tail slates, and outtakes are counted live action shooting ratios because, although the footage is not intended for use in the final picture, it is contained on the same reels and masters as the footage that is intended for final picture. Animated and visual effects projects typically do not include slates as part of the shooting ratio, since they virtually are instantaneous and zero-cost to create in digital formats.\n\nIn modern productions, due to the rise of digital cinema, shooting ratios are less limited by price of stock and storage, since the vast majority of productions are now entirely or partially digital. Shooting ratios instead defined and limited by the expense (in time, labor, and money, and memory) of actually shooting and editing the film, rather than cost of raw media.\n\nReferences\n\nFilm and video terminology\nRatios\nTelevision terminology",
"In the later years of The Three Stooges shorts, a tactic was used to cut costs by recycling footage from previous shorts. A typical example consists of using wrap-arounds: new footage is used for an opening, old footage is used for the middle, and new footage is used at the end to wrap things up.\n\nOne example involves the short Husbands Beware. Moe and Larry are shown enduring the agony of married life. As such, they feel that Shemp should be married too. They decide to trick him into getting married. Cut to footage from Brideless Groom where Moe falsely tells Shemp he will inherit $500,000 if he is married by the end of the day. Shemp is married, and the short then ends with new footage of Moe and Larry telling Shemp it was all a lie because he let Moe and Larry marry his two overweight sisters and got divorced.\n\nThis was mostly done with shorts featuring Shemp Howard as the previous third stooge Curly Howard was no longer involved in production. There are, however, exceptions, especially when Joe Besser came on board, and far-away shots of Curly could sort of pass for a shot of Joe. After Shemp's death in November 1955, four entries even went so far as to use recycled footage, and a double posing as Shemp (\"Fake Shemp\") in his place.\n\nThe following is a list of what shorts were recycled into new shorts, followed by a list of what new shorts used old footage.\n\nThree Stooges\n\nThree Stooges"
] |
[
"Zelig",
"Production",
"How did they make the film look like newsreels of the 1920s?",
"Allen and cinematographer Gordon Willis used a variety of techniques, including locating some of the antique film cameras and lenses used during the eras",
"Did they actually use any old footage?",
"even going so far as to simulate damage, such as crinkles and scratches, on the negatives to make the finished product look more like vintage footage."
] | C_35e7452d26f2429e88ea03bb56cf71e1_1 | Who appears in the old footage? | 3 | Who appears in the old footage Zelig, Production uses in the film? | Zelig | Allen used newsreel footage and inserted himself and other actors into the footage using bluescreen technology. To provide an authentic look to his scenes, Allen and cinematographer Gordon Willis used a variety of techniques, including locating some of the antique film cameras and lenses used during the eras depicted in the film, and even going so far as to simulate damage, such as crinkles and scratches, on the negatives to make the finished product look more like vintage footage. The virtually seamless blending of old and new footage was achieved almost a decade before digital filmmaking technology made such techniques in films like Forrest Gump (1994) and various television advertisements much easier to accomplish. The film uses cameo appearances by real figures from academia and other fields for comic effect. Contrasting the film's vintage black-and-white film footage, these persons appear in color segments as themselves, commenting in the present day on the Zelig phenomenon as if it really happened. They include essayist Susan Sontag, psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow, political writer Irving Howe, historian John Morton Blum, and the Paris nightclub owner Bricktop. Also appearing in the film's vintage footage are Charles Lindbergh, Al Capone, Clara Bow, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, Charlie Chaplin, Josephine Baker, Fanny Brice, Carole Lombard, Dolores del Rio, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Goring, James Cagney, Jimmy Walker, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Adolphe Menjou, Claire Windsor, Tom Mix, Marie Dressler, Bobby Jones, and Pope Pius XI. In the time it took to complete the film's special effects, Allen filmed A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy and Broadway Danny Rose. CANNOTANSWER | The film uses cameo appearances by real figures from academia and other fields for comic effect. | Zelig is a 1983 American mockumentary film written and directed by Woody Allen and starring Allen and Mia Farrow. Allen plays Leonard Zelig, a nondescript enigma, who, apparently out of his desire to fit in and be liked, unwittingly takes on the characteristics of strong personalities around him. The film, presented as a documentary, recounts his period of intense celebrity in the 1920s, including analyses by contemporary intellectuals.
The film was nominated for numerous awards, including the Academy Awards for Best Cinematography and Costume Design. It was well received by critics, receiving a 100% rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
Style
Zelig was photographed and narrated in the style of 1920s black-and-white newsreels, which are interwoven with archival footage from the era and re-enactments of real historical events. Color segments from the present day include interviews of real and fictional personages, including Saul Bellow and Susan Sontag.
Plot
Set in the 1920s and 1930s, the film concerns Leonard Zelig (Woody Allen), a nondescript man who has the ability to transform his appearance to that of the people who surround him. He is first observed at a party by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who notes that Zelig related to the affluent guests in a refined Boston accent and shared their Republican sympathies, but while in the kitchen with the servants, he adopted a coarser tone and seemed to be more of a Democrat. He soon gains international fame as a "human chameleon".
Interviewed in one of the witness shots, Bruno Bettelheim makes the following comment:
Dr. Eudora Fletcher (Mia Farrow) is a psychiatrist who wants to help Zelig with this strange disorder when he is admitted to her hospital. Through the use of hypnotism, she discovers Zelig yearns for approval so strongly that he physically changes to fit in with those around him. Dr. Fletcher eventually cures Zelig of his compulsion to assimilate, but goes too far in the other direction; for a brief period he is so intolerant of others' opinions that he gets into a brawl over whether or not it is a nice day.
Dr. Fletcher realizes that she is falling in love with Zelig. Because of the media coverage of the case, both patient and doctor become part of the popular culture of their time. However, fame is the main cause of their division. Numerous women claim that he married and impregnated them, causing a public scandal. The same society that made Zelig a hero destroys him.
Zelig's illness returns, and he tries to fit in once more, before he disappears. Dr. Fletcher finds him in Germany working with the Nazis before the outbreak of World War II. Together they escape, as Zelig uses his ability to imitate one more time, mimicking Fletcher's piloting skills and flying them back home across the Atlantic upside down. They eventually return to America, where they are proclaimed heroes and marry to live full happy lives.
Cast
With Susan Sontag, Irving Howe, Saul Bellow, Bricktop, Dr. Bruno Bettelheim, and Professor John Morton Blum as themselves.
Production
Allen used newsreel footage, and inserted himself and other actors into it, using bluescreen technology. To provide an authentic look to his scenes, Allen and cinematographer Gordon Willis used a variety of techniques, including locating some of the antique film cameras and lenses used during the eras depicted in the film, and even going so far as to simulate damage, such as crinkles and scratches, on the negatives to make the finished product look more like vintage footage. The virtually seamless blending of old and new footage was achieved almost a decade before digital filmmaking technology made such techniques in films like Forrest Gump (1994) and various television advertisements much easier to accomplish.
The film uses cameo appearances by real figures from academia and other fields for comic effect. Contrasting the film's vintage black-and-white film footage, these persons appear in color segments as themselves, commenting in the present day on the Zelig phenomenon as if it really happened. They include essayist Susan Sontag, psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow, political writer Irving Howe, historian John Morton Blum, and the Paris nightclub owner Bricktop.
Also appearing in the film's vintage footage are Charles Lindbergh, Al Capone, Clara Bow, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, Charlie Chaplin, Josephine Baker, Fanny Brice, Carole Lombard, Dolores del Río, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Göring, James Cagney, Jimmy Walker, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Adolphe Menjou, Claire Windsor, Tom Mix, Marie Dressler, Bobby Jones, and Pope Pius XI.
In the time it took to complete the film's special effects, Allen filmed A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy and Broadway Danny Rose. This is Orion Pictures' last film to be released through Warner Bros.
Release
Before being shown at the Venice Film Festival, the film opened on six screens in the US and grossed US$60,119 on its opening weekend; it eventually earned US$11.8 million in North America.
Critical reaction
Zelig has an approval rating of 100% on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 27 reviews, with an average score of 8/10. The site's consensus reads: "Wryly amusing, technically impressive, and ultimately thought-provoking, Zelig represents Woody Allen in complete command of his craft".
In his review in the New York Times, Vincent Canby observed:
Variety said the film was "consistently funny, though more academic than boulevardier", and the Christian Science Monitor called it "amazingly funny and poignant". Time Out described it as "a strong contender for Allen's most fascinating film", while TV Guide said, "Allen's ongoing struggles with psychoanalysis and his Jewish identity – stridently literal preoccupations in most of his work – are for once rendered allegorically. The result is deeply satisfying". Gene Siskel gave the film two stars out of four, calling it "a beautifully made but slight fable." Pauline Kael wrote that when the film was over "I felt good, but I was still a little hungry for a movie. There's a reason 'Zelig' seems small; there aren't any characters in it, not even Zelig."
Colin Greenland reviewed Zelig for Imagine magazine, and stated that "Woody Allen's most irresistable film for quite a while. He has found a new way to make fun of his own neuroses without exposing us to the egoism which became so overbearing in Manhattan or Stardust Memories."
It ranked 588th among critics, and 546th among directors, in the 2012 Sight & Sound polls of the greatest films ever made. Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly listed the work as one of Allen's finest, lauding it as "a spot-on homage to vintage newsreels and a seamless exercise in technique." The Daily Telegraph film critics Robbie Collin and Tim Robey also named it as a career highlight and argued, "The special effects, in which Allen is seamlessly inserted into vintage newsreels, are still astonishing, and draw out the aching tragicomedy of Zelig's plight. He's the original man who wasn't there." Calum Marsh of Slant magazine wrote, "We are infinitely pliable. That's the thesis of Zelig, Allen's wisest film, which has much to say about the way a person can be bent and contorted in the name of acceptance. Its ostensibly wacky conceit ... is grounded in an emotional and psychological reality all too familiar to shrug off as farce. We'll go very far out of our way to avoid conflict. Zelig seizes on that weakness and forces us to recognize it."
Awards and nominations
56th Academy Awards
Academy Award for Best Cinematography (Gordon Willis, nominee)
Academy Award for Best Costume Design (Santo Loquasto, nominee)
37th British Academy Film Awards
BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Special Visual Effects (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Editing (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Makeup (nominee)
Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen (nominee)
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Cinematography (Gordon Willis, nominee)
41st Golden Globe Awards
Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy (nominee)
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (Woody Allen, nominee)
Saturn Award for Best Direction (nominee)
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Cinematography (winner)
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress (Mia Farrow, winner; tied with Linda Hunt for The Year of Living Dangerously)
Belgian Film Critics Association: Grand Prix (winner)
David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Actor (Allen, winner)
Venice Film Festival Pasinetti Award for Best Film (winner)
Bodil Award for Best Non-European Film (winner)
Soundtrack
Leonard the Lizard (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Bernie Kuce, Steve Clayton and Tony Wells
Doin' the Chameleon (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Bernie Kuce, Steve Clayton and Tony Wells
Chameleon Days (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Performed by Mae Questel
You May Be Six People, But I Love You (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Bernie Kuce, Steve Clayton and Tony Wells
Reptile Eyes (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Rose Marie Jun
The Changing Man Concerto (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman
I've Got a Feeling I'm Falling (1929) - Music by Fats Waller (as Thomas 'Fats' Waller) and Harry Link - Sung by Roz Harris
I'm Sitting on Top of the World (1925) - Music by Ray Henderson - Sung by Norman Brooks
Ain't We Got Fun (1921) - Music by Richard A. Whiting - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
Sunny Side Up (1929) - Music and Lyrics by Ray Henderson, Lew Brown and Buddy G. DeSylva - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
I'll Get By (1928) - Music by Fred E. Ahlert - Performed by The Ben Bernie Orchestra
I Love My Baby, My Baby Loves Me (1925) - Music by Harry Warren - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
Runnin' Wild (1922) - Music by A.H. Gibbs - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
A Sailboat in the Moonlight (1937) - Written by Carmen Lombardo and John Jacob Loeb (as John Loeb) - Performed by The Guy Lombardo Orchestra
Charleston (1923) - Music by James P. Johnson - Performed by Dick Hyman
Chicago (That Toddlin' Town)(1922) - Written by Fred Fisher - Performed by Dick Hyman
Five Feet Two, Eyes of Blue (1925) - Music by Ray Henderson - Performed by Dick Hyman
Anchors Aweigh (1906) - Music by Charles A. Zimmerman - Modified by Domenico Savino (1950) - Performed by Dick Hyman
Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1908) - Music by Albert von Tilzer
The Internationale (1888) - Music by Pierre De Geyter
See also
Environmental dependency syndrome
The Belonging Kind
References
Bibliography
External links
American films
1983 films
American fantasy-comedy films
American independent films
American satirical films
American black-and-white films
1980s fantasy-comedy films
English-language films
Films directed by Woody Allen
Films set in the 1920s
Films set in 1928
Films set in 1929
Films set in the 1930s
Films set in 1930
Films set in 1931
Films set in 1932
Films set in New York City
Films shot in New Jersey
Great Depression films
American mockumentary films
Orion Pictures films
Films with screenplays by Woody Allen
Films produced by Robert Greenhut
Cultural depictions of Charles Lindbergh
Cultural depictions of Charlie Chaplin
Cultural depictions of Al Capone
Cultural depictions of William Randolph Hearst
Cultural depictions of Josephine Baker
Cultural depictions of Adolf Hitler
Cultural depictions of Hermann Göring
Cultural depictions of James Cagney
Cultural depictions of Babe Ruth
1983 comedy films | true | [
"Saturation 70 is an incomplete film written by American writer-director Tony Foutz, and was to star then-five-year-old Julian Brian Jones, the son of Rolling Stone Brian Jones. The film also starred Michelle Phillips and Gram Parsons, as well as Stash Klossowski de Rola and Nudie Cohn. Douglas Trumbull was also attached to the project to provide special effects.\n\nThe plot of the story is an update of Alice in Wonderland. A Victorian-era child falls through a wormhole and ends up in a dystopian future Los Angeles where he meets a group of aliens, called the \"Kosmic Kiddies,\" who have come to Earth to save it from pollution.\n\nMuch of the principal photography for the film was already complete by the time the funding fell through in April 1970. Filmed scenes included: a shoot out in the Mayfair Market supermarket in Century City, a procession of Ford Edsels in a flying-V formation through the City of Industry, as well as scenes shot on Skid Row in Los Angeles and documentary footage of the 19th Annual Space Convention at Giant Rock, near Joshua Tree, organized by George Van Tassel. All of the scenes were shot guerrilla-style without permits.\n\nLegacy\nGram Parsons convinced the members of his band, The Flying Burrito Brothers, to pose wearing costumes for the film, and the picture appears on the cover of their album Burrito Deluxe. All that exists of the footage from the film is five minutes of footage of the original sixty set to The Flying Burrito Brothers' cover of the Rolling Stones song \"Wild Horses\" which also appears on Burrito Deluxe.\n\nReferences\n\n \n \n\n1960s lost films\n1960s unfinished films\nAmerican films\nLost American films\n1960s science fiction films",
"Ten Years in Manitoba is a Canadian documentary film, directed by James Freer and released in 1898. Although now lost, it is generally credited as the first known film by a Canadian filmmaker. Consisting of footage of various scenes from the province of Manitoba, the film was exhibited in the United Kingdom in April 1898 as part of a promotional campaign, sponsored by the Canadian Pacific Railway, to encourage immigration to the province.\n\nThe film was a compilation of short scenes, with titles including \"Six Binders at Work in Hundred Acre Wheatfield\", \"Harvesting Scene, with Trains Passing By\", \"Pacific and Atlantic Mail Trains\" and \"Arrival of CPR Express at Winnipeg\". Other scenes whose titles are not confirmed reportedly depicted Freer's own home and family, as well as footage of Thomas Greenway, the Premier of Manitoba, stooking grain on his own farm.\n\nThe Manitoba Historical Society has, however, confirmed that at least part of Freer's film appears to have consisted of footage filmed by other people; several months earlier, a Winnipeg bartender named Richard Hardie, an American filmmaker named E. H. Amet and an entertainment producer named Cosgrove were known to have been exhibiting kinetographs in various Manitoba communities that included farm harvesting footage, including Greenway stooking grain, although they engaged in a dispute through letters to the Winnipeg Free Press as to who had been the creator of the films. Freer appears to have acquired their films, and included them in Ten Years in Manitoba along with some of his own original footage.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1898 films\nCanadian films\nCanadian documentary films\nFilms shot in Manitoba\nLost Canadian films\nCompilation films\nFilms set in Manitoba\n1890s documentary films\nCanadian anthology films\n1890s lost films"
] |
[
"Zelig",
"Production",
"How did they make the film look like newsreels of the 1920s?",
"Allen and cinematographer Gordon Willis used a variety of techniques, including locating some of the antique film cameras and lenses used during the eras",
"Did they actually use any old footage?",
"even going so far as to simulate damage, such as crinkles and scratches, on the negatives to make the finished product look more like vintage footage.",
"Who appears in the old footage?",
"The film uses cameo appearances by real figures from academia and other fields for comic effect."
] | C_35e7452d26f2429e88ea03bb56cf71e1_1 | Can you name some of the academic figures? | 4 | Can you name some of the academic figures Zelig, Production uses in the film? | Zelig | Allen used newsreel footage and inserted himself and other actors into the footage using bluescreen technology. To provide an authentic look to his scenes, Allen and cinematographer Gordon Willis used a variety of techniques, including locating some of the antique film cameras and lenses used during the eras depicted in the film, and even going so far as to simulate damage, such as crinkles and scratches, on the negatives to make the finished product look more like vintage footage. The virtually seamless blending of old and new footage was achieved almost a decade before digital filmmaking technology made such techniques in films like Forrest Gump (1994) and various television advertisements much easier to accomplish. The film uses cameo appearances by real figures from academia and other fields for comic effect. Contrasting the film's vintage black-and-white film footage, these persons appear in color segments as themselves, commenting in the present day on the Zelig phenomenon as if it really happened. They include essayist Susan Sontag, psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow, political writer Irving Howe, historian John Morton Blum, and the Paris nightclub owner Bricktop. Also appearing in the film's vintage footage are Charles Lindbergh, Al Capone, Clara Bow, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, Charlie Chaplin, Josephine Baker, Fanny Brice, Carole Lombard, Dolores del Rio, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Goring, James Cagney, Jimmy Walker, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Adolphe Menjou, Claire Windsor, Tom Mix, Marie Dressler, Bobby Jones, and Pope Pius XI. In the time it took to complete the film's special effects, Allen filmed A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy and Broadway Danny Rose. CANNOTANSWER | They include essayist Susan Sontag, psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow, | Zelig is a 1983 American mockumentary film written and directed by Woody Allen and starring Allen and Mia Farrow. Allen plays Leonard Zelig, a nondescript enigma, who, apparently out of his desire to fit in and be liked, unwittingly takes on the characteristics of strong personalities around him. The film, presented as a documentary, recounts his period of intense celebrity in the 1920s, including analyses by contemporary intellectuals.
The film was nominated for numerous awards, including the Academy Awards for Best Cinematography and Costume Design. It was well received by critics, receiving a 100% rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
Style
Zelig was photographed and narrated in the style of 1920s black-and-white newsreels, which are interwoven with archival footage from the era and re-enactments of real historical events. Color segments from the present day include interviews of real and fictional personages, including Saul Bellow and Susan Sontag.
Plot
Set in the 1920s and 1930s, the film concerns Leonard Zelig (Woody Allen), a nondescript man who has the ability to transform his appearance to that of the people who surround him. He is first observed at a party by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who notes that Zelig related to the affluent guests in a refined Boston accent and shared their Republican sympathies, but while in the kitchen with the servants, he adopted a coarser tone and seemed to be more of a Democrat. He soon gains international fame as a "human chameleon".
Interviewed in one of the witness shots, Bruno Bettelheim makes the following comment:
Dr. Eudora Fletcher (Mia Farrow) is a psychiatrist who wants to help Zelig with this strange disorder when he is admitted to her hospital. Through the use of hypnotism, she discovers Zelig yearns for approval so strongly that he physically changes to fit in with those around him. Dr. Fletcher eventually cures Zelig of his compulsion to assimilate, but goes too far in the other direction; for a brief period he is so intolerant of others' opinions that he gets into a brawl over whether or not it is a nice day.
Dr. Fletcher realizes that she is falling in love with Zelig. Because of the media coverage of the case, both patient and doctor become part of the popular culture of their time. However, fame is the main cause of their division. Numerous women claim that he married and impregnated them, causing a public scandal. The same society that made Zelig a hero destroys him.
Zelig's illness returns, and he tries to fit in once more, before he disappears. Dr. Fletcher finds him in Germany working with the Nazis before the outbreak of World War II. Together they escape, as Zelig uses his ability to imitate one more time, mimicking Fletcher's piloting skills and flying them back home across the Atlantic upside down. They eventually return to America, where they are proclaimed heroes and marry to live full happy lives.
Cast
With Susan Sontag, Irving Howe, Saul Bellow, Bricktop, Dr. Bruno Bettelheim, and Professor John Morton Blum as themselves.
Production
Allen used newsreel footage, and inserted himself and other actors into it, using bluescreen technology. To provide an authentic look to his scenes, Allen and cinematographer Gordon Willis used a variety of techniques, including locating some of the antique film cameras and lenses used during the eras depicted in the film, and even going so far as to simulate damage, such as crinkles and scratches, on the negatives to make the finished product look more like vintage footage. The virtually seamless blending of old and new footage was achieved almost a decade before digital filmmaking technology made such techniques in films like Forrest Gump (1994) and various television advertisements much easier to accomplish.
The film uses cameo appearances by real figures from academia and other fields for comic effect. Contrasting the film's vintage black-and-white film footage, these persons appear in color segments as themselves, commenting in the present day on the Zelig phenomenon as if it really happened. They include essayist Susan Sontag, psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow, political writer Irving Howe, historian John Morton Blum, and the Paris nightclub owner Bricktop.
Also appearing in the film's vintage footage are Charles Lindbergh, Al Capone, Clara Bow, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, Charlie Chaplin, Josephine Baker, Fanny Brice, Carole Lombard, Dolores del Río, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Göring, James Cagney, Jimmy Walker, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Adolphe Menjou, Claire Windsor, Tom Mix, Marie Dressler, Bobby Jones, and Pope Pius XI.
In the time it took to complete the film's special effects, Allen filmed A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy and Broadway Danny Rose. This is Orion Pictures' last film to be released through Warner Bros.
Release
Before being shown at the Venice Film Festival, the film opened on six screens in the US and grossed US$60,119 on its opening weekend; it eventually earned US$11.8 million in North America.
Critical reaction
Zelig has an approval rating of 100% on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 27 reviews, with an average score of 8/10. The site's consensus reads: "Wryly amusing, technically impressive, and ultimately thought-provoking, Zelig represents Woody Allen in complete command of his craft".
In his review in the New York Times, Vincent Canby observed:
Variety said the film was "consistently funny, though more academic than boulevardier", and the Christian Science Monitor called it "amazingly funny and poignant". Time Out described it as "a strong contender for Allen's most fascinating film", while TV Guide said, "Allen's ongoing struggles with psychoanalysis and his Jewish identity – stridently literal preoccupations in most of his work – are for once rendered allegorically. The result is deeply satisfying". Gene Siskel gave the film two stars out of four, calling it "a beautifully made but slight fable." Pauline Kael wrote that when the film was over "I felt good, but I was still a little hungry for a movie. There's a reason 'Zelig' seems small; there aren't any characters in it, not even Zelig."
Colin Greenland reviewed Zelig for Imagine magazine, and stated that "Woody Allen's most irresistable film for quite a while. He has found a new way to make fun of his own neuroses without exposing us to the egoism which became so overbearing in Manhattan or Stardust Memories."
It ranked 588th among critics, and 546th among directors, in the 2012 Sight & Sound polls of the greatest films ever made. Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly listed the work as one of Allen's finest, lauding it as "a spot-on homage to vintage newsreels and a seamless exercise in technique." The Daily Telegraph film critics Robbie Collin and Tim Robey also named it as a career highlight and argued, "The special effects, in which Allen is seamlessly inserted into vintage newsreels, are still astonishing, and draw out the aching tragicomedy of Zelig's plight. He's the original man who wasn't there." Calum Marsh of Slant magazine wrote, "We are infinitely pliable. That's the thesis of Zelig, Allen's wisest film, which has much to say about the way a person can be bent and contorted in the name of acceptance. Its ostensibly wacky conceit ... is grounded in an emotional and psychological reality all too familiar to shrug off as farce. We'll go very far out of our way to avoid conflict. Zelig seizes on that weakness and forces us to recognize it."
Awards and nominations
56th Academy Awards
Academy Award for Best Cinematography (Gordon Willis, nominee)
Academy Award for Best Costume Design (Santo Loquasto, nominee)
37th British Academy Film Awards
BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Special Visual Effects (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Editing (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Makeup (nominee)
Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen (nominee)
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Cinematography (Gordon Willis, nominee)
41st Golden Globe Awards
Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy (nominee)
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (Woody Allen, nominee)
Saturn Award for Best Direction (nominee)
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Cinematography (winner)
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress (Mia Farrow, winner; tied with Linda Hunt for The Year of Living Dangerously)
Belgian Film Critics Association: Grand Prix (winner)
David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Actor (Allen, winner)
Venice Film Festival Pasinetti Award for Best Film (winner)
Bodil Award for Best Non-European Film (winner)
Soundtrack
Leonard the Lizard (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Bernie Kuce, Steve Clayton and Tony Wells
Doin' the Chameleon (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Bernie Kuce, Steve Clayton and Tony Wells
Chameleon Days (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Performed by Mae Questel
You May Be Six People, But I Love You (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Bernie Kuce, Steve Clayton and Tony Wells
Reptile Eyes (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Rose Marie Jun
The Changing Man Concerto (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman
I've Got a Feeling I'm Falling (1929) - Music by Fats Waller (as Thomas 'Fats' Waller) and Harry Link - Sung by Roz Harris
I'm Sitting on Top of the World (1925) - Music by Ray Henderson - Sung by Norman Brooks
Ain't We Got Fun (1921) - Music by Richard A. Whiting - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
Sunny Side Up (1929) - Music and Lyrics by Ray Henderson, Lew Brown and Buddy G. DeSylva - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
I'll Get By (1928) - Music by Fred E. Ahlert - Performed by The Ben Bernie Orchestra
I Love My Baby, My Baby Loves Me (1925) - Music by Harry Warren - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
Runnin' Wild (1922) - Music by A.H. Gibbs - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
A Sailboat in the Moonlight (1937) - Written by Carmen Lombardo and John Jacob Loeb (as John Loeb) - Performed by The Guy Lombardo Orchestra
Charleston (1923) - Music by James P. Johnson - Performed by Dick Hyman
Chicago (That Toddlin' Town)(1922) - Written by Fred Fisher - Performed by Dick Hyman
Five Feet Two, Eyes of Blue (1925) - Music by Ray Henderson - Performed by Dick Hyman
Anchors Aweigh (1906) - Music by Charles A. Zimmerman - Modified by Domenico Savino (1950) - Performed by Dick Hyman
Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1908) - Music by Albert von Tilzer
The Internationale (1888) - Music by Pierre De Geyter
See also
Environmental dependency syndrome
The Belonging Kind
References
Bibliography
External links
American films
1983 films
American fantasy-comedy films
American independent films
American satirical films
American black-and-white films
1980s fantasy-comedy films
English-language films
Films directed by Woody Allen
Films set in the 1920s
Films set in 1928
Films set in 1929
Films set in the 1930s
Films set in 1930
Films set in 1931
Films set in 1932
Films set in New York City
Films shot in New Jersey
Great Depression films
American mockumentary films
Orion Pictures films
Films with screenplays by Woody Allen
Films produced by Robert Greenhut
Cultural depictions of Charles Lindbergh
Cultural depictions of Charlie Chaplin
Cultural depictions of Al Capone
Cultural depictions of William Randolph Hearst
Cultural depictions of Josephine Baker
Cultural depictions of Adolf Hitler
Cultural depictions of Hermann Göring
Cultural depictions of James Cagney
Cultural depictions of Babe Ruth
1983 comedy films | true | [
"Crimson Dragon Miniatures is a generic line of miniatures published by TAG Industries of Castalia, Ohio.\n\nContents\nCrimson Dragon Miniatures included 25mm scale figures that can be used in fantasy role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons or RuneQuest.\n\nTAG Industries went out of business in the 1980s, and its assets, including the Crimson Dragon Miniatures line, were purchased by Ravens Forge Miniatures in 1996.\n\nReception\nIn the January 1984 edition of Dragon (Issue 81), Kim Eastland reviewed the first offerings in the Crimson Dragon Miniatures line, and commented, \"this initial line is... impressive.\" He liked the sculpts, noting the \"good detail and some nice touches (like the fighter mage's armor and magical sword.).\" Eastman was also impressed by size of some of the figurines, saying, \"What is most noticeable about the line is the company's fearlessness in casting big figures. The Messenger of the Gods is nearly 40 mm tall, and looks like he could be from some fantasy pantheon as he towers over most other figures.\" \n\nIn the May 1984 edition of Dragon (Issue 85), Eastland reviewed two of the company's fantasy dinosaur miniatures and commented, \"For those miniaturists who love the unusual, TAG has created some fascinating creatures... A particularly nice touch is the crawling, lizardlike appearance of the Dragon, reminiscent of the old Lost World-type movies.\" \n\nIn the March-April 1985 edition of Space Gamer (No. 73), Edwin J. Rotondaro commented that \"CDM's strength lies in the unusual figures they produce. [...] If you are looking for something different in 25mm miniatures, check out their line. They may have just what you are looking for.\"\n\nReferences\n\nSee also\nList of lines of miniatures\n\nMiniature figures",
"The Outcasts is a set of miniatures published by RAFM Company.\n\nContents\nThe Outcasts was a line of 25mm figures consisting of nine individual figures, and two multi-figure sets.\n\nReception\nEdwin J. Rotondaro reviewed The Outcasts in Space Gamer No. 73. Rotondaro commented that \"If you play Aftermath or The Morrow Project, if you need some strange aliens for Traveller, or if you just want some extraordinary figures for whatever system you use, check these miniatures out.\"\n\nBob Kindel reviewed The Outcasts in Space Gamer No. 76. Kindel commented that \"The Outcasts, offered by Rafm, have a Road Warrior feel. Odd hairdos, primitive weapons, and little technological detail make them usable as reverted tribes/gangs.\"\n\nReferences\n\nSee also\nList of lines of miniatures\n\nMiniature figures"
] |
[
"Zelig",
"Production",
"How did they make the film look like newsreels of the 1920s?",
"Allen and cinematographer Gordon Willis used a variety of techniques, including locating some of the antique film cameras and lenses used during the eras",
"Did they actually use any old footage?",
"even going so far as to simulate damage, such as crinkles and scratches, on the negatives to make the finished product look more like vintage footage.",
"Who appears in the old footage?",
"The film uses cameo appearances by real figures from academia and other fields for comic effect.",
"Can you name some of the academic figures?",
"They include essayist Susan Sontag, psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow,"
] | C_35e7452d26f2429e88ea03bb56cf71e1_1 | Are there any famous people of the era that appear in the movie? | 5 | Are there any famous people of the era that appear in the movie besides Susan Sontag, Bruno Bettelheim, and Saoul Bellow?? | Zelig | Allen used newsreel footage and inserted himself and other actors into the footage using bluescreen technology. To provide an authentic look to his scenes, Allen and cinematographer Gordon Willis used a variety of techniques, including locating some of the antique film cameras and lenses used during the eras depicted in the film, and even going so far as to simulate damage, such as crinkles and scratches, on the negatives to make the finished product look more like vintage footage. The virtually seamless blending of old and new footage was achieved almost a decade before digital filmmaking technology made such techniques in films like Forrest Gump (1994) and various television advertisements much easier to accomplish. The film uses cameo appearances by real figures from academia and other fields for comic effect. Contrasting the film's vintage black-and-white film footage, these persons appear in color segments as themselves, commenting in the present day on the Zelig phenomenon as if it really happened. They include essayist Susan Sontag, psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow, political writer Irving Howe, historian John Morton Blum, and the Paris nightclub owner Bricktop. Also appearing in the film's vintage footage are Charles Lindbergh, Al Capone, Clara Bow, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, Charlie Chaplin, Josephine Baker, Fanny Brice, Carole Lombard, Dolores del Rio, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Goring, James Cagney, Jimmy Walker, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Adolphe Menjou, Claire Windsor, Tom Mix, Marie Dressler, Bobby Jones, and Pope Pius XI. In the time it took to complete the film's special effects, Allen filmed A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy and Broadway Danny Rose. CANNOTANSWER | Charles Lindbergh, Al Capone, Clara Bow, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, Charlie Chaplin, Josephine Baker, Fanny Brice, Carole Lombard, Dolores del Rio, | Zelig is a 1983 American mockumentary film written and directed by Woody Allen and starring Allen and Mia Farrow. Allen plays Leonard Zelig, a nondescript enigma, who, apparently out of his desire to fit in and be liked, unwittingly takes on the characteristics of strong personalities around him. The film, presented as a documentary, recounts his period of intense celebrity in the 1920s, including analyses by contemporary intellectuals.
The film was nominated for numerous awards, including the Academy Awards for Best Cinematography and Costume Design. It was well received by critics, receiving a 100% rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
Style
Zelig was photographed and narrated in the style of 1920s black-and-white newsreels, which are interwoven with archival footage from the era and re-enactments of real historical events. Color segments from the present day include interviews of real and fictional personages, including Saul Bellow and Susan Sontag.
Plot
Set in the 1920s and 1930s, the film concerns Leonard Zelig (Woody Allen), a nondescript man who has the ability to transform his appearance to that of the people who surround him. He is first observed at a party by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who notes that Zelig related to the affluent guests in a refined Boston accent and shared their Republican sympathies, but while in the kitchen with the servants, he adopted a coarser tone and seemed to be more of a Democrat. He soon gains international fame as a "human chameleon".
Interviewed in one of the witness shots, Bruno Bettelheim makes the following comment:
Dr. Eudora Fletcher (Mia Farrow) is a psychiatrist who wants to help Zelig with this strange disorder when he is admitted to her hospital. Through the use of hypnotism, she discovers Zelig yearns for approval so strongly that he physically changes to fit in with those around him. Dr. Fletcher eventually cures Zelig of his compulsion to assimilate, but goes too far in the other direction; for a brief period he is so intolerant of others' opinions that he gets into a brawl over whether or not it is a nice day.
Dr. Fletcher realizes that she is falling in love with Zelig. Because of the media coverage of the case, both patient and doctor become part of the popular culture of their time. However, fame is the main cause of their division. Numerous women claim that he married and impregnated them, causing a public scandal. The same society that made Zelig a hero destroys him.
Zelig's illness returns, and he tries to fit in once more, before he disappears. Dr. Fletcher finds him in Germany working with the Nazis before the outbreak of World War II. Together they escape, as Zelig uses his ability to imitate one more time, mimicking Fletcher's piloting skills and flying them back home across the Atlantic upside down. They eventually return to America, where they are proclaimed heroes and marry to live full happy lives.
Cast
With Susan Sontag, Irving Howe, Saul Bellow, Bricktop, Dr. Bruno Bettelheim, and Professor John Morton Blum as themselves.
Production
Allen used newsreel footage, and inserted himself and other actors into it, using bluescreen technology. To provide an authentic look to his scenes, Allen and cinematographer Gordon Willis used a variety of techniques, including locating some of the antique film cameras and lenses used during the eras depicted in the film, and even going so far as to simulate damage, such as crinkles and scratches, on the negatives to make the finished product look more like vintage footage. The virtually seamless blending of old and new footage was achieved almost a decade before digital filmmaking technology made such techniques in films like Forrest Gump (1994) and various television advertisements much easier to accomplish.
The film uses cameo appearances by real figures from academia and other fields for comic effect. Contrasting the film's vintage black-and-white film footage, these persons appear in color segments as themselves, commenting in the present day on the Zelig phenomenon as if it really happened. They include essayist Susan Sontag, psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow, political writer Irving Howe, historian John Morton Blum, and the Paris nightclub owner Bricktop.
Also appearing in the film's vintage footage are Charles Lindbergh, Al Capone, Clara Bow, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, Charlie Chaplin, Josephine Baker, Fanny Brice, Carole Lombard, Dolores del Río, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Göring, James Cagney, Jimmy Walker, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Adolphe Menjou, Claire Windsor, Tom Mix, Marie Dressler, Bobby Jones, and Pope Pius XI.
In the time it took to complete the film's special effects, Allen filmed A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy and Broadway Danny Rose. This is Orion Pictures' last film to be released through Warner Bros.
Release
Before being shown at the Venice Film Festival, the film opened on six screens in the US and grossed US$60,119 on its opening weekend; it eventually earned US$11.8 million in North America.
Critical reaction
Zelig has an approval rating of 100% on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 27 reviews, with an average score of 8/10. The site's consensus reads: "Wryly amusing, technically impressive, and ultimately thought-provoking, Zelig represents Woody Allen in complete command of his craft".
In his review in the New York Times, Vincent Canby observed:
Variety said the film was "consistently funny, though more academic than boulevardier", and the Christian Science Monitor called it "amazingly funny and poignant". Time Out described it as "a strong contender for Allen's most fascinating film", while TV Guide said, "Allen's ongoing struggles with psychoanalysis and his Jewish identity – stridently literal preoccupations in most of his work – are for once rendered allegorically. The result is deeply satisfying". Gene Siskel gave the film two stars out of four, calling it "a beautifully made but slight fable." Pauline Kael wrote that when the film was over "I felt good, but I was still a little hungry for a movie. There's a reason 'Zelig' seems small; there aren't any characters in it, not even Zelig."
Colin Greenland reviewed Zelig for Imagine magazine, and stated that "Woody Allen's most irresistable film for quite a while. He has found a new way to make fun of his own neuroses without exposing us to the egoism which became so overbearing in Manhattan or Stardust Memories."
It ranked 588th among critics, and 546th among directors, in the 2012 Sight & Sound polls of the greatest films ever made. Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly listed the work as one of Allen's finest, lauding it as "a spot-on homage to vintage newsreels and a seamless exercise in technique." The Daily Telegraph film critics Robbie Collin and Tim Robey also named it as a career highlight and argued, "The special effects, in which Allen is seamlessly inserted into vintage newsreels, are still astonishing, and draw out the aching tragicomedy of Zelig's plight. He's the original man who wasn't there." Calum Marsh of Slant magazine wrote, "We are infinitely pliable. That's the thesis of Zelig, Allen's wisest film, which has much to say about the way a person can be bent and contorted in the name of acceptance. Its ostensibly wacky conceit ... is grounded in an emotional and psychological reality all too familiar to shrug off as farce. We'll go very far out of our way to avoid conflict. Zelig seizes on that weakness and forces us to recognize it."
Awards and nominations
56th Academy Awards
Academy Award for Best Cinematography (Gordon Willis, nominee)
Academy Award for Best Costume Design (Santo Loquasto, nominee)
37th British Academy Film Awards
BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Special Visual Effects (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Editing (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Makeup (nominee)
Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen (nominee)
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Cinematography (Gordon Willis, nominee)
41st Golden Globe Awards
Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy (nominee)
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (Woody Allen, nominee)
Saturn Award for Best Direction (nominee)
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Cinematography (winner)
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress (Mia Farrow, winner; tied with Linda Hunt for The Year of Living Dangerously)
Belgian Film Critics Association: Grand Prix (winner)
David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Actor (Allen, winner)
Venice Film Festival Pasinetti Award for Best Film (winner)
Bodil Award for Best Non-European Film (winner)
Soundtrack
Leonard the Lizard (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Bernie Kuce, Steve Clayton and Tony Wells
Doin' the Chameleon (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Bernie Kuce, Steve Clayton and Tony Wells
Chameleon Days (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Performed by Mae Questel
You May Be Six People, But I Love You (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Bernie Kuce, Steve Clayton and Tony Wells
Reptile Eyes (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Rose Marie Jun
The Changing Man Concerto (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman
I've Got a Feeling I'm Falling (1929) - Music by Fats Waller (as Thomas 'Fats' Waller) and Harry Link - Sung by Roz Harris
I'm Sitting on Top of the World (1925) - Music by Ray Henderson - Sung by Norman Brooks
Ain't We Got Fun (1921) - Music by Richard A. Whiting - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
Sunny Side Up (1929) - Music and Lyrics by Ray Henderson, Lew Brown and Buddy G. DeSylva - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
I'll Get By (1928) - Music by Fred E. Ahlert - Performed by The Ben Bernie Orchestra
I Love My Baby, My Baby Loves Me (1925) - Music by Harry Warren - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
Runnin' Wild (1922) - Music by A.H. Gibbs - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
A Sailboat in the Moonlight (1937) - Written by Carmen Lombardo and John Jacob Loeb (as John Loeb) - Performed by The Guy Lombardo Orchestra
Charleston (1923) - Music by James P. Johnson - Performed by Dick Hyman
Chicago (That Toddlin' Town)(1922) - Written by Fred Fisher - Performed by Dick Hyman
Five Feet Two, Eyes of Blue (1925) - Music by Ray Henderson - Performed by Dick Hyman
Anchors Aweigh (1906) - Music by Charles A. Zimmerman - Modified by Domenico Savino (1950) - Performed by Dick Hyman
Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1908) - Music by Albert von Tilzer
The Internationale (1888) - Music by Pierre De Geyter
See also
Environmental dependency syndrome
The Belonging Kind
References
Bibliography
External links
American films
1983 films
American fantasy-comedy films
American independent films
American satirical films
American black-and-white films
1980s fantasy-comedy films
English-language films
Films directed by Woody Allen
Films set in the 1920s
Films set in 1928
Films set in 1929
Films set in the 1930s
Films set in 1930
Films set in 1931
Films set in 1932
Films set in New York City
Films shot in New Jersey
Great Depression films
American mockumentary films
Orion Pictures films
Films with screenplays by Woody Allen
Films produced by Robert Greenhut
Cultural depictions of Charles Lindbergh
Cultural depictions of Charlie Chaplin
Cultural depictions of Al Capone
Cultural depictions of William Randolph Hearst
Cultural depictions of Josephine Baker
Cultural depictions of Adolf Hitler
Cultural depictions of Hermann Göring
Cultural depictions of James Cagney
Cultural depictions of Babe Ruth
1983 comedy films | false | [
"The Monihar Cinema Hall, or simply the Monihar (), is a movie theater located at Jessore district in Bangladesh. Country's largest movie theater Monihar was launched on 8 December 1983. Due to a construction style that was ahead of the era, the hall became popular within short time of its launch. Film lovers from different countries of the world including Japan, Korea, Africa, Australia, Russia and England came to watch movies. Monihar is widely considered as one of the most influential factors of Bangladeshi film industry.\n\nHistory \n\nDesigned by Kazi Mohammad Hanif, the Cinema Hall used to be the main concentration of Dhallywood. Whenever a new film was about to get released, it was almost customary that the movie premiere should be held at Monihar. After its launch, the first movie to air in the hall was Director Dewan Nazrul's 'Johnny' starring Sohel Rana and Bobita.\n\nRecent developments \n\nFor the first time in its history, Monihar's operation got terminated on 22 July 2012. Owner of the hall claimed that the closure of the building was due to continued attacks by mafias in the area and their extortion. Later the hall got reopened after 20 days; upon the assurance of the administration and amidst the plight of the family members of the employees. However, the situation of the hall has not improved. Recently the hall has fallen into financial crisis. Previously there were 100 people employed by the hall. The reduction in the workforce is due to a recession in the business. The 40 current employees are also in financial hardship. Not only the staff of the hall, there are hundreds of jobs around Monihar that are in the risk due to the lackluster performance of the hall.\n\nFeatures \n\nThe number of seats in the movie hall of 4 bigha land is 1,400. Post construction of the hall was completed by an artist named Vishasa under the supervision of famous painter SM Sultan. The movie hall on the 4th floor is fully air-conditioned. There is a community center, a residential hotel and 40 shops inside Monihar. There are ram stairs, flashes, chandeliers etc. At present, Monihar employs 40 employees.\n\nType of cinemas \n\n Bangladeshi movies\n Hollywood movies\n Indo-Bangla joint venture movies\n\nReferences \n\nCinemas and movie theaters\nEntertainment venues in Bangladesh\nCinema of Bangladesh",
"Takht-e Foulad () is a historical cemetery in Isfahan, Iran. The cemetery is at least 800 years old. In the 13th century in the Ilkhanid era Takht-e Foulad was the most important cemetery in Isfahan and all of the famous personalities have a mausoleum in this cemetery. Unfortunately all of the mausoleums from the Ilkhanid era, except Baba Rokn ed-Din mausoleum, which is the oldest structure in Takht-e Foulad, have been destroyed. In the Safavid era there were 400 mausoleums in Takht-e Foulad, but there are now only 8 mausoleums from the Safavid era. In the Qajar era a large part of the cemetery was destroyed, but the cemetery hasn't lost its importance and by the end of Pahlavi era it was the most important cemetery in Isfahan. There are 20 structures from the Qajar era and 17 structures from the Pahlavi era in the cemetery. Before the Safavid age the cemetery had been known as Lessan ol-Arz and Baba Rokn ed-Din, but from the Safavid age until now its name is Takht-e Foulad.\n\nBy the demand of people authorities have established Takht-e Foulad Cultural and Religious Complex in 1994 for rebuilding, organizing, and repairing this valuable cemetery. Since 1994, many gravestones have been repaired and rebuilt by this institution.\n\nThe best days for visiting the cemetery are Thursdays and Fridays, because the most of mausoleums are open for visitors.\n\nMost important places in Takht-e Foulad\n\nBaba Rokn ed-Din mausoleum \nAlthough Baba Rokn ed-Din was a high ranking Baba in the 14th century, but there are few information about his life and works. The construction of the current building started in the era of Abbas I and was completed in the era of Safi.\n\nValeh mausoleum \nValeh Esfahani was a poet and calligrapher in Isfahan during the reign of Fath-Ali Shah. He died in 1814 and a mausoleum was built on his grave.\n\nMir section \nMany notabilities habe been buried in Takht-e Foulad. One of them is Mir Fendereski, the famous mystic and scholar in the Safavid era. His grave has been covered by a single large piece of marble stone. On the stone, the date of the Islamic calendar has been written, which is equal to 1640 in the Gregorian calendar. In a room next to the grave, a ghazal of Hafez (in Nastaliq script) has been made with stucco by Mir Emad, the famous calligrapher in the Safavid era. It is the only inscription by Mir Emad, which has been written on the wall of a building.\n\nBeside the Mir section and in the mausoleum of the leaders of Bakhtiari tribe, there is a painting, which shows Shaykh Bahai, Mir Fendereski and a lion.\n\nAgha Hossein Khansari mausoleum \nAgha Hossein Khansari was a very influential scientist in the court of Suleiman I. His mausoleum was the only mausoleum, which was built for a scientist.\n\nMohammad Jafar Abadei Tekyeh \nThe Mohammad Jafar Abadei Tekyeh belongs to the Qajar era and is located to the south of Roknolmolk mosque.\n\nReferences \n\nCemeteries in Iran\nBuildings and structures in Isfahan\nTourist attractions in Isfahan\nTakht-e Foulad"
] |
[
"Zelig",
"Production",
"How did they make the film look like newsreels of the 1920s?",
"Allen and cinematographer Gordon Willis used a variety of techniques, including locating some of the antique film cameras and lenses used during the eras",
"Did they actually use any old footage?",
"even going so far as to simulate damage, such as crinkles and scratches, on the negatives to make the finished product look more like vintage footage.",
"Who appears in the old footage?",
"The film uses cameo appearances by real figures from academia and other fields for comic effect.",
"Can you name some of the academic figures?",
"They include essayist Susan Sontag, psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow,",
"Are there any famous people of the era that appear in the movie?",
"Charles Lindbergh, Al Capone, Clara Bow, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, Charlie Chaplin, Josephine Baker, Fanny Brice, Carole Lombard, Dolores del Rio,"
] | C_35e7452d26f2429e88ea03bb56cf71e1_1 | Were the effects easy to pull off? | 6 | Were the effects easy to pull off when Zelig, Production was making the film? | Zelig | Allen used newsreel footage and inserted himself and other actors into the footage using bluescreen technology. To provide an authentic look to his scenes, Allen and cinematographer Gordon Willis used a variety of techniques, including locating some of the antique film cameras and lenses used during the eras depicted in the film, and even going so far as to simulate damage, such as crinkles and scratches, on the negatives to make the finished product look more like vintage footage. The virtually seamless blending of old and new footage was achieved almost a decade before digital filmmaking technology made such techniques in films like Forrest Gump (1994) and various television advertisements much easier to accomplish. The film uses cameo appearances by real figures from academia and other fields for comic effect. Contrasting the film's vintage black-and-white film footage, these persons appear in color segments as themselves, commenting in the present day on the Zelig phenomenon as if it really happened. They include essayist Susan Sontag, psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow, political writer Irving Howe, historian John Morton Blum, and the Paris nightclub owner Bricktop. Also appearing in the film's vintage footage are Charles Lindbergh, Al Capone, Clara Bow, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, Charlie Chaplin, Josephine Baker, Fanny Brice, Carole Lombard, Dolores del Rio, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Goring, James Cagney, Jimmy Walker, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Adolphe Menjou, Claire Windsor, Tom Mix, Marie Dressler, Bobby Jones, and Pope Pius XI. In the time it took to complete the film's special effects, Allen filmed A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy and Broadway Danny Rose. CANNOTANSWER | The virtually seamless blending of old and new footage was achieved almost a decade before digital filmmaking technology made such techniques in films like Forrest Gump | Zelig is a 1983 American mockumentary film written and directed by Woody Allen and starring Allen and Mia Farrow. Allen plays Leonard Zelig, a nondescript enigma, who, apparently out of his desire to fit in and be liked, unwittingly takes on the characteristics of strong personalities around him. The film, presented as a documentary, recounts his period of intense celebrity in the 1920s, including analyses by contemporary intellectuals.
The film was nominated for numerous awards, including the Academy Awards for Best Cinematography and Costume Design. It was well received by critics, receiving a 100% rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
Style
Zelig was photographed and narrated in the style of 1920s black-and-white newsreels, which are interwoven with archival footage from the era and re-enactments of real historical events. Color segments from the present day include interviews of real and fictional personages, including Saul Bellow and Susan Sontag.
Plot
Set in the 1920s and 1930s, the film concerns Leonard Zelig (Woody Allen), a nondescript man who has the ability to transform his appearance to that of the people who surround him. He is first observed at a party by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who notes that Zelig related to the affluent guests in a refined Boston accent and shared their Republican sympathies, but while in the kitchen with the servants, he adopted a coarser tone and seemed to be more of a Democrat. He soon gains international fame as a "human chameleon".
Interviewed in one of the witness shots, Bruno Bettelheim makes the following comment:
Dr. Eudora Fletcher (Mia Farrow) is a psychiatrist who wants to help Zelig with this strange disorder when he is admitted to her hospital. Through the use of hypnotism, she discovers Zelig yearns for approval so strongly that he physically changes to fit in with those around him. Dr. Fletcher eventually cures Zelig of his compulsion to assimilate, but goes too far in the other direction; for a brief period he is so intolerant of others' opinions that he gets into a brawl over whether or not it is a nice day.
Dr. Fletcher realizes that she is falling in love with Zelig. Because of the media coverage of the case, both patient and doctor become part of the popular culture of their time. However, fame is the main cause of their division. Numerous women claim that he married and impregnated them, causing a public scandal. The same society that made Zelig a hero destroys him.
Zelig's illness returns, and he tries to fit in once more, before he disappears. Dr. Fletcher finds him in Germany working with the Nazis before the outbreak of World War II. Together they escape, as Zelig uses his ability to imitate one more time, mimicking Fletcher's piloting skills and flying them back home across the Atlantic upside down. They eventually return to America, where they are proclaimed heroes and marry to live full happy lives.
Cast
With Susan Sontag, Irving Howe, Saul Bellow, Bricktop, Dr. Bruno Bettelheim, and Professor John Morton Blum as themselves.
Production
Allen used newsreel footage, and inserted himself and other actors into it, using bluescreen technology. To provide an authentic look to his scenes, Allen and cinematographer Gordon Willis used a variety of techniques, including locating some of the antique film cameras and lenses used during the eras depicted in the film, and even going so far as to simulate damage, such as crinkles and scratches, on the negatives to make the finished product look more like vintage footage. The virtually seamless blending of old and new footage was achieved almost a decade before digital filmmaking technology made such techniques in films like Forrest Gump (1994) and various television advertisements much easier to accomplish.
The film uses cameo appearances by real figures from academia and other fields for comic effect. Contrasting the film's vintage black-and-white film footage, these persons appear in color segments as themselves, commenting in the present day on the Zelig phenomenon as if it really happened. They include essayist Susan Sontag, psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow, political writer Irving Howe, historian John Morton Blum, and the Paris nightclub owner Bricktop.
Also appearing in the film's vintage footage are Charles Lindbergh, Al Capone, Clara Bow, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, Charlie Chaplin, Josephine Baker, Fanny Brice, Carole Lombard, Dolores del Río, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Göring, James Cagney, Jimmy Walker, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Adolphe Menjou, Claire Windsor, Tom Mix, Marie Dressler, Bobby Jones, and Pope Pius XI.
In the time it took to complete the film's special effects, Allen filmed A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy and Broadway Danny Rose. This is Orion Pictures' last film to be released through Warner Bros.
Release
Before being shown at the Venice Film Festival, the film opened on six screens in the US and grossed US$60,119 on its opening weekend; it eventually earned US$11.8 million in North America.
Critical reaction
Zelig has an approval rating of 100% on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 27 reviews, with an average score of 8/10. The site's consensus reads: "Wryly amusing, technically impressive, and ultimately thought-provoking, Zelig represents Woody Allen in complete command of his craft".
In his review in the New York Times, Vincent Canby observed:
Variety said the film was "consistently funny, though more academic than boulevardier", and the Christian Science Monitor called it "amazingly funny and poignant". Time Out described it as "a strong contender for Allen's most fascinating film", while TV Guide said, "Allen's ongoing struggles with psychoanalysis and his Jewish identity – stridently literal preoccupations in most of his work – are for once rendered allegorically. The result is deeply satisfying". Gene Siskel gave the film two stars out of four, calling it "a beautifully made but slight fable." Pauline Kael wrote that when the film was over "I felt good, but I was still a little hungry for a movie. There's a reason 'Zelig' seems small; there aren't any characters in it, not even Zelig."
Colin Greenland reviewed Zelig for Imagine magazine, and stated that "Woody Allen's most irresistable film for quite a while. He has found a new way to make fun of his own neuroses without exposing us to the egoism which became so overbearing in Manhattan or Stardust Memories."
It ranked 588th among critics, and 546th among directors, in the 2012 Sight & Sound polls of the greatest films ever made. Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly listed the work as one of Allen's finest, lauding it as "a spot-on homage to vintage newsreels and a seamless exercise in technique." The Daily Telegraph film critics Robbie Collin and Tim Robey also named it as a career highlight and argued, "The special effects, in which Allen is seamlessly inserted into vintage newsreels, are still astonishing, and draw out the aching tragicomedy of Zelig's plight. He's the original man who wasn't there." Calum Marsh of Slant magazine wrote, "We are infinitely pliable. That's the thesis of Zelig, Allen's wisest film, which has much to say about the way a person can be bent and contorted in the name of acceptance. Its ostensibly wacky conceit ... is grounded in an emotional and psychological reality all too familiar to shrug off as farce. We'll go very far out of our way to avoid conflict. Zelig seizes on that weakness and forces us to recognize it."
Awards and nominations
56th Academy Awards
Academy Award for Best Cinematography (Gordon Willis, nominee)
Academy Award for Best Costume Design (Santo Loquasto, nominee)
37th British Academy Film Awards
BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Special Visual Effects (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Editing (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Makeup (nominee)
Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen (nominee)
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Cinematography (Gordon Willis, nominee)
41st Golden Globe Awards
Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy (nominee)
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (Woody Allen, nominee)
Saturn Award for Best Direction (nominee)
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Cinematography (winner)
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress (Mia Farrow, winner; tied with Linda Hunt for The Year of Living Dangerously)
Belgian Film Critics Association: Grand Prix (winner)
David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Actor (Allen, winner)
Venice Film Festival Pasinetti Award for Best Film (winner)
Bodil Award for Best Non-European Film (winner)
Soundtrack
Leonard the Lizard (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Bernie Kuce, Steve Clayton and Tony Wells
Doin' the Chameleon (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Bernie Kuce, Steve Clayton and Tony Wells
Chameleon Days (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Performed by Mae Questel
You May Be Six People, But I Love You (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Bernie Kuce, Steve Clayton and Tony Wells
Reptile Eyes (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Rose Marie Jun
The Changing Man Concerto (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman
I've Got a Feeling I'm Falling (1929) - Music by Fats Waller (as Thomas 'Fats' Waller) and Harry Link - Sung by Roz Harris
I'm Sitting on Top of the World (1925) - Music by Ray Henderson - Sung by Norman Brooks
Ain't We Got Fun (1921) - Music by Richard A. Whiting - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
Sunny Side Up (1929) - Music and Lyrics by Ray Henderson, Lew Brown and Buddy G. DeSylva - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
I'll Get By (1928) - Music by Fred E. Ahlert - Performed by The Ben Bernie Orchestra
I Love My Baby, My Baby Loves Me (1925) - Music by Harry Warren - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
Runnin' Wild (1922) - Music by A.H. Gibbs - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
A Sailboat in the Moonlight (1937) - Written by Carmen Lombardo and John Jacob Loeb (as John Loeb) - Performed by The Guy Lombardo Orchestra
Charleston (1923) - Music by James P. Johnson - Performed by Dick Hyman
Chicago (That Toddlin' Town)(1922) - Written by Fred Fisher - Performed by Dick Hyman
Five Feet Two, Eyes of Blue (1925) - Music by Ray Henderson - Performed by Dick Hyman
Anchors Aweigh (1906) - Music by Charles A. Zimmerman - Modified by Domenico Savino (1950) - Performed by Dick Hyman
Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1908) - Music by Albert von Tilzer
The Internationale (1888) - Music by Pierre De Geyter
See also
Environmental dependency syndrome
The Belonging Kind
References
Bibliography
External links
American films
1983 films
American fantasy-comedy films
American independent films
American satirical films
American black-and-white films
1980s fantasy-comedy films
English-language films
Films directed by Woody Allen
Films set in the 1920s
Films set in 1928
Films set in 1929
Films set in the 1930s
Films set in 1930
Films set in 1931
Films set in 1932
Films set in New York City
Films shot in New Jersey
Great Depression films
American mockumentary films
Orion Pictures films
Films with screenplays by Woody Allen
Films produced by Robert Greenhut
Cultural depictions of Charles Lindbergh
Cultural depictions of Charlie Chaplin
Cultural depictions of Al Capone
Cultural depictions of William Randolph Hearst
Cultural depictions of Josephine Baker
Cultural depictions of Adolf Hitler
Cultural depictions of Hermann Göring
Cultural depictions of James Cagney
Cultural depictions of Babe Ruth
1983 comedy films | true | [
"The pull-off bottle cap (also known as RingCrown, RipCap or Ring-pull closure or pull off caps) is a bottle closure that can be opened without any tools. It has a ring that can be pulled in order to detach the cap from the bottle. The cap splits along scores in the cap, therefore loosens and can be removed from the bottle. Drink companies use ring pull caps to differentiate themselves from competitors.\n\nHistory\nALKA, the predecessor of the modern ring-pull caps, was introduced during the 1930s. ALKA had a seal made of natural cork. It became popular in Nordic countries and Mediterranean countries as an easy-to-open cap. ALKA was made of aluminium and had a tab or twin tabs that were pulled to remove the cap. There was no scoring on an ALKA cap. Production of the ALKA cap took place on the bottling line.\n\nIn 1974 AB Wicanders Korkfabriker of Sweden patented the MaxiCap. The MaxiCap was produced from 1979 at Wicanders’ factory in Hämeenlinna Finland, now known has Finn-Korkki Oy. A MaxiCap is an aluminium closure with scoring and a tab to pull. They were easier to use than the ALKA and pre-manufactured outside of the bottling plant. This allowed for increased production speeds on the bottling line.\nSoon after the MaxiCap came the RingCrown closure. Invented in the early 1980s it was originally called MaxiCrown and later became known as RingCrown. The RingCrown is easier to use than its predecessors because it has an attached ring rather than a static pull off tab.\n\nGallery\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nStainless Steel Water Bottle\n\nBottles\nSeals (mechanical)",
"The pull-off test, also called stud pull test in which an adhesive connection is made between a stud and the carrier (or object to be tested) by using a glue, possibly an epoxy or polyester resin, that is stronger than the bond that needs to be tested. The force required to pull the stud from the surface, together with the carrier, is measured. Simple mechanical hand-operated loading equipment has been developed for this purpose. When higher accuracy is required, tests can be performed with more advanced equipment called a bond tester. A bond tester provides more control and possibly automation. Applying the glue automatically and curing with UV light is the next step in automation. This methodology can also be used to measure direct tensile strength or/and the bond strength between two different layers.\n\nMIL-STD-883 methods 2011.9 destructive bond pull test and 2031.1 flip chip pull off test apply, as well as JEDEC JESD22-B109.\n\nPartial coring may be used, if necessary, to eliminate surface skin effects.\n\nReferences\n\nConcrete\nTests"
] |
[
"Zelig",
"Production",
"How did they make the film look like newsreels of the 1920s?",
"Allen and cinematographer Gordon Willis used a variety of techniques, including locating some of the antique film cameras and lenses used during the eras",
"Did they actually use any old footage?",
"even going so far as to simulate damage, such as crinkles and scratches, on the negatives to make the finished product look more like vintage footage.",
"Who appears in the old footage?",
"The film uses cameo appearances by real figures from academia and other fields for comic effect.",
"Can you name some of the academic figures?",
"They include essayist Susan Sontag, psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow,",
"Are there any famous people of the era that appear in the movie?",
"Charles Lindbergh, Al Capone, Clara Bow, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, Charlie Chaplin, Josephine Baker, Fanny Brice, Carole Lombard, Dolores del Rio,",
"Were the effects easy to pull off?",
"The virtually seamless blending of old and new footage was achieved almost a decade before digital filmmaking technology made such techniques in films like Forrest Gump"
] | C_35e7452d26f2429e88ea03bb56cf71e1_1 | Are any parts of the movie in color? | 7 | Are any parts of the movie in color Zelig, Production made? | Zelig | Allen used newsreel footage and inserted himself and other actors into the footage using bluescreen technology. To provide an authentic look to his scenes, Allen and cinematographer Gordon Willis used a variety of techniques, including locating some of the antique film cameras and lenses used during the eras depicted in the film, and even going so far as to simulate damage, such as crinkles and scratches, on the negatives to make the finished product look more like vintage footage. The virtually seamless blending of old and new footage was achieved almost a decade before digital filmmaking technology made such techniques in films like Forrest Gump (1994) and various television advertisements much easier to accomplish. The film uses cameo appearances by real figures from academia and other fields for comic effect. Contrasting the film's vintage black-and-white film footage, these persons appear in color segments as themselves, commenting in the present day on the Zelig phenomenon as if it really happened. They include essayist Susan Sontag, psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow, political writer Irving Howe, historian John Morton Blum, and the Paris nightclub owner Bricktop. Also appearing in the film's vintage footage are Charles Lindbergh, Al Capone, Clara Bow, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, Charlie Chaplin, Josephine Baker, Fanny Brice, Carole Lombard, Dolores del Rio, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Goring, James Cagney, Jimmy Walker, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Adolphe Menjou, Claire Windsor, Tom Mix, Marie Dressler, Bobby Jones, and Pope Pius XI. In the time it took to complete the film's special effects, Allen filmed A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy and Broadway Danny Rose. CANNOTANSWER | Allen used newsreel footage and inserted himself and other actors into the footage using bluescreen technology. | Zelig is a 1983 American mockumentary film written and directed by Woody Allen and starring Allen and Mia Farrow. Allen plays Leonard Zelig, a nondescript enigma, who, apparently out of his desire to fit in and be liked, unwittingly takes on the characteristics of strong personalities around him. The film, presented as a documentary, recounts his period of intense celebrity in the 1920s, including analyses by contemporary intellectuals.
The film was nominated for numerous awards, including the Academy Awards for Best Cinematography and Costume Design. It was well received by critics, receiving a 100% rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
Style
Zelig was photographed and narrated in the style of 1920s black-and-white newsreels, which are interwoven with archival footage from the era and re-enactments of real historical events. Color segments from the present day include interviews of real and fictional personages, including Saul Bellow and Susan Sontag.
Plot
Set in the 1920s and 1930s, the film concerns Leonard Zelig (Woody Allen), a nondescript man who has the ability to transform his appearance to that of the people who surround him. He is first observed at a party by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who notes that Zelig related to the affluent guests in a refined Boston accent and shared their Republican sympathies, but while in the kitchen with the servants, he adopted a coarser tone and seemed to be more of a Democrat. He soon gains international fame as a "human chameleon".
Interviewed in one of the witness shots, Bruno Bettelheim makes the following comment:
Dr. Eudora Fletcher (Mia Farrow) is a psychiatrist who wants to help Zelig with this strange disorder when he is admitted to her hospital. Through the use of hypnotism, she discovers Zelig yearns for approval so strongly that he physically changes to fit in with those around him. Dr. Fletcher eventually cures Zelig of his compulsion to assimilate, but goes too far in the other direction; for a brief period he is so intolerant of others' opinions that he gets into a brawl over whether or not it is a nice day.
Dr. Fletcher realizes that she is falling in love with Zelig. Because of the media coverage of the case, both patient and doctor become part of the popular culture of their time. However, fame is the main cause of their division. Numerous women claim that he married and impregnated them, causing a public scandal. The same society that made Zelig a hero destroys him.
Zelig's illness returns, and he tries to fit in once more, before he disappears. Dr. Fletcher finds him in Germany working with the Nazis before the outbreak of World War II. Together they escape, as Zelig uses his ability to imitate one more time, mimicking Fletcher's piloting skills and flying them back home across the Atlantic upside down. They eventually return to America, where they are proclaimed heroes and marry to live full happy lives.
Cast
With Susan Sontag, Irving Howe, Saul Bellow, Bricktop, Dr. Bruno Bettelheim, and Professor John Morton Blum as themselves.
Production
Allen used newsreel footage, and inserted himself and other actors into it, using bluescreen technology. To provide an authentic look to his scenes, Allen and cinematographer Gordon Willis used a variety of techniques, including locating some of the antique film cameras and lenses used during the eras depicted in the film, and even going so far as to simulate damage, such as crinkles and scratches, on the negatives to make the finished product look more like vintage footage. The virtually seamless blending of old and new footage was achieved almost a decade before digital filmmaking technology made such techniques in films like Forrest Gump (1994) and various television advertisements much easier to accomplish.
The film uses cameo appearances by real figures from academia and other fields for comic effect. Contrasting the film's vintage black-and-white film footage, these persons appear in color segments as themselves, commenting in the present day on the Zelig phenomenon as if it really happened. They include essayist Susan Sontag, psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow, political writer Irving Howe, historian John Morton Blum, and the Paris nightclub owner Bricktop.
Also appearing in the film's vintage footage are Charles Lindbergh, Al Capone, Clara Bow, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, Charlie Chaplin, Josephine Baker, Fanny Brice, Carole Lombard, Dolores del Río, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Göring, James Cagney, Jimmy Walker, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Adolphe Menjou, Claire Windsor, Tom Mix, Marie Dressler, Bobby Jones, and Pope Pius XI.
In the time it took to complete the film's special effects, Allen filmed A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy and Broadway Danny Rose. This is Orion Pictures' last film to be released through Warner Bros.
Release
Before being shown at the Venice Film Festival, the film opened on six screens in the US and grossed US$60,119 on its opening weekend; it eventually earned US$11.8 million in North America.
Critical reaction
Zelig has an approval rating of 100% on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 27 reviews, with an average score of 8/10. The site's consensus reads: "Wryly amusing, technically impressive, and ultimately thought-provoking, Zelig represents Woody Allen in complete command of his craft".
In his review in the New York Times, Vincent Canby observed:
Variety said the film was "consistently funny, though more academic than boulevardier", and the Christian Science Monitor called it "amazingly funny and poignant". Time Out described it as "a strong contender for Allen's most fascinating film", while TV Guide said, "Allen's ongoing struggles with psychoanalysis and his Jewish identity – stridently literal preoccupations in most of his work – are for once rendered allegorically. The result is deeply satisfying". Gene Siskel gave the film two stars out of four, calling it "a beautifully made but slight fable." Pauline Kael wrote that when the film was over "I felt good, but I was still a little hungry for a movie. There's a reason 'Zelig' seems small; there aren't any characters in it, not even Zelig."
Colin Greenland reviewed Zelig for Imagine magazine, and stated that "Woody Allen's most irresistable film for quite a while. He has found a new way to make fun of his own neuroses without exposing us to the egoism which became so overbearing in Manhattan or Stardust Memories."
It ranked 588th among critics, and 546th among directors, in the 2012 Sight & Sound polls of the greatest films ever made. Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly listed the work as one of Allen's finest, lauding it as "a spot-on homage to vintage newsreels and a seamless exercise in technique." The Daily Telegraph film critics Robbie Collin and Tim Robey also named it as a career highlight and argued, "The special effects, in which Allen is seamlessly inserted into vintage newsreels, are still astonishing, and draw out the aching tragicomedy of Zelig's plight. He's the original man who wasn't there." Calum Marsh of Slant magazine wrote, "We are infinitely pliable. That's the thesis of Zelig, Allen's wisest film, which has much to say about the way a person can be bent and contorted in the name of acceptance. Its ostensibly wacky conceit ... is grounded in an emotional and psychological reality all too familiar to shrug off as farce. We'll go very far out of our way to avoid conflict. Zelig seizes on that weakness and forces us to recognize it."
Awards and nominations
56th Academy Awards
Academy Award for Best Cinematography (Gordon Willis, nominee)
Academy Award for Best Costume Design (Santo Loquasto, nominee)
37th British Academy Film Awards
BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Special Visual Effects (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Editing (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Makeup (nominee)
Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen (nominee)
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Cinematography (Gordon Willis, nominee)
41st Golden Globe Awards
Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy (nominee)
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (Woody Allen, nominee)
Saturn Award for Best Direction (nominee)
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Cinematography (winner)
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress (Mia Farrow, winner; tied with Linda Hunt for The Year of Living Dangerously)
Belgian Film Critics Association: Grand Prix (winner)
David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Actor (Allen, winner)
Venice Film Festival Pasinetti Award for Best Film (winner)
Bodil Award for Best Non-European Film (winner)
Soundtrack
Leonard the Lizard (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Bernie Kuce, Steve Clayton and Tony Wells
Doin' the Chameleon (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Bernie Kuce, Steve Clayton and Tony Wells
Chameleon Days (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Performed by Mae Questel
You May Be Six People, But I Love You (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Bernie Kuce, Steve Clayton and Tony Wells
Reptile Eyes (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Rose Marie Jun
The Changing Man Concerto (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman
I've Got a Feeling I'm Falling (1929) - Music by Fats Waller (as Thomas 'Fats' Waller) and Harry Link - Sung by Roz Harris
I'm Sitting on Top of the World (1925) - Music by Ray Henderson - Sung by Norman Brooks
Ain't We Got Fun (1921) - Music by Richard A. Whiting - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
Sunny Side Up (1929) - Music and Lyrics by Ray Henderson, Lew Brown and Buddy G. DeSylva - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
I'll Get By (1928) - Music by Fred E. Ahlert - Performed by The Ben Bernie Orchestra
I Love My Baby, My Baby Loves Me (1925) - Music by Harry Warren - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
Runnin' Wild (1922) - Music by A.H. Gibbs - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
A Sailboat in the Moonlight (1937) - Written by Carmen Lombardo and John Jacob Loeb (as John Loeb) - Performed by The Guy Lombardo Orchestra
Charleston (1923) - Music by James P. Johnson - Performed by Dick Hyman
Chicago (That Toddlin' Town)(1922) - Written by Fred Fisher - Performed by Dick Hyman
Five Feet Two, Eyes of Blue (1925) - Music by Ray Henderson - Performed by Dick Hyman
Anchors Aweigh (1906) - Music by Charles A. Zimmerman - Modified by Domenico Savino (1950) - Performed by Dick Hyman
Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1908) - Music by Albert von Tilzer
The Internationale (1888) - Music by Pierre De Geyter
See also
Environmental dependency syndrome
The Belonging Kind
References
Bibliography
External links
American films
1983 films
American fantasy-comedy films
American independent films
American satirical films
American black-and-white films
1980s fantasy-comedy films
English-language films
Films directed by Woody Allen
Films set in the 1920s
Films set in 1928
Films set in 1929
Films set in the 1930s
Films set in 1930
Films set in 1931
Films set in 1932
Films set in New York City
Films shot in New Jersey
Great Depression films
American mockumentary films
Orion Pictures films
Films with screenplays by Woody Allen
Films produced by Robert Greenhut
Cultural depictions of Charles Lindbergh
Cultural depictions of Charlie Chaplin
Cultural depictions of Al Capone
Cultural depictions of William Randolph Hearst
Cultural depictions of Josephine Baker
Cultural depictions of Adolf Hitler
Cultural depictions of Hermann Göring
Cultural depictions of James Cagney
Cultural depictions of Babe Ruth
1983 comedy films | false | [
"Natural color was a term used in the beginning of film and later on in the 1920s, and early 1930s as a color film process that actually filmed color images, rather than a color tinted or colorized movie. The first natural color processes were in the 1900s and 1910s and were two color additive color processes or red and green missing primary color blue, one additive process of time was Kinemacolor. By the 1920s, subtractive color was mostly in use with such processes as Technicolor, Prizma and Multicolor, but Multicolor was mostly never in use in the late 1920s, Technicolor was mostly in use. The only one who cared to mess with Multicolor was William Fox, probably because Multicolor was more cheaper of a process and at the time in 1929 William Fox was in debt. The difference between additive color and subtractive color were that an additive color film required a special projector that could project two components of film at the same time, a green record and a red record. But additive color didn't required a special projector, the two pieces of film were chemically formed together and was projected in one strip of film.\n\nOne of the first movies to use subtractive color was a silent film titled Cupid Angling (1918). In 1932, Walt Disney made the first film to use a red, green and blue color process (Technicolor), Flowers and Trees. Three years later, the first feature length movie to be filmed entirely in 3-color Technicolor was Becky Sharp.\n\n1900-1909\n\n1910s\nThe first color features were made in the 1910s. The very first was With Our King and Queen Through India (1912). In 1917, Technicolor made their first film, a two-color additive film entitled The Gulf Between (1917), The Gulf Between was also the first color feature in America, but rather than being filmed in Hollywood it was actually filmed in Jacksonville Florida. Today The Gulf Between is lost.\n\n1920s\nIn 1922, Technicolor made their second feature and also the first movie made in their second color process, called process 2. The movie was The Toll of the Sea. It was the first color feature made in Hollywood. The movie starred Anna May Wong. Wong never thought the movie would ever make it to the screen, but it did. In 1923, Paramount Pictures made the Cecil B. De Mille partial Technicolor epic The Ten Commandments, which would be remade 33 years later by DeMille in 1956, also in color by Technicolor. Also in 1923, Prizma was used to film the 1923 version of Vanity Fair. The third feature to be filmed entirely in color by Technicolor was Wanderer of the Wasteland, today a lost film, released in 1924. It was advertised as being filmed in 100% Natural Color. Technicolor made many more silent films in color through the years, but in 1929, the first talking picture to use a color (Technicolor) sequence was The Broadway Melody. The color hues of that sequence are lost; the sequence only survives in black-and-white television prints from the 1950s. That year, Warner Bros. made the first all color-all talking movie, On with the Show, which also only survives in black and white, with only a small fragment of surviving color, found in 2005. Later in 1929, the first color talking movies were being made, such as Paris (Warner Bros.), Rio Rita (RKO, first RKO color movie, color sequenced), Sally (Warner Bros., third all-color, all-talking feature), Gold Diggers of Broadway (Warner Bros., second all-color, all-talking feature), The Hollywood Revue (MGM's second musical, after The Broadway Melody) and many more. Most of the color talking movies made in 1929 mostly survive in 1950s black-and-white television copies or with color sequences cut. In 1929, Technicolor was so busy filming color movies that the Warner Bros. musical revue The Show of Shows (1929), which was originally going to be filmed in full color, had to be filmed only mostly in color, with 21 minutes in black and white, a seventeen-minute section of part one and a four-minute opening of part two. While most companies used Technicolor, William Fox, owner of Fox Movie Corporation, used Multicolor.\n\n1930s\nColor movies released in 1930 included The Life of the Party (Warner Bros.), Under a Texas Moon (Warner Bros.), Children of Pleasure (MGM), Chasing Rainbows (MGM), Show Girl in Hollywood (Warner Bros., one of Al Jolson's first color appearances), Viennese Nights (Warner Bros.), Hit the Deck (RKO Radio Pictures), and Leathernecking (RKO), The Cuckoos (RKO). Like 1929, the original color negatives for many movies of the year are considered lost and only survive in black-and-white due to the studios wanting more space in their film vaults so they threw away the films and aired them on black-and-white television before, but some color movies from this time have been found throughout the years.\n\nIn 1932, Walt Disney released the first three-color Technicolor film, Flowers and Trees. 1939, which is considered by many film buffs as Hollywood's greatest year, had hits in color, such as The Wizard of Oz, The Women, Dodge City and the most successful of them all, Gone with the Wind.\n\nColor film processes\nProcess has been explained in a 1940 publishing, and in a 2013 historic overview.\n\nSee also\n List of early color feature films \n His Supreme Moment (1925)\n\nReferences\n\nFilm and video technology",
"Letters in the Wind () is a 2002 critically acclaimed Iranian film. It was the directorial debut of Ali Reza-Amini.\n\nStoryline\nThe story of the movie follows a group of newbie recruits to the Iranian Army, and their life in boot camp. It follows the lives of two of the soldiers, Taghi and Faramarz (eponymous actors), while the rest of the cast are deliberately left anonymous. It follows one of the soldiers (Taghi) on a day's leave to Tehran after he wins a bayonet-hoisting competition. The boot camp incidents center on a cassette recording of an unknown female voice, which everyone in camp takes turns to listen to. The Tehran furlough incidents center on the soldier Taghi playing back recorded messages on the phone to the family of each of the recruits at boot camp, recording the sounds of the city on cassette, and missing connections and getting into trouble due to his social ineptness. The movie ends after showing the discovery of the tapes recorded in Tehran by camp officials, and the news of the breakup of Faramarz and his girlfriend.\n\nDirection\nThe movie is directed in a crisp, unemotional, documentary style of narration, with little music, with the exception of street music in Tehran, and marching music at the training camp (notably the Colonel Bogey March). Tersely made, the film is however full of candid humor.\n\nControversy\nThe original 35 mm color version of the film was banned by the Government of Iran when the movie released in 2002. The movie was released in a gray tone digital version in the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival. The director based some parts of the movie on his own experiences in the Iran–Iraq War, referring to the movie as being made in the \"belly of the army\".\n\nReviews\nNeil Young's Film Lounge\n\nExternal links \n \n\nIranian films\n2002 films\nPersian-language films\n2002 directorial debut films"
] |
[
"Zelig",
"Production",
"How did they make the film look like newsreels of the 1920s?",
"Allen and cinematographer Gordon Willis used a variety of techniques, including locating some of the antique film cameras and lenses used during the eras",
"Did they actually use any old footage?",
"even going so far as to simulate damage, such as crinkles and scratches, on the negatives to make the finished product look more like vintage footage.",
"Who appears in the old footage?",
"The film uses cameo appearances by real figures from academia and other fields for comic effect.",
"Can you name some of the academic figures?",
"They include essayist Susan Sontag, psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow,",
"Are there any famous people of the era that appear in the movie?",
"Charles Lindbergh, Al Capone, Clara Bow, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, Charlie Chaplin, Josephine Baker, Fanny Brice, Carole Lombard, Dolores del Rio,",
"Were the effects easy to pull off?",
"The virtually seamless blending of old and new footage was achieved almost a decade before digital filmmaking technology made such techniques in films like Forrest Gump",
"Are any parts of the movie in color?",
"Allen used newsreel footage and inserted himself and other actors into the footage using bluescreen technology."
] | C_35e7452d26f2429e88ea03bb56cf71e1_1 | Besides the celebrities that you listed, are there any more in the film? | 8 | Besides the celebrities that you listed, are there any more in the film of Zelig, Production?? | Zelig | Allen used newsreel footage and inserted himself and other actors into the footage using bluescreen technology. To provide an authentic look to his scenes, Allen and cinematographer Gordon Willis used a variety of techniques, including locating some of the antique film cameras and lenses used during the eras depicted in the film, and even going so far as to simulate damage, such as crinkles and scratches, on the negatives to make the finished product look more like vintage footage. The virtually seamless blending of old and new footage was achieved almost a decade before digital filmmaking technology made such techniques in films like Forrest Gump (1994) and various television advertisements much easier to accomplish. The film uses cameo appearances by real figures from academia and other fields for comic effect. Contrasting the film's vintage black-and-white film footage, these persons appear in color segments as themselves, commenting in the present day on the Zelig phenomenon as if it really happened. They include essayist Susan Sontag, psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow, political writer Irving Howe, historian John Morton Blum, and the Paris nightclub owner Bricktop. Also appearing in the film's vintage footage are Charles Lindbergh, Al Capone, Clara Bow, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, Charlie Chaplin, Josephine Baker, Fanny Brice, Carole Lombard, Dolores del Rio, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Goring, James Cagney, Jimmy Walker, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Adolphe Menjou, Claire Windsor, Tom Mix, Marie Dressler, Bobby Jones, and Pope Pius XI. In the time it took to complete the film's special effects, Allen filmed A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy and Broadway Danny Rose. CANNOTANSWER | Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Goring, James Cagney, Jimmy Walker, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Adolphe Menjou, | Zelig is a 1983 American mockumentary film written and directed by Woody Allen and starring Allen and Mia Farrow. Allen plays Leonard Zelig, a nondescript enigma, who, apparently out of his desire to fit in and be liked, unwittingly takes on the characteristics of strong personalities around him. The film, presented as a documentary, recounts his period of intense celebrity in the 1920s, including analyses by contemporary intellectuals.
The film was nominated for numerous awards, including the Academy Awards for Best Cinematography and Costume Design. It was well received by critics, receiving a 100% rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
Style
Zelig was photographed and narrated in the style of 1920s black-and-white newsreels, which are interwoven with archival footage from the era and re-enactments of real historical events. Color segments from the present day include interviews of real and fictional personages, including Saul Bellow and Susan Sontag.
Plot
Set in the 1920s and 1930s, the film concerns Leonard Zelig (Woody Allen), a nondescript man who has the ability to transform his appearance to that of the people who surround him. He is first observed at a party by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who notes that Zelig related to the affluent guests in a refined Boston accent and shared their Republican sympathies, but while in the kitchen with the servants, he adopted a coarser tone and seemed to be more of a Democrat. He soon gains international fame as a "human chameleon".
Interviewed in one of the witness shots, Bruno Bettelheim makes the following comment:
Dr. Eudora Fletcher (Mia Farrow) is a psychiatrist who wants to help Zelig with this strange disorder when he is admitted to her hospital. Through the use of hypnotism, she discovers Zelig yearns for approval so strongly that he physically changes to fit in with those around him. Dr. Fletcher eventually cures Zelig of his compulsion to assimilate, but goes too far in the other direction; for a brief period he is so intolerant of others' opinions that he gets into a brawl over whether or not it is a nice day.
Dr. Fletcher realizes that she is falling in love with Zelig. Because of the media coverage of the case, both patient and doctor become part of the popular culture of their time. However, fame is the main cause of their division. Numerous women claim that he married and impregnated them, causing a public scandal. The same society that made Zelig a hero destroys him.
Zelig's illness returns, and he tries to fit in once more, before he disappears. Dr. Fletcher finds him in Germany working with the Nazis before the outbreak of World War II. Together they escape, as Zelig uses his ability to imitate one more time, mimicking Fletcher's piloting skills and flying them back home across the Atlantic upside down. They eventually return to America, where they are proclaimed heroes and marry to live full happy lives.
Cast
With Susan Sontag, Irving Howe, Saul Bellow, Bricktop, Dr. Bruno Bettelheim, and Professor John Morton Blum as themselves.
Production
Allen used newsreel footage, and inserted himself and other actors into it, using bluescreen technology. To provide an authentic look to his scenes, Allen and cinematographer Gordon Willis used a variety of techniques, including locating some of the antique film cameras and lenses used during the eras depicted in the film, and even going so far as to simulate damage, such as crinkles and scratches, on the negatives to make the finished product look more like vintage footage. The virtually seamless blending of old and new footage was achieved almost a decade before digital filmmaking technology made such techniques in films like Forrest Gump (1994) and various television advertisements much easier to accomplish.
The film uses cameo appearances by real figures from academia and other fields for comic effect. Contrasting the film's vintage black-and-white film footage, these persons appear in color segments as themselves, commenting in the present day on the Zelig phenomenon as if it really happened. They include essayist Susan Sontag, psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow, political writer Irving Howe, historian John Morton Blum, and the Paris nightclub owner Bricktop.
Also appearing in the film's vintage footage are Charles Lindbergh, Al Capone, Clara Bow, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, Charlie Chaplin, Josephine Baker, Fanny Brice, Carole Lombard, Dolores del Río, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Göring, James Cagney, Jimmy Walker, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Adolphe Menjou, Claire Windsor, Tom Mix, Marie Dressler, Bobby Jones, and Pope Pius XI.
In the time it took to complete the film's special effects, Allen filmed A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy and Broadway Danny Rose. This is Orion Pictures' last film to be released through Warner Bros.
Release
Before being shown at the Venice Film Festival, the film opened on six screens in the US and grossed US$60,119 on its opening weekend; it eventually earned US$11.8 million in North America.
Critical reaction
Zelig has an approval rating of 100% on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 27 reviews, with an average score of 8/10. The site's consensus reads: "Wryly amusing, technically impressive, and ultimately thought-provoking, Zelig represents Woody Allen in complete command of his craft".
In his review in the New York Times, Vincent Canby observed:
Variety said the film was "consistently funny, though more academic than boulevardier", and the Christian Science Monitor called it "amazingly funny and poignant". Time Out described it as "a strong contender for Allen's most fascinating film", while TV Guide said, "Allen's ongoing struggles with psychoanalysis and his Jewish identity – stridently literal preoccupations in most of his work – are for once rendered allegorically. The result is deeply satisfying". Gene Siskel gave the film two stars out of four, calling it "a beautifully made but slight fable." Pauline Kael wrote that when the film was over "I felt good, but I was still a little hungry for a movie. There's a reason 'Zelig' seems small; there aren't any characters in it, not even Zelig."
Colin Greenland reviewed Zelig for Imagine magazine, and stated that "Woody Allen's most irresistable film for quite a while. He has found a new way to make fun of his own neuroses without exposing us to the egoism which became so overbearing in Manhattan or Stardust Memories."
It ranked 588th among critics, and 546th among directors, in the 2012 Sight & Sound polls of the greatest films ever made. Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly listed the work as one of Allen's finest, lauding it as "a spot-on homage to vintage newsreels and a seamless exercise in technique." The Daily Telegraph film critics Robbie Collin and Tim Robey also named it as a career highlight and argued, "The special effects, in which Allen is seamlessly inserted into vintage newsreels, are still astonishing, and draw out the aching tragicomedy of Zelig's plight. He's the original man who wasn't there." Calum Marsh of Slant magazine wrote, "We are infinitely pliable. That's the thesis of Zelig, Allen's wisest film, which has much to say about the way a person can be bent and contorted in the name of acceptance. Its ostensibly wacky conceit ... is grounded in an emotional and psychological reality all too familiar to shrug off as farce. We'll go very far out of our way to avoid conflict. Zelig seizes on that weakness and forces us to recognize it."
Awards and nominations
56th Academy Awards
Academy Award for Best Cinematography (Gordon Willis, nominee)
Academy Award for Best Costume Design (Santo Loquasto, nominee)
37th British Academy Film Awards
BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Special Visual Effects (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Editing (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Makeup (nominee)
Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen (nominee)
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Cinematography (Gordon Willis, nominee)
41st Golden Globe Awards
Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy (nominee)
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (Woody Allen, nominee)
Saturn Award for Best Direction (nominee)
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Cinematography (winner)
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress (Mia Farrow, winner; tied with Linda Hunt for The Year of Living Dangerously)
Belgian Film Critics Association: Grand Prix (winner)
David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Actor (Allen, winner)
Venice Film Festival Pasinetti Award for Best Film (winner)
Bodil Award for Best Non-European Film (winner)
Soundtrack
Leonard the Lizard (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Bernie Kuce, Steve Clayton and Tony Wells
Doin' the Chameleon (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Bernie Kuce, Steve Clayton and Tony Wells
Chameleon Days (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Performed by Mae Questel
You May Be Six People, But I Love You (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Bernie Kuce, Steve Clayton and Tony Wells
Reptile Eyes (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman - Sung by Rose Marie Jun
The Changing Man Concerto (1983) - Composed by Dick Hyman
I've Got a Feeling I'm Falling (1929) - Music by Fats Waller (as Thomas 'Fats' Waller) and Harry Link - Sung by Roz Harris
I'm Sitting on Top of the World (1925) - Music by Ray Henderson - Sung by Norman Brooks
Ain't We Got Fun (1921) - Music by Richard A. Whiting - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
Sunny Side Up (1929) - Music and Lyrics by Ray Henderson, Lew Brown and Buddy G. DeSylva - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
I'll Get By (1928) - Music by Fred E. Ahlert - Performed by The Ben Bernie Orchestra
I Love My Baby, My Baby Loves Me (1925) - Music by Harry Warren - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
Runnin' Wild (1922) - Music by A.H. Gibbs - Performed by The Charleston City All Stars
A Sailboat in the Moonlight (1937) - Written by Carmen Lombardo and John Jacob Loeb (as John Loeb) - Performed by The Guy Lombardo Orchestra
Charleston (1923) - Music by James P. Johnson - Performed by Dick Hyman
Chicago (That Toddlin' Town)(1922) - Written by Fred Fisher - Performed by Dick Hyman
Five Feet Two, Eyes of Blue (1925) - Music by Ray Henderson - Performed by Dick Hyman
Anchors Aweigh (1906) - Music by Charles A. Zimmerman - Modified by Domenico Savino (1950) - Performed by Dick Hyman
Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1908) - Music by Albert von Tilzer
The Internationale (1888) - Music by Pierre De Geyter
See also
Environmental dependency syndrome
The Belonging Kind
References
Bibliography
External links
American films
1983 films
American fantasy-comedy films
American independent films
American satirical films
American black-and-white films
1980s fantasy-comedy films
English-language films
Films directed by Woody Allen
Films set in the 1920s
Films set in 1928
Films set in 1929
Films set in the 1930s
Films set in 1930
Films set in 1931
Films set in 1932
Films set in New York City
Films shot in New Jersey
Great Depression films
American mockumentary films
Orion Pictures films
Films with screenplays by Woody Allen
Films produced by Robert Greenhut
Cultural depictions of Charles Lindbergh
Cultural depictions of Charlie Chaplin
Cultural depictions of Al Capone
Cultural depictions of William Randolph Hearst
Cultural depictions of Josephine Baker
Cultural depictions of Adolf Hitler
Cultural depictions of Hermann Göring
Cultural depictions of James Cagney
Cultural depictions of Babe Ruth
1983 comedy films | false | [
"Celebrity is a condition of fame and broad public recognition of an individual or group as a result of the attention given to them by mass media. A person may attain a celebrity status from having great wealth, their participation in sports or the entertainment industry, their position as a political figure, or even from their connection to another celebrity. 'Celebrity' usually implies a favorable public image, as opposed to the neutrals 'famous' or 'notable', or the negatives 'infamous' and 'notorious'.\n\nHistory\nIn his 2020 book Dead Famous: an unexpected history of celebrity, British historian Greg Jenner uses the definition:\n\nAlthough his book is subtitled \"from Bronze Age to Silver Screen\", and despite the fact that \"Until very recently, sociologists argued that celebrity was invented just over 100 years ago, in the flickering glimmer of early Hollywood\" and the suggestion that some medieval saints might qualify, Jenner asserts that the earliest celebrities lived in the early 1700s, his first example being Henry Sacheverell.\n\nAthletes in Ancient Greece were welcomed home as heroes, had songs and poems written in their honor, and received free food and gifts from those seeking celebrity endorsement. Ancient Rome similarly lauded actors and notorious gladiators, and Julius Caesar appeared on a coin in his own lifetime (a departure from the usual depiction of battles and divine lineage).\n\nIn the early 12th century, Thomas Becket became famous following his murder. He was promoted by the Christian Church as a martyr and images of him and scenes from his life became widespread in just a few years. In a pattern often repeated, what started as an explosion of popularity (often referred to with the suffix 'mania') turned into long-lasting fame: pilgrimages to Canterbury Cathedral where he was killed became instantly fashionable and the fascination with his life and death have inspired plays and films.\n\nThe cult of personality (particularly in the west) can be traced back to the Romantics in the 18th century, whose livelihood as artists and poets depended on the currency of their reputation. The establishment of cultural hot-spots became an important factor in the process of generating fame: for example, London and Paris in the 18th and 19th centuries. Newspapers started including gossip columns and certain clubs and events became places to be seen in order to receive publicity.\n\nTheatrical actors were often celebrities. Restaurants near theaters, where actors would congregate, began putting up caricatures or photographs of actors on celebrity walls in the late 19th century.\n\nThe movie industry spread around the globe in the first half of the 20th century and now, the familiar concept of the instantly recognizable faces of its superstars. Yet, celebrity was not always tied to actors in films, especially when cinema was starting as a medium. As Paul McDonald states in The Star System: Hollywood's Production of Popular Identities, \"in the first decade of the twentieth century, American film production companies withheld the names of film performers, despite requests from audiences, fearing that public recognition would drive performers to demand higher salaries.\" Public fascination went well beyond the on-screen exploits of movie stars and their private lives became headline news: for example, in Hollywood the marriages of Elizabeth Taylor and in Bollywood the affairs of Raj Kapoor in the 1950s. Like theatrical actors before them, movie actors were the subjects of celebrity walls in restaurants they frequented, near movie studios, most notably at Sardi's in Hollywood.\n\nThe second half of the century saw television and popular music bring new forms of celebrity, such as the rock star and the pop group, epitomised by Elvis Presley and the Beatles, respectively. John Lennon's highly controversial 1966 quote: \"We're more popular than Jesus now,\" which he later insisted was not a boast, and that he was not in any way comparing himself with Christ, gives an insight into both the adulation and notoriety that fame can bring. Unlike movies, television created celebrities who were not primarily actors; for example, presenters, talk show hosts, and newsreaders. However, most of these are only famous within the regions reached by their particular broadcaster, and only a few such as Oprah Winfrey, Jerry Springer, or David Frost could be said to have broken through into wider stardom.\n\nIn the '60s and early '70s, the book publishing industry began to persuade major celebrities to put their names on autobiographies and other titles in a genre called celebrity publishing. In most cases, the book was not written by the celebrity but by a ghost-writer, but the celebrity would then be available for a book tour and appearances on talk shows.\n\nProcess\n\nPeople may become celebrities in a wide range of ways; from their professions, following appearances in the media, or by complete accident. The term \"instant celebrity\" describes someone who becomes a celebrity in a very short time. Someone who achieves a small amount of transient fame (through, say, hype or mass media) may become labeled a \"B-grade celebrity\". Often, the generalization extends to someone who falls short of mainstream or persistent fame but who seeks to extend or exploit it.\n\nSuccess\nThere are no guarantees of successful celebrities. Besides exceptions, most celebrities are associated with the fields of sports, entertainment and politics.\n\nThough glamour and wealth may certainly play a role for only famous celebrities, most people in the sports and entertainments spheres live in obscurity and only a small percentage achieve fame and fortune.\n\nOutside of the sports and entertainment sphere, the top inventors, doctors, lawyers and scientists are unlikely to become celebrities even if they are enormously successful in their field due to society's disinterest in science, invention, medicine, and courtroom law which is not fictional. American microbiologist Maurice Hilleman is credited with saving more lives than any other medical scientist of the 20th century.\n\nFailure\n\nMany athletes who are unable to turn professional take a second job or even sometimes abandon their athletic aspirations in order to make ends meet. A small percentage of entertainers and athletes can make a decent living, but a vast majority will spend their careers toiling from hard work, determination, rejection, and frequent unemployment. For minor league to amateur athletes, earnings are usually on the lower end of the pay-scale. Many of them take second jobs on the side or even venture into other occupations within the field of sports such as coaching, general management, refereeing, or recruiting and scouting up-and-coming athletes.\n\nUnited States\n\nThe Screen Actors Guild, a union representing actors and actresses throughout Hollywood reports that the average television and film actor earns less than US$50,000 annually; the median hourly wage for actors was $18.80 in May 2015. Actors sometimes alternate between theater, television, and film or even branch into other occupations within the entertainment industry such as becoming a singer, comedian, producer, or a television host in order to be monetarily diversified, as doing one gig pays comparatively very little. For instance, David Letterman is well known for branching into late night television as a talk show host while honing his skills as a stand-up comedian, Barbra Streisand ventured into acting while operating as a singer, and Clint Eastwood achieved even greater fame in Hollywood as a film director and producer than for his acting credentials.\n\nAccording to American entertainment magnate Master P, entertainers and professional athletes make up less than 1% of all millionaires in the entire world. Less than 1% of all runway models are known to make more than US$1000 for every fashion showcase. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median wage for commercial and print models was only $11.22 per hour in 2006 and was also listed one of the top ten worst jobs in the United States.\n\nWealth\n\nForbes Celebrity 100\n\nForbes Magazine releases an annual Forbes Celebrity 100 list of the highest-paid celebrities in the world. The total earnings for all top celebrity 100 earners totaled $4.5 billion in 2010 alone.\n\nFor instance, Forbes ranked media mogul and talk show host, Oprah Winfrey as the top earner \"Forbes magazine’s annual ranking of the most powerful celebrities\", with earnings of $290 million in the past year. Forbes cites that Lady Gaga reportedly earned over $90 million in 2010. In 2011, golfer Tiger Woods was one of highest-earning celebrity athletes, with an income of $74 million and is consistently ranked one of the highest-paid athletes in the world. In 2013, Madonna was ranked as the fifth most powerful and the highest-earning celebrity of the year with earnings of $125 million. She has consistently been among the most powerful and highest-earning celebrities in the world, occupying the third place in Forbes Celebrity 100 2009 with $110 million of earnings, and getting the tenth place in the 2011 edition of the list with annual earnings equal to $58 million. Beyoncé has also appeared in the top ten in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2017, and topped the list in 2014 with earnings of $115 million.\n\nEntrepreneurship and endorsements\n\nCelebrity endorsements have proven very successful around the world where, due to increasing consumerism, a person owns a status symbol by purchasing a celebrity-endorsed product. Although it has become commonplace for celebrities to place their name with endorsements onto products just for quick money, some celebrities have gone beyond merely using their names and have put their entrepreneurial spirit to work by becoming entrepreneurs by attaching themselves in the business aspects of entertainment and building their own business brand beyond their traditional salaried activities. Along with investing their salaried wages into growing business endeavors, several celebrities have become innovative business leaders in their respective industries, gaining the admiration of their peers and contributing to the country's economy.\n\nNumerous celebrities have ventured into becoming business moguls and established themselves as entrepreneurs, idolizing many well known American business leaders such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. For instance, basketball legend Michael Jordan became an active entrepreneur involved with many sports-related ventures including investing a minority stake in the Charlotte Bobcats, Paul Newman started his own salad dressing business after leaving behind a distinguished acting career, and rap musician Birdman started his own record label, clothing line, and an oil business while maintaining a career as a rap artist. Brazilian football legend and World Cup winner Ronaldo became the majority owner of La Liga club Real Valladolid in 2018. Other celebrities such as Tyler Perry, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg have become successful entrepreneurs through starting their own film production companies and running their own movie studios beyond their traditional activities of screenwriting, directing, animating, producing, and acting.\n\nVarious examples of celebrity turned entrepreneurs included in the table below are:\n\nTabloid magazines and talk TV shows bestow a great deal of attention to celebrities. To stay in the public eye and build wealth in addition to their salaried labor, numerous celebrities have participating and branching into various business ventures and endorsements. Many celebrities have participated in many different endorsement opportunities that include: animation, publishing, fashion designing, cosmetics, consumer electronics, household items and appliances, cigarettes, soft drinks and alcoholic beverages, hair care, hairdressing, jewelry design, fast food, credit cards, video games, writing, and toys.\n\nIn addition to various endorsements, some celebrities have been involved with some business and investment-related ventures also include: and toddler related items, sports team ownership, fashion retailing, establishments such as restaurants, cafes, hotels, and casinos, movie theaters, advertising and event planning, management-related ventures such as sports management, financial services, model management, and talent management, record labels, film production, television production, publishing such as book and music publishing, massage therapy, salons, health and fitness, and real estate.\n\nAlthough some celebrities have achieved additional financial success from various business ventures, the vast majority of celebrities are not successful businesspeople and still rely on salaried labored wages to earn a living. Most businesses and investments are well known to have a 90 to 95 percent failure rate within the first five years of operation. Not all celebrities eventually succeed with their businesses and other related side ventures. Some celebrities either went broke or filed for bankruptcy as a result of dabbling with such side businesses or endorsements. Though some might question such validity since celebrities themselves are already well known, have mass appeal, and are well exposed to the general public. The average entrepreneur who is not well known and reputable to the general public does not the same marketing flexibility and status-quo as most celebrities allow and have. Therefore, compared to the average person who starts a business, celebrities already have all the cards and odds stacked in their favor. This means they can have an unfair advantage to expose their business ventures and endorsements and can easily capture a more significant amount of market share than the average entrepreneur.\n\nMass media phenomena\n\nCelebrities often have fame comparable to royalty. As a result, there is a strong public curiosity about their private affairs. The release of Kim Kardashian's sex tape with rapper Ray J in 2003 brought her to a new level of fame, leading to magazine covers, book deals, and reality TV series.\n\nCelebrities may be resented for their accolades, and the public may have a love/hate relationship with celebrities. Due to the high visibility of celebrities' private lives, their successes and shortcomings are often made very public. Celebrities are alternately portrayed as glowing examples of perfection, when they garner awards, or as decadent or immoral if they become associated with a scandal. When seen in a positive light, celebrities are frequently portrayed as possessing skills and abilities beyond average people; for example, celebrity actors are routinely celebrated for acquiring new skills necessary for filming a role within a very brief time, and to a level that amazes the professionals who train them. Similarly, some celebrities with very little formal education can sometimes be portrayed as experts on complicated issues. Some celebrities have been very vocal about their political views. For example, Matt Damon expressed his displeasure with 2008 US vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, as well as with the 2011 United States debt-ceiling crisis.\n\nFamous for being famous\n\nFamous for being famous, in popular culture terminology, refers to someone who attains celebrity status for no particular identifiable reason, or who achieves fame through association with a celebrity. The term is a pejorative, suggesting the target has no particular talents or abilities. Even when their fame arises from a particular talent or action on their part, the term will sometimes still apply if their fame is perceived as disproportionate to what they earned through their own talent or work.\n\nThe coinages \"famesque\" and \"celebutante\" are of similar pejorative gist.\n\nInternet\nAlso known as being internet famous, contemporary fame does not always involve a physical red carpet.\n\nAsia\nA report by BBC highlighted a longtime trend of Asian internet celebrities such as Chinese celebrity Wang Hong (birth name Ling Ling). According to BBC, there are two kinds of online celebrities in China—those who create original content, such as Papi Jiang, who is regularly censored by Chinese authorities for cursing in her videos, and those such as Wang Hong and Zhang Dayi, who fall under the second category, as they have clothing and cosmetics businesses on Taobao, China's equivalent of Amazon.\n\nSocial networking and video hosting\nMost high-profile celebrities participate in social networking services and photo or video hosting platforms such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. Social networking services allow celebrities to communicate directly with their fans, removing the middle-man known as traditional media.Through social media many persons outside entartainment and sports sphere become celebrity in their own sphere. Social media humanizes celebrities in a way that arouses public fascination as evident by the success of magazines such as Us Weekly and People Weekly. Celebrity blogging have also spawned stars such as Perez Hilton who is well known for not only blogging but also outing celebrities.\n\nSocial media and the rise of the smartphone have changed how celebrities are treated and how people gain the platform of fame. Not everything is as concealed as it was back in old Hollywood because now everything is put out on the internet by fans or even the celebrity themselves. Websites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube allow people to become a celebrity overnight. For example, Justin Bieber got his start on YouTube by posting videos of him singing and got discovered. All of his fans got direct contact with his content and were able to interact with him on several social media platforms. Social media has substantially changed what it means to be a celebrity. Instagram and YouTube allow regular people to become rich and famous all from inside their home. It also allows fans to connect with their favorite celebrity without ever meeting them in person. Everything is being shared on social media so it makes it harder for celebrities to live private lives.\n\nSocial media sites have also contributed to the fame of some celebrities, such as Tila Tequila who became known through MySpace.\n\nFamilies\n\nAnother example of a celebrity is a family that has notable ancestors or is known for its wealth. In some cases, a well-known family is associated with a particular field. For example, the Kennedy family is associated with US politics; The House of Windsor with royalty; The Hilton and Rothschild families with business; the Jackson family with popular music; and the Osbourne, Chaplin, Kardashian, Baldwin, and Barrymore families with television and film.\n\nAccess restriction\nAccess to celebrities is strictly controlled by their entourage of staff which includes managers, publicists, agents, personal assistants, and bodyguards. Even journalists find it difficult to access celebrities for interviews. Writer and actor Michael Musto said, \"You have to go through many hoops just to talk to a major celebrity. You have to get past three different sets of publicists: the publicist for the event, the publicist for the movie, and then the celebrity's personal publicist. They all have to approve you.\"\n\nCelebrities often hire one or more bodyguards (or close protection officer) to protect themselves and their families from threats ranging from the mundane (intrusive paparazzi photographers or autograph-seeking fans) to serious (assault, kidnapping, assassination, or stalking). The bodyguard travels with the celebrity during professional activities (movie shoots or concerts) and personal activities such as recreation and errands.\n\nCelebrities also typically have security staff at their home, to protect them from similar threats.\n\nFifteen minutes of fame\n\n\"15 minutes of fame\" is a phrase often used in reference to short-lived publicity, and mistakenly attributed to Andy Warhol. Certain \"15 minutes of fame\" celebrities can be average people seen with an A-list celebrity, who are sometimes noticed on entertainment news channels such as E! News. These persons are ordinary people becoming celebrities, often based on the ridiculous things they do. \"In fact, many reality show contestants fall into this category: the only thing that qualifies them to be on TV is that they're real.\"\n\nHealth implications\n\nJohn Cleese said being famous offers some advantages such as financial wealth and easier access to things that are more difficult for non-famous people to access, such as the ability to more easily meet other famous or powerful people, but that being famous also often comes with the disadvantage of creating the conditions in which the celebrity finds themselves acting, at least temporarily (although sometimes over extended periods of time), in a superficial, inauthentic fashion.\n\nCommon threats such as stalking have spawned celebrity worship syndrome where a person becomes overly involved with the details of a celebrity's personal life. Psychologists have indicated that though many people obsess over glamorous film, television, sport and music stars, the disparity in salaries in society seems to value professional athletes and entertainment industry-based professionals. One study found that singers, musicians, actors and athletes die younger on average than writers, composers, academics, politicians and businesspeople, with a greater incidence of cancer and especially lung cancer. However, it was remarked that the reasons for this remained unclear, with theories including innate tendencies towards risk-taking as well as the pressure or opportunities of particular types of fame.\n\nFame might have negative psychological effects, and may lead to increasingly selfish tendencies and psychopathy. An academic study on the subject said that fame has an addictive quality to it. When a celebrity's fame recedes over time, the celebrity may find it difficult to adjust psychologically.\n\nRecently, there has been more attention toward the impact celebrities have on health decisions of the population at large. It is believed that the public will follow celebrities' health advice to some extent. This can have positive impacts when the celebrities give solid, evidence-informed health advice, however, it can also have detrimental effects if the health advice is not accurate enough.\n\nSee also\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography\n Goldman, Jonathan (2011) Modernism Is the Literature of Celebrity. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011. \n Grinin, Leonid (2009) \"'People of Celebrity' as a New Social Stratum and Elite\". In Hierarchy and Power in the History of Civilizations: Cultural Dimensions (pp. 183–206). Ed. by Leonid E. Grinin and Andrey V. Korotayev. Moscow: KRASAND/Editorial URSS, 2009.\n \n Schikel, Richard. Intimate Strangers: The Culture of Celebrity. New York: Doubleday, 1985.\n\nFurther reading\n\nExternal links",
"Alia Bhatt is a British-Indian actress who is known for her work in Hindi films. She is the recipient of four Filmfare Awards: one Best Actress (Critics) for the road film Highway (2014) and three Best Actress for the crime drama Udta Punjab (2016), the spy thriller Raazi (2018) and the musical drama Gully Boy (2019). She has received additional Filmfare nominations for Best Actress for Highway (2014), the coming-of-age film Dear Zindagi (2016), and the romantic comedy Badrinath Ki Dulhania (2017); and for Best Female Debut for Student of the Year (2012).\n\nBhatt was awarded the Screen Award and IIFA Award for Best Actress for Udta Punjab (2016), and won the Zee Cine Award for Best Actor – Female for Badrinath Ki Dulhania (2017), Raazi (2018) and Gully Boy (2019), For Raazi (2018), she won a second Screen Award and second IIFA Award for Best Actress. She won her third Screen Award for Gully Boy (2019).\n\nFilm awards\n\n2010s\n\n2020s\n\nVogue Beauty Award \n2013 : Fresh face of the year\n2019 : Beauty Icon\n\nVogue Women of the Year Awards\n2019 : Performer Of The Year\n2018 : Vogue and Lamborghini Youth Icon Of The year\n\nGQ Awards\n2018 : Most Stylish women\n\nHT India's Most Stylish Awards\n2016 : The Readers' Choice Award (Female)\n2018 : Most Stylish Actress Jury Choice (Female)\n\nHT Mumbai's Most Stylish Awards \n2017 : Most Stylish Trendsetter (Female)\n\nMedia honours\n2020\n\n• Listed in Forbes Ashia's 100 Digital Star.\n\nOther honours\n\n2017\n\n• Listed in Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia• Listed in Forbes India top 100 celebrities\n\n2018\n\n• Listed in Forbes India top 100 celebrities\n\n2019\n\n• Grabs the top spot in Times most desirable Women 2018.\n\n• Second Most searched female actor \n\n• Listed in Forbes India top 10 celebrities\n\n• Features in top 25 Powerful Indian women of femina power list.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\nBhatt, Alia"
] |
[
"Stephen Toulmin",
"The revival of casuistry"
] | C_39171226d43d45c89767c5e5ddc904ba_0 | what was the revival of casuistry? | 1 | What was the revival of casuistry? | Stephen Toulmin | By reviving casuistry (also known as case ethics), Toulmin sought to find the middle ground between the extremes of absolutism and relativism. Casuistry was practiced widely during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to resolve moral issues. Although casuistry largely fell silent during the modern period, in The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), Toulmin collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen to demonstrate the effectiveness of casuistry in practical argumentation during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, effectively reviving it as a permissible method of argument. Casuistry employs absolutist principles, called "type cases" or "paradigm cases," without resorting to absolutism. It uses the standard principles (for example, sanctity of life) as referential markers in moral arguments. An individual case is then compared and contrasted with the type case. Given an individual case that is completely identical to the type case, moral judgments can be made immediately using the standard moral principles advocated in the type case. If the individual case differs from the type case, the differences will be critically assessed in order to arrive at a rational claim. Through the procedure of casuistry, Toulmin and Jonsen identified three problematic situations in moral reasoning: first, the type case fits the individual case only ambiguously; second, two type cases apply to the same individual case in conflicting ways; third, an unprecedented individual case occurs, which cannot be compared or contrasted to any type case. Through the use of casuistry, Toulmin demonstrated and reinforced his previous emphasis on the significance of comparison to moral arguments, a significance not addressed in theories of absolutism or relativism. CANNOTANSWER | By reviving casuistry (also known as case ethics), Toulmin sought to find the middle ground between the extremes of absolutism and relativism. | Stephen Edelston Toulmin (; 25 March 1922 – 4 December 2009) was a British philosopher, author, and educator. Influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Toulmin devoted his works to the analysis of moral reasoning. Throughout his writings, he sought to develop practical arguments which can be used effectively in evaluating the ethics behind moral issues. His works were later found useful in the field of rhetoric for analyzing rhetorical arguments. The Toulmin model of argumentation, a diagram containing six interrelated components used for analyzing arguments, and published in his 1958 book The Uses of Argument, was considered his most influential work, particularly in the field of rhetoric and communication, and in computer science.
Biography
Stephen Toulmin was born in London, UK, on 25 March 1922 to Geoffrey Edelson Toulmin and Doris Holman Toulmin. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from King's College, Cambridge in 1943, where he was a Cambridge Apostle. Soon after, Toulmin was hired by the Ministry of Aircraft Production as a junior scientific officer, first at the Malvern Radar Research and Development Station and later at the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Germany. At the end of World War II, he returned to England to earn a Master of Arts degree in 1947 and a PhD in philosophy from Cambridge University, subsequently publishing his dissertation as An Examination of the Place of Reason in Ethics (1950). While at Cambridge, Toulmin came into contact with the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose examination of the relationship between the uses and the meanings of language shaped much of Toulmin's own work.
After graduating from Cambridge, he was appointed University Lecturer in Philosophy of Science at Oxford University from 1949 to 1954, during which period he wrote a second book, The Philosophy of Science: an Introduction (1953). Soon after, he was appointed to the position of Visiting Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at Melbourne University in Australia from 1954 to 1955, after which he returned to England, and served as Professor and Head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Leeds from 1955 to 1959. While at Leeds, he published one of his most influential books in the field of rhetoric, The Uses of Argument (1958), which investigated the flaws of traditional logic. Although it was poorly received in England and satirized as "Toulmin's anti-logic book" by Toulmin's fellow philosophers at Leeds, the book was applauded by the rhetoricians in the United States, where Toulmin served as a visiting professor at New York, Stanford, and Columbia Universities in 1959. While in the States, Wayne Brockriede and Douglas Ehninger introduced Toulmin's work to communication scholars, as they recognized that his work provided a good structural model useful for the analysis and criticism of rhetorical arguments. In 1960, Toulmin returned to London to hold the position of director of the Unit for History of Ideas of the Nuffield Foundation.
In 1965, Toulmin returned to the United States, where he held positions at various universities. In 1967, Toulmin served as literary executor for close friend N.R. Hanson, helping in the posthumous publication of several volumes. While at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Toulmin published Human Understanding: The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts (1972), which examines the causes and the processes of conceptual change. In this book, Toulmin uses a novel comparison between conceptual change and Charles Darwin's model of biological evolution to analyse the process of conceptual change as an evolutionary process. The book confronts major philosophical questions as well. In 1973, while a professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, he collaborated with Allan Janik, a philosophy professor at La Salle University, on the book Wittgenstein's Vienna, which advanced a thesis that underscores the significance of history to human reasoning: Contrary to philosophers who believe the absolute truth advocated in Plato's idealized formal logic, Toulmin argues that truth can be a relative quality, dependent on historical and cultural contexts (what other authors have termed "conceptual schemata").
From 1975 to 1978, he worked with the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, established by the United States Congress. During this time, he collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen to write The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), which demonstrates the procedures for resolving moral cases. One of his most recent works, Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990), written while Toulmin held the position of the Avalon Foundation Professor of the Humanities at Northwestern University, specifically criticizes the practical use and the thinning morality underlying modern science.
Toulmin held distinguished professorships at numerous universities, including Columbia, Dartmouth College, Michigan State, Northwestern, Stanford, the University of Chicago, and the University of Southern California School of International Relations.
In 1997 the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) selected Toulmin for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities. His lecture, "A Dissenter's Story" (alternatively entitled "A Dissenter's Life"), discussed the roots of modernity in rationalism and humanism, the "contrast of the reasonable and the rational", and warned of the "abstractions that may still tempt us back into the dogmatism, chauvinism and sectarianism our needs have outgrown". The NEH report of the speech further quoted Toulmin on the need to "make the technical and the humanistic strands in modern thought work together more effectively than they have in the past".
On 2 March 2006 Toulmin received the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art.
He was married four times, once to June Goodfield and collaborated with her on a series of books on the history of science. His children are Greg, of McLean, Va., Polly Macinnes of Skye, Scotland, Camilla Toulmin in the UK and Matthew Toulmin of Melbourne, Australia.
On 4 December 2009 Toulmin died of a heart failure at the age of 87 in Los Angeles, California.
Meta-philosophy
Objection to absolutism and relativism
Throughout many of his works, Toulmin pointed out that absolutism (represented by theoretical or analytic arguments) has limited practical value. Absolutism is derived from Plato's idealized formal logic, which advocates universal truth; accordingly, absolutists believe that moral issues can be resolved by adhering to a standard set of moral principles, regardless of context. By contrast, Toulmin contends that many of these so-called standard principles are irrelevant to real situations encountered by human beings in daily life.
To develop his contention, Toulmin introduced the concept of argument fields. In The Uses of Argument (1958), Toulmin claims that some aspects of arguments vary from field to field, and are hence called "field-dependent", while other aspects of argument are the same throughout all fields, and are hence called "field-invariant". The flaw of absolutism, Toulmin believes, lies in its unawareness of the field-dependent aspect of argument; absolutism assumes that all aspects of argument are field invariant.
In Human Understanding (1972), Toulmin suggests that anthropologists have been tempted to side with relativists because they have noticed the influence of cultural variations on rational arguments. In other words, the anthropologist or relativist overemphasizes the importance of the "field-dependent" aspect of arguments, and neglects or is unaware of the "field-invariant" elements. In order to provide solutions to the problems of absolutism and relativism, Toulmin attempts throughout his work to develop standards that are neither absolutist nor relativist for assessing the worth of ideas.
In Cosmopolis (1990), he traces philosophers' "quest for certainty" back to René Descartes and Thomas Hobbes, and lauds John Dewey, Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, and Richard Rorty for abandoning that tradition.
Humanizing modernity
In Cosmopolis Toulmin seeks the origins of the modern emphasis on universality (philosophers' "quest for certainty"), and criticizes both modern science and philosophers for having ignored practical issues in preference for abstract and theoretical issues. The pursuit of absolutism and theoretical arguments lacking practicality, for example, is, in his view, one of the main defects of modern philosophy. Similarly, Toulmin sensed a thinning of morality in the field of sciences, which has diverted its attention from practical issues concerning ecology to the production of the atomic bomb. To solve this problem, Toulmin advocated a return to humanism consisting of four returns: a return to oral communication and discourse, a plea which has been rejected by modern philosophers, whose scholarly focus is on the printed page; a return to the particular or individual cases that deal with practical moral issues occurring in daily life (as opposed to theoretical principles that have limited practicality); a return to the local, or to concrete cultural and historical contexts; and, finally, a return to the timely, from timeless problems to things whose rational significance depends on the time lines of our solutions. He follows up on this critique in Return to Reason (2001), where he seeks to illuminate the ills that, in his view, universalism has caused in the social sphere, discussing, among other things, the discrepancy between mainstream ethical theory and real-life ethical quandaries.
Argumentation
The Toulmin model of argument
Arguing that absolutism lacks practical value, Toulmin aimed to develop a different type of argument, called practical arguments (also known as substantial arguments). In contrast to absolutists' theoretical arguments, Toulmin's practical argument is intended to focus on the justificatory function of argumentation, as opposed to the inferential function of theoretical arguments. Whereas theoretical arguments make inferences based on a set of principles to arrive at a claim, practical arguments first find a claim of interest, and then provide justification for it. Toulmin believed that reasoning is less an activity of inference, involving the discovering of new ideas, and more a process of testing and sifting already existing ideas—an act achievable through the process of justification.
Toulmin believed that for a good argument to succeed, it needs to provide good justification for a claim. This, he believed, will ensure it stands up to criticism and earns a favourable verdict. In The Uses of Argument (1958), Toulmin proposed a layout containing six interrelated components for analyzing arguments:
Claim (Conclusion) A conclusion whose merit must be established. In argumentative essays, it may be called the thesis. For example, if a person tries to convince a listener that he is a British citizen, the claim would be "I am a British citizen" (1).
Ground (Fact, Evidence, Data) A fact one appeals to as a foundation for the claim. For example, the person introduced in 1 can support his claim with the supporting data "I was born in Bermuda" (2).
Warrant A statement authorizing movement from the ground to the claim. In order to move from the ground established in 2, "I was born in Bermuda", to the claim in 1, "I am a British citizen", the person must supply a warrant to bridge the gap between 1 and 2 with the statement "A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen" (3).
Backing Credentials designed to certify the statement expressed in the warrant; backing must be introduced when the warrant itself is not convincing enough to the readers or the listeners. For example, if the listener does not deem the warrant in 3 as credible, the speaker will supply the legal provisions: "I trained as a barrister in London, specialising in citizenship, so I know that a man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen".
Rebuttal (Reservation) Statements recognizing the restrictions which may legitimately be applied to the claim. It is exemplified as follows: "A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen, unless he has betrayed Britain and has become a spy for another country".
Qualifier Words or phrases expressing the speaker's degree of force or certainty concerning the claim. Such words or phrases include "probably", "possible", "impossible", "certainly", "presumably", "as far as the evidence goes", and "necessarily". The claim "I am definitely a British citizen" has a greater degree of force than the claim "I am a British citizen, presumably". (See also: Defeasible reasoning.)
The first three elements, claim, ground, and warrant, are considered as the essential components of practical arguments, while the second triad, qualifier, backing, and rebuttal, may not be needed in some arguments.
When Toulmin first proposed it, this layout of argumentation was based on legal arguments and intended to be used to analyze the rationality of arguments typically found in the courtroom. Toulmin did not realize that this layout could be applicable to the field of rhetoric and communication until his works were introduced to rhetoricians by Wayne Brockriede and Douglas Ehninger. Their Decision by Debate (1963) streamlined Toulmin's terminology and broadly introduced his model to the field of debate. Only after Toulmin published Introduction to Reasoning (1979) were the rhetorical applications of this layout mentioned in his works.
One criticism of the Toulmin model is that it does not fully consider the use of questions in argumentation. The Toulmin model assumes that an argument starts with a fact or claim and ends with a conclusion, but ignores an argument's underlying questions. In the example "Harry was born in Bermuda, so Harry must be a British subject", the question "Is Harry a British subject?" is ignored, which also neglects to analyze why particular questions are asked and others are not. (See Issue mapping for an example of an argument-mapping method that emphasizes questions.)
Toulmin's argument model has inspired research on, for example, goal structuring notation (GSN), widely used for developing safety cases, and argument maps and associated software.
Ethics
Good reasons approach
In Reason in Ethics (1950), his doctoral dissertation, Toulmin sets out a Good Reasons approach of ethics, and criticizes what he considers to be the subjectivism and emotivism of philosophers such as A. J. Ayer because, in his view, they fail to do justice to ethical reasoning.
The revival of casuistry
By reviving casuistry (also known as case ethics), Toulmin sought to find the middle ground between the extremes of absolutism and relativism. Casuistry was practiced widely during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to resolve moral issues. Although casuistry largely fell silent during the modern period, in The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), Toulmin collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen to demonstrate the effectiveness of casuistry in practical argumentation during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, effectively reviving it as a permissible method of argument.
Casuistry employs absolutist principles, called "type cases" or "paradigm cases", without resorting to absolutism. It uses the standard principles (for example, sanctity of life) as referential markers in moral arguments. An individual case is then compared and contrasted with the type case. Given an individual case that is completely identical to the type case, moral judgments can be made immediately using the standard moral principles advocated in the type case. If the individual case differs from the type case, the differences will be critically assessed in order to arrive at a rational claim.
Through the procedure of casuistry, Toulmin and Jonsen identified three problematic situations in moral reasoning: first, the type case fits the individual case only ambiguously; second, two type cases apply to the same individual case in conflicting ways; third, an unprecedented individual case occurs, which cannot be compared or contrasted to any type case. Through the use of casuistry, Toulmin demonstrated and reinforced his previous emphasis on the significance of comparison to moral arguments, a significance not addressed in theories of absolutism or relativism.
Philosophy of science
The evolutionary model
In 1972, Toulmin published Human Understanding, in which he asserts that conceptual change is an evolutionary process. In this book, Toulmin attacks Thomas Kuhn's account of conceptual change in his seminal work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). Kuhn believed that conceptual change is a revolutionary process (as opposed to an evolutionary process), during which mutually exclusive paradigms compete to replace one another. Toulmin criticized the relativist elements in Kuhn's thesis, arguing that mutually exclusive paradigms provide no ground for comparison, and that Kuhn made the relativists' error of overemphasizing the "field variant" while ignoring the "field invariant" or commonality shared by all argumentation or scientific paradigms.
In contrast to Kuhn's revolutionary model, Toulmin proposed an evolutionary model of conceptual change comparable to Darwin's model of biological evolution. Toulmin states that conceptual change involves the process of innovation and selection. Innovation accounts for the appearance of conceptual variations, while selection accounts for the survival and perpetuation of the soundest conceptions. Innovation occurs when the professionals of a particular discipline come to view things differently from their predecessors; selection subjects the innovative concepts to a process of debate and inquiry in what Toulmin considers as a "forum of competitions". The soundest concepts will survive the forum of competition as replacements or revisions of the traditional conceptions.
From the absolutists' point of view, concepts are either valid or invalid regardless of contexts. From the relativists' perspective, one concept is neither better nor worse than a rival concept from a different cultural context. From Toulmin's perspective, the evaluation depends on a process of comparison, which determines whether or not one concept will improve explanatory power more than its rival concepts.
Works
An Examination of the Place of Reason in Ethics (1950)
The Philosophy of Science: An Introduction (1953)
The Uses of Argument (1958) 2nd edition 2003:
Metaphysical Beliefs, Three Essays (1957) with Ronald W. Hepburn and Alasdair MacIntyre
The Riviera (1961)
Seventeenth century science and the arts (1961)
Foresight and Understanding: An Enquiry into the Aims of Science (1961)
The Fabric of the Heavens (The Ancestry of Science, volume 1) (1961) with June Goodfield
The Architecture of Matter (The Ancestry of Science, volume 2) (1962) with June Goodfield
Night Sky at Rhodes (1963)
The Discovery of Time (The Ancestry of Science, volume 3) (1965) with June Goodfield
Physical Reality (1970)
Human Understanding: The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts (1972)
Wittgenstein's Vienna (1973) with Allan Janik
On the Nature of the Physician's Understanding (1976)
Knowing and Acting: An Invitation to Philosophy (1976)
An Introduction to Reasoning (1979) with Allan Janik and Richard D. Rieke 2nd edition 1997:
The Return to Cosmology: Postmodern Science and the Theology of Nature (1985)
The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988) with Albert R. Jonsen
Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990)
Social Impact of AIDS in the United States (1993) with Albert R. Jonsen
Beyond theory – changing organizations through participation (1996) with Björn Gustavsen (editors)
Return to Reason (2001)
Pantheon of skeptics
At a meeting of the executive council of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) in Denver, Colorado in April 2011, Toulmin was selected for inclusion in CSI's Pantheon of Skeptics. The Pantheon of Skeptics was created by CSI to remember the legacy of deceased fellows of CSI and their contributions to the cause of scientific skepticism.
See also
Argumentation theory
Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
Stephen Toulmin
Interview with Stephen Toulmin in JAC
Obituary in The Guardian
William Long (2004) Wittgenstein's Vienna (1973)
1922 births
2009 deaths
20th-century English philosophers
English rhetoricians
Philosophers of science
Moral philosophers
Wittgensteinian philosophers
Academics of the University of Leeds
Alumni of King's College, Cambridge
Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club
New York University faculty
Stanford University faculty
Columbia University faculty
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth faculty
Michigan State University faculty
University of Chicago faculty
Northwestern University faculty
University of Southern California faculty
English sceptics
Recipients of the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art
British expatriates in the United States | true | [
"Casuistry ( ) is a process of reasoning that seeks to resolve moral problems by extracting or extending theoretical rules from a particular case, and reapplying those rules to new instances. This method occurs in applied ethics and jurisprudence. The term is also commonly used as a pejorative to criticize the use of clever but unsound reasoning, especially in relation to moral questions (as in sophistry). It is the \"[s]tudy of cases of conscience and a method of solving conflicts of obligations by applying general principles of ethics, religion, and moral theology to particular and concrete cases of human conduct. This frequently demands an extensive knowledge of natural law and equity, civil law, ecclesiastical precepts, and an exceptional skill in interpreting these various norms of conduct.\" It remains a common tool for applied ethics.\n\nEtymology\nThe term and its agent noun \"casuist\" from 1600, ultimately derive from Latin noun (\"case, occurrence, etc.\"); even from the earliest attestations, the concept was intended as pejorative. Indeed, the Oxford English Dictionary says, quoting the Viscount Bolingbroke (1749), that the word \"[o]ften (and perhaps originally) applied to a quibbling or evasive way of dealing with difficult cases of duty.\" Its textual references, except for certain technical usages, are consistently pejorative (e.g., \"Casuistry destroys by distinctions and exceptions, all morality, and effaces the essential difference between right and wrong\"). Often since the 17th century, the word has always carried a connotation of \"over-subtle reasoner, sophist.\"\n\nHistory\nCasuistry dates from Aristotle (384–322 BC), yet the zenith of casuistry was from 1550 to 1650, when the Society of Jesus used case-based reasoning, particularly in administering the Sacrament of Penance (or \"confession\"). The term casuistry or Jesuitism quickly became pejorative with Blaise Pascal's attack on the misuse of casuistry. Some Jesuit theologians, in view of promoting personal responsibility and the respect of freedom of conscience, stressed the importance of the 'case by case' approach to personal moral decisions and ultimately developed and accepted a casuistry (the study of cases of consciences) where at the time of decision, individual inclinations were more important than the moral law itself.\n\nIn Provincial Letters (1656–57) the French mathematician, religious philosopher and Jansenist sympathiser, Blaise Pascal vigorously attacked the moral laxism of Jesuits who used casuistic reasoning in confession to placate wealthy Church donors, while punishing poor penitents. Pascal charged that aristocratic penitents could confess their sins one day, re-commit the sin the next day, generously donate the following day, then return to re-confess their sins and only receive the lightest punishment; Pascal's criticisms darkened casuistry's reputation.\n\nA British encyclopedia of 1900 claimed that it was \"popularly regarded as an attempt to achieve holy ends by unholy means.\"\n\nIt was not until publication of The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), by Albert Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin, that a revival of casuistry occurred. They argue that the abuse of casuistry is the problem, not casuistry per se (itself an example of casuistic reasoning). Properly used, casuistry is powerful reasoning. Jonsen and Toulmin offer casuistry in dissolving the contradictory tenets of moral absolutism and the common secular moral relativism: \"the form of reasoning constitutive of classical casuistry is rhetorical reasoning\". Moreover, the ethical philosophies of Utilitarianism (especially preference utilitarianism) and Pragmatism commonly are identified as greatly employing casuistic reasoning.\n\nEarly modernity\nThe casuistic method was popular among Catholic thinkers in the early modern period, and not only among the Jesuits, as it is commonly thought. Famous casuistic authors include Antonio Escobar y Mendoza, whose Summula casuum conscientiae (1627) enjoyed a great success, Thomas Sanchez, Vincenzo Filliucci (Jesuit and penitentiary at St Peter's), Antonino Diana, Paul Laymann (Theologia Moralis, 1625), John Azor (Institutiones Morales, 1600), Etienne Bauny, Louis Cellot, Valerius Reginaldus, Hermann Busembaum (d. 1668), etc. One of the main theses of casuists was the necessity to adapt the rigorous morals of the Early Fathers of Christianity to modern morals, which led in some extreme cases to justify what Innocent XI later called \"laxist moral\" (i.e. justification of usury, homicide, regicide, lying through \"mental reservation\", adultery and loss of virginity before marriage, etc.—all due cases registered by Pascal in the Provincial Letters).\n\nThe progress of casuistry was interrupted toward the middle of the 17th century by the controversy which arose concerning the doctrine of probabilism, which stipulated that one could choose to follow a \"probable opinion\", that is, supported by a theologian or another, even if it contradicted a more probable opinion or a quotation from one of the Fathers of the Church. The controversy divided Catholic theologians into two camps, Rigorists and Laxists.\n\nCertain kinds of casuistry were criticized by early Protestant theologians, because it was used in order to justify many of the abuses that they sought to reform. It was famously attacked by the Catholic and Jansenist philosopher Pascal, during the formulary controversy against the Jesuits, in his Provincial Letters as the use of rhetorics to justify moral laxity, which became identified by the public with Jesuitism; hence the everyday use of the term to mean complex and sophistic reasoning to justify moral laxity. By the mid-18th century, \"casuistry\" had become a synonym for specious moral reasoning. However, Puritans were known for their own development of casuistry.\n\nIn 1679 Pope Innocent XI publicly condemned sixty-five of the more radical propositions (stricti mentalis), taken chiefly from the writings of Escobar, Suarez and other casuists as propositiones laxorum moralistarum and forbade anyone to teach them under penalty of excommunication. Despite this papal condemnation, both Catholicism and Protestantism permit the use of ambiguous and equivocal statements in specific circumstances.\n\nLater modernity\nG. E. Moore dealt with casuistry in chapter 1.4 of his Principia Ethica, in which he claims that \"the defects of casuistry are not defects of principle; no objection can be taken to its aim and object. It has failed only because it is far too difficult a subject to be treated adequately in our present state of knowledge\". Furthermore, he asserted that \"casuistry is the goal of ethical investigation. It cannot be safely attempted at the beginning of our studies, but only at the end\".\n\nSince the 1960s, applied ethics has revived the ideas of casuistry in applying ethical reasoning to particular cases in law, bioethics, and business ethics, so the reputation of casuistry is somewhat rehabilitated.\n\nPope Francis, a Jesuit, has criticized casuistry as \"the practice of setting general laws on the basis of exceptional cases\" in instances where a more holistic approach would be preferred.\n\nSee also\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n\n \n \n \n Bliton, Mark J. (1993). The Ethics of Clinical Ethics Consultation: On the Way to Clinical Philosophy (Diss. Vanderbilt)\n \n \n \n \n \n Carney, Bridget Mary. (1993). Modern Casuistry: An Essential But Incomplete Method for Clinical Ethical Decision-Making. (Diss., Graduate Theological Union).\n \n Carson, Ronald A. (1988). \"Paul Ramsey, Principled Protestant Casuist: A Retrospective.\" Medical Humanities Review, Vol. 2, pp. 24–35.\n Chidwick, Paula Marjorie (1994). Approaches to Clinical Ethical Decision-Making: Ethical Theory, Casuistry and Consultation. (Diss., U of Guelph)\n \n \n \n Drane, J.F. (1990). \"Methodologies for Clinical Ethics.\" Bulletin of the Pan American Health Organization, Vol. 24, pp. 394–404.\n Dworkin, R.B. (1994). \"Emerging Paradigms in Bioethics: Symposium.\" Indiana Law Journal, Vol. 69, pp. 945–1122.\n Elliot, Carl (1992). \"Solving the Doctor's Dilemma?\" New Scientist, Vol. 133, pp. 42–43.\n Emanuel, Ezekiel J. (1991). The Ends of Human Life: Medical Ethics in a Liberal Polity (Cambridge).\n Franklin, James (2001). The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability Before Pascal (Johns Hopkins), ch. 4.\n Gallagher, Lowell (1991). Medusa's Gaze: Casuistry and Conscience in the Renaissance (Stanford)\n \n Green, Bryan S. (1988). Literary Methods and Sociological Theory: Case Studies of Simmel and Weber (Albany)\n \n Houle, Martha Marie (1983). The Fictions of Casuistry and Pascal's Jesuit in \"Les Provinciales\" (Diss. U California, San Diego)\n \n \n \n \n Jonsen, Albert R. (1986). \"Casuistry\" in J.F. Childress and J. Macgvarrie, eds. Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics (Philadelphia)\n \n \n Jonsen, Albert R. and Stephen Toulmin (1988). The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (California).\n Keenan, James F., S.J. and Thomas A. Shannon. (1995). The Context of Casuistry (Washington).\n Kirk, K. (1936). Conscience and Its Problems, An Introduction to Casuistry (London)\n \n \n \n \n Kuczewski, Mark G. (1994). Fragmentation and Consensus in Contemporary Neo-Aristotelian Ethics: A Study in Communitarianism and Casuistry (Diss., Duquesne U).\n \n \n Long, Edward LeRoy, junior (1954). Conscience and Compromise: an Approach to Protestant Casuistry (Philadelphia, Penn.: Westminster Press)\n \n \n Mackler, Aaron Leonard. Cases of Judgments in Ethical Reasoning: An Appraisal of Contemporary Casuistry and Holistic Model for the Mutual Support of Norms and Case Judgments (Diss., Georgetown U).\n \n \n McCready, Amy R. (1992). \"Milton's Casuistry: The Case of 'The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce.' \" Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Vol. 22, pp. 393–428.\n \n \n \n Odozor, Paulinus Ikechukwu (1989). Richard A. McCormick and Casuistry: Moral Decision-Making in Conflict Situations (M.A. Thesis, St. Michael's College).\n Pack, Rolland W. (1988). Case Studies and Moral Conclusions: The Philosophical Use of Case Studies in Biomedical Ethics (Diss., Georgetown U).\n Pascal, Blaise (1967). The Provincial Letters (London).\n \n Río Parra, Elena del (2008). Cartografías de la conciencia española en la Edad de Oro (Mexico).\n \n Seiden, Melvin (1990). Measure for Measure: Casuistry and Artistry (Washington).\n \n \n Smith, David H. (1991). \"Stories, Values, and Patient Care Decisions.\" in Charles Conrad, ed. The Ethical Nexus: Values in Organizational Decision Making. (New Jersey).\n \n \n Starr, G. (1971). Defoe and Casuistry (Princeton).\n \n Tallmon, James Michael (2001). \"Casuistry\" in The Encyclopedia of Rhetoric. Ed. Thomas O. Sloane. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 83–88.\n Tallmon, James Michael (1993). Casuistry and the Quest for Rhetorical Reason: Conceptualizing a Method of Shared Moral Inquiry (Diss., U of Washington).\n \n Taylor, Richard (1984). Good and Evil – A New Direction: A Foreceful Attack on the Rationalist Tradition in Ethics (Buffalo).\n \n \n \n Toulmin, Stephen (1988). \"The Recovery of Practical Philosophy.\" The American Scholar, Vol. 57, pp. 337–352.\n \n \n \n \n Weinstein, Bruce David (1989). The Possibility of Ethical Expertise (Diss. Georgetown U).\n \n \n Wildes, Kevin Wm., S.J. (1993). The View for Somewhere: Moral Judgment in Bioethics (Diss. Rice U).\n \n Zacker, David J. (1991). Reflection and Particulars: Does Casuistry Offer Us Stable Beliefs About Ethics? (M.A. Thesis, Western Michigan U).\n\nExternal links\n\n Dictionary of the History of Ideas: \"Casuistry\"\n Accountancy as computational casuistics, article on how modern compliance regimes in accountancy and law apply casuistry\n Mortimer Adler's Great Ideas – Casuistry\n Summary of casuistry by Jeramy Townsley\n Casuistry – Online Guide to Ethics and Moral Philosophy\n Casuistry – Oxford Encyclopedia of Rhetoric catalogued at she-philosopher.com\n\n \nScholasticism\nApplied ethics\nCommon law\nLegal reasoning",
"Puritan casuistry is a genre of British religious literature, in the general area of moral theology, and recognised as founded about 1600. The work A Case of Conscience (1592) of William Perkins is considered foundational for the genre. So-called \"case divinity\" has been described as fundamental to Puritan culture. The underlying theological trend is said to be visible in George Gifford: evidence from life accentuated as \"proof of election\", to be obtained reflectively, and matching \"biblically promised effects\".\n\nIn line with the tenets of Reformed theology, the assurance of salvation could produce dilemmas on a spiritual level, and Puritan casuistry in part was a response to the need to address these issues as practical problems. Perkins, Richard Greenham, William Ames and Joseph Alleine were noted as authors who wrote in this area. From Ames, it was considered that reprobation can almost never know itself. More accurately, the issue is election, and the assurance of it, and Perkins addressed it as a preoccupation.\n\nOtherwise, the content of \"Puritan casuistry\" is still somewhat contested by scholars, because the element of casuistry is apparently lower than would be expected, if it were simply the casuistry of Puritanism. One explanation lies in a transformed, Protestant, meaning of \"casuistry\", as the \"sifting of the conscience\". Some of the content of confession is therefore implied, and so of devotional life. In terms of genre, devotional literature can be closer to the mark, than moral literature. It has been argued by a Jesuit author that \"casuistry\" here is a misnomer, and \"practical divinity\" more accurate.\n\nBackground in Early Modern casuistry\nThe medieval tradition in casuistry went under the name casus conscientiae, \"cases of conscience\". It took the form of moral principles shown as applied to particular situations. It was taken up by 17th century writers, both Catholic and Protestant. When Reformed theologians adopted casuistry, it was in a distinctive style: concise and biblical, and largely denying the separation of moral philosophy from theology. In the early 17th century the term \"practical theology\" was coming in, to cover \"cases of conscience\", though its scope could be wider than that.\n\nNotes\n\nPuritanism in England\nEthics literature\nSalvation in Protestantism\nBritish literature"
] |
[
"Stephen Toulmin",
"The revival of casuistry",
"what was the revival of casuistry?",
"By reviving casuistry (also known as case ethics), Toulmin sought to find the middle ground between the extremes of absolutism and relativism."
] | C_39171226d43d45c89767c5e5ddc904ba_0 | what were some of his beliefs about this? | 2 | what were some of Stephen Toulmin's beliefs about reviving casuistry? | Stephen Toulmin | By reviving casuistry (also known as case ethics), Toulmin sought to find the middle ground between the extremes of absolutism and relativism. Casuistry was practiced widely during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to resolve moral issues. Although casuistry largely fell silent during the modern period, in The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), Toulmin collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen to demonstrate the effectiveness of casuistry in practical argumentation during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, effectively reviving it as a permissible method of argument. Casuistry employs absolutist principles, called "type cases" or "paradigm cases," without resorting to absolutism. It uses the standard principles (for example, sanctity of life) as referential markers in moral arguments. An individual case is then compared and contrasted with the type case. Given an individual case that is completely identical to the type case, moral judgments can be made immediately using the standard moral principles advocated in the type case. If the individual case differs from the type case, the differences will be critically assessed in order to arrive at a rational claim. Through the procedure of casuistry, Toulmin and Jonsen identified three problematic situations in moral reasoning: first, the type case fits the individual case only ambiguously; second, two type cases apply to the same individual case in conflicting ways; third, an unprecedented individual case occurs, which cannot be compared or contrasted to any type case. Through the use of casuistry, Toulmin demonstrated and reinforced his previous emphasis on the significance of comparison to moral arguments, a significance not addressed in theories of absolutism or relativism. CANNOTANSWER | Casuistry employs absolutist principles, called "type cases" or "paradigm cases," without resorting to absolutism. | Stephen Edelston Toulmin (; 25 March 1922 – 4 December 2009) was a British philosopher, author, and educator. Influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Toulmin devoted his works to the analysis of moral reasoning. Throughout his writings, he sought to develop practical arguments which can be used effectively in evaluating the ethics behind moral issues. His works were later found useful in the field of rhetoric for analyzing rhetorical arguments. The Toulmin model of argumentation, a diagram containing six interrelated components used for analyzing arguments, and published in his 1958 book The Uses of Argument, was considered his most influential work, particularly in the field of rhetoric and communication, and in computer science.
Biography
Stephen Toulmin was born in London, UK, on 25 March 1922 to Geoffrey Edelson Toulmin and Doris Holman Toulmin. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from King's College, Cambridge in 1943, where he was a Cambridge Apostle. Soon after, Toulmin was hired by the Ministry of Aircraft Production as a junior scientific officer, first at the Malvern Radar Research and Development Station and later at the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Germany. At the end of World War II, he returned to England to earn a Master of Arts degree in 1947 and a PhD in philosophy from Cambridge University, subsequently publishing his dissertation as An Examination of the Place of Reason in Ethics (1950). While at Cambridge, Toulmin came into contact with the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose examination of the relationship between the uses and the meanings of language shaped much of Toulmin's own work.
After graduating from Cambridge, he was appointed University Lecturer in Philosophy of Science at Oxford University from 1949 to 1954, during which period he wrote a second book, The Philosophy of Science: an Introduction (1953). Soon after, he was appointed to the position of Visiting Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at Melbourne University in Australia from 1954 to 1955, after which he returned to England, and served as Professor and Head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Leeds from 1955 to 1959. While at Leeds, he published one of his most influential books in the field of rhetoric, The Uses of Argument (1958), which investigated the flaws of traditional logic. Although it was poorly received in England and satirized as "Toulmin's anti-logic book" by Toulmin's fellow philosophers at Leeds, the book was applauded by the rhetoricians in the United States, where Toulmin served as a visiting professor at New York, Stanford, and Columbia Universities in 1959. While in the States, Wayne Brockriede and Douglas Ehninger introduced Toulmin's work to communication scholars, as they recognized that his work provided a good structural model useful for the analysis and criticism of rhetorical arguments. In 1960, Toulmin returned to London to hold the position of director of the Unit for History of Ideas of the Nuffield Foundation.
In 1965, Toulmin returned to the United States, where he held positions at various universities. In 1967, Toulmin served as literary executor for close friend N.R. Hanson, helping in the posthumous publication of several volumes. While at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Toulmin published Human Understanding: The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts (1972), which examines the causes and the processes of conceptual change. In this book, Toulmin uses a novel comparison between conceptual change and Charles Darwin's model of biological evolution to analyse the process of conceptual change as an evolutionary process. The book confronts major philosophical questions as well. In 1973, while a professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, he collaborated with Allan Janik, a philosophy professor at La Salle University, on the book Wittgenstein's Vienna, which advanced a thesis that underscores the significance of history to human reasoning: Contrary to philosophers who believe the absolute truth advocated in Plato's idealized formal logic, Toulmin argues that truth can be a relative quality, dependent on historical and cultural contexts (what other authors have termed "conceptual schemata").
From 1975 to 1978, he worked with the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, established by the United States Congress. During this time, he collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen to write The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), which demonstrates the procedures for resolving moral cases. One of his most recent works, Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990), written while Toulmin held the position of the Avalon Foundation Professor of the Humanities at Northwestern University, specifically criticizes the practical use and the thinning morality underlying modern science.
Toulmin held distinguished professorships at numerous universities, including Columbia, Dartmouth College, Michigan State, Northwestern, Stanford, the University of Chicago, and the University of Southern California School of International Relations.
In 1997 the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) selected Toulmin for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities. His lecture, "A Dissenter's Story" (alternatively entitled "A Dissenter's Life"), discussed the roots of modernity in rationalism and humanism, the "contrast of the reasonable and the rational", and warned of the "abstractions that may still tempt us back into the dogmatism, chauvinism and sectarianism our needs have outgrown". The NEH report of the speech further quoted Toulmin on the need to "make the technical and the humanistic strands in modern thought work together more effectively than they have in the past".
On 2 March 2006 Toulmin received the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art.
He was married four times, once to June Goodfield and collaborated with her on a series of books on the history of science. His children are Greg, of McLean, Va., Polly Macinnes of Skye, Scotland, Camilla Toulmin in the UK and Matthew Toulmin of Melbourne, Australia.
On 4 December 2009 Toulmin died of a heart failure at the age of 87 in Los Angeles, California.
Meta-philosophy
Objection to absolutism and relativism
Throughout many of his works, Toulmin pointed out that absolutism (represented by theoretical or analytic arguments) has limited practical value. Absolutism is derived from Plato's idealized formal logic, which advocates universal truth; accordingly, absolutists believe that moral issues can be resolved by adhering to a standard set of moral principles, regardless of context. By contrast, Toulmin contends that many of these so-called standard principles are irrelevant to real situations encountered by human beings in daily life.
To develop his contention, Toulmin introduced the concept of argument fields. In The Uses of Argument (1958), Toulmin claims that some aspects of arguments vary from field to field, and are hence called "field-dependent", while other aspects of argument are the same throughout all fields, and are hence called "field-invariant". The flaw of absolutism, Toulmin believes, lies in its unawareness of the field-dependent aspect of argument; absolutism assumes that all aspects of argument are field invariant.
In Human Understanding (1972), Toulmin suggests that anthropologists have been tempted to side with relativists because they have noticed the influence of cultural variations on rational arguments. In other words, the anthropologist or relativist overemphasizes the importance of the "field-dependent" aspect of arguments, and neglects or is unaware of the "field-invariant" elements. In order to provide solutions to the problems of absolutism and relativism, Toulmin attempts throughout his work to develop standards that are neither absolutist nor relativist for assessing the worth of ideas.
In Cosmopolis (1990), he traces philosophers' "quest for certainty" back to René Descartes and Thomas Hobbes, and lauds John Dewey, Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, and Richard Rorty for abandoning that tradition.
Humanizing modernity
In Cosmopolis Toulmin seeks the origins of the modern emphasis on universality (philosophers' "quest for certainty"), and criticizes both modern science and philosophers for having ignored practical issues in preference for abstract and theoretical issues. The pursuit of absolutism and theoretical arguments lacking practicality, for example, is, in his view, one of the main defects of modern philosophy. Similarly, Toulmin sensed a thinning of morality in the field of sciences, which has diverted its attention from practical issues concerning ecology to the production of the atomic bomb. To solve this problem, Toulmin advocated a return to humanism consisting of four returns: a return to oral communication and discourse, a plea which has been rejected by modern philosophers, whose scholarly focus is on the printed page; a return to the particular or individual cases that deal with practical moral issues occurring in daily life (as opposed to theoretical principles that have limited practicality); a return to the local, or to concrete cultural and historical contexts; and, finally, a return to the timely, from timeless problems to things whose rational significance depends on the time lines of our solutions. He follows up on this critique in Return to Reason (2001), where he seeks to illuminate the ills that, in his view, universalism has caused in the social sphere, discussing, among other things, the discrepancy between mainstream ethical theory and real-life ethical quandaries.
Argumentation
The Toulmin model of argument
Arguing that absolutism lacks practical value, Toulmin aimed to develop a different type of argument, called practical arguments (also known as substantial arguments). In contrast to absolutists' theoretical arguments, Toulmin's practical argument is intended to focus on the justificatory function of argumentation, as opposed to the inferential function of theoretical arguments. Whereas theoretical arguments make inferences based on a set of principles to arrive at a claim, practical arguments first find a claim of interest, and then provide justification for it. Toulmin believed that reasoning is less an activity of inference, involving the discovering of new ideas, and more a process of testing and sifting already existing ideas—an act achievable through the process of justification.
Toulmin believed that for a good argument to succeed, it needs to provide good justification for a claim. This, he believed, will ensure it stands up to criticism and earns a favourable verdict. In The Uses of Argument (1958), Toulmin proposed a layout containing six interrelated components for analyzing arguments:
Claim (Conclusion) A conclusion whose merit must be established. In argumentative essays, it may be called the thesis. For example, if a person tries to convince a listener that he is a British citizen, the claim would be "I am a British citizen" (1).
Ground (Fact, Evidence, Data) A fact one appeals to as a foundation for the claim. For example, the person introduced in 1 can support his claim with the supporting data "I was born in Bermuda" (2).
Warrant A statement authorizing movement from the ground to the claim. In order to move from the ground established in 2, "I was born in Bermuda", to the claim in 1, "I am a British citizen", the person must supply a warrant to bridge the gap between 1 and 2 with the statement "A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen" (3).
Backing Credentials designed to certify the statement expressed in the warrant; backing must be introduced when the warrant itself is not convincing enough to the readers or the listeners. For example, if the listener does not deem the warrant in 3 as credible, the speaker will supply the legal provisions: "I trained as a barrister in London, specialising in citizenship, so I know that a man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen".
Rebuttal (Reservation) Statements recognizing the restrictions which may legitimately be applied to the claim. It is exemplified as follows: "A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen, unless he has betrayed Britain and has become a spy for another country".
Qualifier Words or phrases expressing the speaker's degree of force or certainty concerning the claim. Such words or phrases include "probably", "possible", "impossible", "certainly", "presumably", "as far as the evidence goes", and "necessarily". The claim "I am definitely a British citizen" has a greater degree of force than the claim "I am a British citizen, presumably". (See also: Defeasible reasoning.)
The first three elements, claim, ground, and warrant, are considered as the essential components of practical arguments, while the second triad, qualifier, backing, and rebuttal, may not be needed in some arguments.
When Toulmin first proposed it, this layout of argumentation was based on legal arguments and intended to be used to analyze the rationality of arguments typically found in the courtroom. Toulmin did not realize that this layout could be applicable to the field of rhetoric and communication until his works were introduced to rhetoricians by Wayne Brockriede and Douglas Ehninger. Their Decision by Debate (1963) streamlined Toulmin's terminology and broadly introduced his model to the field of debate. Only after Toulmin published Introduction to Reasoning (1979) were the rhetorical applications of this layout mentioned in his works.
One criticism of the Toulmin model is that it does not fully consider the use of questions in argumentation. The Toulmin model assumes that an argument starts with a fact or claim and ends with a conclusion, but ignores an argument's underlying questions. In the example "Harry was born in Bermuda, so Harry must be a British subject", the question "Is Harry a British subject?" is ignored, which also neglects to analyze why particular questions are asked and others are not. (See Issue mapping for an example of an argument-mapping method that emphasizes questions.)
Toulmin's argument model has inspired research on, for example, goal structuring notation (GSN), widely used for developing safety cases, and argument maps and associated software.
Ethics
Good reasons approach
In Reason in Ethics (1950), his doctoral dissertation, Toulmin sets out a Good Reasons approach of ethics, and criticizes what he considers to be the subjectivism and emotivism of philosophers such as A. J. Ayer because, in his view, they fail to do justice to ethical reasoning.
The revival of casuistry
By reviving casuistry (also known as case ethics), Toulmin sought to find the middle ground between the extremes of absolutism and relativism. Casuistry was practiced widely during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to resolve moral issues. Although casuistry largely fell silent during the modern period, in The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), Toulmin collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen to demonstrate the effectiveness of casuistry in practical argumentation during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, effectively reviving it as a permissible method of argument.
Casuistry employs absolutist principles, called "type cases" or "paradigm cases", without resorting to absolutism. It uses the standard principles (for example, sanctity of life) as referential markers in moral arguments. An individual case is then compared and contrasted with the type case. Given an individual case that is completely identical to the type case, moral judgments can be made immediately using the standard moral principles advocated in the type case. If the individual case differs from the type case, the differences will be critically assessed in order to arrive at a rational claim.
Through the procedure of casuistry, Toulmin and Jonsen identified three problematic situations in moral reasoning: first, the type case fits the individual case only ambiguously; second, two type cases apply to the same individual case in conflicting ways; third, an unprecedented individual case occurs, which cannot be compared or contrasted to any type case. Through the use of casuistry, Toulmin demonstrated and reinforced his previous emphasis on the significance of comparison to moral arguments, a significance not addressed in theories of absolutism or relativism.
Philosophy of science
The evolutionary model
In 1972, Toulmin published Human Understanding, in which he asserts that conceptual change is an evolutionary process. In this book, Toulmin attacks Thomas Kuhn's account of conceptual change in his seminal work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). Kuhn believed that conceptual change is a revolutionary process (as opposed to an evolutionary process), during which mutually exclusive paradigms compete to replace one another. Toulmin criticized the relativist elements in Kuhn's thesis, arguing that mutually exclusive paradigms provide no ground for comparison, and that Kuhn made the relativists' error of overemphasizing the "field variant" while ignoring the "field invariant" or commonality shared by all argumentation or scientific paradigms.
In contrast to Kuhn's revolutionary model, Toulmin proposed an evolutionary model of conceptual change comparable to Darwin's model of biological evolution. Toulmin states that conceptual change involves the process of innovation and selection. Innovation accounts for the appearance of conceptual variations, while selection accounts for the survival and perpetuation of the soundest conceptions. Innovation occurs when the professionals of a particular discipline come to view things differently from their predecessors; selection subjects the innovative concepts to a process of debate and inquiry in what Toulmin considers as a "forum of competitions". The soundest concepts will survive the forum of competition as replacements or revisions of the traditional conceptions.
From the absolutists' point of view, concepts are either valid or invalid regardless of contexts. From the relativists' perspective, one concept is neither better nor worse than a rival concept from a different cultural context. From Toulmin's perspective, the evaluation depends on a process of comparison, which determines whether or not one concept will improve explanatory power more than its rival concepts.
Works
An Examination of the Place of Reason in Ethics (1950)
The Philosophy of Science: An Introduction (1953)
The Uses of Argument (1958) 2nd edition 2003:
Metaphysical Beliefs, Three Essays (1957) with Ronald W. Hepburn and Alasdair MacIntyre
The Riviera (1961)
Seventeenth century science and the arts (1961)
Foresight and Understanding: An Enquiry into the Aims of Science (1961)
The Fabric of the Heavens (The Ancestry of Science, volume 1) (1961) with June Goodfield
The Architecture of Matter (The Ancestry of Science, volume 2) (1962) with June Goodfield
Night Sky at Rhodes (1963)
The Discovery of Time (The Ancestry of Science, volume 3) (1965) with June Goodfield
Physical Reality (1970)
Human Understanding: The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts (1972)
Wittgenstein's Vienna (1973) with Allan Janik
On the Nature of the Physician's Understanding (1976)
Knowing and Acting: An Invitation to Philosophy (1976)
An Introduction to Reasoning (1979) with Allan Janik and Richard D. Rieke 2nd edition 1997:
The Return to Cosmology: Postmodern Science and the Theology of Nature (1985)
The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988) with Albert R. Jonsen
Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990)
Social Impact of AIDS in the United States (1993) with Albert R. Jonsen
Beyond theory – changing organizations through participation (1996) with Björn Gustavsen (editors)
Return to Reason (2001)
Pantheon of skeptics
At a meeting of the executive council of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) in Denver, Colorado in April 2011, Toulmin was selected for inclusion in CSI's Pantheon of Skeptics. The Pantheon of Skeptics was created by CSI to remember the legacy of deceased fellows of CSI and their contributions to the cause of scientific skepticism.
See also
Argumentation theory
Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
Stephen Toulmin
Interview with Stephen Toulmin in JAC
Obituary in The Guardian
William Long (2004) Wittgenstein's Vienna (1973)
1922 births
2009 deaths
20th-century English philosophers
English rhetoricians
Philosophers of science
Moral philosophers
Wittgensteinian philosophers
Academics of the University of Leeds
Alumni of King's College, Cambridge
Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club
New York University faculty
Stanford University faculty
Columbia University faculty
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth faculty
Michigan State University faculty
University of Chicago faculty
Northwestern University faculty
University of Southern California faculty
English sceptics
Recipients of the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art
British expatriates in the United States | false | [
"Hold come what may is a phrase popularized by logician Willard Van Orman Quine. Beliefs that are \"held come what may\" are beliefs one is unwilling to give up, regardless of any evidence with which one might be presented.\n\nQuine held (on a perhaps simplistic construal) that there are no beliefs that one ought to hold come what may—in other words, that all beliefs are rationally revisable (\"no statement is immune to revision\"), and compared this to the simplification of quantum mechanics. Many philosophers argue to the contrary, believing that, for example, the laws of thought cannot be revised and may be \"held come what may\". Quine believed that all beliefs are linked by a web of beliefs, in which a belief is linked to another belief by supporting relations, but if one belief is found untrue, there is ground to find the linked beliefs also untrue. The latter statement is usually referred to as either confirmation holism or Duhem–Quine thesis.\n\nA closely related concept is hold more stubbornly at least, also popularized by Quine. Some beliefs may be more useful than others, or may be implied by a large number of beliefs. Examples might be laws of logic, or the belief in an external world of physical objects. Altering such central portions of the web of beliefs would have immense, ramifying consequences, and affect many other beliefs. It is better to alter auxiliary beliefs around the edges of the web of beliefs (considered to be sense beliefs, rather than main beliefs) in the face of new evidence unfriendly to one's central principles. Thus, while one might agree that there is no belief one can hold come what may, there are some for which there is ample practical ground to \"hold more stubbornly at least\".\n\nSee also\n Coherentism\n\nReferences\n\nEnglish phrases\nBelief\nConcepts in logic\nWillard Van Orman Quine",
"Evidentialism is a thesis in epistemology which states that one is justified to believe something if and only if that person has evidence which supports said belief. Evidentialism is therefore a thesis about which beliefs are justified and which are not.\n\nFor philosophers Richard Feldman and Earl Conee, evidentialism is the strongest argument for justification because it identifies the primary notion of epistemic justification. They argue that if a person's attitude towards a proposition fits their evidence, then their doxastic attitude for that proposition is epistemically justified. Feldman and Conee offer the following argument for evidentialism as an epistemic justification:\n\n(EJ) Doxastic attitude D toward proposition p is epistemically justified for S at t if and only if having D toward p fits the evidence.\n\nFor Feldman and Conee one's doxastic attitude is justified if it fits one's evidence. EJ is meant to show the idea that justification is characteristically epistemic. This idea makes justification dependent on evidence.\n\nFeldman and Conee believe that because objections to EJ have become so prominent their defense for it is appropriate. The theses that object EJ are implying that epistemic justification is dependent upon the \"cognitive capacities of an individual or upon the cognitive processes or information-gatherings practices that lead to an attitude.\" For Feldman and Conee, EJ is in contrast to these theses; EJ contends that the epistemic justification for an attitude is only dependent upon evidence.\n\nCriticism\nPlantinga's Reformed Epistemology is a challenge against evidentialist epistemology. What Plantinga says is that the deliverances of reason consist of both properly basic beliefs and also beliefs based on propositional evidence. This is not the same as fideism, that is to say, \"a leap of faith.\" The properly basic beliefs are deliverances of reason.\n\nCritics of evidentialism sometimes reject the claim that a conclusion is justified only if one's evidence supports that conclusion. A typical counterexample goes like this. Suppose, for example, that Babe Ruth approaches the batter's box believing that he will hit a home run despite his current drunkenness and overall decline in performance in recent games. He realizes that, however unlikely it is that his luck will change, it would increase his chances of hitting a home run if he maintains a confident attitude. In these circumstances, critics of evidentialism argue that his belief that p = Babe Ruth will hit a home run is justified, even though his evidence does not support this belief.\n\nEvidentialists may respond to this criticism by forming a distinction between pragmatic or prudential justification and epistemic justification. In Babe Ruth's case, it is pragmatically justified that he believe p, but it is nevertheless epistemically unjustified: though the belief may be justified for the purpose of promoting some other goal (a successful at bat, in Ruth's case), it is not justified relative to the purely epistemic goal of having beliefs that are most likely to be true.\n\nA similar response follows the criticism that evidentialism implies all faith-based beliefs are unjustified. For example, fideism claims that evidence is irrelevant to religious beliefs and that attempts to justify religious beliefs in such a way are misguided. Superficially, fideism and evidentialism have mutually exclusive takes on religious beliefs, but evidentialists use the term \"justification\" in a much weaker sense than the one in which fideists most likely use it. Evidentialism merely defines the epistemic condition of a belief.\n\nAlthough evidentialism states that the content of the evidence does not matter, only that it constitutes valid justification towards some proposition, a skeptical criticism may be levelled at evidentialism from uncertainty theories. One's evidence may be objectively disproved at some point or it may be the case that one can never have absolute certainty of one's evidence. Given the logic of arguments concerning principles of uncertainty and randomness, skepticism towards knowledge merely becomes skepticism towards valid justification.\n\nLikewise, some say that the human mind is not naturally inclined to form beliefs based on evidence, viz. cognitive dissonance. While this may be the case, evidentialists admit, evidentialism is only meant to separate justified beliefs from unjustified beliefs. One can believe that evidentialism is true yet still maintain that the human mind is not naturally inclined to form beliefs based on evidence. He would simply have to conclude that the mind is not naturally inclined to form justified beliefs.\n\nThe infinite regress argument\n\nEvidentialism also faces a challenge from the infinite regress argument. This argument begins with the observation that, normally, one's supporting evidence for a belief consists of other beliefs. However, it seems that these other beliefs can do the job of justifying only if they themselves are already justified. And evidentialism demands that these supporting beliefs be justified by still further evidence if they are to be justified themselves. But this same reasoning would apply to the new, deeper level of supporting beliefs: they can only justify if they're themselves justified, and evidentialism therefore demands an even deeper level of supporting belief. And so on. According to this argument, a justified belief requires an endless supply of reasons. Some philosophers such as Thomas Nagel posit that this is an absurd conclusion.\n\nIn general, responses to this argument can be classified in the following ways:\n Foundationalism: There exist beliefs that are justified, but not because they are based on any other beliefs. These are called properly basic beliefs, and they are the foundation upon which all other justified beliefs ultimately rest.\n Coherentism: Justified beliefs are all evidentially supported by other beliefs, but an infinite set of beliefs is not generated, because the chains of evidential support among beliefs is allowed to move in a circle. On the resulting picture, a person's belief is justified when it fits together with the person's other beliefs in a coherent way in which the person's various beliefs mutually support one another.\n A modest reasoner subset of Coherentism would insist that all justifiable beliefs be statements about \"some objects\" since the negation/complement of a some statement is another some statement.\n Skepticism: There cannot be any justified beliefs.\n A modest reasoner subset of Scepticism like the subset of Coherentism would likewise insist and define all justifiable beliefs be statements about \"some objects\" since the negation/complement of a some statement is another some statement.\n Infinitism: Aside from these responses, some philosophers have said that evidential chains terminate in beliefs that are not justified. Others have said that, indeed, there can exist infinite chains of reasons.\n\nOf the main responses, coherentism and skepticism are clearly consistent with evidentialism. Coherentism allows evidential support for all of our justified beliefs in the face of the regress argument by allowing for circular chains of evidential support among beliefs. And the skeptic here is utilizing an evidentialist demand to arrive at her skeptical conclusion.\n\nBut because the resulting skepticism is so sweeping and devastating, and because so many reject the legitimacy of the circular reasoning embraced by the coherentist, foundationalism is the favored response of many philosophers to the regress argument. And foundationalism does not so clearly fit together with evidentialism. At first glance, at least, the \"basic\" beliefs of the foundationalist would appear to be counterexamples to the evidentialist's thesis, in that they are justified beliefs that are not rational because they are not supported by deeper evidence.\n\nNon-evidentialist theories of knowledge and justification\n\nMany contemporary epistemologists reject the view that evidential support is the whole story about the justification of beliefs. While no sensible epistemologists generally urge people to disregard their evidence when forming beliefs, many believe that a more complete theory would introduce considerations about the processes that initiate and sustain beliefs. An example of one such theory is reliabilism. The most influential proponent of reliabilism is Alvin Goldman. According to a crude form of reliabilism, S is justified in believing p if and only if S's belief in p is caused by a reliable process—a process that generally leads to true beliefs. Some of these reliable processes may require the processing of evidence; many others won't. So, Goldman would argue, evidentialism, on which the justification of a belief always turns completely on the issue of the belief's evidential support, is false. Likewise, evidentialism will be rejected by more sophisticated versions of reliabilism, some of which will allow evidence an important but limited role, as opposed to the all-encompassing role assigned to it by evidentialism.\n\nOther non-evidentialist theories include: the Causal Theory, according to which S knows p if and only if S's belief in p is causally connected in an appropriate way with S's believing p; and Robert Nozick's Truth Tracking Theory, according to which S knows p if and only if (i) p is true, (ii) S believes p, (iii) S's attitude toward p tracks the truth value of p in that, when p is not true, S does not believe p and when p is true, S does believe p.\n\nAnother alternative perspective, promoted by David Hume's 18th-century opponent, Presbyterian philosopher Thomas Reid, and perhaps hinted at by Hume himself, at least in some moods (though this is a very controversial issue in interpreting Hume), has it that some of our \"natural\" beliefs—beliefs we are led to form by natural features of the human constitution—have what can be called an \"innocent-until-proven-guilty\" status. Contrary to evidentialism, they can be justified in the absence of any effective evidence that supports them. They are justified just so long as one doesn't have good reason to think them false.\n\nA new account of the extent of our evidence is Timothy Williamson's claim that E=K: one's evidence is what one knows. (See Williamson's book, Knowledge and Its Limits (Oxford UP, 2000).) Going by the \"letter of the law,\" Williamson's resulting theory is not contrary to, but is rather an instance of, evidentialism. By allowing our evidence to encompass everything we know, Williamson is able to give thoroughly evidentialist accounts of many important epistemological concepts. But, traditionally, evidentialists have presupposed much more restrictive accounts of what our evidence is. Thus, Williamson's theory is opposed to the spirit of much traditional evidentialism, primarily because it turns evidentialism from an internalist account of justification to an externalist account (due to the factive nature of knowledge.) However, Williamson's work may point to a quite general way to modify traditional evidentialism to make it better able to meet the challenges it faces: whether or not one goes so far as to accept that E=K, broadening one's view of what constitutes our evidence may provide a way to address many of the objections to evidentialism, especially to those disinclined to swallow skeptical consequences of a view.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n .\n\nExternal links\n by Dan Mittag of the University of Rochester\n \n \n \n\nEpistemological theories\nJustification (epistemology)\nBelief\nEvidence\nInternalism and externalism"
] |
[
"Stephen Toulmin",
"The revival of casuistry",
"what was the revival of casuistry?",
"By reviving casuistry (also known as case ethics), Toulmin sought to find the middle ground between the extremes of absolutism and relativism.",
"what were some of his beliefs about this?",
"Casuistry employs absolutist principles, called \"type cases\" or \"paradigm cases,\" without resorting to absolutism."
] | C_39171226d43d45c89767c5e5ddc904ba_0 | can you tell me more about these "cases"? | 3 | Can you tell me more about "type cases"? | Stephen Toulmin | By reviving casuistry (also known as case ethics), Toulmin sought to find the middle ground between the extremes of absolutism and relativism. Casuistry was practiced widely during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to resolve moral issues. Although casuistry largely fell silent during the modern period, in The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), Toulmin collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen to demonstrate the effectiveness of casuistry in practical argumentation during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, effectively reviving it as a permissible method of argument. Casuistry employs absolutist principles, called "type cases" or "paradigm cases," without resorting to absolutism. It uses the standard principles (for example, sanctity of life) as referential markers in moral arguments. An individual case is then compared and contrasted with the type case. Given an individual case that is completely identical to the type case, moral judgments can be made immediately using the standard moral principles advocated in the type case. If the individual case differs from the type case, the differences will be critically assessed in order to arrive at a rational claim. Through the procedure of casuistry, Toulmin and Jonsen identified three problematic situations in moral reasoning: first, the type case fits the individual case only ambiguously; second, two type cases apply to the same individual case in conflicting ways; third, an unprecedented individual case occurs, which cannot be compared or contrasted to any type case. Through the use of casuistry, Toulmin demonstrated and reinforced his previous emphasis on the significance of comparison to moral arguments, a significance not addressed in theories of absolutism or relativism. CANNOTANSWER | It uses the standard principles (for example, sanctity of life) as referential markers in moral arguments. An individual case is then compared and contrasted with the type case. | Stephen Edelston Toulmin (; 25 March 1922 – 4 December 2009) was a British philosopher, author, and educator. Influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Toulmin devoted his works to the analysis of moral reasoning. Throughout his writings, he sought to develop practical arguments which can be used effectively in evaluating the ethics behind moral issues. His works were later found useful in the field of rhetoric for analyzing rhetorical arguments. The Toulmin model of argumentation, a diagram containing six interrelated components used for analyzing arguments, and published in his 1958 book The Uses of Argument, was considered his most influential work, particularly in the field of rhetoric and communication, and in computer science.
Biography
Stephen Toulmin was born in London, UK, on 25 March 1922 to Geoffrey Edelson Toulmin and Doris Holman Toulmin. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from King's College, Cambridge in 1943, where he was a Cambridge Apostle. Soon after, Toulmin was hired by the Ministry of Aircraft Production as a junior scientific officer, first at the Malvern Radar Research and Development Station and later at the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Germany. At the end of World War II, he returned to England to earn a Master of Arts degree in 1947 and a PhD in philosophy from Cambridge University, subsequently publishing his dissertation as An Examination of the Place of Reason in Ethics (1950). While at Cambridge, Toulmin came into contact with the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose examination of the relationship between the uses and the meanings of language shaped much of Toulmin's own work.
After graduating from Cambridge, he was appointed University Lecturer in Philosophy of Science at Oxford University from 1949 to 1954, during which period he wrote a second book, The Philosophy of Science: an Introduction (1953). Soon after, he was appointed to the position of Visiting Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at Melbourne University in Australia from 1954 to 1955, after which he returned to England, and served as Professor and Head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Leeds from 1955 to 1959. While at Leeds, he published one of his most influential books in the field of rhetoric, The Uses of Argument (1958), which investigated the flaws of traditional logic. Although it was poorly received in England and satirized as "Toulmin's anti-logic book" by Toulmin's fellow philosophers at Leeds, the book was applauded by the rhetoricians in the United States, where Toulmin served as a visiting professor at New York, Stanford, and Columbia Universities in 1959. While in the States, Wayne Brockriede and Douglas Ehninger introduced Toulmin's work to communication scholars, as they recognized that his work provided a good structural model useful for the analysis and criticism of rhetorical arguments. In 1960, Toulmin returned to London to hold the position of director of the Unit for History of Ideas of the Nuffield Foundation.
In 1965, Toulmin returned to the United States, where he held positions at various universities. In 1967, Toulmin served as literary executor for close friend N.R. Hanson, helping in the posthumous publication of several volumes. While at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Toulmin published Human Understanding: The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts (1972), which examines the causes and the processes of conceptual change. In this book, Toulmin uses a novel comparison between conceptual change and Charles Darwin's model of biological evolution to analyse the process of conceptual change as an evolutionary process. The book confronts major philosophical questions as well. In 1973, while a professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, he collaborated with Allan Janik, a philosophy professor at La Salle University, on the book Wittgenstein's Vienna, which advanced a thesis that underscores the significance of history to human reasoning: Contrary to philosophers who believe the absolute truth advocated in Plato's idealized formal logic, Toulmin argues that truth can be a relative quality, dependent on historical and cultural contexts (what other authors have termed "conceptual schemata").
From 1975 to 1978, he worked with the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, established by the United States Congress. During this time, he collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen to write The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), which demonstrates the procedures for resolving moral cases. One of his most recent works, Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990), written while Toulmin held the position of the Avalon Foundation Professor of the Humanities at Northwestern University, specifically criticizes the practical use and the thinning morality underlying modern science.
Toulmin held distinguished professorships at numerous universities, including Columbia, Dartmouth College, Michigan State, Northwestern, Stanford, the University of Chicago, and the University of Southern California School of International Relations.
In 1997 the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) selected Toulmin for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities. His lecture, "A Dissenter's Story" (alternatively entitled "A Dissenter's Life"), discussed the roots of modernity in rationalism and humanism, the "contrast of the reasonable and the rational", and warned of the "abstractions that may still tempt us back into the dogmatism, chauvinism and sectarianism our needs have outgrown". The NEH report of the speech further quoted Toulmin on the need to "make the technical and the humanistic strands in modern thought work together more effectively than they have in the past".
On 2 March 2006 Toulmin received the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art.
He was married four times, once to June Goodfield and collaborated with her on a series of books on the history of science. His children are Greg, of McLean, Va., Polly Macinnes of Skye, Scotland, Camilla Toulmin in the UK and Matthew Toulmin of Melbourne, Australia.
On 4 December 2009 Toulmin died of a heart failure at the age of 87 in Los Angeles, California.
Meta-philosophy
Objection to absolutism and relativism
Throughout many of his works, Toulmin pointed out that absolutism (represented by theoretical or analytic arguments) has limited practical value. Absolutism is derived from Plato's idealized formal logic, which advocates universal truth; accordingly, absolutists believe that moral issues can be resolved by adhering to a standard set of moral principles, regardless of context. By contrast, Toulmin contends that many of these so-called standard principles are irrelevant to real situations encountered by human beings in daily life.
To develop his contention, Toulmin introduced the concept of argument fields. In The Uses of Argument (1958), Toulmin claims that some aspects of arguments vary from field to field, and are hence called "field-dependent", while other aspects of argument are the same throughout all fields, and are hence called "field-invariant". The flaw of absolutism, Toulmin believes, lies in its unawareness of the field-dependent aspect of argument; absolutism assumes that all aspects of argument are field invariant.
In Human Understanding (1972), Toulmin suggests that anthropologists have been tempted to side with relativists because they have noticed the influence of cultural variations on rational arguments. In other words, the anthropologist or relativist overemphasizes the importance of the "field-dependent" aspect of arguments, and neglects or is unaware of the "field-invariant" elements. In order to provide solutions to the problems of absolutism and relativism, Toulmin attempts throughout his work to develop standards that are neither absolutist nor relativist for assessing the worth of ideas.
In Cosmopolis (1990), he traces philosophers' "quest for certainty" back to René Descartes and Thomas Hobbes, and lauds John Dewey, Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, and Richard Rorty for abandoning that tradition.
Humanizing modernity
In Cosmopolis Toulmin seeks the origins of the modern emphasis on universality (philosophers' "quest for certainty"), and criticizes both modern science and philosophers for having ignored practical issues in preference for abstract and theoretical issues. The pursuit of absolutism and theoretical arguments lacking practicality, for example, is, in his view, one of the main defects of modern philosophy. Similarly, Toulmin sensed a thinning of morality in the field of sciences, which has diverted its attention from practical issues concerning ecology to the production of the atomic bomb. To solve this problem, Toulmin advocated a return to humanism consisting of four returns: a return to oral communication and discourse, a plea which has been rejected by modern philosophers, whose scholarly focus is on the printed page; a return to the particular or individual cases that deal with practical moral issues occurring in daily life (as opposed to theoretical principles that have limited practicality); a return to the local, or to concrete cultural and historical contexts; and, finally, a return to the timely, from timeless problems to things whose rational significance depends on the time lines of our solutions. He follows up on this critique in Return to Reason (2001), where he seeks to illuminate the ills that, in his view, universalism has caused in the social sphere, discussing, among other things, the discrepancy between mainstream ethical theory and real-life ethical quandaries.
Argumentation
The Toulmin model of argument
Arguing that absolutism lacks practical value, Toulmin aimed to develop a different type of argument, called practical arguments (also known as substantial arguments). In contrast to absolutists' theoretical arguments, Toulmin's practical argument is intended to focus on the justificatory function of argumentation, as opposed to the inferential function of theoretical arguments. Whereas theoretical arguments make inferences based on a set of principles to arrive at a claim, practical arguments first find a claim of interest, and then provide justification for it. Toulmin believed that reasoning is less an activity of inference, involving the discovering of new ideas, and more a process of testing and sifting already existing ideas—an act achievable through the process of justification.
Toulmin believed that for a good argument to succeed, it needs to provide good justification for a claim. This, he believed, will ensure it stands up to criticism and earns a favourable verdict. In The Uses of Argument (1958), Toulmin proposed a layout containing six interrelated components for analyzing arguments:
Claim (Conclusion) A conclusion whose merit must be established. In argumentative essays, it may be called the thesis. For example, if a person tries to convince a listener that he is a British citizen, the claim would be "I am a British citizen" (1).
Ground (Fact, Evidence, Data) A fact one appeals to as a foundation for the claim. For example, the person introduced in 1 can support his claim with the supporting data "I was born in Bermuda" (2).
Warrant A statement authorizing movement from the ground to the claim. In order to move from the ground established in 2, "I was born in Bermuda", to the claim in 1, "I am a British citizen", the person must supply a warrant to bridge the gap between 1 and 2 with the statement "A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen" (3).
Backing Credentials designed to certify the statement expressed in the warrant; backing must be introduced when the warrant itself is not convincing enough to the readers or the listeners. For example, if the listener does not deem the warrant in 3 as credible, the speaker will supply the legal provisions: "I trained as a barrister in London, specialising in citizenship, so I know that a man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen".
Rebuttal (Reservation) Statements recognizing the restrictions which may legitimately be applied to the claim. It is exemplified as follows: "A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen, unless he has betrayed Britain and has become a spy for another country".
Qualifier Words or phrases expressing the speaker's degree of force or certainty concerning the claim. Such words or phrases include "probably", "possible", "impossible", "certainly", "presumably", "as far as the evidence goes", and "necessarily". The claim "I am definitely a British citizen" has a greater degree of force than the claim "I am a British citizen, presumably". (See also: Defeasible reasoning.)
The first three elements, claim, ground, and warrant, are considered as the essential components of practical arguments, while the second triad, qualifier, backing, and rebuttal, may not be needed in some arguments.
When Toulmin first proposed it, this layout of argumentation was based on legal arguments and intended to be used to analyze the rationality of arguments typically found in the courtroom. Toulmin did not realize that this layout could be applicable to the field of rhetoric and communication until his works were introduced to rhetoricians by Wayne Brockriede and Douglas Ehninger. Their Decision by Debate (1963) streamlined Toulmin's terminology and broadly introduced his model to the field of debate. Only after Toulmin published Introduction to Reasoning (1979) were the rhetorical applications of this layout mentioned in his works.
One criticism of the Toulmin model is that it does not fully consider the use of questions in argumentation. The Toulmin model assumes that an argument starts with a fact or claim and ends with a conclusion, but ignores an argument's underlying questions. In the example "Harry was born in Bermuda, so Harry must be a British subject", the question "Is Harry a British subject?" is ignored, which also neglects to analyze why particular questions are asked and others are not. (See Issue mapping for an example of an argument-mapping method that emphasizes questions.)
Toulmin's argument model has inspired research on, for example, goal structuring notation (GSN), widely used for developing safety cases, and argument maps and associated software.
Ethics
Good reasons approach
In Reason in Ethics (1950), his doctoral dissertation, Toulmin sets out a Good Reasons approach of ethics, and criticizes what he considers to be the subjectivism and emotivism of philosophers such as A. J. Ayer because, in his view, they fail to do justice to ethical reasoning.
The revival of casuistry
By reviving casuistry (also known as case ethics), Toulmin sought to find the middle ground between the extremes of absolutism and relativism. Casuistry was practiced widely during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to resolve moral issues. Although casuistry largely fell silent during the modern period, in The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), Toulmin collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen to demonstrate the effectiveness of casuistry in practical argumentation during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, effectively reviving it as a permissible method of argument.
Casuistry employs absolutist principles, called "type cases" or "paradigm cases", without resorting to absolutism. It uses the standard principles (for example, sanctity of life) as referential markers in moral arguments. An individual case is then compared and contrasted with the type case. Given an individual case that is completely identical to the type case, moral judgments can be made immediately using the standard moral principles advocated in the type case. If the individual case differs from the type case, the differences will be critically assessed in order to arrive at a rational claim.
Through the procedure of casuistry, Toulmin and Jonsen identified three problematic situations in moral reasoning: first, the type case fits the individual case only ambiguously; second, two type cases apply to the same individual case in conflicting ways; third, an unprecedented individual case occurs, which cannot be compared or contrasted to any type case. Through the use of casuistry, Toulmin demonstrated and reinforced his previous emphasis on the significance of comparison to moral arguments, a significance not addressed in theories of absolutism or relativism.
Philosophy of science
The evolutionary model
In 1972, Toulmin published Human Understanding, in which he asserts that conceptual change is an evolutionary process. In this book, Toulmin attacks Thomas Kuhn's account of conceptual change in his seminal work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). Kuhn believed that conceptual change is a revolutionary process (as opposed to an evolutionary process), during which mutually exclusive paradigms compete to replace one another. Toulmin criticized the relativist elements in Kuhn's thesis, arguing that mutually exclusive paradigms provide no ground for comparison, and that Kuhn made the relativists' error of overemphasizing the "field variant" while ignoring the "field invariant" or commonality shared by all argumentation or scientific paradigms.
In contrast to Kuhn's revolutionary model, Toulmin proposed an evolutionary model of conceptual change comparable to Darwin's model of biological evolution. Toulmin states that conceptual change involves the process of innovation and selection. Innovation accounts for the appearance of conceptual variations, while selection accounts for the survival and perpetuation of the soundest conceptions. Innovation occurs when the professionals of a particular discipline come to view things differently from their predecessors; selection subjects the innovative concepts to a process of debate and inquiry in what Toulmin considers as a "forum of competitions". The soundest concepts will survive the forum of competition as replacements or revisions of the traditional conceptions.
From the absolutists' point of view, concepts are either valid or invalid regardless of contexts. From the relativists' perspective, one concept is neither better nor worse than a rival concept from a different cultural context. From Toulmin's perspective, the evaluation depends on a process of comparison, which determines whether or not one concept will improve explanatory power more than its rival concepts.
Works
An Examination of the Place of Reason in Ethics (1950)
The Philosophy of Science: An Introduction (1953)
The Uses of Argument (1958) 2nd edition 2003:
Metaphysical Beliefs, Three Essays (1957) with Ronald W. Hepburn and Alasdair MacIntyre
The Riviera (1961)
Seventeenth century science and the arts (1961)
Foresight and Understanding: An Enquiry into the Aims of Science (1961)
The Fabric of the Heavens (The Ancestry of Science, volume 1) (1961) with June Goodfield
The Architecture of Matter (The Ancestry of Science, volume 2) (1962) with June Goodfield
Night Sky at Rhodes (1963)
The Discovery of Time (The Ancestry of Science, volume 3) (1965) with June Goodfield
Physical Reality (1970)
Human Understanding: The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts (1972)
Wittgenstein's Vienna (1973) with Allan Janik
On the Nature of the Physician's Understanding (1976)
Knowing and Acting: An Invitation to Philosophy (1976)
An Introduction to Reasoning (1979) with Allan Janik and Richard D. Rieke 2nd edition 1997:
The Return to Cosmology: Postmodern Science and the Theology of Nature (1985)
The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988) with Albert R. Jonsen
Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990)
Social Impact of AIDS in the United States (1993) with Albert R. Jonsen
Beyond theory – changing organizations through participation (1996) with Björn Gustavsen (editors)
Return to Reason (2001)
Pantheon of skeptics
At a meeting of the executive council of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) in Denver, Colorado in April 2011, Toulmin was selected for inclusion in CSI's Pantheon of Skeptics. The Pantheon of Skeptics was created by CSI to remember the legacy of deceased fellows of CSI and their contributions to the cause of scientific skepticism.
See also
Argumentation theory
Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
Stephen Toulmin
Interview with Stephen Toulmin in JAC
Obituary in The Guardian
William Long (2004) Wittgenstein's Vienna (1973)
1922 births
2009 deaths
20th-century English philosophers
English rhetoricians
Philosophers of science
Moral philosophers
Wittgensteinian philosophers
Academics of the University of Leeds
Alumni of King's College, Cambridge
Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club
New York University faculty
Stanford University faculty
Columbia University faculty
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth faculty
Michigan State University faculty
University of Chicago faculty
Northwestern University faculty
University of Southern California faculty
English sceptics
Recipients of the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art
British expatriates in the United States | true | [
"You Can Hold Me Down is the debut album by William Tell, first released on March 13, 2007 through Universal Records and New Door Records.\n\nTrack listing\n \"Jeannie\" (William Tell) 3:01\n \"Slipping Under (Sing Along to Your Favorite Song)\" (PJ Smith, William Tell) 3:34\n \"Trouble\" (William Tell) 2:55\n \"Fairfax (You’re Still the Same)\" (William Tell) 2:49\n \"Like You, Only Sweeter\" (Darren Tehrani, William Tell) 3:41\n \"Maybe Tonight\" (William Tell, Mike Green) 3:13\n \"Young at Heart\" (William Tell) 2:46\n \"Sounds\" (William Tell, PJ Smith) 3:05\n \"Just For You\" (William Tell, Mike Green) 3:33\n \"You Can Hold Me Down\" (William Tell, Darren Tehrani) 3:23\n\nBest Buy hidden track:\n<li> \"You Can Hold Me Down\" (Tell, Tehrani) – 9:31\n features the hidden track \"After All\", beginning at about 4:30\n\niTunes Store bonus track:\n<li> \"Yesterday is Calling\" (James Bourne, Smith) – 3:43\n\nTarget bonus track:\n<li> \"Young at Heart (Acoustic)\" (Tell) – 2:46\n\nWal-Mart bonus tracks:\n<li> \"This Mess\" – 3:23\n<li> \"Katie (Where'd You Go?)\" – 3:48\n\nPersonnel\nWilliam Tell - vocals, guitars, bass\nBrian Ireland - drums, percussion\nAndrew McMahon - piano\n\nReferences\n\nYou Can Hold Me Down (William Tell album)",
"\"Tell Me How You Feel\" is a song by American singer and actress Joy Enriquez. It samples \"Mellow Mellow Right On\" by Lowrell Simon. The song was released as the second single from her debut self-titled studio album in September 2000, peaking at number 17 on the US Billboard Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, number 24 in Australia and number 14 in New Zealand, where it was certified Gold for sales of over 5,000.\n\nTrack listings\n\nUS CD single\n \"Tell Me How You Feel\" – 4:06\n Snippets from Joy Enriquez\n \"Shake Up the Party\"\n \"Situation\"\n \"I Can't Believe\"\n\nAustralian maxi-CD single\n \"Tell Me How You Feel\" – 4:06\n \"Tell Me How You Feel\" (Full Crew remix) – 4:04\n \"Between You and Me\" – 4:21\n \"How Can I Not Love You\" – 4:33\n\nEuropean CD single\n \"Tell Me How You Feel\" (album version) – 4:06\n \"Tell Me How You Feel\" (Full Crew remix) – 4:05\n\nEuropean maxi-CD single\n \"Tell Me How You Feel\" (album version) – 4:06\n \"Tell Me How You Feel\" (Full Crew remix) – 4:05\n \"Dime mi amor\" (Spanish version) – 3:59\n \"Tell Me How You Feel\" (instrumental) – 4:05\n\nJapanese CD single\n \"Tell Me How You Feel\"\n \"How Can I Not Love You\"\n\nCharts\n\nCertifications\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n at Discogs\n\n2000 singles\n2000 songs\n2001 singles\nArista Records singles\nSong recordings produced by Soulshock and Karlin\nSongs written by Kenneth Karlin\nSongs written by Soulshock"
] |
[
"Stephen Toulmin",
"The revival of casuistry",
"what was the revival of casuistry?",
"By reviving casuistry (also known as case ethics), Toulmin sought to find the middle ground between the extremes of absolutism and relativism.",
"what were some of his beliefs about this?",
"Casuistry employs absolutist principles, called \"type cases\" or \"paradigm cases,\" without resorting to absolutism.",
"can you tell me more about these \"cases\"?",
"It uses the standard principles (for example, sanctity of life) as referential markers in moral arguments. An individual case is then compared and contrasted with the type case."
] | C_39171226d43d45c89767c5e5ddc904ba_0 | what else is interesting about casuistry? | 4 | What else is interesting about casuistry other than it's principles? | Stephen Toulmin | By reviving casuistry (also known as case ethics), Toulmin sought to find the middle ground between the extremes of absolutism and relativism. Casuistry was practiced widely during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to resolve moral issues. Although casuistry largely fell silent during the modern period, in The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), Toulmin collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen to demonstrate the effectiveness of casuistry in practical argumentation during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, effectively reviving it as a permissible method of argument. Casuistry employs absolutist principles, called "type cases" or "paradigm cases," without resorting to absolutism. It uses the standard principles (for example, sanctity of life) as referential markers in moral arguments. An individual case is then compared and contrasted with the type case. Given an individual case that is completely identical to the type case, moral judgments can be made immediately using the standard moral principles advocated in the type case. If the individual case differs from the type case, the differences will be critically assessed in order to arrive at a rational claim. Through the procedure of casuistry, Toulmin and Jonsen identified three problematic situations in moral reasoning: first, the type case fits the individual case only ambiguously; second, two type cases apply to the same individual case in conflicting ways; third, an unprecedented individual case occurs, which cannot be compared or contrasted to any type case. Through the use of casuistry, Toulmin demonstrated and reinforced his previous emphasis on the significance of comparison to moral arguments, a significance not addressed in theories of absolutism or relativism. CANNOTANSWER | Casuistry was practiced widely during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to resolve moral issues. | Stephen Edelston Toulmin (; 25 March 1922 – 4 December 2009) was a British philosopher, author, and educator. Influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Toulmin devoted his works to the analysis of moral reasoning. Throughout his writings, he sought to develop practical arguments which can be used effectively in evaluating the ethics behind moral issues. His works were later found useful in the field of rhetoric for analyzing rhetorical arguments. The Toulmin model of argumentation, a diagram containing six interrelated components used for analyzing arguments, and published in his 1958 book The Uses of Argument, was considered his most influential work, particularly in the field of rhetoric and communication, and in computer science.
Biography
Stephen Toulmin was born in London, UK, on 25 March 1922 to Geoffrey Edelson Toulmin and Doris Holman Toulmin. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from King's College, Cambridge in 1943, where he was a Cambridge Apostle. Soon after, Toulmin was hired by the Ministry of Aircraft Production as a junior scientific officer, first at the Malvern Radar Research and Development Station and later at the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Germany. At the end of World War II, he returned to England to earn a Master of Arts degree in 1947 and a PhD in philosophy from Cambridge University, subsequently publishing his dissertation as An Examination of the Place of Reason in Ethics (1950). While at Cambridge, Toulmin came into contact with the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose examination of the relationship between the uses and the meanings of language shaped much of Toulmin's own work.
After graduating from Cambridge, he was appointed University Lecturer in Philosophy of Science at Oxford University from 1949 to 1954, during which period he wrote a second book, The Philosophy of Science: an Introduction (1953). Soon after, he was appointed to the position of Visiting Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at Melbourne University in Australia from 1954 to 1955, after which he returned to England, and served as Professor and Head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Leeds from 1955 to 1959. While at Leeds, he published one of his most influential books in the field of rhetoric, The Uses of Argument (1958), which investigated the flaws of traditional logic. Although it was poorly received in England and satirized as "Toulmin's anti-logic book" by Toulmin's fellow philosophers at Leeds, the book was applauded by the rhetoricians in the United States, where Toulmin served as a visiting professor at New York, Stanford, and Columbia Universities in 1959. While in the States, Wayne Brockriede and Douglas Ehninger introduced Toulmin's work to communication scholars, as they recognized that his work provided a good structural model useful for the analysis and criticism of rhetorical arguments. In 1960, Toulmin returned to London to hold the position of director of the Unit for History of Ideas of the Nuffield Foundation.
In 1965, Toulmin returned to the United States, where he held positions at various universities. In 1967, Toulmin served as literary executor for close friend N.R. Hanson, helping in the posthumous publication of several volumes. While at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Toulmin published Human Understanding: The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts (1972), which examines the causes and the processes of conceptual change. In this book, Toulmin uses a novel comparison between conceptual change and Charles Darwin's model of biological evolution to analyse the process of conceptual change as an evolutionary process. The book confronts major philosophical questions as well. In 1973, while a professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, he collaborated with Allan Janik, a philosophy professor at La Salle University, on the book Wittgenstein's Vienna, which advanced a thesis that underscores the significance of history to human reasoning: Contrary to philosophers who believe the absolute truth advocated in Plato's idealized formal logic, Toulmin argues that truth can be a relative quality, dependent on historical and cultural contexts (what other authors have termed "conceptual schemata").
From 1975 to 1978, he worked with the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, established by the United States Congress. During this time, he collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen to write The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), which demonstrates the procedures for resolving moral cases. One of his most recent works, Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990), written while Toulmin held the position of the Avalon Foundation Professor of the Humanities at Northwestern University, specifically criticizes the practical use and the thinning morality underlying modern science.
Toulmin held distinguished professorships at numerous universities, including Columbia, Dartmouth College, Michigan State, Northwestern, Stanford, the University of Chicago, and the University of Southern California School of International Relations.
In 1997 the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) selected Toulmin for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities. His lecture, "A Dissenter's Story" (alternatively entitled "A Dissenter's Life"), discussed the roots of modernity in rationalism and humanism, the "contrast of the reasonable and the rational", and warned of the "abstractions that may still tempt us back into the dogmatism, chauvinism and sectarianism our needs have outgrown". The NEH report of the speech further quoted Toulmin on the need to "make the technical and the humanistic strands in modern thought work together more effectively than they have in the past".
On 2 March 2006 Toulmin received the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art.
He was married four times, once to June Goodfield and collaborated with her on a series of books on the history of science. His children are Greg, of McLean, Va., Polly Macinnes of Skye, Scotland, Camilla Toulmin in the UK and Matthew Toulmin of Melbourne, Australia.
On 4 December 2009 Toulmin died of a heart failure at the age of 87 in Los Angeles, California.
Meta-philosophy
Objection to absolutism and relativism
Throughout many of his works, Toulmin pointed out that absolutism (represented by theoretical or analytic arguments) has limited practical value. Absolutism is derived from Plato's idealized formal logic, which advocates universal truth; accordingly, absolutists believe that moral issues can be resolved by adhering to a standard set of moral principles, regardless of context. By contrast, Toulmin contends that many of these so-called standard principles are irrelevant to real situations encountered by human beings in daily life.
To develop his contention, Toulmin introduced the concept of argument fields. In The Uses of Argument (1958), Toulmin claims that some aspects of arguments vary from field to field, and are hence called "field-dependent", while other aspects of argument are the same throughout all fields, and are hence called "field-invariant". The flaw of absolutism, Toulmin believes, lies in its unawareness of the field-dependent aspect of argument; absolutism assumes that all aspects of argument are field invariant.
In Human Understanding (1972), Toulmin suggests that anthropologists have been tempted to side with relativists because they have noticed the influence of cultural variations on rational arguments. In other words, the anthropologist or relativist overemphasizes the importance of the "field-dependent" aspect of arguments, and neglects or is unaware of the "field-invariant" elements. In order to provide solutions to the problems of absolutism and relativism, Toulmin attempts throughout his work to develop standards that are neither absolutist nor relativist for assessing the worth of ideas.
In Cosmopolis (1990), he traces philosophers' "quest for certainty" back to René Descartes and Thomas Hobbes, and lauds John Dewey, Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, and Richard Rorty for abandoning that tradition.
Humanizing modernity
In Cosmopolis Toulmin seeks the origins of the modern emphasis on universality (philosophers' "quest for certainty"), and criticizes both modern science and philosophers for having ignored practical issues in preference for abstract and theoretical issues. The pursuit of absolutism and theoretical arguments lacking practicality, for example, is, in his view, one of the main defects of modern philosophy. Similarly, Toulmin sensed a thinning of morality in the field of sciences, which has diverted its attention from practical issues concerning ecology to the production of the atomic bomb. To solve this problem, Toulmin advocated a return to humanism consisting of four returns: a return to oral communication and discourse, a plea which has been rejected by modern philosophers, whose scholarly focus is on the printed page; a return to the particular or individual cases that deal with practical moral issues occurring in daily life (as opposed to theoretical principles that have limited practicality); a return to the local, or to concrete cultural and historical contexts; and, finally, a return to the timely, from timeless problems to things whose rational significance depends on the time lines of our solutions. He follows up on this critique in Return to Reason (2001), where he seeks to illuminate the ills that, in his view, universalism has caused in the social sphere, discussing, among other things, the discrepancy between mainstream ethical theory and real-life ethical quandaries.
Argumentation
The Toulmin model of argument
Arguing that absolutism lacks practical value, Toulmin aimed to develop a different type of argument, called practical arguments (also known as substantial arguments). In contrast to absolutists' theoretical arguments, Toulmin's practical argument is intended to focus on the justificatory function of argumentation, as opposed to the inferential function of theoretical arguments. Whereas theoretical arguments make inferences based on a set of principles to arrive at a claim, practical arguments first find a claim of interest, and then provide justification for it. Toulmin believed that reasoning is less an activity of inference, involving the discovering of new ideas, and more a process of testing and sifting already existing ideas—an act achievable through the process of justification.
Toulmin believed that for a good argument to succeed, it needs to provide good justification for a claim. This, he believed, will ensure it stands up to criticism and earns a favourable verdict. In The Uses of Argument (1958), Toulmin proposed a layout containing six interrelated components for analyzing arguments:
Claim (Conclusion) A conclusion whose merit must be established. In argumentative essays, it may be called the thesis. For example, if a person tries to convince a listener that he is a British citizen, the claim would be "I am a British citizen" (1).
Ground (Fact, Evidence, Data) A fact one appeals to as a foundation for the claim. For example, the person introduced in 1 can support his claim with the supporting data "I was born in Bermuda" (2).
Warrant A statement authorizing movement from the ground to the claim. In order to move from the ground established in 2, "I was born in Bermuda", to the claim in 1, "I am a British citizen", the person must supply a warrant to bridge the gap between 1 and 2 with the statement "A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen" (3).
Backing Credentials designed to certify the statement expressed in the warrant; backing must be introduced when the warrant itself is not convincing enough to the readers or the listeners. For example, if the listener does not deem the warrant in 3 as credible, the speaker will supply the legal provisions: "I trained as a barrister in London, specialising in citizenship, so I know that a man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen".
Rebuttal (Reservation) Statements recognizing the restrictions which may legitimately be applied to the claim. It is exemplified as follows: "A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen, unless he has betrayed Britain and has become a spy for another country".
Qualifier Words or phrases expressing the speaker's degree of force or certainty concerning the claim. Such words or phrases include "probably", "possible", "impossible", "certainly", "presumably", "as far as the evidence goes", and "necessarily". The claim "I am definitely a British citizen" has a greater degree of force than the claim "I am a British citizen, presumably". (See also: Defeasible reasoning.)
The first three elements, claim, ground, and warrant, are considered as the essential components of practical arguments, while the second triad, qualifier, backing, and rebuttal, may not be needed in some arguments.
When Toulmin first proposed it, this layout of argumentation was based on legal arguments and intended to be used to analyze the rationality of arguments typically found in the courtroom. Toulmin did not realize that this layout could be applicable to the field of rhetoric and communication until his works were introduced to rhetoricians by Wayne Brockriede and Douglas Ehninger. Their Decision by Debate (1963) streamlined Toulmin's terminology and broadly introduced his model to the field of debate. Only after Toulmin published Introduction to Reasoning (1979) were the rhetorical applications of this layout mentioned in his works.
One criticism of the Toulmin model is that it does not fully consider the use of questions in argumentation. The Toulmin model assumes that an argument starts with a fact or claim and ends with a conclusion, but ignores an argument's underlying questions. In the example "Harry was born in Bermuda, so Harry must be a British subject", the question "Is Harry a British subject?" is ignored, which also neglects to analyze why particular questions are asked and others are not. (See Issue mapping for an example of an argument-mapping method that emphasizes questions.)
Toulmin's argument model has inspired research on, for example, goal structuring notation (GSN), widely used for developing safety cases, and argument maps and associated software.
Ethics
Good reasons approach
In Reason in Ethics (1950), his doctoral dissertation, Toulmin sets out a Good Reasons approach of ethics, and criticizes what he considers to be the subjectivism and emotivism of philosophers such as A. J. Ayer because, in his view, they fail to do justice to ethical reasoning.
The revival of casuistry
By reviving casuistry (also known as case ethics), Toulmin sought to find the middle ground between the extremes of absolutism and relativism. Casuistry was practiced widely during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to resolve moral issues. Although casuistry largely fell silent during the modern period, in The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), Toulmin collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen to demonstrate the effectiveness of casuistry in practical argumentation during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, effectively reviving it as a permissible method of argument.
Casuistry employs absolutist principles, called "type cases" or "paradigm cases", without resorting to absolutism. It uses the standard principles (for example, sanctity of life) as referential markers in moral arguments. An individual case is then compared and contrasted with the type case. Given an individual case that is completely identical to the type case, moral judgments can be made immediately using the standard moral principles advocated in the type case. If the individual case differs from the type case, the differences will be critically assessed in order to arrive at a rational claim.
Through the procedure of casuistry, Toulmin and Jonsen identified three problematic situations in moral reasoning: first, the type case fits the individual case only ambiguously; second, two type cases apply to the same individual case in conflicting ways; third, an unprecedented individual case occurs, which cannot be compared or contrasted to any type case. Through the use of casuistry, Toulmin demonstrated and reinforced his previous emphasis on the significance of comparison to moral arguments, a significance not addressed in theories of absolutism or relativism.
Philosophy of science
The evolutionary model
In 1972, Toulmin published Human Understanding, in which he asserts that conceptual change is an evolutionary process. In this book, Toulmin attacks Thomas Kuhn's account of conceptual change in his seminal work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). Kuhn believed that conceptual change is a revolutionary process (as opposed to an evolutionary process), during which mutually exclusive paradigms compete to replace one another. Toulmin criticized the relativist elements in Kuhn's thesis, arguing that mutually exclusive paradigms provide no ground for comparison, and that Kuhn made the relativists' error of overemphasizing the "field variant" while ignoring the "field invariant" or commonality shared by all argumentation or scientific paradigms.
In contrast to Kuhn's revolutionary model, Toulmin proposed an evolutionary model of conceptual change comparable to Darwin's model of biological evolution. Toulmin states that conceptual change involves the process of innovation and selection. Innovation accounts for the appearance of conceptual variations, while selection accounts for the survival and perpetuation of the soundest conceptions. Innovation occurs when the professionals of a particular discipline come to view things differently from their predecessors; selection subjects the innovative concepts to a process of debate and inquiry in what Toulmin considers as a "forum of competitions". The soundest concepts will survive the forum of competition as replacements or revisions of the traditional conceptions.
From the absolutists' point of view, concepts are either valid or invalid regardless of contexts. From the relativists' perspective, one concept is neither better nor worse than a rival concept from a different cultural context. From Toulmin's perspective, the evaluation depends on a process of comparison, which determines whether or not one concept will improve explanatory power more than its rival concepts.
Works
An Examination of the Place of Reason in Ethics (1950)
The Philosophy of Science: An Introduction (1953)
The Uses of Argument (1958) 2nd edition 2003:
Metaphysical Beliefs, Three Essays (1957) with Ronald W. Hepburn and Alasdair MacIntyre
The Riviera (1961)
Seventeenth century science and the arts (1961)
Foresight and Understanding: An Enquiry into the Aims of Science (1961)
The Fabric of the Heavens (The Ancestry of Science, volume 1) (1961) with June Goodfield
The Architecture of Matter (The Ancestry of Science, volume 2) (1962) with June Goodfield
Night Sky at Rhodes (1963)
The Discovery of Time (The Ancestry of Science, volume 3) (1965) with June Goodfield
Physical Reality (1970)
Human Understanding: The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts (1972)
Wittgenstein's Vienna (1973) with Allan Janik
On the Nature of the Physician's Understanding (1976)
Knowing and Acting: An Invitation to Philosophy (1976)
An Introduction to Reasoning (1979) with Allan Janik and Richard D. Rieke 2nd edition 1997:
The Return to Cosmology: Postmodern Science and the Theology of Nature (1985)
The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988) with Albert R. Jonsen
Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990)
Social Impact of AIDS in the United States (1993) with Albert R. Jonsen
Beyond theory – changing organizations through participation (1996) with Björn Gustavsen (editors)
Return to Reason (2001)
Pantheon of skeptics
At a meeting of the executive council of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) in Denver, Colorado in April 2011, Toulmin was selected for inclusion in CSI's Pantheon of Skeptics. The Pantheon of Skeptics was created by CSI to remember the legacy of deceased fellows of CSI and their contributions to the cause of scientific skepticism.
See also
Argumentation theory
Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
Stephen Toulmin
Interview with Stephen Toulmin in JAC
Obituary in The Guardian
William Long (2004) Wittgenstein's Vienna (1973)
1922 births
2009 deaths
20th-century English philosophers
English rhetoricians
Philosophers of science
Moral philosophers
Wittgensteinian philosophers
Academics of the University of Leeds
Alumni of King's College, Cambridge
Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club
New York University faculty
Stanford University faculty
Columbia University faculty
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth faculty
Michigan State University faculty
University of Chicago faculty
Northwestern University faculty
University of Southern California faculty
English sceptics
Recipients of the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art
British expatriates in the United States | true | [
"Puritan casuistry is a genre of British religious literature, in the general area of moral theology, and recognised as founded about 1600. The work A Case of Conscience (1592) of William Perkins is considered foundational for the genre. So-called \"case divinity\" has been described as fundamental to Puritan culture. The underlying theological trend is said to be visible in George Gifford: evidence from life accentuated as \"proof of election\", to be obtained reflectively, and matching \"biblically promised effects\".\n\nIn line with the tenets of Reformed theology, the assurance of salvation could produce dilemmas on a spiritual level, and Puritan casuistry in part was a response to the need to address these issues as practical problems. Perkins, Richard Greenham, William Ames and Joseph Alleine were noted as authors who wrote in this area. From Ames, it was considered that reprobation can almost never know itself. More accurately, the issue is election, and the assurance of it, and Perkins addressed it as a preoccupation.\n\nOtherwise, the content of \"Puritan casuistry\" is still somewhat contested by scholars, because the element of casuistry is apparently lower than would be expected, if it were simply the casuistry of Puritanism. One explanation lies in a transformed, Protestant, meaning of \"casuistry\", as the \"sifting of the conscience\". Some of the content of confession is therefore implied, and so of devotional life. In terms of genre, devotional literature can be closer to the mark, than moral literature. It has been argued by a Jesuit author that \"casuistry\" here is a misnomer, and \"practical divinity\" more accurate.\n\nBackground in Early Modern casuistry\nThe medieval tradition in casuistry went under the name casus conscientiae, \"cases of conscience\". It took the form of moral principles shown as applied to particular situations. It was taken up by 17th century writers, both Catholic and Protestant. When Reformed theologians adopted casuistry, it was in a distinctive style: concise and biblical, and largely denying the separation of moral philosophy from theology. In the early 17th century the term \"practical theology\" was coming in, to cover \"cases of conscience\", though its scope could be wider than that.\n\nNotes\n\nPuritanism in England\nEthics literature\nSalvation in Protestantism\nBritish literature",
"Casuistry ( ) is a process of reasoning that seeks to resolve moral problems by extracting or extending theoretical rules from a particular case, and reapplying those rules to new instances. This method occurs in applied ethics and jurisprudence. The term is also commonly used as a pejorative to criticize the use of clever but unsound reasoning, especially in relation to moral questions (as in sophistry). It is the \"[s]tudy of cases of conscience and a method of solving conflicts of obligations by applying general principles of ethics, religion, and moral theology to particular and concrete cases of human conduct. This frequently demands an extensive knowledge of natural law and equity, civil law, ecclesiastical precepts, and an exceptional skill in interpreting these various norms of conduct.\" It remains a common tool for applied ethics.\n\nEtymology\nThe term and its agent noun \"casuist\" from 1600, ultimately derive from Latin noun (\"case, occurrence, etc.\"); even from the earliest attestations, the concept was intended as pejorative. Indeed, the Oxford English Dictionary says, quoting the Viscount Bolingbroke (1749), that the word \"[o]ften (and perhaps originally) applied to a quibbling or evasive way of dealing with difficult cases of duty.\" Its textual references, except for certain technical usages, are consistently pejorative (e.g., \"Casuistry destroys by distinctions and exceptions, all morality, and effaces the essential difference between right and wrong\"). Often since the 17th century, the word has always carried a connotation of \"over-subtle reasoner, sophist.\"\n\nHistory\nCasuistry dates from Aristotle (384–322 BC), yet the zenith of casuistry was from 1550 to 1650, when the Society of Jesus used case-based reasoning, particularly in administering the Sacrament of Penance (or \"confession\"). The term casuistry or Jesuitism quickly became pejorative with Blaise Pascal's attack on the misuse of casuistry. Some Jesuit theologians, in view of promoting personal responsibility and the respect of freedom of conscience, stressed the importance of the 'case by case' approach to personal moral decisions and ultimately developed and accepted a casuistry (the study of cases of consciences) where at the time of decision, individual inclinations were more important than the moral law itself.\n\nIn Provincial Letters (1656–57) the French mathematician, religious philosopher and Jansenist sympathiser, Blaise Pascal vigorously attacked the moral laxism of Jesuits who used casuistic reasoning in confession to placate wealthy Church donors, while punishing poor penitents. Pascal charged that aristocratic penitents could confess their sins one day, re-commit the sin the next day, generously donate the following day, then return to re-confess their sins and only receive the lightest punishment; Pascal's criticisms darkened casuistry's reputation.\n\nA British encyclopedia of 1900 claimed that it was \"popularly regarded as an attempt to achieve holy ends by unholy means.\"\n\nIt was not until publication of The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), by Albert Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin, that a revival of casuistry occurred. They argue that the abuse of casuistry is the problem, not casuistry per se (itself an example of casuistic reasoning). Properly used, casuistry is powerful reasoning. Jonsen and Toulmin offer casuistry in dissolving the contradictory tenets of moral absolutism and the common secular moral relativism: \"the form of reasoning constitutive of classical casuistry is rhetorical reasoning\". Moreover, the ethical philosophies of Utilitarianism (especially preference utilitarianism) and Pragmatism commonly are identified as greatly employing casuistic reasoning.\n\nEarly modernity\nThe casuistic method was popular among Catholic thinkers in the early modern period, and not only among the Jesuits, as it is commonly thought. Famous casuistic authors include Antonio Escobar y Mendoza, whose Summula casuum conscientiae (1627) enjoyed a great success, Thomas Sanchez, Vincenzo Filliucci (Jesuit and penitentiary at St Peter's), Antonino Diana, Paul Laymann (Theologia Moralis, 1625), John Azor (Institutiones Morales, 1600), Etienne Bauny, Louis Cellot, Valerius Reginaldus, Hermann Busembaum (d. 1668), etc. One of the main theses of casuists was the necessity to adapt the rigorous morals of the Early Fathers of Christianity to modern morals, which led in some extreme cases to justify what Innocent XI later called \"laxist moral\" (i.e. justification of usury, homicide, regicide, lying through \"mental reservation\", adultery and loss of virginity before marriage, etc.—all due cases registered by Pascal in the Provincial Letters).\n\nThe progress of casuistry was interrupted toward the middle of the 17th century by the controversy which arose concerning the doctrine of probabilism, which stipulated that one could choose to follow a \"probable opinion\", that is, supported by a theologian or another, even if it contradicted a more probable opinion or a quotation from one of the Fathers of the Church. The controversy divided Catholic theologians into two camps, Rigorists and Laxists.\n\nCertain kinds of casuistry were criticized by early Protestant theologians, because it was used in order to justify many of the abuses that they sought to reform. It was famously attacked by the Catholic and Jansenist philosopher Pascal, during the formulary controversy against the Jesuits, in his Provincial Letters as the use of rhetorics to justify moral laxity, which became identified by the public with Jesuitism; hence the everyday use of the term to mean complex and sophistic reasoning to justify moral laxity. By the mid-18th century, \"casuistry\" had become a synonym for specious moral reasoning. However, Puritans were known for their own development of casuistry.\n\nIn 1679 Pope Innocent XI publicly condemned sixty-five of the more radical propositions (stricti mentalis), taken chiefly from the writings of Escobar, Suarez and other casuists as propositiones laxorum moralistarum and forbade anyone to teach them under penalty of excommunication. Despite this papal condemnation, both Catholicism and Protestantism permit the use of ambiguous and equivocal statements in specific circumstances.\n\nLater modernity\nG. E. Moore dealt with casuistry in chapter 1.4 of his Principia Ethica, in which he claims that \"the defects of casuistry are not defects of principle; no objection can be taken to its aim and object. It has failed only because it is far too difficult a subject to be treated adequately in our present state of knowledge\". Furthermore, he asserted that \"casuistry is the goal of ethical investigation. It cannot be safely attempted at the beginning of our studies, but only at the end\".\n\nSince the 1960s, applied ethics has revived the ideas of casuistry in applying ethical reasoning to particular cases in law, bioethics, and business ethics, so the reputation of casuistry is somewhat rehabilitated.\n\nPope Francis, a Jesuit, has criticized casuistry as \"the practice of setting general laws on the basis of exceptional cases\" in instances where a more holistic approach would be preferred.\n\nSee also\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n\n \n \n \n Bliton, Mark J. (1993). The Ethics of Clinical Ethics Consultation: On the Way to Clinical Philosophy (Diss. Vanderbilt)\n \n \n \n \n \n Carney, Bridget Mary. (1993). Modern Casuistry: An Essential But Incomplete Method for Clinical Ethical Decision-Making. (Diss., Graduate Theological Union).\n \n Carson, Ronald A. (1988). \"Paul Ramsey, Principled Protestant Casuist: A Retrospective.\" Medical Humanities Review, Vol. 2, pp. 24–35.\n Chidwick, Paula Marjorie (1994). Approaches to Clinical Ethical Decision-Making: Ethical Theory, Casuistry and Consultation. (Diss., U of Guelph)\n \n \n \n Drane, J.F. (1990). \"Methodologies for Clinical Ethics.\" Bulletin of the Pan American Health Organization, Vol. 24, pp. 394–404.\n Dworkin, R.B. (1994). \"Emerging Paradigms in Bioethics: Symposium.\" Indiana Law Journal, Vol. 69, pp. 945–1122.\n Elliot, Carl (1992). \"Solving the Doctor's Dilemma?\" New Scientist, Vol. 133, pp. 42–43.\n Emanuel, Ezekiel J. (1991). The Ends of Human Life: Medical Ethics in a Liberal Polity (Cambridge).\n Franklin, James (2001). The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability Before Pascal (Johns Hopkins), ch. 4.\n Gallagher, Lowell (1991). Medusa's Gaze: Casuistry and Conscience in the Renaissance (Stanford)\n \n Green, Bryan S. (1988). Literary Methods and Sociological Theory: Case Studies of Simmel and Weber (Albany)\n \n Houle, Martha Marie (1983). The Fictions of Casuistry and Pascal's Jesuit in \"Les Provinciales\" (Diss. U California, San Diego)\n \n \n \n \n Jonsen, Albert R. (1986). \"Casuistry\" in J.F. Childress and J. Macgvarrie, eds. Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics (Philadelphia)\n \n \n Jonsen, Albert R. and Stephen Toulmin (1988). The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (California).\n Keenan, James F., S.J. and Thomas A. Shannon. (1995). The Context of Casuistry (Washington).\n Kirk, K. (1936). Conscience and Its Problems, An Introduction to Casuistry (London)\n \n \n \n \n Kuczewski, Mark G. (1994). Fragmentation and Consensus in Contemporary Neo-Aristotelian Ethics: A Study in Communitarianism and Casuistry (Diss., Duquesne U).\n \n \n Long, Edward LeRoy, junior (1954). Conscience and Compromise: an Approach to Protestant Casuistry (Philadelphia, Penn.: Westminster Press)\n \n \n Mackler, Aaron Leonard. Cases of Judgments in Ethical Reasoning: An Appraisal of Contemporary Casuistry and Holistic Model for the Mutual Support of Norms and Case Judgments (Diss., Georgetown U).\n \n \n McCready, Amy R. (1992). \"Milton's Casuistry: The Case of 'The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce.' \" Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Vol. 22, pp. 393–428.\n \n \n \n Odozor, Paulinus Ikechukwu (1989). Richard A. McCormick and Casuistry: Moral Decision-Making in Conflict Situations (M.A. Thesis, St. Michael's College).\n Pack, Rolland W. (1988). Case Studies and Moral Conclusions: The Philosophical Use of Case Studies in Biomedical Ethics (Diss., Georgetown U).\n Pascal, Blaise (1967). The Provincial Letters (London).\n \n Río Parra, Elena del (2008). Cartografías de la conciencia española en la Edad de Oro (Mexico).\n \n Seiden, Melvin (1990). Measure for Measure: Casuistry and Artistry (Washington).\n \n \n Smith, David H. (1991). \"Stories, Values, and Patient Care Decisions.\" in Charles Conrad, ed. The Ethical Nexus: Values in Organizational Decision Making. (New Jersey).\n \n \n Starr, G. (1971). Defoe and Casuistry (Princeton).\n \n Tallmon, James Michael (2001). \"Casuistry\" in The Encyclopedia of Rhetoric. Ed. Thomas O. Sloane. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 83–88.\n Tallmon, James Michael (1993). Casuistry and the Quest for Rhetorical Reason: Conceptualizing a Method of Shared Moral Inquiry (Diss., U of Washington).\n \n Taylor, Richard (1984). Good and Evil – A New Direction: A Foreceful Attack on the Rationalist Tradition in Ethics (Buffalo).\n \n \n \n Toulmin, Stephen (1988). \"The Recovery of Practical Philosophy.\" The American Scholar, Vol. 57, pp. 337–352.\n \n \n \n \n Weinstein, Bruce David (1989). The Possibility of Ethical Expertise (Diss. Georgetown U).\n \n \n Wildes, Kevin Wm., S.J. (1993). The View for Somewhere: Moral Judgment in Bioethics (Diss. Rice U).\n \n Zacker, David J. (1991). Reflection and Particulars: Does Casuistry Offer Us Stable Beliefs About Ethics? (M.A. Thesis, Western Michigan U).\n\nExternal links\n\n Dictionary of the History of Ideas: \"Casuistry\"\n Accountancy as computational casuistics, article on how modern compliance regimes in accountancy and law apply casuistry\n Mortimer Adler's Great Ideas – Casuistry\n Summary of casuistry by Jeramy Townsley\n Casuistry – Online Guide to Ethics and Moral Philosophy\n Casuistry – Oxford Encyclopedia of Rhetoric catalogued at she-philosopher.com\n\n \nScholasticism\nApplied ethics\nCommon law\nLegal reasoning"
] |
[
"Stephen Toulmin",
"The revival of casuistry",
"what was the revival of casuistry?",
"By reviving casuistry (also known as case ethics), Toulmin sought to find the middle ground between the extremes of absolutism and relativism.",
"what were some of his beliefs about this?",
"Casuistry employs absolutist principles, called \"type cases\" or \"paradigm cases,\" without resorting to absolutism.",
"can you tell me more about these \"cases\"?",
"It uses the standard principles (for example, sanctity of life) as referential markers in moral arguments. An individual case is then compared and contrasted with the type case.",
"what else is interesting about casuistry?",
"Casuistry was practiced widely during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to resolve moral issues."
] | C_39171226d43d45c89767c5e5ddc904ba_0 | How did Toulmin relate this to moral issues? | 5 | How did Toulmin relate casuistry to moral issues? | Stephen Toulmin | By reviving casuistry (also known as case ethics), Toulmin sought to find the middle ground between the extremes of absolutism and relativism. Casuistry was practiced widely during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to resolve moral issues. Although casuistry largely fell silent during the modern period, in The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), Toulmin collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen to demonstrate the effectiveness of casuistry in practical argumentation during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, effectively reviving it as a permissible method of argument. Casuistry employs absolutist principles, called "type cases" or "paradigm cases," without resorting to absolutism. It uses the standard principles (for example, sanctity of life) as referential markers in moral arguments. An individual case is then compared and contrasted with the type case. Given an individual case that is completely identical to the type case, moral judgments can be made immediately using the standard moral principles advocated in the type case. If the individual case differs from the type case, the differences will be critically assessed in order to arrive at a rational claim. Through the procedure of casuistry, Toulmin and Jonsen identified three problematic situations in moral reasoning: first, the type case fits the individual case only ambiguously; second, two type cases apply to the same individual case in conflicting ways; third, an unprecedented individual case occurs, which cannot be compared or contrasted to any type case. Through the use of casuistry, Toulmin demonstrated and reinforced his previous emphasis on the significance of comparison to moral arguments, a significance not addressed in theories of absolutism or relativism. CANNOTANSWER | Through the procedure of casuistry, Toulmin and Jonsen identified three problematic situations in moral reasoning: | Stephen Edelston Toulmin (; 25 March 1922 – 4 December 2009) was a British philosopher, author, and educator. Influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Toulmin devoted his works to the analysis of moral reasoning. Throughout his writings, he sought to develop practical arguments which can be used effectively in evaluating the ethics behind moral issues. His works were later found useful in the field of rhetoric for analyzing rhetorical arguments. The Toulmin model of argumentation, a diagram containing six interrelated components used for analyzing arguments, and published in his 1958 book The Uses of Argument, was considered his most influential work, particularly in the field of rhetoric and communication, and in computer science.
Biography
Stephen Toulmin was born in London, UK, on 25 March 1922 to Geoffrey Edelson Toulmin and Doris Holman Toulmin. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from King's College, Cambridge in 1943, where he was a Cambridge Apostle. Soon after, Toulmin was hired by the Ministry of Aircraft Production as a junior scientific officer, first at the Malvern Radar Research and Development Station and later at the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Germany. At the end of World War II, he returned to England to earn a Master of Arts degree in 1947 and a PhD in philosophy from Cambridge University, subsequently publishing his dissertation as An Examination of the Place of Reason in Ethics (1950). While at Cambridge, Toulmin came into contact with the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose examination of the relationship between the uses and the meanings of language shaped much of Toulmin's own work.
After graduating from Cambridge, he was appointed University Lecturer in Philosophy of Science at Oxford University from 1949 to 1954, during which period he wrote a second book, The Philosophy of Science: an Introduction (1953). Soon after, he was appointed to the position of Visiting Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at Melbourne University in Australia from 1954 to 1955, after which he returned to England, and served as Professor and Head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Leeds from 1955 to 1959. While at Leeds, he published one of his most influential books in the field of rhetoric, The Uses of Argument (1958), which investigated the flaws of traditional logic. Although it was poorly received in England and satirized as "Toulmin's anti-logic book" by Toulmin's fellow philosophers at Leeds, the book was applauded by the rhetoricians in the United States, where Toulmin served as a visiting professor at New York, Stanford, and Columbia Universities in 1959. While in the States, Wayne Brockriede and Douglas Ehninger introduced Toulmin's work to communication scholars, as they recognized that his work provided a good structural model useful for the analysis and criticism of rhetorical arguments. In 1960, Toulmin returned to London to hold the position of director of the Unit for History of Ideas of the Nuffield Foundation.
In 1965, Toulmin returned to the United States, where he held positions at various universities. In 1967, Toulmin served as literary executor for close friend N.R. Hanson, helping in the posthumous publication of several volumes. While at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Toulmin published Human Understanding: The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts (1972), which examines the causes and the processes of conceptual change. In this book, Toulmin uses a novel comparison between conceptual change and Charles Darwin's model of biological evolution to analyse the process of conceptual change as an evolutionary process. The book confronts major philosophical questions as well. In 1973, while a professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, he collaborated with Allan Janik, a philosophy professor at La Salle University, on the book Wittgenstein's Vienna, which advanced a thesis that underscores the significance of history to human reasoning: Contrary to philosophers who believe the absolute truth advocated in Plato's idealized formal logic, Toulmin argues that truth can be a relative quality, dependent on historical and cultural contexts (what other authors have termed "conceptual schemata").
From 1975 to 1978, he worked with the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, established by the United States Congress. During this time, he collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen to write The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), which demonstrates the procedures for resolving moral cases. One of his most recent works, Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990), written while Toulmin held the position of the Avalon Foundation Professor of the Humanities at Northwestern University, specifically criticizes the practical use and the thinning morality underlying modern science.
Toulmin held distinguished professorships at numerous universities, including Columbia, Dartmouth College, Michigan State, Northwestern, Stanford, the University of Chicago, and the University of Southern California School of International Relations.
In 1997 the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) selected Toulmin for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities. His lecture, "A Dissenter's Story" (alternatively entitled "A Dissenter's Life"), discussed the roots of modernity in rationalism and humanism, the "contrast of the reasonable and the rational", and warned of the "abstractions that may still tempt us back into the dogmatism, chauvinism and sectarianism our needs have outgrown". The NEH report of the speech further quoted Toulmin on the need to "make the technical and the humanistic strands in modern thought work together more effectively than they have in the past".
On 2 March 2006 Toulmin received the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art.
He was married four times, once to June Goodfield and collaborated with her on a series of books on the history of science. His children are Greg, of McLean, Va., Polly Macinnes of Skye, Scotland, Camilla Toulmin in the UK and Matthew Toulmin of Melbourne, Australia.
On 4 December 2009 Toulmin died of a heart failure at the age of 87 in Los Angeles, California.
Meta-philosophy
Objection to absolutism and relativism
Throughout many of his works, Toulmin pointed out that absolutism (represented by theoretical or analytic arguments) has limited practical value. Absolutism is derived from Plato's idealized formal logic, which advocates universal truth; accordingly, absolutists believe that moral issues can be resolved by adhering to a standard set of moral principles, regardless of context. By contrast, Toulmin contends that many of these so-called standard principles are irrelevant to real situations encountered by human beings in daily life.
To develop his contention, Toulmin introduced the concept of argument fields. In The Uses of Argument (1958), Toulmin claims that some aspects of arguments vary from field to field, and are hence called "field-dependent", while other aspects of argument are the same throughout all fields, and are hence called "field-invariant". The flaw of absolutism, Toulmin believes, lies in its unawareness of the field-dependent aspect of argument; absolutism assumes that all aspects of argument are field invariant.
In Human Understanding (1972), Toulmin suggests that anthropologists have been tempted to side with relativists because they have noticed the influence of cultural variations on rational arguments. In other words, the anthropologist or relativist overemphasizes the importance of the "field-dependent" aspect of arguments, and neglects or is unaware of the "field-invariant" elements. In order to provide solutions to the problems of absolutism and relativism, Toulmin attempts throughout his work to develop standards that are neither absolutist nor relativist for assessing the worth of ideas.
In Cosmopolis (1990), he traces philosophers' "quest for certainty" back to René Descartes and Thomas Hobbes, and lauds John Dewey, Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, and Richard Rorty for abandoning that tradition.
Humanizing modernity
In Cosmopolis Toulmin seeks the origins of the modern emphasis on universality (philosophers' "quest for certainty"), and criticizes both modern science and philosophers for having ignored practical issues in preference for abstract and theoretical issues. The pursuit of absolutism and theoretical arguments lacking practicality, for example, is, in his view, one of the main defects of modern philosophy. Similarly, Toulmin sensed a thinning of morality in the field of sciences, which has diverted its attention from practical issues concerning ecology to the production of the atomic bomb. To solve this problem, Toulmin advocated a return to humanism consisting of four returns: a return to oral communication and discourse, a plea which has been rejected by modern philosophers, whose scholarly focus is on the printed page; a return to the particular or individual cases that deal with practical moral issues occurring in daily life (as opposed to theoretical principles that have limited practicality); a return to the local, or to concrete cultural and historical contexts; and, finally, a return to the timely, from timeless problems to things whose rational significance depends on the time lines of our solutions. He follows up on this critique in Return to Reason (2001), where he seeks to illuminate the ills that, in his view, universalism has caused in the social sphere, discussing, among other things, the discrepancy between mainstream ethical theory and real-life ethical quandaries.
Argumentation
The Toulmin model of argument
Arguing that absolutism lacks practical value, Toulmin aimed to develop a different type of argument, called practical arguments (also known as substantial arguments). In contrast to absolutists' theoretical arguments, Toulmin's practical argument is intended to focus on the justificatory function of argumentation, as opposed to the inferential function of theoretical arguments. Whereas theoretical arguments make inferences based on a set of principles to arrive at a claim, practical arguments first find a claim of interest, and then provide justification for it. Toulmin believed that reasoning is less an activity of inference, involving the discovering of new ideas, and more a process of testing and sifting already existing ideas—an act achievable through the process of justification.
Toulmin believed that for a good argument to succeed, it needs to provide good justification for a claim. This, he believed, will ensure it stands up to criticism and earns a favourable verdict. In The Uses of Argument (1958), Toulmin proposed a layout containing six interrelated components for analyzing arguments:
Claim (Conclusion) A conclusion whose merit must be established. In argumentative essays, it may be called the thesis. For example, if a person tries to convince a listener that he is a British citizen, the claim would be "I am a British citizen" (1).
Ground (Fact, Evidence, Data) A fact one appeals to as a foundation for the claim. For example, the person introduced in 1 can support his claim with the supporting data "I was born in Bermuda" (2).
Warrant A statement authorizing movement from the ground to the claim. In order to move from the ground established in 2, "I was born in Bermuda", to the claim in 1, "I am a British citizen", the person must supply a warrant to bridge the gap between 1 and 2 with the statement "A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen" (3).
Backing Credentials designed to certify the statement expressed in the warrant; backing must be introduced when the warrant itself is not convincing enough to the readers or the listeners. For example, if the listener does not deem the warrant in 3 as credible, the speaker will supply the legal provisions: "I trained as a barrister in London, specialising in citizenship, so I know that a man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen".
Rebuttal (Reservation) Statements recognizing the restrictions which may legitimately be applied to the claim. It is exemplified as follows: "A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen, unless he has betrayed Britain and has become a spy for another country".
Qualifier Words or phrases expressing the speaker's degree of force or certainty concerning the claim. Such words or phrases include "probably", "possible", "impossible", "certainly", "presumably", "as far as the evidence goes", and "necessarily". The claim "I am definitely a British citizen" has a greater degree of force than the claim "I am a British citizen, presumably". (See also: Defeasible reasoning.)
The first three elements, claim, ground, and warrant, are considered as the essential components of practical arguments, while the second triad, qualifier, backing, and rebuttal, may not be needed in some arguments.
When Toulmin first proposed it, this layout of argumentation was based on legal arguments and intended to be used to analyze the rationality of arguments typically found in the courtroom. Toulmin did not realize that this layout could be applicable to the field of rhetoric and communication until his works were introduced to rhetoricians by Wayne Brockriede and Douglas Ehninger. Their Decision by Debate (1963) streamlined Toulmin's terminology and broadly introduced his model to the field of debate. Only after Toulmin published Introduction to Reasoning (1979) were the rhetorical applications of this layout mentioned in his works.
One criticism of the Toulmin model is that it does not fully consider the use of questions in argumentation. The Toulmin model assumes that an argument starts with a fact or claim and ends with a conclusion, but ignores an argument's underlying questions. In the example "Harry was born in Bermuda, so Harry must be a British subject", the question "Is Harry a British subject?" is ignored, which also neglects to analyze why particular questions are asked and others are not. (See Issue mapping for an example of an argument-mapping method that emphasizes questions.)
Toulmin's argument model has inspired research on, for example, goal structuring notation (GSN), widely used for developing safety cases, and argument maps and associated software.
Ethics
Good reasons approach
In Reason in Ethics (1950), his doctoral dissertation, Toulmin sets out a Good Reasons approach of ethics, and criticizes what he considers to be the subjectivism and emotivism of philosophers such as A. J. Ayer because, in his view, they fail to do justice to ethical reasoning.
The revival of casuistry
By reviving casuistry (also known as case ethics), Toulmin sought to find the middle ground between the extremes of absolutism and relativism. Casuistry was practiced widely during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to resolve moral issues. Although casuistry largely fell silent during the modern period, in The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), Toulmin collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen to demonstrate the effectiveness of casuistry in practical argumentation during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, effectively reviving it as a permissible method of argument.
Casuistry employs absolutist principles, called "type cases" or "paradigm cases", without resorting to absolutism. It uses the standard principles (for example, sanctity of life) as referential markers in moral arguments. An individual case is then compared and contrasted with the type case. Given an individual case that is completely identical to the type case, moral judgments can be made immediately using the standard moral principles advocated in the type case. If the individual case differs from the type case, the differences will be critically assessed in order to arrive at a rational claim.
Through the procedure of casuistry, Toulmin and Jonsen identified three problematic situations in moral reasoning: first, the type case fits the individual case only ambiguously; second, two type cases apply to the same individual case in conflicting ways; third, an unprecedented individual case occurs, which cannot be compared or contrasted to any type case. Through the use of casuistry, Toulmin demonstrated and reinforced his previous emphasis on the significance of comparison to moral arguments, a significance not addressed in theories of absolutism or relativism.
Philosophy of science
The evolutionary model
In 1972, Toulmin published Human Understanding, in which he asserts that conceptual change is an evolutionary process. In this book, Toulmin attacks Thomas Kuhn's account of conceptual change in his seminal work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). Kuhn believed that conceptual change is a revolutionary process (as opposed to an evolutionary process), during which mutually exclusive paradigms compete to replace one another. Toulmin criticized the relativist elements in Kuhn's thesis, arguing that mutually exclusive paradigms provide no ground for comparison, and that Kuhn made the relativists' error of overemphasizing the "field variant" while ignoring the "field invariant" or commonality shared by all argumentation or scientific paradigms.
In contrast to Kuhn's revolutionary model, Toulmin proposed an evolutionary model of conceptual change comparable to Darwin's model of biological evolution. Toulmin states that conceptual change involves the process of innovation and selection. Innovation accounts for the appearance of conceptual variations, while selection accounts for the survival and perpetuation of the soundest conceptions. Innovation occurs when the professionals of a particular discipline come to view things differently from their predecessors; selection subjects the innovative concepts to a process of debate and inquiry in what Toulmin considers as a "forum of competitions". The soundest concepts will survive the forum of competition as replacements or revisions of the traditional conceptions.
From the absolutists' point of view, concepts are either valid or invalid regardless of contexts. From the relativists' perspective, one concept is neither better nor worse than a rival concept from a different cultural context. From Toulmin's perspective, the evaluation depends on a process of comparison, which determines whether or not one concept will improve explanatory power more than its rival concepts.
Works
An Examination of the Place of Reason in Ethics (1950)
The Philosophy of Science: An Introduction (1953)
The Uses of Argument (1958) 2nd edition 2003:
Metaphysical Beliefs, Three Essays (1957) with Ronald W. Hepburn and Alasdair MacIntyre
The Riviera (1961)
Seventeenth century science and the arts (1961)
Foresight and Understanding: An Enquiry into the Aims of Science (1961)
The Fabric of the Heavens (The Ancestry of Science, volume 1) (1961) with June Goodfield
The Architecture of Matter (The Ancestry of Science, volume 2) (1962) with June Goodfield
Night Sky at Rhodes (1963)
The Discovery of Time (The Ancestry of Science, volume 3) (1965) with June Goodfield
Physical Reality (1970)
Human Understanding: The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts (1972)
Wittgenstein's Vienna (1973) with Allan Janik
On the Nature of the Physician's Understanding (1976)
Knowing and Acting: An Invitation to Philosophy (1976)
An Introduction to Reasoning (1979) with Allan Janik and Richard D. Rieke 2nd edition 1997:
The Return to Cosmology: Postmodern Science and the Theology of Nature (1985)
The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988) with Albert R. Jonsen
Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990)
Social Impact of AIDS in the United States (1993) with Albert R. Jonsen
Beyond theory – changing organizations through participation (1996) with Björn Gustavsen (editors)
Return to Reason (2001)
Pantheon of skeptics
At a meeting of the executive council of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) in Denver, Colorado in April 2011, Toulmin was selected for inclusion in CSI's Pantheon of Skeptics. The Pantheon of Skeptics was created by CSI to remember the legacy of deceased fellows of CSI and their contributions to the cause of scientific skepticism.
See also
Argumentation theory
Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
Stephen Toulmin
Interview with Stephen Toulmin in JAC
Obituary in The Guardian
William Long (2004) Wittgenstein's Vienna (1973)
1922 births
2009 deaths
20th-century English philosophers
English rhetoricians
Philosophers of science
Moral philosophers
Wittgensteinian philosophers
Academics of the University of Leeds
Alumni of King's College, Cambridge
Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club
New York University faculty
Stanford University faculty
Columbia University faculty
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth faculty
Michigan State University faculty
University of Chicago faculty
Northwestern University faculty
University of Southern California faculty
English sceptics
Recipients of the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art
British expatriates in the United States | true | [
"Harry Aubrey Toulmin Sr. (1858 – May 17, 1942) was the American lawyer located in Springfield, Ohio, who wrote the \"flying machine\" patent application that resulted in the patent granted to Dayton inventors Wilbur and Orville Wright on May 22, 1906.\n\nEarly life\nNot much is known about Toulmin's early years. Born in 1858 to Joshua Morton S. Toulmin (1823–1896) and Frances Hellen (1828–1916), Toulmin had four brothers and three sisters. In 1882 at age 24, Toulmin graduated from The George Washington University Law School. For the next four years after graduating from law school, Toulmin practiced patent law in Washington, D.C.\n\nBefore the hiring\n\nToulmin arrived in Springfield, Ohio from Washington D.C. in 1886 because it was a center of innovation and invention that required legal representation for patent proceedings. He set up his law firm in the Bushnell Building located at 14 East Main Street in Springfield. In 1888, Toulmin married Rosamond Evans (d. 1947); they had two children who lived past infancy: Morton Warwick Evans and Harry Aubrey Toulmin Jr. (1890–1965). When Harry Aubrey Toulmin Jr. joined the law firm, his father renamed the firm Toulmin & Toulmin.\n\nThe hiring\nApplying for a U.S. Patent on their flying machine was never far from the Wrights' minds. Their first attempt to get a patent on their invention failed, largely because they wrote the patent application themselves. Also contributing to its demise was their inability to demonstrate a \"practical flying machine.\" At that time, the U.S. Patent Office had begun to receive a flood of patent applications for aerial craft of all descriptions, real and imagined, and had adopted a policy of only approving applications for inventions involving flying machines if the benchmark of \"practicality\" could be met and demonstrated. The practicality benchmark has long since been discarded by the U.S. Patent Office as being unworkable.\n\nFollowing the U.S. Patent Office examiner's advice for the brothers to work with a patent attorney, Wilbur began searching for a qualified lawyer. Two friends, John Kirby and Will Ohmer, recommended that Wilbur contact Toulmin.\n\nOn January 14, 1904, Wilbur Wright wrote to Toulmin for an appointment for advice and assistance with filing a new application. Eight days later, on January 22, Wilbur traveled to Springfield, Ohio, to see Toulmin. Toulmin took Wilbur and Orville seriously when they came to announce that they wanted to patent a flying machine. The Wright brothers hired Toulmin that day and placed the Wright patent case in his hands.\n\nToulmin was confident that he could use the original application as a starting point for a broad, airtight patent that would protect the brothers' invention. But he warned Wilbur and Orville that the process would be lengthy, and he recommended that they keep quiet about the details of their aircraft. Based on Toulmin's direction, the Wrights decided on secrecy until their patent was secured, during which time they continued to work at building a real, practical machine.\n\nToulmin urged that the Wrights not seek a patent on their aircraft but only on its system for in-air control. They followed his recommendation that they apply for a patent based on the three-axis control system of their 1902 Glider instead of their powered 1903 or 1904 Flyers in order to avoid having to present a working model to a highly doubting Patent Office. In addition, Toulmin advised the Wrights to patent not just the mechanisms that allowed them to warp or flex a wing but, more importantly, to patent the idea of roll control itself.\n\nToulmin was able to interpret the Wrights' complex laboratory and field work down to their essential breakthrough. Wilbur walked into Toulmin's office wanting to patent an airplane and walked out wanting to patent only the control system. According to Wilbur, he and Orville immediately liked Toulmin and his services.\n\nOrville and/or Wilbur would travel to Springfield by the interurban streetcar from Dayton to meet with Toulmin at the Patent Law Office of Toulmin & Toulmin. After their initial meeting, Wilbur met Toulmin thirteen days later on February 4, 1904 to discuss foreign patent applications, while Orville and Charlie Taylor started constructing three new engines to replace the 1903 engine wrecked beyond repair after the end of the fourth flight of December 17, 1903 at Kitty Hawk.\n\nOn June 21, 1907, Orville journeyed to Springfield, Ohio, to consult Toulmin regarding a new patent on a device for maintaining automatic stability in an airplane. Orville made a second trip on June 26. It is also known that on January 20, 1908 and June 15, 1908 Orville traveled to Springfield to consult Toulmin on Wright patents.\n\nThe patent\n\nThe patent application Toulmin drew up gave the Wrights sole claim to the only system ever devised for the in-air control of a fixed-wing flying machine. By April 1904, the Wrights' patent had been filed not only in the United States but in Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, and, Wilbur wrote, \"probably Russia.\" The U.S. patent issued in 1906.\n\nClaim 1 of the patent reads: In a flying-machine, a normally flat aeroplane having lateral marginal portions capable of movement to different positions above or below [sic] the normal plane of the body of the aeroplane, such movement being about an axis traverse to the line of flight, whereby said lateral marginal portions may be moved to different angles relative to the normal plane of the body of the aeroplane so as to present to the atmosphere different angles of incidence, and means for so moving said lateral marginal portions, substantially described.\n\nOn deciphering the patent legalese, it becomes apparent that Toulmin did not patent the airplane. Rather, Toulmin patented airplane (flying-machine) wing edges (lateral marginal portions) that normally are flat but may move up and down in a direction that is different from the airplane's line of flight and may be moved to different angles. Although the patent particularly addressed a solid wing with a portion of the wing (the marginal portions) being flexed (warped) to provide lift, the patent claim was not so limiting. In particular, Toulmin's genius as a patent attorney predicated and helped the Wright Brothers patent slats, the spoiler, the aileron, the flaps, the elevator, and the Rudder for an airplane (see picture above). Without these, an airplane cannot be controlled any more than a car can be controlled without movable wheels. Without a license to the Wright brothers' patent, it was not legally possible to build or fly a controllable airplane in the early 20th century. Unsurprisingly, the verbal and legal attacks by competitors on the Wright Brothers began almost immediately.\n\nAfter the patent\nPatent litigation was a costly endeavor. In a January 22, 1910 letter to Wilbur, Toulmin suggested that the most economical way for the Wright brothers to proceed would be to enter into a retainer agreement with Toulmin & Toulmin, paying US$12,000 (about US$132,000 in 2006 inflation-adjusted dollars) for the first two years and US$10,000 per year (US$110,000 inflation adjusted to 2006) for the subsequent five. This would permit Toulmin to devote his full attention to the Wright brothers litigation, he suggested. Even though the amounts requested were reasonable, it took the Wright brothers only two days to reject that proposal. It may have been money that ended the relationship between Toulmin and the Wright brothers.\n\nIn April 1910, Toulmin issued a statement saying that attacks on the Wright brothers was wholly unjustified.\n\nBy 1911 Toulmin's prized clients were operating the world's first aircraft factory and the world's first flight-training school while fighting an armful of patent-infringement suits.\n\nOn February 13 and 15, 1911, William Joseph Hammer, consulting engineer, and James W. See, mechanical engineer, gave depositions that were taken at the office of H. A. Toulmin, Dayton, Ohio.\n\nOn January 9–10, 1912. Wilbur and Orville give depositions in Dayton in Erastus E. Winkley v. Orville & Wilbur Wright lawsuit. Testimony was given on the conception of their patent no. 1,075,533, filed by Toulmin on February 10, 1908. Several drawings used for their patent application and correspondence with Katharine Wright and Harry A. Toulmin regarding it are introduced into the record.\n\nLater in life\nToulmin handled five patent applications for the Wright brothers over a period of 17 years, spurring more than 13 years of fierce legal battles over the intellectual property rights he helped to create. As a result of Toulmin's success in keeping others from using the Wright brothers' ideas, aircraft manufacturers established the Aircraft Manufacturers Association to coordinate the World War I wartime aircraft manufacturing in the United States and formed a patent pool four months after the United States joined the war, in July, 1917, with the approval of the U.S. government. All patent litigation ceased automatically and royalties were reduced to one percent and free exchange of inventions and ideas took place among all the airframe builders. Toulmin channeled his success and notoriety into authoring more than 30 books on a wide variety of topics, including the Truman Committee of President Harry S. Truman. Several of Toulmin's books were published well after his death in 1942.\n\nHistory's view\n\nToulmin was a pioneer patent lawyer who assisted the Wright brothers in the creation of the age of flight. In honor of the patent's centennial anniversary and the 101st anniversary of the last flight of the 1905 Wright Flyer, commemorative groups in Dayton and Springfield, Ohio on October 5, 2006, distributed a commemorative booklet (see above images) and unveiled the Harry A. Toulmin Sr. Memorial Sculpture on downtown Springfield's Fountain Square, across from the restored Bushnell Building where Toulmin maintained his office. The 8-foot (2.4 m) sculpture, a bronze work by artist Michael Major, received a ceremonial flyover by a replica of the 1911 Wright model B. The Bushnell Building is recognized as part of Ohio's National Road Scenic Byway for its being the place where Toulmin helped the Wrights acquire patents for their flying machine. The Harry Toulmin Room in the Bushnell Building seats 50 people.\n\nThe collection of Wilbur's and Orville Wright's papers in the Library of Congress includes significant correspondence with the Wrights' lawyers concerning their business affairs, including Toulmin, as well as lawyers Frederick P. Fish, H. Springmann, and Pliny W. Williamson.\n\nLegacy\nDespite his death in 1942, the legacy of Harry Toulmin Sr. affected those around him through the 1990s.\n\nIn 1852, Toulmin's father-in-law, Warwick Evans, was the first medical school graduate from Georgetown University Medical Center. Evans went on to become an anatomy professor and prominent physician.\n\nIn 1888, Toulmin Sr. married Rosamond Evans (d. 1947); they had two children: Morton Warwick Evans and Harry Aubrey Toulmin Jr. (1890–1965). Toulmin Jr. graduated from Wittenberg University in Ohio and the University of Virginia School of Law. Following in his father's footsteps, Toulmin Jr. became a patent attorney and joined his father's law firm, renamed Toulmin & Toulmin. To distinguish the two, Toulmin Sr. was known by family and close friends as Aubrey \"Aircraft\" and Toulmin Jr. was known as \"Lawyer\" Harry. There are no living descendants of Harry Aubrey Toulmin Sr. \n\nEventually, the Toulmin & Toulmin law firm moved to the Schwind Building, in Dayton, Ohio (a building which played a role in the Dayton Woman's Suffrage Association and subsequently became the Moraine Embassy Apartments). Among Toulmin & Toulmin's clients was the Tucker Corporation, and the firm name appears on the design patent covering Preston Tucker's design for the Tucker Sedan.\n\nLike many patent attorneys, Toulmin Jr. eventually began working as an in-house lawyer for a corporation. In April 1947, Toulmin Jr. was elected the chairman of the board of the Tucker Corporation. Five months later, on September 26, 1947, Harry A. Toulmin Jr. resigned as chairman of the board from the Tucker Corporation in a letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This letter contributed to the SEC investigation of Preston Tucker and the demise of the Tucker Corporation.\n\nHarry Jr. was a prolific inventor. Over 200 patents in a wide field of technologies were issued to him. Toulmin Jr. went on to form Central Pharmaceuticals Inc.\n\nAt the time of his death in 1965, Toulmin Jr. left his shares in his company, Central Pharmaceuticals Inc., worth $1 million at the time, in a trust fund to be managed by his widow, Virginia B. Toulmin. By the terms of the trust, the balance at the time of Virginia's death was to be transferred to Georgetown University Medical Center in honor of Harry Toulmin Jr.'s grandfather Warwick Evans. Georgetown University is the rival school of George Washington University, the school where Harry Toulmin Sr. received his law degree.\n\nMrs. Toulmin took control of Central Pharmaceuticals as president and built Central into a thriving drug manufacturer. In 1995, Mrs. Toulmin sold Central Pharmaceuticals for $178 million to the German pharmaceutical giant Schwarz Pharma.\n\nThe Toulmin trusts were the subject of substantial legal problems. Both Toulmin Sr. and Toulmin Jr. had testamentary trusts, and some of the $178 million was shared between the two trusts. Toulmin Jr.'s first wife, Margaret McCarty, was a life beneficiary under Toulmin Sr.'s trust, where the remainder after Toulmin Jr.'s first wife death was to be allotted to the living descendants of Toulmin Sr.'s grandfather. After the death of Margaret McCarty on September 29, 1994, the Toulmin Sr. remainder trust money had grown to a considerable sum. Since the Toulmin Sr. remainder trust money was to revert under Toulmin Sr.'s will to descendants of his grandfather per stirpes, it became necessary for the executors of Harry Aubrey Toulmin Sr. to trace the living descendants of Toulmin Sr.'s grandfather, Theophilus Lindsey Toulmin (1820?–1895?). On April 21, 1996, eighty-two senior representatives of every surviving branch of Theophilus Lindsey Toulmin received a letter addressing the trust and their potential inheritance from Toulmin Sr.\n\nBy 1997, Virginia had reached the age of 72 and the Georgetown University trust fund grew to $62 million. At that time, the donation was the biggest to a Washington-area university and the 17th largest private gift to U.S. higher education. The largest previous private gift to the school was $17 million, which was donated anonymously in 1996.\n\nVirginia died in 2010.\n\nWorks\n\nPublished books\n Social historians, by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1911)\n Bothering business, by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1925)\n Trade-mark profits and protection, by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1926)\n Air service, American expeditionary force, 1918, by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1927)\n Millions in mergers by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1929)\n Executives' business law, by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1931)\n Graphic course of patentable inventions, by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1935)\n With Pershing in Mexico, by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1935)\n Digest of federal laws pertaining to fair competition in industry,: With chart of government departments, bureaus and commissions in charge of the administration of these laws, by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1937)\n Inventions and patents, (The Ohio state university. Research foundation lectures 1st) (The Ohio state university. Research foundation lectures 1st) by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1937)\n Trade agreements and the anti-trust laws: Including forms and an analysis of the Robinson-Patman Act by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1937)\n The Truman Committee of President Harry S. Truman by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1937)\n The importance of invention to the nation, by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1938)\n The law of foods, drugs and cosmetics by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1942)\n The law of foods, drugs and cosmetics: 1945 pocket supplement by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1945)\n The Trade-mark act of 1946,: Analyzed, annotated and explained by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1946)\n Trade agreements and the anti-trust laws: Supplement. 1946– by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1946)\n Diary of democracy;: The Senate War Investigating Committee by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1947)\n International contracts and the anti-trust laws: With typical forms of agreements, indictments, complaints, and decrees by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1947)\n How to keep invention records, together with an explanation of the nature of industrial property by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1948)\n A treatise on the anti-trust laws of the United States: And including all related trade regulatory laws by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1949)\n Patents and the anti-trust laws of the United States,: Including trade-marks and copyrights by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1950)\n \"Antitrust laws of the United States\" and leading antitrust cases of 1954 by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1955)\n Trade-mark handbook by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1957)\n A treatise on the law of foods, drugs, and cosmetics by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1958)\n Patent law for the executive and engineer by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1958)\n Making mergers pay (American Management Association. General management series) (American Management Association. General management series) by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1967)\n A treatise on the law of foods, drugs and cosmetics: 1969 supplement,(combined supplement to volumes 1,2,3 and 4, 2d ed.) by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1969)\n The city manager;: A new profession (Metropolitan America) by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1974)\n Light duty vehicle driveability investigation by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1978)\n Handbook of patents by Harry Aubrey Toulmin (1980)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n compiled by Bruce Calvert-Toulmin. Toulmin Sr. is identified by number 13311643 and Bruce Calvert-Toulmin is identified by number 13215A2822, making Toulmin Sr. the great uncle(?) of Bruce Calvert-Toulmin.\n\nAmerican lawyers\nPatent attorneys\n1858 births\n1942 deaths\nPeople from Springfield, Ohio\nWright brothers\nGeorge Washington University Law School alumni",
"The unseen species problem is commonly referred to in ecology and deals with the estimation of the number of species represented in an ecosystem that were not observed by samples. It more specifically relates to how many new species would be discovered if more samples were taken in an ecosystem. The study of the unseen species problem was started in the early 1940s by Alexander Steven Corbet. He spent 2 years in British Malaya trapping butterflies and was curious how many new species he would discover if he spent another 2 years trapping. Many different estimation methods have been developed to determine how many new species would be discovered given more samples. The unseen species problem also applies more broadly, as the estimators can be used to estimate any new elements of a set not previously found in samples. An example of this is determining how many words William Shakespeare knew based on all of his written works. The unseen species problem can be broken down mathematically as follows:\n\nIf independent samples are taken, , and then if more independent samples were taken, the number of unseen species that will be discovered by the additional samples is given by with being the second set of samples.\n\nHistory\nIn the early 1940s Alexander Steven Corbet spent 2 years in British Malaya trapping butterflies. He kept track of how many species he observed, and how many members of each species were captured. For example, he captured only 2 members of 74 different species. When he returned to the United Kingdom, he approached statistician Ronald Fisher, and asked how many new species of butterflies he could expect to catch if he went trapping for another two years. In essence, Corbet was asking how many species he observed zero times. Fisher responded with a simple estimation: for an additional 2 years of trapping, Corbet could expect to capture 75 new species. He did this using a simple summation (data provided by Orlitsky in Table 1 below in the Example section):Here, corresponds to the number of individual species which were observed times. Fisher's sum was later confirmed by Good–Toulmin.\n\nEstimators \nTo estimate the number of unseen species, let be number of future samples () divided by the number of past samples (), or . Let be the number of individual species observed times (for example, if there were 74 species of butterflies with 2 observed members throughout the samples, then ).\n\nThe Good–Toulmin estimator \nThe Good–Toulmin estimator was developed by I. J. Good and G. H. Toulmin in 1953. The estimate of the unseen species based on the Good–Toulmin estimator is given byThe Good–Toulmin Estimator has been shown to be a good estimate for values of . The Good–Toulmin estimator also approximates that This means that estimates to within as long as . However, for , the Good–Toulmin estimator fails to capture accurate results. This is because, if , increases by for with , meaning that if , grows super-linearly in , but can grow at most linearly with . Therefore, when , grows faster than and does not approximate the true value.\n\nTo compensate for this, Efron and Thisted showed that a truncated Euler transform can also be a usable estimate: with and where is the location chosen to truncate the Euler transform.\n\nThe smoothed Good–Toulmin estimator \nSimilar to the approach by Efron and Thisted, Alon Orlitsky, Ananda Theertha Suresh, and Yihong Wu developed the smooth Good–Toulmin estimator. They realized that the Good–Toulmin estimator failed for because of the exponential growth, and not its bias. Therefore, they estimated the number of unseen species by truncating the series. Orlitsky, Suresh, and Wu also noted that for distributions with , the driving term in the summation estimate is the term, regardless of which value of is chosen. To solve this, they selected a random nonnegative integer , truncated the series at , and then took the average over a distribution about . The resulting estimator is. This method was chosen because the bias of shifts signs due to the coefficient. Averaging over a distribution of therefore reduces the bias. This means that the estimator can be written as the linear combination of the prevalence: Depending on the distribution of chosen, the results will vary. With this method, estimates can be made for , and this is the best possible.\n\nSpecies discovery curve \nThe species discovery curve can also be used. This curve relates the number of species found in an area as a function of the time. These curves can also be created by using estimators (such as the Good–Toulmin estimator) and plotting the number of unseen species at each value for .\n\nA species discovery curve is always increasing, as there is never a sample that could decrease the number of discovered species. Furthermore, the species discovery curve is also decelerating; the more samples taken, the fewer unseen species are expected to be discovered. The species discovery curve will also never asymptote, as it is assumed that although the discovery rate might become infinitely slow, it will never actually stop. Two common models for a species discovery curve are the logarithmic and the exponential function.\n\nExample – Corbet's butterflies \nAs an example, consider the data Corbet provided Fisher in the 1940s. Using the Good–Toulmin model, the number of unseen species is found using. This can then be used to create a relationship between and .\n\nThis relationship is shown in the plot below.\nFrom the plot, it is seen that at , which was the value of that Corbet brought to Fisher, the resulting estimate of is 75, matching what Fisher found. This plot also acts as a species discovery curve for this ecosystem, and defines how many new species will be discovered as increases (and more samples are taken).\n\nOther uses \nThere are numerous uses for the predictive algorithm. Knowing that the estimators are accurate, it allows scientists to extrapolate accurately the results of polling people by a factor of 2. They can predict the number of unique answers based on the number of people that have answered similarly. The method can also be used to determine the extent of someone's knowledge. A prime example is determining how many unique words Shakespeare knew based on the written works we have today.\n\nExample – How many words did Shakespeare know? \nBased on research done by Thisted and Efron, of Shakespeare's known works, there are 884,647 total words. The research also found that there are at total of different words that appear more than 100 times. Therefore, the total number of unique words was found to be 31,534. Applying the Good–Toulmin model, if an equal number of works by Shakespeare were discovered, then it is estimated that unique words would be found. The goal would be to derive for . Thisted and Efron estimate that , meaning that Shakespeare most likely knew over twice as many words as he actually used in all of his writings.\n\nSee also \n\n Species discovery curve\n Alexander Steven Corbet\n Ronald Fisher\n German tank problem\n\nReferences \n\nEcology\nBiostatistics"
] |
[
"Stephen Toulmin",
"The revival of casuistry",
"what was the revival of casuistry?",
"By reviving casuistry (also known as case ethics), Toulmin sought to find the middle ground between the extremes of absolutism and relativism.",
"what were some of his beliefs about this?",
"Casuistry employs absolutist principles, called \"type cases\" or \"paradigm cases,\" without resorting to absolutism.",
"can you tell me more about these \"cases\"?",
"It uses the standard principles (for example, sanctity of life) as referential markers in moral arguments. An individual case is then compared and contrasted with the type case.",
"what else is interesting about casuistry?",
"Casuistry was practiced widely during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to resolve moral issues.",
"How did Toulmin relate this to moral issues?",
"Through the procedure of casuistry, Toulmin and Jonsen identified three problematic situations in moral reasoning:"
] | C_39171226d43d45c89767c5e5ddc904ba_0 | what were the three problematic situations? | 6 | What were the three problematic situations in moral reasoning? | Stephen Toulmin | By reviving casuistry (also known as case ethics), Toulmin sought to find the middle ground between the extremes of absolutism and relativism. Casuistry was practiced widely during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to resolve moral issues. Although casuistry largely fell silent during the modern period, in The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), Toulmin collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen to demonstrate the effectiveness of casuistry in practical argumentation during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, effectively reviving it as a permissible method of argument. Casuistry employs absolutist principles, called "type cases" or "paradigm cases," without resorting to absolutism. It uses the standard principles (for example, sanctity of life) as referential markers in moral arguments. An individual case is then compared and contrasted with the type case. Given an individual case that is completely identical to the type case, moral judgments can be made immediately using the standard moral principles advocated in the type case. If the individual case differs from the type case, the differences will be critically assessed in order to arrive at a rational claim. Through the procedure of casuistry, Toulmin and Jonsen identified three problematic situations in moral reasoning: first, the type case fits the individual case only ambiguously; second, two type cases apply to the same individual case in conflicting ways; third, an unprecedented individual case occurs, which cannot be compared or contrasted to any type case. Through the use of casuistry, Toulmin demonstrated and reinforced his previous emphasis on the significance of comparison to moral arguments, a significance not addressed in theories of absolutism or relativism. CANNOTANSWER | first, the type case fits the individual case only ambiguously; second, two type cases apply to the same individual case in conflicting ways; | Stephen Edelston Toulmin (; 25 March 1922 – 4 December 2009) was a British philosopher, author, and educator. Influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Toulmin devoted his works to the analysis of moral reasoning. Throughout his writings, he sought to develop practical arguments which can be used effectively in evaluating the ethics behind moral issues. His works were later found useful in the field of rhetoric for analyzing rhetorical arguments. The Toulmin model of argumentation, a diagram containing six interrelated components used for analyzing arguments, and published in his 1958 book The Uses of Argument, was considered his most influential work, particularly in the field of rhetoric and communication, and in computer science.
Biography
Stephen Toulmin was born in London, UK, on 25 March 1922 to Geoffrey Edelson Toulmin and Doris Holman Toulmin. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from King's College, Cambridge in 1943, where he was a Cambridge Apostle. Soon after, Toulmin was hired by the Ministry of Aircraft Production as a junior scientific officer, first at the Malvern Radar Research and Development Station and later at the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Germany. At the end of World War II, he returned to England to earn a Master of Arts degree in 1947 and a PhD in philosophy from Cambridge University, subsequently publishing his dissertation as An Examination of the Place of Reason in Ethics (1950). While at Cambridge, Toulmin came into contact with the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose examination of the relationship between the uses and the meanings of language shaped much of Toulmin's own work.
After graduating from Cambridge, he was appointed University Lecturer in Philosophy of Science at Oxford University from 1949 to 1954, during which period he wrote a second book, The Philosophy of Science: an Introduction (1953). Soon after, he was appointed to the position of Visiting Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at Melbourne University in Australia from 1954 to 1955, after which he returned to England, and served as Professor and Head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Leeds from 1955 to 1959. While at Leeds, he published one of his most influential books in the field of rhetoric, The Uses of Argument (1958), which investigated the flaws of traditional logic. Although it was poorly received in England and satirized as "Toulmin's anti-logic book" by Toulmin's fellow philosophers at Leeds, the book was applauded by the rhetoricians in the United States, where Toulmin served as a visiting professor at New York, Stanford, and Columbia Universities in 1959. While in the States, Wayne Brockriede and Douglas Ehninger introduced Toulmin's work to communication scholars, as they recognized that his work provided a good structural model useful for the analysis and criticism of rhetorical arguments. In 1960, Toulmin returned to London to hold the position of director of the Unit for History of Ideas of the Nuffield Foundation.
In 1965, Toulmin returned to the United States, where he held positions at various universities. In 1967, Toulmin served as literary executor for close friend N.R. Hanson, helping in the posthumous publication of several volumes. While at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Toulmin published Human Understanding: The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts (1972), which examines the causes and the processes of conceptual change. In this book, Toulmin uses a novel comparison between conceptual change and Charles Darwin's model of biological evolution to analyse the process of conceptual change as an evolutionary process. The book confronts major philosophical questions as well. In 1973, while a professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, he collaborated with Allan Janik, a philosophy professor at La Salle University, on the book Wittgenstein's Vienna, which advanced a thesis that underscores the significance of history to human reasoning: Contrary to philosophers who believe the absolute truth advocated in Plato's idealized formal logic, Toulmin argues that truth can be a relative quality, dependent on historical and cultural contexts (what other authors have termed "conceptual schemata").
From 1975 to 1978, he worked with the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, established by the United States Congress. During this time, he collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen to write The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), which demonstrates the procedures for resolving moral cases. One of his most recent works, Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990), written while Toulmin held the position of the Avalon Foundation Professor of the Humanities at Northwestern University, specifically criticizes the practical use and the thinning morality underlying modern science.
Toulmin held distinguished professorships at numerous universities, including Columbia, Dartmouth College, Michigan State, Northwestern, Stanford, the University of Chicago, and the University of Southern California School of International Relations.
In 1997 the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) selected Toulmin for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities. His lecture, "A Dissenter's Story" (alternatively entitled "A Dissenter's Life"), discussed the roots of modernity in rationalism and humanism, the "contrast of the reasonable and the rational", and warned of the "abstractions that may still tempt us back into the dogmatism, chauvinism and sectarianism our needs have outgrown". The NEH report of the speech further quoted Toulmin on the need to "make the technical and the humanistic strands in modern thought work together more effectively than they have in the past".
On 2 March 2006 Toulmin received the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art.
He was married four times, once to June Goodfield and collaborated with her on a series of books on the history of science. His children are Greg, of McLean, Va., Polly Macinnes of Skye, Scotland, Camilla Toulmin in the UK and Matthew Toulmin of Melbourne, Australia.
On 4 December 2009 Toulmin died of a heart failure at the age of 87 in Los Angeles, California.
Meta-philosophy
Objection to absolutism and relativism
Throughout many of his works, Toulmin pointed out that absolutism (represented by theoretical or analytic arguments) has limited practical value. Absolutism is derived from Plato's idealized formal logic, which advocates universal truth; accordingly, absolutists believe that moral issues can be resolved by adhering to a standard set of moral principles, regardless of context. By contrast, Toulmin contends that many of these so-called standard principles are irrelevant to real situations encountered by human beings in daily life.
To develop his contention, Toulmin introduced the concept of argument fields. In The Uses of Argument (1958), Toulmin claims that some aspects of arguments vary from field to field, and are hence called "field-dependent", while other aspects of argument are the same throughout all fields, and are hence called "field-invariant". The flaw of absolutism, Toulmin believes, lies in its unawareness of the field-dependent aspect of argument; absolutism assumes that all aspects of argument are field invariant.
In Human Understanding (1972), Toulmin suggests that anthropologists have been tempted to side with relativists because they have noticed the influence of cultural variations on rational arguments. In other words, the anthropologist or relativist overemphasizes the importance of the "field-dependent" aspect of arguments, and neglects or is unaware of the "field-invariant" elements. In order to provide solutions to the problems of absolutism and relativism, Toulmin attempts throughout his work to develop standards that are neither absolutist nor relativist for assessing the worth of ideas.
In Cosmopolis (1990), he traces philosophers' "quest for certainty" back to René Descartes and Thomas Hobbes, and lauds John Dewey, Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, and Richard Rorty for abandoning that tradition.
Humanizing modernity
In Cosmopolis Toulmin seeks the origins of the modern emphasis on universality (philosophers' "quest for certainty"), and criticizes both modern science and philosophers for having ignored practical issues in preference for abstract and theoretical issues. The pursuit of absolutism and theoretical arguments lacking practicality, for example, is, in his view, one of the main defects of modern philosophy. Similarly, Toulmin sensed a thinning of morality in the field of sciences, which has diverted its attention from practical issues concerning ecology to the production of the atomic bomb. To solve this problem, Toulmin advocated a return to humanism consisting of four returns: a return to oral communication and discourse, a plea which has been rejected by modern philosophers, whose scholarly focus is on the printed page; a return to the particular or individual cases that deal with practical moral issues occurring in daily life (as opposed to theoretical principles that have limited practicality); a return to the local, or to concrete cultural and historical contexts; and, finally, a return to the timely, from timeless problems to things whose rational significance depends on the time lines of our solutions. He follows up on this critique in Return to Reason (2001), where he seeks to illuminate the ills that, in his view, universalism has caused in the social sphere, discussing, among other things, the discrepancy between mainstream ethical theory and real-life ethical quandaries.
Argumentation
The Toulmin model of argument
Arguing that absolutism lacks practical value, Toulmin aimed to develop a different type of argument, called practical arguments (also known as substantial arguments). In contrast to absolutists' theoretical arguments, Toulmin's practical argument is intended to focus on the justificatory function of argumentation, as opposed to the inferential function of theoretical arguments. Whereas theoretical arguments make inferences based on a set of principles to arrive at a claim, practical arguments first find a claim of interest, and then provide justification for it. Toulmin believed that reasoning is less an activity of inference, involving the discovering of new ideas, and more a process of testing and sifting already existing ideas—an act achievable through the process of justification.
Toulmin believed that for a good argument to succeed, it needs to provide good justification for a claim. This, he believed, will ensure it stands up to criticism and earns a favourable verdict. In The Uses of Argument (1958), Toulmin proposed a layout containing six interrelated components for analyzing arguments:
Claim (Conclusion) A conclusion whose merit must be established. In argumentative essays, it may be called the thesis. For example, if a person tries to convince a listener that he is a British citizen, the claim would be "I am a British citizen" (1).
Ground (Fact, Evidence, Data) A fact one appeals to as a foundation for the claim. For example, the person introduced in 1 can support his claim with the supporting data "I was born in Bermuda" (2).
Warrant A statement authorizing movement from the ground to the claim. In order to move from the ground established in 2, "I was born in Bermuda", to the claim in 1, "I am a British citizen", the person must supply a warrant to bridge the gap between 1 and 2 with the statement "A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen" (3).
Backing Credentials designed to certify the statement expressed in the warrant; backing must be introduced when the warrant itself is not convincing enough to the readers or the listeners. For example, if the listener does not deem the warrant in 3 as credible, the speaker will supply the legal provisions: "I trained as a barrister in London, specialising in citizenship, so I know that a man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen".
Rebuttal (Reservation) Statements recognizing the restrictions which may legitimately be applied to the claim. It is exemplified as follows: "A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen, unless he has betrayed Britain and has become a spy for another country".
Qualifier Words or phrases expressing the speaker's degree of force or certainty concerning the claim. Such words or phrases include "probably", "possible", "impossible", "certainly", "presumably", "as far as the evidence goes", and "necessarily". The claim "I am definitely a British citizen" has a greater degree of force than the claim "I am a British citizen, presumably". (See also: Defeasible reasoning.)
The first three elements, claim, ground, and warrant, are considered as the essential components of practical arguments, while the second triad, qualifier, backing, and rebuttal, may not be needed in some arguments.
When Toulmin first proposed it, this layout of argumentation was based on legal arguments and intended to be used to analyze the rationality of arguments typically found in the courtroom. Toulmin did not realize that this layout could be applicable to the field of rhetoric and communication until his works were introduced to rhetoricians by Wayne Brockriede and Douglas Ehninger. Their Decision by Debate (1963) streamlined Toulmin's terminology and broadly introduced his model to the field of debate. Only after Toulmin published Introduction to Reasoning (1979) were the rhetorical applications of this layout mentioned in his works.
One criticism of the Toulmin model is that it does not fully consider the use of questions in argumentation. The Toulmin model assumes that an argument starts with a fact or claim and ends with a conclusion, but ignores an argument's underlying questions. In the example "Harry was born in Bermuda, so Harry must be a British subject", the question "Is Harry a British subject?" is ignored, which also neglects to analyze why particular questions are asked and others are not. (See Issue mapping for an example of an argument-mapping method that emphasizes questions.)
Toulmin's argument model has inspired research on, for example, goal structuring notation (GSN), widely used for developing safety cases, and argument maps and associated software.
Ethics
Good reasons approach
In Reason in Ethics (1950), his doctoral dissertation, Toulmin sets out a Good Reasons approach of ethics, and criticizes what he considers to be the subjectivism and emotivism of philosophers such as A. J. Ayer because, in his view, they fail to do justice to ethical reasoning.
The revival of casuistry
By reviving casuistry (also known as case ethics), Toulmin sought to find the middle ground between the extremes of absolutism and relativism. Casuistry was practiced widely during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to resolve moral issues. Although casuistry largely fell silent during the modern period, in The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), Toulmin collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen to demonstrate the effectiveness of casuistry in practical argumentation during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, effectively reviving it as a permissible method of argument.
Casuistry employs absolutist principles, called "type cases" or "paradigm cases", without resorting to absolutism. It uses the standard principles (for example, sanctity of life) as referential markers in moral arguments. An individual case is then compared and contrasted with the type case. Given an individual case that is completely identical to the type case, moral judgments can be made immediately using the standard moral principles advocated in the type case. If the individual case differs from the type case, the differences will be critically assessed in order to arrive at a rational claim.
Through the procedure of casuistry, Toulmin and Jonsen identified three problematic situations in moral reasoning: first, the type case fits the individual case only ambiguously; second, two type cases apply to the same individual case in conflicting ways; third, an unprecedented individual case occurs, which cannot be compared or contrasted to any type case. Through the use of casuistry, Toulmin demonstrated and reinforced his previous emphasis on the significance of comparison to moral arguments, a significance not addressed in theories of absolutism or relativism.
Philosophy of science
The evolutionary model
In 1972, Toulmin published Human Understanding, in which he asserts that conceptual change is an evolutionary process. In this book, Toulmin attacks Thomas Kuhn's account of conceptual change in his seminal work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). Kuhn believed that conceptual change is a revolutionary process (as opposed to an evolutionary process), during which mutually exclusive paradigms compete to replace one another. Toulmin criticized the relativist elements in Kuhn's thesis, arguing that mutually exclusive paradigms provide no ground for comparison, and that Kuhn made the relativists' error of overemphasizing the "field variant" while ignoring the "field invariant" or commonality shared by all argumentation or scientific paradigms.
In contrast to Kuhn's revolutionary model, Toulmin proposed an evolutionary model of conceptual change comparable to Darwin's model of biological evolution. Toulmin states that conceptual change involves the process of innovation and selection. Innovation accounts for the appearance of conceptual variations, while selection accounts for the survival and perpetuation of the soundest conceptions. Innovation occurs when the professionals of a particular discipline come to view things differently from their predecessors; selection subjects the innovative concepts to a process of debate and inquiry in what Toulmin considers as a "forum of competitions". The soundest concepts will survive the forum of competition as replacements or revisions of the traditional conceptions.
From the absolutists' point of view, concepts are either valid or invalid regardless of contexts. From the relativists' perspective, one concept is neither better nor worse than a rival concept from a different cultural context. From Toulmin's perspective, the evaluation depends on a process of comparison, which determines whether or not one concept will improve explanatory power more than its rival concepts.
Works
An Examination of the Place of Reason in Ethics (1950)
The Philosophy of Science: An Introduction (1953)
The Uses of Argument (1958) 2nd edition 2003:
Metaphysical Beliefs, Three Essays (1957) with Ronald W. Hepburn and Alasdair MacIntyre
The Riviera (1961)
Seventeenth century science and the arts (1961)
Foresight and Understanding: An Enquiry into the Aims of Science (1961)
The Fabric of the Heavens (The Ancestry of Science, volume 1) (1961) with June Goodfield
The Architecture of Matter (The Ancestry of Science, volume 2) (1962) with June Goodfield
Night Sky at Rhodes (1963)
The Discovery of Time (The Ancestry of Science, volume 3) (1965) with June Goodfield
Physical Reality (1970)
Human Understanding: The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts (1972)
Wittgenstein's Vienna (1973) with Allan Janik
On the Nature of the Physician's Understanding (1976)
Knowing and Acting: An Invitation to Philosophy (1976)
An Introduction to Reasoning (1979) with Allan Janik and Richard D. Rieke 2nd edition 1997:
The Return to Cosmology: Postmodern Science and the Theology of Nature (1985)
The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988) with Albert R. Jonsen
Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990)
Social Impact of AIDS in the United States (1993) with Albert R. Jonsen
Beyond theory – changing organizations through participation (1996) with Björn Gustavsen (editors)
Return to Reason (2001)
Pantheon of skeptics
At a meeting of the executive council of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) in Denver, Colorado in April 2011, Toulmin was selected for inclusion in CSI's Pantheon of Skeptics. The Pantheon of Skeptics was created by CSI to remember the legacy of deceased fellows of CSI and their contributions to the cause of scientific skepticism.
See also
Argumentation theory
Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
Stephen Toulmin
Interview with Stephen Toulmin in JAC
Obituary in The Guardian
William Long (2004) Wittgenstein's Vienna (1973)
1922 births
2009 deaths
20th-century English philosophers
English rhetoricians
Philosophers of science
Moral philosophers
Wittgensteinian philosophers
Academics of the University of Leeds
Alumni of King's College, Cambridge
Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club
New York University faculty
Stanford University faculty
Columbia University faculty
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth faculty
Michigan State University faculty
University of Chicago faculty
Northwestern University faculty
University of Southern California faculty
English sceptics
Recipients of the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art
British expatriates in the United States | true | [
"Problematic integration theory is a theory of communication that addresses the processes and dynamics of how people receive, evaluate, and respond to information and experiences. The premises of PI are based on the view that message processing, specifically the development of probabilistic and evaluative orientations (our perceptions of something's likelihood of occurring and its value, respectively), is a social and cultural construction. In situations where there is agreement between probabilistic orientation (a person's constructed belief about an object's likelihood, i.e., how likely something is to occur) and evaluative orientation (a person's constructed belief about an object's value), integration is in harmony, i.e., not problematic. However, when there is disagreement between these orientations about an object (i.e., an event, thing, person, idea, outcome, etc.), then integration becomes problematic. This disharmony leads to conflict and discomfort, which can manifest itself as cognitive, communicative, affective, and/or motivational.\n\nHistory \nAustin Babrow first introduced the theory of Problematic Integration (PI) in 1992. Babrow brought together a diverse and interdisciplinary literature (from the field of communication and related disciplines, like psychology, sociology, and philosophy) to serve as building blocks for his new theory. Among the theoretical underpinnings that support PI are: uncertainty reduction theory; the theory of belief in a just world; analysis of decision-making; the theory of and motivation and self-esteem; and cognitive dissonance. However, despite integrating elements from these theories, PI has striking differences (e.g., unlike URT, PI does not assume that uncertainty is an undesirable situation, nor does it suggest that resolution of uncertainty is always necessary or desirable).\n\nConcepts \n\nProblematic Integration is a type of message-processing communication theory that relates to theories of decision making and persuasion. Problematic Integration Theory (PI) proposes that: (1) people orient themselves to the world by forming both probabilistic and evaluative orientations; (2) that probability and evaluation are not independent from one another; (3) that probability and evaluation are socially based and socially constructed, and that probability and evaluation are integral to our daily experience; and, (4) that integration of these orientations can be problematic. Probabilistic orientation is an assessment of the likelihood of an event or outcome. Evaluative orientation is an assessment of the favorability of an outcome. Often, assessments of probability and value are cooperative and easily integrated. However, as the theory's title implies, there are occasions when integration becomes problematic. PI proposes that integration becomes more difficult as:\n clarity of object probability decreases\n object value conflicts increase\n or, there is an increase in the divergence between object expectation and desire\n\nEssentially, problematic integration is what we experience when our probabilistic and evaluative orientations conflict with one another, causing instability and disharmony. Conflict arising from problematic integration may or may not be significant. The more important a value and the more central an issue (or object, to use PI terminology) is to one's beliefs or cultural values, the more likely that problematic integration will cause greater discomfort.\n\nAssumptions of problematic integration theory\n\nBabrow identified four distinct manifestations, or forms, of problematic integration:\n Divergence\n Ambiguity\n Ambivalence\n Impossibility\n\nThe first of these integrative predicaments, divergence, arises when there is a discrepancy between what we believe to be true or to be likely to occur and what we want to be true (the desired outcome). Ambiguity arises when the probability or value of an object (i.e., situation, outcome, thing, etc.) is unclear or highly uncertain. Babrow explained, that “in ambiguous situations, neither the outcome, nor the probability of the outcome is known, though the latter has restrictions” (Babrow, 1992, p. 112). Uncertainty occurs when an unknown factor obscures or complicates the development of one's orientation (probability and evaluation) toward an outcome. Ambiguity has also been described as uncertainty about what is unknown. Ambivalence is borne from one of two conditions: (1) an individual is forced to choose between two similarly valued alternatives; or (2) an individual is forced to choose between mutually exclusive alternatives. The last form of PI, impossibility, occurs upon the realization or belief that an outcome is will not happen. Impossibility is recognized as different from a form of divergence, because only impossibility denotes a sense of certainty. Responses to impossibility can range from a sense of futility, to one of increased motivation to deny the impossibility. All of these situations give rise to conflict.\n\nThe role of communication in problematic integration theory\n\nCommunication is both a source of, a medium, and a method for resolving conflict. Communication is a source of problematic integration in that knowledge and evaluative orientations are the result of communication, probabilistic and evaluative orientations are based on and developed through message and meaning-making (forms of communication), and communication is itself \"an object of thought\" and is therefore an object \"of probabilistic and evaluative orientations.\" It is also possible that a person experiencing problematic integration will seek new information or new sources of information to bolster or reinforce a desired probabilistic or evaluative orientation. This could also be seen engaging in as a form of cognitive dissonance. Communication is seen as a medium of problematic integration because communication inherently involves or is based on probabilistic and evaluative orientations, or communication is about probability and value. Communication is influenced by and formed from culture; thus, communication is a medium of PI, as and the formation of probabilistic and evaluative orientations derives from cultural frameworks. Lastly, communication is a resource for PI as we try to resolve and manage conflict caused by problematic integration through communication (internal, interpersonal, etc.).\n\nBecause communication may be a source, medium, and/or method for resolving problematic integration, it is possible for conflict to manifest as \"extended chains\" of problematic integration. Such extended chains occur through forms, foci, and layers of experience. By extended chains, it is meant that experiences of problematic integration and efforts to resolve problematic integration may lead to development of a new form of PI. As conflict between probability and value develops around a focal point (or topic), it can lead to conflict regarding a new topic (e.g., stress and anxiety about earning an end-of-year bonus at work can lead to new worries about personal finances, sense of self-worth, and/or one's status and career prospects at work). Problematic integration becomes shared (or chained) through layers of experience when people discuss and relate their struggles with others. In this process of communicating our conflicts, others may share in our problematic integration through empathy and sympathy. Babrow proposed that communication becomes more important to resolve problematic integration as the conflict or integration becomes more difficult.\n\nCritique and analysis\n\nAs mentioned above, Problematic Integration Theory is a type of communication theory that examines how we make meaning of information and experiences, and how we handle uncertainty. PI differs from Uncertainty Reduction Theory and other axiomatic and predictive communication theories in a number of ways. PI proposes that there are numerous and varied meanings of the term uncertainty. Unlike URT, PI predicts that experiencing uncertainty does not automatically lead to a desire to reduce the uncertainty. Further, PI proposes that: (1) uncertainty is not always \"bad; (2) uncertainty has a single or narrow meaning; (3) reduction of uncertainty is not always possible; (4) any resolution of uncertainty is not necessarily final; and, (5) integrative dilemmas do not necessarily have an identifiable or singular cause.\n\nProblematic Integration Theory (PI) falls under the socio-psychological and socio-cultural communication traditions. PI began with a focus on intra- and inter-personal contexts, but has been applicable in many contexts, including interpersonal, small group, and organizational; thus, it has a broad scope of application. PI is considered an interpretive/hermeneutic approach of theory rather than positivistic/empirical (i.e., predictive) or critical.\n\nRelated work: uncertainty management theory\n\nBabrow's theory shares some common ideas with Uncertainty Management Theory (UMT), which was developed by Dale Brashers (2007, A theory of communication and uncertainty management. In B. Whaley & W. Samter (Eds.), Explaining communication theory (pp. 201–218). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum). For a comparison of the perspectives, see Bradac (2001).\n\nCurrent usage \n\nThe complexity of PI and the multiplicity of its manifestations makes it difficult to operationalize, measure, and apply. However, this breadth of scope also indicates that it may have extremely wide-ranging applications and opportunities for research. Because the concepts within PI are based on cultural definitions, PI is seen as being overly responsive to external conceptual influences; thus, making it potentially falsifiable.\n\nPI has been used within the realm of Health Communication studies in order to assess methods of educating, and communicating with, patients facing a variety chronic or life-threatening conditions. In 2003, Babrow received the prestigious Woolbert Award for scholarship of exceptional originality and influence from the National Communication Association for his work with PI.\n\nPI has been used extensively in analysis of the health care system, particularly in regard to communication between health care providers and patients. The health-care system inherently involves communication between health-care providers (e.g., doctors, nurses, various therapists, dietitians, social workers, counselors, etc.), patients, and members of the patient's social and support network (e.g., family members, friends, members of support groups, etc.). Because understanding and communicating diagnoses, prognoses, treatment plans, expectations, and more can be complicated and because this communication relies on the communication skills of the various people involved, health-care situations offer ample opportunity to examine problematic integration. Research in this area has revealed that information is used to decrease and increase uncertainty, depending on the situation. In some cases, patients may seek information to reduce stressful uncertainty. However, in other cases, the care team and the patient may need to increase uncertainty in order to increase optimism and allow for re-evaluation of a given situation. PI has been used to study communication involving various medical issues, including breast cancer, the treatment of diabetes in the elderly, end-of-life issues, and pregnancy.\n\nProblematic Integration has also been used to evaluate organizational communication. Organizations, comprising networks and hierarchies of individuals, by their very nature, create complex webs of various dynamic social and cultural relationships. Moreover, most organizations do not exist for themselves, but for an external audience, client, or consumer; thereby, increasing the nature, types, and numbers of relationships. Communication within these relationships will very likely give rise to instances of uncertainty. In the context of such complex systems of communication, PI takes on a much different appearance than intrapersonal situations. An organization's structure, system design, and strategy can create, maintain, or help reduce problematic integration.\n\nOne area of this study has been problematic integration arising from internal bureaucracy or organizational rules or objectives and how this conflict involves matters of formal rationality (a quantitative calculation of an action or choice) or substantive rationality (a value judgment of consequences of an action or choice).\n\nIn examining marketing strategies for tourism, PI has been used to suggest methods for decreasing uncertainty for potential customers and thereby increasing transactions from the on-line shoppers for the related retail businesses (\"converting lookers to bookers\").\n\nAs mentioned above, PI lends itself to application to a broad scope of issues. A few other examples of areas of interest to which PI has been applied include:\n Risk study and evaluation\n Family and relationships\n Narrative communication\n Mass media and media Studies (e.g., news reporting)\n Marketing and advertising\n\nNotes\n\nReferences \n\nBabrow, Austin S. (1992). Communication and problematic integration: Understanding and diverging probability and value, ambiguity, ambivalence, and impossibility. Communication Theory, 2(2), 95-130.\n\nBerger, C. R. (1986). Uncertain outcome values in predicted relationships: Uncertainty reduction theory then and now. Human Communication Research, 13, 34-38.\n\nBerger, C. R. (1987). Communicating under uncertainty. In M. E. Roloff & G. R. Miller (Eds.), Interpersonal processes: New directions in communication research. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.\n\nBerger, C. R., & Calabrese, R. J. (1975). Some explorations in initial interaction and beyond: Toward a developmental theory of interpersonal communication. Human Communication Research, 1, 99-112.\n\nEinhorn, H. J., & Hogarth, R. M. (1987). Decision making under ambiguity. In R. M. Hogarth & M. W. Reder (Eds.), Rational choice: The contrast between economics and psychology (pp. 41–66). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.\n\nFestinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.\n\nHines, S.C., Babrow, A.S., Badzek, L., & Moss, A. (2001). From coping with life to coping with death: Problematic integration for the seriously ill elderly. Health Communication, 13(3), 327-342.\n\nLerner, M. J. (1980). The belief in a just world: A fundamental delusion. New York: Plenum.\n\nRaynor, J. O., & McFarlin, D. B. (1986). Motivation and self-esteem. In R. M. Sorrentino & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition: Foundations of social behavior (pp. 315–349). New York: Guilford.\n\nWest, Richard and Turner, Lynn; Introducing Communication Theory: Analysis and Application, McGraw Hill, 2010, Print.\n\nCommunication\nCommunication theory",
"\"Problematic\" is the name of Five Star's very first single, released 30 September 1983.\n\nThe song was performed on BBC TV's Pebble Mill at One show, which brought the band to public attention. According to Five Star's father/manager, Buster Pearson, RCA records were on the phone offering the band a record contract before the end of their performance.\n\nFive Star were asked to perform \"Problematic\" on the show as that particular edition was focusing on unemployment, trying to find work, and the problems that come with it. The song was simply about a young girl leaving school, trying to find work.\n\nAlthough credited to Five Star, the b-side \"Big Funk\" is an instrumental track written, arranged and produced by Buster Pearson with no involvement from the band members. He had already released the track as a single in 1973 credited to the Buster Pearson Band.\n\n\"Problematic\" failed to chart in the UK.\n\n7” Single:\n\n1. Problematic\n\n2. Big Funk \n \n\n12” Single:\n \n1. Problematic (Extended Version)\n\n2. Problematic\n\n3. Big Funk \n\nThe 12\" single and a picture disc version of the 7\" single were re-pressed by the Five Star Fan Club in 1989 and sold to members.\n\nThe 7\" and 12\" versions of \"Problematic\" were released as digital downloads on 18 July 2011.\n\nReferences\n\nFive Star songs\n1983 singles\nSongs written by George Hargreaves (politician)\n1983 songs"
] |
[
"Stephen Toulmin",
"The revival of casuistry",
"what was the revival of casuistry?",
"By reviving casuistry (also known as case ethics), Toulmin sought to find the middle ground between the extremes of absolutism and relativism.",
"what were some of his beliefs about this?",
"Casuistry employs absolutist principles, called \"type cases\" or \"paradigm cases,\" without resorting to absolutism.",
"can you tell me more about these \"cases\"?",
"It uses the standard principles (for example, sanctity of life) as referential markers in moral arguments. An individual case is then compared and contrasted with the type case.",
"what else is interesting about casuistry?",
"Casuistry was practiced widely during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to resolve moral issues.",
"How did Toulmin relate this to moral issues?",
"Through the procedure of casuistry, Toulmin and Jonsen identified three problematic situations in moral reasoning:",
"what were the three problematic situations?",
"first, the type case fits the individual case only ambiguously; second, two type cases apply to the same individual case in conflicting ways;"
] | C_39171226d43d45c89767c5e5ddc904ba_0 | what is the third? | 7 | What is the third problematic situation of moral reasoning? | Stephen Toulmin | By reviving casuistry (also known as case ethics), Toulmin sought to find the middle ground between the extremes of absolutism and relativism. Casuistry was practiced widely during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to resolve moral issues. Although casuistry largely fell silent during the modern period, in The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), Toulmin collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen to demonstrate the effectiveness of casuistry in practical argumentation during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, effectively reviving it as a permissible method of argument. Casuistry employs absolutist principles, called "type cases" or "paradigm cases," without resorting to absolutism. It uses the standard principles (for example, sanctity of life) as referential markers in moral arguments. An individual case is then compared and contrasted with the type case. Given an individual case that is completely identical to the type case, moral judgments can be made immediately using the standard moral principles advocated in the type case. If the individual case differs from the type case, the differences will be critically assessed in order to arrive at a rational claim. Through the procedure of casuistry, Toulmin and Jonsen identified three problematic situations in moral reasoning: first, the type case fits the individual case only ambiguously; second, two type cases apply to the same individual case in conflicting ways; third, an unprecedented individual case occurs, which cannot be compared or contrasted to any type case. Through the use of casuistry, Toulmin demonstrated and reinforced his previous emphasis on the significance of comparison to moral arguments, a significance not addressed in theories of absolutism or relativism. CANNOTANSWER | third, an unprecedented individual case occurs, which cannot be compared or contrasted to any type case. | Stephen Edelston Toulmin (; 25 March 1922 – 4 December 2009) was a British philosopher, author, and educator. Influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Toulmin devoted his works to the analysis of moral reasoning. Throughout his writings, he sought to develop practical arguments which can be used effectively in evaluating the ethics behind moral issues. His works were later found useful in the field of rhetoric for analyzing rhetorical arguments. The Toulmin model of argumentation, a diagram containing six interrelated components used for analyzing arguments, and published in his 1958 book The Uses of Argument, was considered his most influential work, particularly in the field of rhetoric and communication, and in computer science.
Biography
Stephen Toulmin was born in London, UK, on 25 March 1922 to Geoffrey Edelson Toulmin and Doris Holman Toulmin. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from King's College, Cambridge in 1943, where he was a Cambridge Apostle. Soon after, Toulmin was hired by the Ministry of Aircraft Production as a junior scientific officer, first at the Malvern Radar Research and Development Station and later at the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Germany. At the end of World War II, he returned to England to earn a Master of Arts degree in 1947 and a PhD in philosophy from Cambridge University, subsequently publishing his dissertation as An Examination of the Place of Reason in Ethics (1950). While at Cambridge, Toulmin came into contact with the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose examination of the relationship between the uses and the meanings of language shaped much of Toulmin's own work.
After graduating from Cambridge, he was appointed University Lecturer in Philosophy of Science at Oxford University from 1949 to 1954, during which period he wrote a second book, The Philosophy of Science: an Introduction (1953). Soon after, he was appointed to the position of Visiting Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at Melbourne University in Australia from 1954 to 1955, after which he returned to England, and served as Professor and Head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Leeds from 1955 to 1959. While at Leeds, he published one of his most influential books in the field of rhetoric, The Uses of Argument (1958), which investigated the flaws of traditional logic. Although it was poorly received in England and satirized as "Toulmin's anti-logic book" by Toulmin's fellow philosophers at Leeds, the book was applauded by the rhetoricians in the United States, where Toulmin served as a visiting professor at New York, Stanford, and Columbia Universities in 1959. While in the States, Wayne Brockriede and Douglas Ehninger introduced Toulmin's work to communication scholars, as they recognized that his work provided a good structural model useful for the analysis and criticism of rhetorical arguments. In 1960, Toulmin returned to London to hold the position of director of the Unit for History of Ideas of the Nuffield Foundation.
In 1965, Toulmin returned to the United States, where he held positions at various universities. In 1967, Toulmin served as literary executor for close friend N.R. Hanson, helping in the posthumous publication of several volumes. While at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Toulmin published Human Understanding: The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts (1972), which examines the causes and the processes of conceptual change. In this book, Toulmin uses a novel comparison between conceptual change and Charles Darwin's model of biological evolution to analyse the process of conceptual change as an evolutionary process. The book confronts major philosophical questions as well. In 1973, while a professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, he collaborated with Allan Janik, a philosophy professor at La Salle University, on the book Wittgenstein's Vienna, which advanced a thesis that underscores the significance of history to human reasoning: Contrary to philosophers who believe the absolute truth advocated in Plato's idealized formal logic, Toulmin argues that truth can be a relative quality, dependent on historical and cultural contexts (what other authors have termed "conceptual schemata").
From 1975 to 1978, he worked with the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, established by the United States Congress. During this time, he collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen to write The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), which demonstrates the procedures for resolving moral cases. One of his most recent works, Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990), written while Toulmin held the position of the Avalon Foundation Professor of the Humanities at Northwestern University, specifically criticizes the practical use and the thinning morality underlying modern science.
Toulmin held distinguished professorships at numerous universities, including Columbia, Dartmouth College, Michigan State, Northwestern, Stanford, the University of Chicago, and the University of Southern California School of International Relations.
In 1997 the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) selected Toulmin for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities. His lecture, "A Dissenter's Story" (alternatively entitled "A Dissenter's Life"), discussed the roots of modernity in rationalism and humanism, the "contrast of the reasonable and the rational", and warned of the "abstractions that may still tempt us back into the dogmatism, chauvinism and sectarianism our needs have outgrown". The NEH report of the speech further quoted Toulmin on the need to "make the technical and the humanistic strands in modern thought work together more effectively than they have in the past".
On 2 March 2006 Toulmin received the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art.
He was married four times, once to June Goodfield and collaborated with her on a series of books on the history of science. His children are Greg, of McLean, Va., Polly Macinnes of Skye, Scotland, Camilla Toulmin in the UK and Matthew Toulmin of Melbourne, Australia.
On 4 December 2009 Toulmin died of a heart failure at the age of 87 in Los Angeles, California.
Meta-philosophy
Objection to absolutism and relativism
Throughout many of his works, Toulmin pointed out that absolutism (represented by theoretical or analytic arguments) has limited practical value. Absolutism is derived from Plato's idealized formal logic, which advocates universal truth; accordingly, absolutists believe that moral issues can be resolved by adhering to a standard set of moral principles, regardless of context. By contrast, Toulmin contends that many of these so-called standard principles are irrelevant to real situations encountered by human beings in daily life.
To develop his contention, Toulmin introduced the concept of argument fields. In The Uses of Argument (1958), Toulmin claims that some aspects of arguments vary from field to field, and are hence called "field-dependent", while other aspects of argument are the same throughout all fields, and are hence called "field-invariant". The flaw of absolutism, Toulmin believes, lies in its unawareness of the field-dependent aspect of argument; absolutism assumes that all aspects of argument are field invariant.
In Human Understanding (1972), Toulmin suggests that anthropologists have been tempted to side with relativists because they have noticed the influence of cultural variations on rational arguments. In other words, the anthropologist or relativist overemphasizes the importance of the "field-dependent" aspect of arguments, and neglects or is unaware of the "field-invariant" elements. In order to provide solutions to the problems of absolutism and relativism, Toulmin attempts throughout his work to develop standards that are neither absolutist nor relativist for assessing the worth of ideas.
In Cosmopolis (1990), he traces philosophers' "quest for certainty" back to René Descartes and Thomas Hobbes, and lauds John Dewey, Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, and Richard Rorty for abandoning that tradition.
Humanizing modernity
In Cosmopolis Toulmin seeks the origins of the modern emphasis on universality (philosophers' "quest for certainty"), and criticizes both modern science and philosophers for having ignored practical issues in preference for abstract and theoretical issues. The pursuit of absolutism and theoretical arguments lacking practicality, for example, is, in his view, one of the main defects of modern philosophy. Similarly, Toulmin sensed a thinning of morality in the field of sciences, which has diverted its attention from practical issues concerning ecology to the production of the atomic bomb. To solve this problem, Toulmin advocated a return to humanism consisting of four returns: a return to oral communication and discourse, a plea which has been rejected by modern philosophers, whose scholarly focus is on the printed page; a return to the particular or individual cases that deal with practical moral issues occurring in daily life (as opposed to theoretical principles that have limited practicality); a return to the local, or to concrete cultural and historical contexts; and, finally, a return to the timely, from timeless problems to things whose rational significance depends on the time lines of our solutions. He follows up on this critique in Return to Reason (2001), where he seeks to illuminate the ills that, in his view, universalism has caused in the social sphere, discussing, among other things, the discrepancy between mainstream ethical theory and real-life ethical quandaries.
Argumentation
The Toulmin model of argument
Arguing that absolutism lacks practical value, Toulmin aimed to develop a different type of argument, called practical arguments (also known as substantial arguments). In contrast to absolutists' theoretical arguments, Toulmin's practical argument is intended to focus on the justificatory function of argumentation, as opposed to the inferential function of theoretical arguments. Whereas theoretical arguments make inferences based on a set of principles to arrive at a claim, practical arguments first find a claim of interest, and then provide justification for it. Toulmin believed that reasoning is less an activity of inference, involving the discovering of new ideas, and more a process of testing and sifting already existing ideas—an act achievable through the process of justification.
Toulmin believed that for a good argument to succeed, it needs to provide good justification for a claim. This, he believed, will ensure it stands up to criticism and earns a favourable verdict. In The Uses of Argument (1958), Toulmin proposed a layout containing six interrelated components for analyzing arguments:
Claim (Conclusion) A conclusion whose merit must be established. In argumentative essays, it may be called the thesis. For example, if a person tries to convince a listener that he is a British citizen, the claim would be "I am a British citizen" (1).
Ground (Fact, Evidence, Data) A fact one appeals to as a foundation for the claim. For example, the person introduced in 1 can support his claim with the supporting data "I was born in Bermuda" (2).
Warrant A statement authorizing movement from the ground to the claim. In order to move from the ground established in 2, "I was born in Bermuda", to the claim in 1, "I am a British citizen", the person must supply a warrant to bridge the gap between 1 and 2 with the statement "A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen" (3).
Backing Credentials designed to certify the statement expressed in the warrant; backing must be introduced when the warrant itself is not convincing enough to the readers or the listeners. For example, if the listener does not deem the warrant in 3 as credible, the speaker will supply the legal provisions: "I trained as a barrister in London, specialising in citizenship, so I know that a man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen".
Rebuttal (Reservation) Statements recognizing the restrictions which may legitimately be applied to the claim. It is exemplified as follows: "A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen, unless he has betrayed Britain and has become a spy for another country".
Qualifier Words or phrases expressing the speaker's degree of force or certainty concerning the claim. Such words or phrases include "probably", "possible", "impossible", "certainly", "presumably", "as far as the evidence goes", and "necessarily". The claim "I am definitely a British citizen" has a greater degree of force than the claim "I am a British citizen, presumably". (See also: Defeasible reasoning.)
The first three elements, claim, ground, and warrant, are considered as the essential components of practical arguments, while the second triad, qualifier, backing, and rebuttal, may not be needed in some arguments.
When Toulmin first proposed it, this layout of argumentation was based on legal arguments and intended to be used to analyze the rationality of arguments typically found in the courtroom. Toulmin did not realize that this layout could be applicable to the field of rhetoric and communication until his works were introduced to rhetoricians by Wayne Brockriede and Douglas Ehninger. Their Decision by Debate (1963) streamlined Toulmin's terminology and broadly introduced his model to the field of debate. Only after Toulmin published Introduction to Reasoning (1979) were the rhetorical applications of this layout mentioned in his works.
One criticism of the Toulmin model is that it does not fully consider the use of questions in argumentation. The Toulmin model assumes that an argument starts with a fact or claim and ends with a conclusion, but ignores an argument's underlying questions. In the example "Harry was born in Bermuda, so Harry must be a British subject", the question "Is Harry a British subject?" is ignored, which also neglects to analyze why particular questions are asked and others are not. (See Issue mapping for an example of an argument-mapping method that emphasizes questions.)
Toulmin's argument model has inspired research on, for example, goal structuring notation (GSN), widely used for developing safety cases, and argument maps and associated software.
Ethics
Good reasons approach
In Reason in Ethics (1950), his doctoral dissertation, Toulmin sets out a Good Reasons approach of ethics, and criticizes what he considers to be the subjectivism and emotivism of philosophers such as A. J. Ayer because, in his view, they fail to do justice to ethical reasoning.
The revival of casuistry
By reviving casuistry (also known as case ethics), Toulmin sought to find the middle ground between the extremes of absolutism and relativism. Casuistry was practiced widely during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to resolve moral issues. Although casuistry largely fell silent during the modern period, in The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), Toulmin collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen to demonstrate the effectiveness of casuistry in practical argumentation during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, effectively reviving it as a permissible method of argument.
Casuistry employs absolutist principles, called "type cases" or "paradigm cases", without resorting to absolutism. It uses the standard principles (for example, sanctity of life) as referential markers in moral arguments. An individual case is then compared and contrasted with the type case. Given an individual case that is completely identical to the type case, moral judgments can be made immediately using the standard moral principles advocated in the type case. If the individual case differs from the type case, the differences will be critically assessed in order to arrive at a rational claim.
Through the procedure of casuistry, Toulmin and Jonsen identified three problematic situations in moral reasoning: first, the type case fits the individual case only ambiguously; second, two type cases apply to the same individual case in conflicting ways; third, an unprecedented individual case occurs, which cannot be compared or contrasted to any type case. Through the use of casuistry, Toulmin demonstrated and reinforced his previous emphasis on the significance of comparison to moral arguments, a significance not addressed in theories of absolutism or relativism.
Philosophy of science
The evolutionary model
In 1972, Toulmin published Human Understanding, in which he asserts that conceptual change is an evolutionary process. In this book, Toulmin attacks Thomas Kuhn's account of conceptual change in his seminal work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). Kuhn believed that conceptual change is a revolutionary process (as opposed to an evolutionary process), during which mutually exclusive paradigms compete to replace one another. Toulmin criticized the relativist elements in Kuhn's thesis, arguing that mutually exclusive paradigms provide no ground for comparison, and that Kuhn made the relativists' error of overemphasizing the "field variant" while ignoring the "field invariant" or commonality shared by all argumentation or scientific paradigms.
In contrast to Kuhn's revolutionary model, Toulmin proposed an evolutionary model of conceptual change comparable to Darwin's model of biological evolution. Toulmin states that conceptual change involves the process of innovation and selection. Innovation accounts for the appearance of conceptual variations, while selection accounts for the survival and perpetuation of the soundest conceptions. Innovation occurs when the professionals of a particular discipline come to view things differently from their predecessors; selection subjects the innovative concepts to a process of debate and inquiry in what Toulmin considers as a "forum of competitions". The soundest concepts will survive the forum of competition as replacements or revisions of the traditional conceptions.
From the absolutists' point of view, concepts are either valid or invalid regardless of contexts. From the relativists' perspective, one concept is neither better nor worse than a rival concept from a different cultural context. From Toulmin's perspective, the evaluation depends on a process of comparison, which determines whether or not one concept will improve explanatory power more than its rival concepts.
Works
An Examination of the Place of Reason in Ethics (1950)
The Philosophy of Science: An Introduction (1953)
The Uses of Argument (1958) 2nd edition 2003:
Metaphysical Beliefs, Three Essays (1957) with Ronald W. Hepburn and Alasdair MacIntyre
The Riviera (1961)
Seventeenth century science and the arts (1961)
Foresight and Understanding: An Enquiry into the Aims of Science (1961)
The Fabric of the Heavens (The Ancestry of Science, volume 1) (1961) with June Goodfield
The Architecture of Matter (The Ancestry of Science, volume 2) (1962) with June Goodfield
Night Sky at Rhodes (1963)
The Discovery of Time (The Ancestry of Science, volume 3) (1965) with June Goodfield
Physical Reality (1970)
Human Understanding: The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts (1972)
Wittgenstein's Vienna (1973) with Allan Janik
On the Nature of the Physician's Understanding (1976)
Knowing and Acting: An Invitation to Philosophy (1976)
An Introduction to Reasoning (1979) with Allan Janik and Richard D. Rieke 2nd edition 1997:
The Return to Cosmology: Postmodern Science and the Theology of Nature (1985)
The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988) with Albert R. Jonsen
Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990)
Social Impact of AIDS in the United States (1993) with Albert R. Jonsen
Beyond theory – changing organizations through participation (1996) with Björn Gustavsen (editors)
Return to Reason (2001)
Pantheon of skeptics
At a meeting of the executive council of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) in Denver, Colorado in April 2011, Toulmin was selected for inclusion in CSI's Pantheon of Skeptics. The Pantheon of Skeptics was created by CSI to remember the legacy of deceased fellows of CSI and their contributions to the cause of scientific skepticism.
See also
Argumentation theory
Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
Stephen Toulmin
Interview with Stephen Toulmin in JAC
Obituary in The Guardian
William Long (2004) Wittgenstein's Vienna (1973)
1922 births
2009 deaths
20th-century English philosophers
English rhetoricians
Philosophers of science
Moral philosophers
Wittgensteinian philosophers
Academics of the University of Leeds
Alumni of King's College, Cambridge
Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club
New York University faculty
Stanford University faculty
Columbia University faculty
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth faculty
Michigan State University faculty
University of Chicago faculty
Northwestern University faculty
University of Southern California faculty
English sceptics
Recipients of the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art
British expatriates in the United States | true | [
"Paradise is the third release, by the Christian third-wave ska band, The Insyderz. Released in 1998, paradise is the band's only CD single. The song \"Our Wars\" contains numerous references to Star Wars, and \"Just What I Needed\" is a cover of The Cars song.\n\nTrack listing \n \"Paradise\"\n \"Our Wars\"\n \"Just What I Needed\"\n \"Our Wars\" (Dark Fader mix)\n \"Paradise\" (Karaoke mix)\n\nReferences\n\nThe Insyderz albums\n1998 EPs",
"What Is the Third Estate? () is a political pamphlet written in January 1789, shortly before the outbreak of the French Revolution, by the French writer and clergyman Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès (1748–1836). The pamphlet was Sieyès' response to finance minister Jacques Necker's invitation for writers to state how they thought the Estates-General should be organized.\n\nIn the pamphlet, Sieyès argues that the third estate – the common people of France – constituted a complete nation within itself and had no need of the \"dead weight\" of the two other orders, the first and second estates of the clergy and aristocracy. Sieyès stated that the people wanted genuine representatives in the Estates-General, equal representation to the other two orders taken together, and votes taken by heads and not by orders. These ideas came to have an immense influence on the course of the French Revolution.\n\nSummary\nThe pamphlet is organized around three hypothetical questions and Sieyès' responses. The questions and responses are: \nWhat is the Third Estate? Everything.\nWhat has it been hitherto in the political order? Nothing.\nWhat does it desire to be? To become something...\n\nThroughout the pamphlet, Sieyès argues that the first and second estates are simply unnecessary, and that the Third Estate is in truth France's only legitimate estate, representing as it does the entire population. Thus, he asserts, it should replace the other two estates entirely. \nThe Third Estate bears the weight of the majority of tax.\n\nSee also\nEstates of the realm\nPluralism (political philosophy)\nModernism\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nExcerpts from What is the Third Estate? Internet History Sourcebooks – Fordham University. Retrieved 9 January 2013.\n\nPolitical history of the Ancien Régime\n1789 non-fiction books\nPamphlets of the French Revolution"
] |
[
"Stephen Toulmin",
"The revival of casuistry",
"what was the revival of casuistry?",
"By reviving casuistry (also known as case ethics), Toulmin sought to find the middle ground between the extremes of absolutism and relativism.",
"what were some of his beliefs about this?",
"Casuistry employs absolutist principles, called \"type cases\" or \"paradigm cases,\" without resorting to absolutism.",
"can you tell me more about these \"cases\"?",
"It uses the standard principles (for example, sanctity of life) as referential markers in moral arguments. An individual case is then compared and contrasted with the type case.",
"what else is interesting about casuistry?",
"Casuistry was practiced widely during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to resolve moral issues.",
"How did Toulmin relate this to moral issues?",
"Through the procedure of casuistry, Toulmin and Jonsen identified three problematic situations in moral reasoning:",
"what were the three problematic situations?",
"first, the type case fits the individual case only ambiguously; second, two type cases apply to the same individual case in conflicting ways;",
"what is the third?",
"third, an unprecedented individual case occurs, which cannot be compared or contrasted to any type case."
] | C_39171226d43d45c89767c5e5ddc904ba_0 | Did he have a lot of opposition to his position on this? | 8 | Did Toulmin have a lot of opposition to his position on casuistry? | Stephen Toulmin | By reviving casuistry (also known as case ethics), Toulmin sought to find the middle ground between the extremes of absolutism and relativism. Casuistry was practiced widely during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to resolve moral issues. Although casuistry largely fell silent during the modern period, in The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), Toulmin collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen to demonstrate the effectiveness of casuistry in practical argumentation during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, effectively reviving it as a permissible method of argument. Casuistry employs absolutist principles, called "type cases" or "paradigm cases," without resorting to absolutism. It uses the standard principles (for example, sanctity of life) as referential markers in moral arguments. An individual case is then compared and contrasted with the type case. Given an individual case that is completely identical to the type case, moral judgments can be made immediately using the standard moral principles advocated in the type case. If the individual case differs from the type case, the differences will be critically assessed in order to arrive at a rational claim. Through the procedure of casuistry, Toulmin and Jonsen identified three problematic situations in moral reasoning: first, the type case fits the individual case only ambiguously; second, two type cases apply to the same individual case in conflicting ways; third, an unprecedented individual case occurs, which cannot be compared or contrasted to any type case. Through the use of casuistry, Toulmin demonstrated and reinforced his previous emphasis on the significance of comparison to moral arguments, a significance not addressed in theories of absolutism or relativism. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Stephen Edelston Toulmin (; 25 March 1922 – 4 December 2009) was a British philosopher, author, and educator. Influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Toulmin devoted his works to the analysis of moral reasoning. Throughout his writings, he sought to develop practical arguments which can be used effectively in evaluating the ethics behind moral issues. His works were later found useful in the field of rhetoric for analyzing rhetorical arguments. The Toulmin model of argumentation, a diagram containing six interrelated components used for analyzing arguments, and published in his 1958 book The Uses of Argument, was considered his most influential work, particularly in the field of rhetoric and communication, and in computer science.
Biography
Stephen Toulmin was born in London, UK, on 25 March 1922 to Geoffrey Edelson Toulmin and Doris Holman Toulmin. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from King's College, Cambridge in 1943, where he was a Cambridge Apostle. Soon after, Toulmin was hired by the Ministry of Aircraft Production as a junior scientific officer, first at the Malvern Radar Research and Development Station and later at the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Germany. At the end of World War II, he returned to England to earn a Master of Arts degree in 1947 and a PhD in philosophy from Cambridge University, subsequently publishing his dissertation as An Examination of the Place of Reason in Ethics (1950). While at Cambridge, Toulmin came into contact with the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose examination of the relationship between the uses and the meanings of language shaped much of Toulmin's own work.
After graduating from Cambridge, he was appointed University Lecturer in Philosophy of Science at Oxford University from 1949 to 1954, during which period he wrote a second book, The Philosophy of Science: an Introduction (1953). Soon after, he was appointed to the position of Visiting Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at Melbourne University in Australia from 1954 to 1955, after which he returned to England, and served as Professor and Head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Leeds from 1955 to 1959. While at Leeds, he published one of his most influential books in the field of rhetoric, The Uses of Argument (1958), which investigated the flaws of traditional logic. Although it was poorly received in England and satirized as "Toulmin's anti-logic book" by Toulmin's fellow philosophers at Leeds, the book was applauded by the rhetoricians in the United States, where Toulmin served as a visiting professor at New York, Stanford, and Columbia Universities in 1959. While in the States, Wayne Brockriede and Douglas Ehninger introduced Toulmin's work to communication scholars, as they recognized that his work provided a good structural model useful for the analysis and criticism of rhetorical arguments. In 1960, Toulmin returned to London to hold the position of director of the Unit for History of Ideas of the Nuffield Foundation.
In 1965, Toulmin returned to the United States, where he held positions at various universities. In 1967, Toulmin served as literary executor for close friend N.R. Hanson, helping in the posthumous publication of several volumes. While at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Toulmin published Human Understanding: The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts (1972), which examines the causes and the processes of conceptual change. In this book, Toulmin uses a novel comparison between conceptual change and Charles Darwin's model of biological evolution to analyse the process of conceptual change as an evolutionary process. The book confronts major philosophical questions as well. In 1973, while a professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, he collaborated with Allan Janik, a philosophy professor at La Salle University, on the book Wittgenstein's Vienna, which advanced a thesis that underscores the significance of history to human reasoning: Contrary to philosophers who believe the absolute truth advocated in Plato's idealized formal logic, Toulmin argues that truth can be a relative quality, dependent on historical and cultural contexts (what other authors have termed "conceptual schemata").
From 1975 to 1978, he worked with the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, established by the United States Congress. During this time, he collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen to write The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), which demonstrates the procedures for resolving moral cases. One of his most recent works, Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990), written while Toulmin held the position of the Avalon Foundation Professor of the Humanities at Northwestern University, specifically criticizes the practical use and the thinning morality underlying modern science.
Toulmin held distinguished professorships at numerous universities, including Columbia, Dartmouth College, Michigan State, Northwestern, Stanford, the University of Chicago, and the University of Southern California School of International Relations.
In 1997 the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) selected Toulmin for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities. His lecture, "A Dissenter's Story" (alternatively entitled "A Dissenter's Life"), discussed the roots of modernity in rationalism and humanism, the "contrast of the reasonable and the rational", and warned of the "abstractions that may still tempt us back into the dogmatism, chauvinism and sectarianism our needs have outgrown". The NEH report of the speech further quoted Toulmin on the need to "make the technical and the humanistic strands in modern thought work together more effectively than they have in the past".
On 2 March 2006 Toulmin received the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art.
He was married four times, once to June Goodfield and collaborated with her on a series of books on the history of science. His children are Greg, of McLean, Va., Polly Macinnes of Skye, Scotland, Camilla Toulmin in the UK and Matthew Toulmin of Melbourne, Australia.
On 4 December 2009 Toulmin died of a heart failure at the age of 87 in Los Angeles, California.
Meta-philosophy
Objection to absolutism and relativism
Throughout many of his works, Toulmin pointed out that absolutism (represented by theoretical or analytic arguments) has limited practical value. Absolutism is derived from Plato's idealized formal logic, which advocates universal truth; accordingly, absolutists believe that moral issues can be resolved by adhering to a standard set of moral principles, regardless of context. By contrast, Toulmin contends that many of these so-called standard principles are irrelevant to real situations encountered by human beings in daily life.
To develop his contention, Toulmin introduced the concept of argument fields. In The Uses of Argument (1958), Toulmin claims that some aspects of arguments vary from field to field, and are hence called "field-dependent", while other aspects of argument are the same throughout all fields, and are hence called "field-invariant". The flaw of absolutism, Toulmin believes, lies in its unawareness of the field-dependent aspect of argument; absolutism assumes that all aspects of argument are field invariant.
In Human Understanding (1972), Toulmin suggests that anthropologists have been tempted to side with relativists because they have noticed the influence of cultural variations on rational arguments. In other words, the anthropologist or relativist overemphasizes the importance of the "field-dependent" aspect of arguments, and neglects or is unaware of the "field-invariant" elements. In order to provide solutions to the problems of absolutism and relativism, Toulmin attempts throughout his work to develop standards that are neither absolutist nor relativist for assessing the worth of ideas.
In Cosmopolis (1990), he traces philosophers' "quest for certainty" back to René Descartes and Thomas Hobbes, and lauds John Dewey, Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, and Richard Rorty for abandoning that tradition.
Humanizing modernity
In Cosmopolis Toulmin seeks the origins of the modern emphasis on universality (philosophers' "quest for certainty"), and criticizes both modern science and philosophers for having ignored practical issues in preference for abstract and theoretical issues. The pursuit of absolutism and theoretical arguments lacking practicality, for example, is, in his view, one of the main defects of modern philosophy. Similarly, Toulmin sensed a thinning of morality in the field of sciences, which has diverted its attention from practical issues concerning ecology to the production of the atomic bomb. To solve this problem, Toulmin advocated a return to humanism consisting of four returns: a return to oral communication and discourse, a plea which has been rejected by modern philosophers, whose scholarly focus is on the printed page; a return to the particular or individual cases that deal with practical moral issues occurring in daily life (as opposed to theoretical principles that have limited practicality); a return to the local, or to concrete cultural and historical contexts; and, finally, a return to the timely, from timeless problems to things whose rational significance depends on the time lines of our solutions. He follows up on this critique in Return to Reason (2001), where he seeks to illuminate the ills that, in his view, universalism has caused in the social sphere, discussing, among other things, the discrepancy between mainstream ethical theory and real-life ethical quandaries.
Argumentation
The Toulmin model of argument
Arguing that absolutism lacks practical value, Toulmin aimed to develop a different type of argument, called practical arguments (also known as substantial arguments). In contrast to absolutists' theoretical arguments, Toulmin's practical argument is intended to focus on the justificatory function of argumentation, as opposed to the inferential function of theoretical arguments. Whereas theoretical arguments make inferences based on a set of principles to arrive at a claim, practical arguments first find a claim of interest, and then provide justification for it. Toulmin believed that reasoning is less an activity of inference, involving the discovering of new ideas, and more a process of testing and sifting already existing ideas—an act achievable through the process of justification.
Toulmin believed that for a good argument to succeed, it needs to provide good justification for a claim. This, he believed, will ensure it stands up to criticism and earns a favourable verdict. In The Uses of Argument (1958), Toulmin proposed a layout containing six interrelated components for analyzing arguments:
Claim (Conclusion) A conclusion whose merit must be established. In argumentative essays, it may be called the thesis. For example, if a person tries to convince a listener that he is a British citizen, the claim would be "I am a British citizen" (1).
Ground (Fact, Evidence, Data) A fact one appeals to as a foundation for the claim. For example, the person introduced in 1 can support his claim with the supporting data "I was born in Bermuda" (2).
Warrant A statement authorizing movement from the ground to the claim. In order to move from the ground established in 2, "I was born in Bermuda", to the claim in 1, "I am a British citizen", the person must supply a warrant to bridge the gap between 1 and 2 with the statement "A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen" (3).
Backing Credentials designed to certify the statement expressed in the warrant; backing must be introduced when the warrant itself is not convincing enough to the readers or the listeners. For example, if the listener does not deem the warrant in 3 as credible, the speaker will supply the legal provisions: "I trained as a barrister in London, specialising in citizenship, so I know that a man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen".
Rebuttal (Reservation) Statements recognizing the restrictions which may legitimately be applied to the claim. It is exemplified as follows: "A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen, unless he has betrayed Britain and has become a spy for another country".
Qualifier Words or phrases expressing the speaker's degree of force or certainty concerning the claim. Such words or phrases include "probably", "possible", "impossible", "certainly", "presumably", "as far as the evidence goes", and "necessarily". The claim "I am definitely a British citizen" has a greater degree of force than the claim "I am a British citizen, presumably". (See also: Defeasible reasoning.)
The first three elements, claim, ground, and warrant, are considered as the essential components of practical arguments, while the second triad, qualifier, backing, and rebuttal, may not be needed in some arguments.
When Toulmin first proposed it, this layout of argumentation was based on legal arguments and intended to be used to analyze the rationality of arguments typically found in the courtroom. Toulmin did not realize that this layout could be applicable to the field of rhetoric and communication until his works were introduced to rhetoricians by Wayne Brockriede and Douglas Ehninger. Their Decision by Debate (1963) streamlined Toulmin's terminology and broadly introduced his model to the field of debate. Only after Toulmin published Introduction to Reasoning (1979) were the rhetorical applications of this layout mentioned in his works.
One criticism of the Toulmin model is that it does not fully consider the use of questions in argumentation. The Toulmin model assumes that an argument starts with a fact or claim and ends with a conclusion, but ignores an argument's underlying questions. In the example "Harry was born in Bermuda, so Harry must be a British subject", the question "Is Harry a British subject?" is ignored, which also neglects to analyze why particular questions are asked and others are not. (See Issue mapping for an example of an argument-mapping method that emphasizes questions.)
Toulmin's argument model has inspired research on, for example, goal structuring notation (GSN), widely used for developing safety cases, and argument maps and associated software.
Ethics
Good reasons approach
In Reason in Ethics (1950), his doctoral dissertation, Toulmin sets out a Good Reasons approach of ethics, and criticizes what he considers to be the subjectivism and emotivism of philosophers such as A. J. Ayer because, in his view, they fail to do justice to ethical reasoning.
The revival of casuistry
By reviving casuistry (also known as case ethics), Toulmin sought to find the middle ground between the extremes of absolutism and relativism. Casuistry was practiced widely during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to resolve moral issues. Although casuistry largely fell silent during the modern period, in The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), Toulmin collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen to demonstrate the effectiveness of casuistry in practical argumentation during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, effectively reviving it as a permissible method of argument.
Casuistry employs absolutist principles, called "type cases" or "paradigm cases", without resorting to absolutism. It uses the standard principles (for example, sanctity of life) as referential markers in moral arguments. An individual case is then compared and contrasted with the type case. Given an individual case that is completely identical to the type case, moral judgments can be made immediately using the standard moral principles advocated in the type case. If the individual case differs from the type case, the differences will be critically assessed in order to arrive at a rational claim.
Through the procedure of casuistry, Toulmin and Jonsen identified three problematic situations in moral reasoning: first, the type case fits the individual case only ambiguously; second, two type cases apply to the same individual case in conflicting ways; third, an unprecedented individual case occurs, which cannot be compared or contrasted to any type case. Through the use of casuistry, Toulmin demonstrated and reinforced his previous emphasis on the significance of comparison to moral arguments, a significance not addressed in theories of absolutism or relativism.
Philosophy of science
The evolutionary model
In 1972, Toulmin published Human Understanding, in which he asserts that conceptual change is an evolutionary process. In this book, Toulmin attacks Thomas Kuhn's account of conceptual change in his seminal work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). Kuhn believed that conceptual change is a revolutionary process (as opposed to an evolutionary process), during which mutually exclusive paradigms compete to replace one another. Toulmin criticized the relativist elements in Kuhn's thesis, arguing that mutually exclusive paradigms provide no ground for comparison, and that Kuhn made the relativists' error of overemphasizing the "field variant" while ignoring the "field invariant" or commonality shared by all argumentation or scientific paradigms.
In contrast to Kuhn's revolutionary model, Toulmin proposed an evolutionary model of conceptual change comparable to Darwin's model of biological evolution. Toulmin states that conceptual change involves the process of innovation and selection. Innovation accounts for the appearance of conceptual variations, while selection accounts for the survival and perpetuation of the soundest conceptions. Innovation occurs when the professionals of a particular discipline come to view things differently from their predecessors; selection subjects the innovative concepts to a process of debate and inquiry in what Toulmin considers as a "forum of competitions". The soundest concepts will survive the forum of competition as replacements or revisions of the traditional conceptions.
From the absolutists' point of view, concepts are either valid or invalid regardless of contexts. From the relativists' perspective, one concept is neither better nor worse than a rival concept from a different cultural context. From Toulmin's perspective, the evaluation depends on a process of comparison, which determines whether or not one concept will improve explanatory power more than its rival concepts.
Works
An Examination of the Place of Reason in Ethics (1950)
The Philosophy of Science: An Introduction (1953)
The Uses of Argument (1958) 2nd edition 2003:
Metaphysical Beliefs, Three Essays (1957) with Ronald W. Hepburn and Alasdair MacIntyre
The Riviera (1961)
Seventeenth century science and the arts (1961)
Foresight and Understanding: An Enquiry into the Aims of Science (1961)
The Fabric of the Heavens (The Ancestry of Science, volume 1) (1961) with June Goodfield
The Architecture of Matter (The Ancestry of Science, volume 2) (1962) with June Goodfield
Night Sky at Rhodes (1963)
The Discovery of Time (The Ancestry of Science, volume 3) (1965) with June Goodfield
Physical Reality (1970)
Human Understanding: The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts (1972)
Wittgenstein's Vienna (1973) with Allan Janik
On the Nature of the Physician's Understanding (1976)
Knowing and Acting: An Invitation to Philosophy (1976)
An Introduction to Reasoning (1979) with Allan Janik and Richard D. Rieke 2nd edition 1997:
The Return to Cosmology: Postmodern Science and the Theology of Nature (1985)
The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988) with Albert R. Jonsen
Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990)
Social Impact of AIDS in the United States (1993) with Albert R. Jonsen
Beyond theory – changing organizations through participation (1996) with Björn Gustavsen (editors)
Return to Reason (2001)
Pantheon of skeptics
At a meeting of the executive council of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) in Denver, Colorado in April 2011, Toulmin was selected for inclusion in CSI's Pantheon of Skeptics. The Pantheon of Skeptics was created by CSI to remember the legacy of deceased fellows of CSI and their contributions to the cause of scientific skepticism.
See also
Argumentation theory
Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
Stephen Toulmin
Interview with Stephen Toulmin in JAC
Obituary in The Guardian
William Long (2004) Wittgenstein's Vienna (1973)
1922 births
2009 deaths
20th-century English philosophers
English rhetoricians
Philosophers of science
Moral philosophers
Wittgensteinian philosophers
Academics of the University of Leeds
Alumni of King's College, Cambridge
Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club
New York University faculty
Stanford University faculty
Columbia University faculty
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth faculty
Michigan State University faculty
University of Chicago faculty
Northwestern University faculty
University of Southern California faculty
English sceptics
Recipients of the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art
British expatriates in the United States | false | [
"Ian Douglas Macdonald (born 29 November 1945) is a former Australian politician who served as a Senator for Queensland from 1990 to 2019, representing the Liberal Party. He was Minister for Regional Services, Territories and Local Government (1998–2001) and Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation (2001–2006) in the Howard Government. He was defeated at the 2019 federal election, having been the longest-serving incumbent member of parliament for the final years of his career.\n\nEarly life \nMacdonald was born in Brisbane, Queensland, and was a solicitor before entering politics. He was also a Councillor in the Burdekin Shire Council 1979–90. He was Vice-President of the Liberal Party in Queensland from 1987 to 1990.\n\nEarly political career \nIn 1992, Macdonald was appointed to the Opposition Shadow Ministry under Liberal leader John Hewson as Shadow Minister for Local Government and the Australian Capital Territory. In 1994, following Alexander Downer's accession to the party leadership, Macdonald was given the positions of Shadow Minister for Regional Development and Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and continued to serve at these positions under Opposition leader John Howard.\n\nHoward Government \nFollowing the election of the Howard Government, Macdonald was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment in 1996. In 1998, MacDonald was appointed to the Second Howard Ministry as Minister for Regional Services, Territories and Local Government.\n\nIn 2001, Macdonald was appointed Minister for Forestry and Conservation in the Third Howard Ministry. His portfolio was renamed Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation in November 2002. He continued in this position in the Fourth Howard Ministry until January 2006 when he lost his position in a Cabinet reshuffle triggered by the retirement of Robert Hill.\n\nReturn to Opposition \nFollowing the defeat of the Howard Government in 2007, Macdonald was appointed to the Opposition Shadow Ministry of Brendan Nelson as Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader of the Opposition and Shadow Minister for Northern Australia. On 22 September 2008, following the election of Malcolm Turnbull as Opposition Leader, Macdonald lost his position as Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader of the Opposition but retained the position of Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia.\n\nIn 2009, Macdonald lost his position in the Shadow Cabinet following Tony Abbott's accession to the Liberal leadership, but was appointed Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia. In 2010, he also took on the position of Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Defence Force and Defence Support.\n\nFinal years in parliament \nOn 16 September 2013, following the election of the Abbott Government, it was announced that despite Tony Abbott's stated aim of ministry continuity Macdonald had been dropped from the frontbench. Senator Macdonald described this day as the \"one of the worst\" days in his life.\n\nIn June 2014, Macdonald joined Senator Cory Bernardi in expressing opposition to the Government's proposed deficit levy, claiming that he did not believe the increase \"goes far enough.\" He also threatened to cross the floor over the proposed fuel excise hike.\n\nIn July 2018, Macdonald was demoted to fourth position on the LNP ticket, from which victory was considered very unlikely. In the 2019 federal election he lost his senate seat, and ceased to be a senator from 1 July 2019.\n\nControversy \nOn 3 November 2011 during debate on carbon tax legislation, Macdonald stated \"GetUp! is the Hitler Youth wing of the Greens political movement.\" Senator Macdonald stood by his comments when challenged. While he later apologised to the Jewish community for this remark, he did not withdraw the comment in Parliament. He also once likened Stephen Conroy to Joseph Goebbels.\n\nIn September 2015 during Senate Question Time, Macdonald made an interjection toward NSW Labor Senator Doug Cameron based on Cameron's strong and distinctive Scottish accent. Macdonald interjected 'learn to speak Australian'. SA Labor Senator Penny Wong interrupted proceedings later to have Macdonald withdraw his comment. Macdonald revised his comment to say \"learn to speak Australian, mate\".\n\nOn 9 February 2017, Macdonald stated that he was likely to oppose the Federal Government move to abolish the lifetime gold pass, entitling politicians who had been elected prior to 2012 to 10 free business class flights per year. ABC News reported that Macdonald stated in the Liberal Party Room that \"it's about time someone stood up for politicians entitlements\".\n\nOn 30 May 2017, the senator was on ABC Local Radio Darwin discussing the benefits of shifting public servants from Canberra to more regional areas such as Darwin and regional Queensland. He further went on to say that public servants should be sacked if they refuse to \"get out of their very privileged lives\" in Canberra, Sydney or Melbourne, after no public servants volunteered to move.\n\nOn 9 April 2019, Macdonald asked if Penny Wong is related to Chinese billionaire Huang Xiangmo.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Summary of parliamentary voting for Senator Ian Macdonald on TheyVoteForYou.org.au\n\n|-\n\n|-\n\n1945 births\nLiving people\nLiberal National Party of Queensland members of the Parliament of Australia\nLiberal Party of Australia members of the Parliament of Australia\nMembers of the Australian Senate\nMembers of the Australian Senate for Queensland\nMembers of the Cabinet of Australia\n21st-century Australian politicians\n20th-century Australian politicians",
"The 2019 Budapest Assembly election was held on 13 October 2019, concurring with other local elections in Hungary. Voters elected the Mayor of Budapest, and the mayors of the 23 districts directly, while 9 seats in the assembly were distributed proportionally, taking into account votes cast for losing district mayoral candidates.\n\nMayor \n\nGergely Karácsony was elected mayor with 50.86% of the vote, defeating incumbent István Tarlós who held the office since 2010.\n\nDistrict mayors \nThe opposition won the majority of district mayoral races.\n\n Italics denote a mayor not running for reelection\n\nIn case of joint candidates, bold denotes the party to which the candidate personally belongs.\nIn the 23 districts, 14 opposition or opposition supported candidates won, with 9 government-aligned or government-supported mayors. This is a sharp improvement for the opposition as they previously only occupied 4 of these mayorships.\n\nIn most of the cities, the assembly majority is composed of members aligned with the mayor, except:\n X., with a Fidesz-KDNP mayor, and no clear majority\n XX., with an independent (Fidesz-KDNP supported) mayor, and opposition majority\n XXI., with a Fidesz-KDNP mayor, and no clear majority\n XXII., with a Fidesz-KDNP mayor, and opposition majority\nIn XXIII., the mayor's civil organization together with Fidesz-KDNP members have a majority.\n\nParty list seats \n\nCandidates elected on the Fidesz–KDNP list:\n István Tarlós (1.) – did not take his seat\n Gábor Bagdy (2.)\n Zsolt Láng (4.)\n Zsófia Hassay (5.)\n Zsolt Wintermantel (8.) – did not take his seat\n Gábor Tamás Nagy (14.)\n\nCandidates elected on the Momentum–DK–MSZP–Dialogue–LMP list:\n Kata Tüttő (2., MSZP)\n Erzsébet Gy. Németh (3., DK)\n Gábor Havasi (4., Momentum)\n\nNumber in parentheses is the candidate's original position on the list, as some list candidates were elected to a mayorship.\n\nTarlós announced on 15 October 2019, that he won't take his seat. This caused Attila Ughy (list position 15) to take his seat instead. Zsolt Wintermantel did not take either his seat on 28 October; he was replaced by Gábor Pintér, according to the request of the Fidesz–KDNP alliance. Botond Sára (9.) and Tamás Hoffmann (11.) were elected into the local representative bodies in their districts, therefore they were excluded from the party compensation list.\n\nBreakdown of seats \nThe opposition won a majority in the Assembly, breaking over 15 years of a Fidesz majority.\n\nDetailed results \n\nItalics means incumbent, bold means winner of the election.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences \n\n2019 in Hungary\nBudapest\nLocal elections in Hungary\nHistory of Budapest"
] |
[
"Chris Brown",
"2005-2006: Chris Brown and acting debut"
] | C_afa274064906425db3a289f6eace06fe_1 | How did he begin his acting debut? | 1 | How did Chris Brown begin his acting debut? | Chris Brown | After being signed to Jive Records in 2004, Brown began recording his self-titled debut studio album in February 2005. By May, there were 50 songs already recorded, 14 of which were picked to the final track listing. The singer worked with several producers and songwriters--Scott Storch, Cool & Dre and Jazze Pha among them--commenting that they "really believed in [him]". Brown also made some input on the album, receiving co-writing credits of five tracks. "I write about the things that 16 year olds go through every day," says Brown. "Like you just got in trouble for sneaking your girl into the house, or you can't drive, so you steal a car or something." The whole album took less than eight weeks to produce. Released on November 29, 2005, the self-titled Chris Brown album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 with first week sales of 154,000 copies. Chris Brown was a relative commercial success with the time; selling over two million copies in the United States--where it was certified two times platinum by the RIAA--and three million copies worldwide. The album's lead single, "Run It!", made Brown the first male act (since Montell Jordan in 1995) to have his debut single to reach the summit of the Billboard Hot 100--later remaining for four additionally weeks. Three of the other singles--"Yo (Excuse Me Miss)", "Gimme That" and "Say Goodbye"--peaked within the top twenty at the same chart. On June 13, 2006, Brown released a DVD entitled Chris Brown's Journey, which shows footage of him traveling in England and Japan, getting ready for his first visit to the Grammy Awards, behind the scenes of his music videos and bloopers. On August 17, 2006, to further promote the album, Brown began his major co-headlining tour, The Up Close and Personal Tour. Due to the tour, production for his next album was pushed back two months. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital received $10,000 in ticket proceeds from Brown's 2006 "Up Close & Personal" tour. Brown has made appearances on UPN's One on One and The N's Brandon T. Jackson Show on its pilot episode. CANNOTANSWER | On June 13, 2006, Brown released a DVD entitled Chris Brown's Journey, | Christopher Maurice Brown (born May 5, 1989) is an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and actor. According to Billboard, Brown is one of the most influential and successful R&B singers ever, with several considering him the "King of R&B" alongside Usher and R. Kelly. His musical style has been defined as polyhedric, with his R&B being characterized by several influences from other genres, mainly hip hop and pop music. His lyrics develop predominantly over themes of sex, lovesickness, regret, romantic love, fast life, desire, and the difficulty of managing emotions. Being described by media outlets and critics as one of the biggest talents of his time in urban music, Brown gained a cult following, and wide comparisons to Michael Jackson for his stage presence as a singer-dancer.
Born in Tappahannock, Virginia, he was involved in his church choir and several local talent shows from a young age. Having signed with Jive Records in 2004, Brown released his self-titled debut studio album the following year, which became certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). With his first single "Run It!" peaking atop the Billboard Hot 100, Brown became the first male artist since 1995 to have his debut single top the chart. His second album, Exclusive (2007), reached an even bigger commercial success worldwide, also spawning his second Billboard Hot 100 number one "Kiss Kiss". In 2009, Brown pled guilty to felony assault of his then girlfriend, singer Rihanna. In the same year of the episode there was the release of his third album Graffiti, which was considered to be a commercial failure compared to his previous works. Following Graffiti, Brown's fourth album F.A.M.E. (2011) became one of his biggest successes, being his first to top the Billboard 200, containing internationally successful singles such as "Yeah 3x", "Look at Me Now" and "Beautiful People", also earning him the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album. His fifth album Fortune, released in 2012, also topped the Billboard 200.
Following the releases of X and Royalty, his 2017 double-disc album, Heartbreak on a Full Moon, consisting of 45 tracks, was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for combined sales and album-equivalent units of over 500,000 units after one week, and in 2019 it has been certified Double Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. Brown's ninth studio album Indigo was released in 2019, and became his third Billboard 200 number-one album. It included the Drake featured track "No Guidance" which peaked at number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. Its chart success was outdone with the single "Go Crazy" released the following year, alongside Young Thug as part of their collaborative mixtape Slime & B (2020). The track reached number 3 on the Hot 100.
Brown has sold over 193 million records worldwide, making him one of the world's best-selling music artists. Additionally, he is tied for the most digital single sales among R&B artists in the United States with Bruno Mars. Throughout his career, Brown has won several awards, including a Grammy Award, eighteen BET Awards, four Billboard Music Awards, and thirteen Soul Train Music Awards. According to Billboard, Brown has the seventh most Billboard Hot 100 entries with 106 - which is the most of any R&B artist in history. Brown was also ranked 3rd in the Billboard top R&B/Hip-Hop artists of the decade for the 2010s, behind peers Rihanna and Drake in 2nd and 1st, respectively. Brown has also pursued an acting career. In 2007, he made his on-screen feature film debut in Stomp the Yard, and appeared as a guest on the television series The O.C. Other films Brown has appeared in include This Christmas (2007), Takers (2010), Think Like a Man (2012), and Battle of the Year (2013).
Early life
Christopher Maurice Brown was born on May 5, 1989, in the small town of Tappahannock, Virginia, to Joyce Hawkins, a former day care center director, and Clinton Brown, a corrections officer at a local prison. He has an older sister, Lytrell Bundy, who works in a bank. Music was always present in Brown's life beginning in his childhood. He would listen to soul albums that his parents owned, and eventually began to show interest in the hip-hop scene.
Brown taught himself to sing and dance at a young age and often cites Michael Jackson as his inspiration. He began to perform in his church choir and in several local talent shows. When he mimicked an Usher performance of "My Way", his mother recognized his vocal talent, and they began to look for the opportunity of a record deal. At the same time, Brown was going through personal issues. His parents had divorced, and his mother's boyfriend terrified him by subjecting her to domestic violence.
Career
2002–2004: Career beginnings
At age 13, Brown was discovered by Hitmission Records, a local production team that visited his father's gas station while searching for new talent. Hitmission's Lamont Fleming provided voice coaching for Brown, and the team helped to arrange a demo package, under the name of "C. Sizzle", and approached contacts in New York, where Brown started to sojourn, to seek a record deal. Brown attended Essex High School in Virginia until late 2004, when he moved to New York to pursue his music career. Tina Davis, senior A&R executive at Def Jam Recordings, was impressed when Brown auditioned in her New York office, and she immediately took him to meet the former president of the Island Def Jam Music Group, Antonio "L.A." Reid, who offered to sign him that day, but Brown refused his proposal. "I knew that Chris had real talent," says Davis. "I just knew I wanted to be part of it."
The negotiations with Def Jam continued for two months, and ended when Davis lost her job due to a corporate merger. Brown asked her to be his manager, and once Davis accepted, she promoted the singer to other labels such as Jive Records, J-Records and Warner Bros. Records. According to Mark Pitts, in an interview with HitQuarters, Davis presented Brown with a video recording, and Pitts' reaction was: "I saw huge potential ... I didn't love all the records, but I loved his voice. It wasn't a problem because I knew that he could sing, and I knew how to make records." Brown ultimately chose Jive due to its successful work with then-young acts such as Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. Brown stated, "I picked Jive because they had the best success with younger artists in the pop market, [...] I knew I was going to capture my African American audience, but Jive had a lot of strength in the pop area as well as longevity in careers." Brown said that during his permanence in Harlem, when he was trying to get his music heard by major labels, his artistic intention was to both rap and sing on his records, but Jive convinced him to stick to just singing, because he said that "it wasn't acceptable yet" for an R&B singer to also rap on records.
2005–2006: Chris Brown and acting debut
After signing to Jive Records in 2004, Brown began recording his self-titled debut studio album in February 2005. By May, there were 50 songs already recorded, 14 of which were picked to the final track listing. The singer worked with several producers and songwriters—Scott Storch, Cool & Dre, Sean Garrett and Jazze Pha among them—commenting that they "really believed in [him]". Brown co-wrote half of the tracks. "I write about the things that 16 year olds go through every day," says Brown. "Like you just got in trouble for sneaking your girl into the house, or you can't drive, so you steal a car or something." The whole album took less than eight weeks to produce.
Released on November 29, 2005, the self-titled Chris Brown album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 with first week sales of 154,000 copies. Chris Brown was a commercial success with the time; selling over three million copies in the United States—where it was certified three times platinum by the RIAA—and six million copies worldwide. The album's lead single, "Run It!", made Brown the first male act (since Montell Jordan in 1995) to have his debut single to reach the summit of the Billboard Hot 100—later remaining for four additional weeks. Three of the other singles—"Yo (Excuse Me Miss)", "Gimme That" and "Say Goodbye"—peaked within the top twenty at the same chart.
On June 13, 2006, Brown released a DVD entitled Chris Brown's Journey, which shows footage of him traveling through England and Japan, getting ready for his first visit to the Grammy Awards, behind the scenes of his music videos and bloopers. On August 17, 2006, to further promote the album, Brown began his major co-headlining tour, The Up Close and Personal Tour. Due to the tour, production for his next album was pushed back two months. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital received $10,000 in ticket proceeds from Brown's 2006 "Up Close & Personal" tour. Brown has made appearances on UPN's One on One and The N's Brandon T. Jackson Show on its pilot episode.
2007–2008: Exclusive
In January 2007, Brown landed a small role as a band geek in the fourth season of the American television series The O.C.. Brown then made his film debut in Stomp the Yard, alongside Ne-Yo, Meagan Good and Columbus Short on January 12, 2007. In April 2007, Brown was the opening act for Beyoncé, on the Australian leg of her The Beyoncé Experience tour. On July 9, 2007, Brown was featured in an episode of MTV's My Super Sweet 16 (for the event, it was retitled: Chris Brown: My Super 18) celebrating his eighteenth birthday in New York City.
Shortly after ending his summer tour with Ne-Yo, Brown quickly began production for his second studio album, Exclusive. When the album's lead single, "Wall to Wall", was released, it didn't have a great commercial success, peaking at number 79 on US Billboard Hot 100 chart, and number 22 on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, being his lowest charting single at the time. However, "Kiss Kiss", featuring and produced by T-Pain, released as the album's second single, received huge success, reaching number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, and becoming Brown's second number one single following "Run It!" in 2005. "With You", produced by Stargate (duo of producers known at the time for their work with R&B singer Ne-Yo), was released as the third single from Exclusive, had even bigger success than "Kiss Kiss", becoming one of the all-time best-selling singles, and reaching number two on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. Exclusive was released in the United States on November 6, 2007. The album is musically R&B, having slight pop influences that were absent in the previous hip hop soul-influenced disc, reaching a big international success. The album debuted at number four on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 294,000 copies in its first week, and received generally positive reviews from music critics. As of March 23, 2011, it has sold over 1.9 million copies in the United States.
In November 2007, Brown starred as a video host for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's Math-A-Thon program. He showed his support by encouraging students to use their math skills to help children with cancer and other catastrophic diseases. On November 21, 2007, Brown appeared in This Christmas, a family drama starring Regina King. To further support the album Exclusive, Brown embarked on his The Exclusive Holiday Tour, visiting over thirty venues in United States. The tour began in Cincinnati, Ohio, on December 6, 2007, and concluded on February 9, 2008, in Honolulu, Hawaii. In March 2008, Brown was featured on Jordin Sparks' single "No Air", which had worldwide success peaked at number three on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. He also made a guest appearance on David Banner' single "Get Like Me" alongside Yung Joc. The song peaked at number sixteen on the Billboard Hot 100, and number two on the US Hot Rap Songs chart. Brown re-released Exclusive on June 3, 2008, as a deluxe edition, renamed Exclusive: The Forever Edition, seven months after the release of the original version. The re-released version featured four new tracks, including the Eurodisco single "Forever", which became one of his most known singles, reaching number two on Billboard Hot 100. In August 2008, Brown guest-starred on Disney's The Suite Life of Zack & Cody as himself. Towards the end of 2008, Brown was named Artist of the Year by Billboard magazine.
2009–2010: Graffiti and mixtapes
In 2008, Brown began work on his third studio album, to be called Graffiti, promising to experiment with a different musical direction inspired by singers Prince and Michael Jackson. He stated, "I wanted to change it up and really be different. Like my style nowadays, I don't try to be typical urban. I want to be like how Prince, Michael and Stevie Wonder were. They can cross over to any genre of music." Following the domestic violence scandal involving the singer and Rihanna on February 8, 2009, the majority of media took positions against the singer. The incident also caused Brown to lose significant commercial contracts, including one with Doublemint. The singer later participated in numerous television appearances during the year to express himself publicly about it. Graffiti 's lead single "I Can Transform Ya" was released on September 29, 2009. The song peaked at number 20 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. "Crawl" was released as the album's second single on November 23, 2009. The song reached number 53 on the Billboard Hot 100. Graffiti was then released on December 8, 2009, featuring an R&B sound mixed with Eurodisco and rock. Brown, with this album, started to take full control of his art, managing the artistic direction, and writing every song of the album (with the exception of the song "I'll Go", written and produced by Brian Kennedy and James Fauntleroy). Brown started to be the only artistic director of all his future projects. He said that his decision to entirely direct and write his albums and songs came from the fact that he wanted to give his "own perspective of the music [he] wanted to make" and by his wanting to "verbalize whatever [he] was going through". The album, compared to its two precessors, was a commercial and critical failure, debuting at number 7 on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 102,000 copies in its first week, and receiving generally negative reviews from critics. As of March 23, 2011, it has sold 341,000 copies in the United States.
While performing a Michael Jackson Tribute at the 2010 BET Awards, Brown started to cry and fell to his knees while singing Jackson's "Man in the Mirror". The performance and his emotional turmoil resonated with several celebrities present at the ceremony, including Trey Songz, Diddy and Taraji P. Henson. Songz said, "He left his heart on the stage. He gave genuine emotion. I was proud of him and I was happy for him for having that moment". Michael's brother, Jermaine Jackson, expressed similar sentiments stating, "it was very emotional for me, because it was an acceptance from his fans from what has happened to him and also paying tribute to my brother". Later during the award ceremony, Brown stated, "I let y'all down before, but I won't do it again...I promise", while accepting the award for the AOL Fandemonium prize. In August 2010, Brown starred alongside an ensemble cast, including Matt Dillon, Paul Walker, Idris Elba, Hayden Christensen and T.I. in the crime thriller Takers, and also served as executive producer of the film.
During 2010 Brown released the 3 free mixtapes In My Zone (Rhythm & Streets), Fan of a Fan (collaborative mixtape with Tyga), and In My Zone 2, which featured a new style of writing with grown themes, and a different musical style, mixing R&B with hip hop. For the mixtapes he worked with new producers, most notably Kevin McCall. The mixtapes were highly appreciated by the artist's loyal audience, consolidating it. The single "Deuces", extracted from the Fan of a Fan mixtape, obtained critical acclaim, also achieving a good success, peaking at number 1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. The song was later remixed by the biggest names in the hip-hop scene of that time, including Drake, Kanye West, André 3000, Rick Ross, Fabolous, and T.I. He later released the solo track "No BS" as his second single from Fan of a Fan, and decided to include the two singles from the mixtape as anticipation singles for his next album.
2011–2012: F.A.M.E. and Fortune
In September 2010 Brown announced his album, F.A.M.E. [backronym for "Forgiving All My Enemies"], releasing in October the first official single from the album, "Yeah 3x", a dance-pop song, different from his previous songs on the urban mixtapes. The single received enormous international success and entered the top-ten in eleven countries, including Australia, Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.. It was succeeded by the hip-hop single "Look at Me Now", featuring rappers Lil Wayne and Busta Rhymes, that reached number one on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, where it remained for eight consecutive weeks. It also reached number one on the US Hot Rap Songs chart. The single became the best-selling rap song of 2011, as well as one of all-time best-selling singles in the United States.
Brown's fourth studio album F.A.M.E. was first released on March 18, 2011. The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of 270,000 copies, giving Brown his first number-one album in the United States. The album's third single, "Beautiful People", featuring Benny Benassi, peaked at number one on the US Hot Dance Club Songs chart, and became the first number-one single on the chart for both Brown and Benassi. "She Ain't You" was released as the album's fourth US single, while "Next 2 You", featuring Canadian recording artist Justin Bieber, served as the album's fourth international single. To further promote the album, Brown embarked on his F.A.M.E. Tour in Australia and North America.
Brown received six nominations at the 2011 BET Awards and ultimately won five awards, including Best Male R&B Artist, Viewers Choice Award, The Fandemonium Award, Best Collaboration and Video of the Year for "Look at Me Now". He also won three awards at the 2011 BET Hip Hop Awards, including the People's Champ Award, Reese's Perfect Combo Award and Best Hip Hop Video for "Look at Me Now". At the 2011 Soul Train Music Awards, F.A.M.E. won Album of the Year. The album has also earned Brown three Grammy Award nominations at the 54th Grammy Awards for Best R&B Album, as well as Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song for "Look at Me Now". On February 12, 2012, Brown won the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album. During the ceremony, Brown performed several songs marking his first appearance at the awards show since his conviction of felony assault.
Originally, Brown wanted F.A.M.E. to be a double-disc consistent of 25–30 tracks, but the label was contrary to that. Right before the release of F.A.M.E. Brown decided to follow his intentions in an acceptable way for the label, working on a sequel of F.A.M.E. called Fortune, that would be a whole new album that contained new material and even some tracks that didn't make the cut of the previous album, releasing it six months after it. The artist later decided to take more time to work on the album, developing it as a project of its own, with its own concept and sound being different than the one of its precedent album. On October 7, 2011, RCA Music Group announced it was disbanding Jive Records along with Arista Records and J Records. With the shutdown, Brown (and all other artists previously signed to these three labels) will release future material on the RCA Records brand. Brown's fifth studio album Fortune was released on July 3, 2012. The album debuted atop the Billboard 200, but received negative reviews from critics. "Strip", featuring Kevin McCall, was released as the album's buzz single, with "Turn Up the Music" released as the lead single, and "Sweet Love", "Till I Die", "Don't Wake Me Up" and "Don't Judge Me" released as the album's following singles, respectively. To further promote the album, Brown embarked on his Carpe Diem Tour in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Trinidad.
2013–2015: X and Royalty
After concluding his Carpe Diem Tour in 2012, Brown's next studio album started to develop. On February 15, 2013, the singer unofficially released the song "Home", with an official videoclip, where he expresses a reflection on the bitter price of fame, and on how the only moment of respite from that thought is when he returns to the neighborhood where he grew up with people who knew him from the start. On March 26, 2013, Brown announced the release of X, in various interviews and listening sessions, releasing the song "Fine China" as the album lead single. In an interview with Ebony, when Brown spoke of taking his music in a different direction and changing his sound from pop-infused and sexually explicit of the previous album Fortune, to a more mature, soulful and vulnerable theme for the album. On March 29, 2013 he released "Fine China" as the lead single of the album.
Following the dropping of two other anticipation singles off X, "Don't Think They Know" and "Love More", on August 9, 2013, at 1:09 am PDT, Brown was reported to have suffered a seizure from Record Plant Studios in Hollywood, California as a 9-1-1 call was made. When paramedics arrived, Brown allegedly refused to receive treatment and also refused to be transported to the local hospital. (Brown has reportedly suffered from seizures since his childhood.) The next day, Brown's representative reported the seizure was caused by "intense fatigue and extreme emotional stress, both due to the continued onslaught of unfounded legal matters and the nonstop negativity." On November 20, 2013, Brown was sentenced to an anger management rehabilitation center for three months, putting the December 2013 release of X in jeopardy. To "hold [fans] over until [the X album] drops," Brown released a mixtape, titled X Files on November 19, 2013. On February 22, 2014, it was announced that the album would be released on Brown's birthday, May 5, 2014. On April 14, 2014, Brown released a teaser of the new track "Don't Be Gone Too Long" featuring Ariana Grande. However, following Brown's arrest for felony assault in Washington, D.C., on October 27, 2013, the song and album were again delayed due to Brown's prison sentence. While incarcerated, "Loyal" was released as the album's fourth single, becoming one of his most successful songs, by peaking at the top 10 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and in the United Kingdom. On August 3, 2014, Chris announced via Instagram that the album's release date will be on September 16, 2014. On August 6, 2014, the album cover was revealed. The song ended up being never released as a single, instead "New Flame" featuring Usher and Rick Ross was later released as the album's final single. The title track "X" was released as an instant-gratification track alongside the album pre-order on iTunes on August 25, 2014.
Brown's sixth studio album, X was released on September 16, 2014. The album received positive reviews from critics, who celebrated the record's sound and Brown's vocal performances. The album was considered a big improvement compared to its critically panned predecessor Fortune. At the 2015 Grammy Awards, the album was nominated for the Best Urban Contemporary Album, while "New Flame" was nominated for Best R&B Performance and Best R&B Song. Commercially, the album debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 selling 146,000 copies in its first week, becoming his first album to miss the summit of the chart since Graffiti (2009) and his third album to go to number two on the chart overall following Exclusive (2007). It also became his sixth consecutive top ten debut in the United States. By the end of 2015, the album had sold 404,000 copies in the United States. It has been certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Pushing the promotion for the album further, Brown performed and appeared at several televised music events and music festivals across the United States.
On February 24, 2015, Brown released his first collaborative studio album with Tyga, titled Fan of a Fan: The Album. The album was a follow-up to the pairs 2010 mixtape Fan of a Fan. In early 2015, Brown also embarked on his Between The Sheets Tour with Trey Songz. Also in February 2015, Brown said during an interview for The Breakfast Club that he started working on the album going for a direction that would've been the sound predominant overseas. A couple months later he discovered that he had a daughter and simultaneously broke up with his ex-girlfriend Karrueche Tran. That happening made him change the idea for the album, ending up doing mostly R&B songs that he described as "representations of where i was in my life at that point", contemporarily starting his One Hell of a Nite Tour.
In spring of 2015, Brown was featured on DJ Deorro's song "Five More Hours", which received an excellent worldwide success. On June 24, Brown released a new song titled "Liquor". Shortly after, it was announced that "Liquor" was the first single from his seventh studio album. On August 22, 2015, the singer officially declares from his Twitter profile that the new album will be titled "Royalty" in honor of his daughter, Royalty Brown. On October 16 he has revealed the album cover, portraying Chris with Royalty in her arms in a black and white picture. On October 13, 2015, Brown announced that Royalty will be released on November 27, 2015. After it was revealed that the album has been pushed back to December 18, 2015, in exchange on November 27, 2015, he released a free 34-track mixtape called Before the Party as a prelude to Royalty, which features guest appearances from Rihanna, Wiz Khalifa, Pusha T, Wale, Tyga, French Montana and Fetty Wap. On October 16, 2015, the album cover was revealed. The album was released on December 18, 2015, and it debuted at number 3 on the US Billboard 200, selling 184,000 units (162,000 in pure album sales) in its first week, marking an improvement over Brown's last three studio albums. It also became his seventh solo album consecutive top ten debut in the United States.
2016–2017: Heartbreak on a Full Moon
Brown started working and recording tracks for his next album few weeks before the release of Royalty, in late 2015. On January 10, 2016, Brown had previewed 11 unreleased songs on his Periscope and Instagram profiles, showing him dancing and lip-synching these songs. In March 2016, he collaborated again with the Italian DJ Benny Benassi for the song "Paradise" from the album Danceaholic. On May 3 he announced the single "Grass Ain't Greener", showing its cover art and announcing it as the first single from a new album titled Heartbreak on a Full Moon. The single was released on May 5, 2016. On July 7, 2016, after 2016 shooting of Dallas police officers, Brown released on his SoundCloud page two piano ballads, "My Friend" and "A Lot of Love", saying that the songs are "released for free for anybody dealing with injustice or struggle in their lives." In 2016 he released two collaborative mixtapes with his OHB crew, Before the Trap: Nights in Tarzana and Attack the Block, where they rap and sing about a reckless lifestyle full of drugs, sexual encounters with numerous untrustworthy easy women, also illustrating a dangerous street life filled with guns, dirty money and luxurious cars.
Throughout 2016 and 2017 he kept on sharing several snippets from songs that he was working for the album and features. He worked on the album heavily during 2016 and 2017, during two tours as well, the European leg of the One Hell of a Nite Tour and The Party Tour, also building a recording studio inside of his home to record songs for the album. On December 16, 2016, he released the second official single from the album, "Party", that features guest vocals from American R&B singer Usher and rapper Gucci Mane, getting a good commercial success. The singer, while working on the album, realized that he had done too many songs that he thought were quality records that followed perfectly the narrative of the album to make a 15/20 track album, so he decided that he wanted to take it to the next level by working on it as a 40-track album. RCA Records, the record label of the singer, initially wasn't agreeable of satisfying Brown's intentions to make a 40-track album, thinking that it would've damaged its commercial performance, but the singer ended up convincing them. In February 2017 he announced that his previously teased song "Privacy" would have been released as the next single from Heartbreak on a Full Moon. The single was released on March 24, 2017, and received an excellent response from his core audience. On June 7 he released Welcome to My Life, a self-documentary focused on his life and career, directed by Andrew Sandler. Numerous celebrities participated in the movie, making statements and sharing stories about the artist. Among them there are Jennifer Lopez, Mike Tyson, Rita Ora, Usher and Tyga.
On August 4, 2017, he released the album's fourth single "Pills & Automobiles", that features guest vocals from American trap artists Yo Gotti, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie and Kodak Black. Then on August 14, 2017, he announced the release of the fifth official single from the album, "Questions", on August 16, announcing the album release date, saying that it would be released on October 31, 2017. On October 13, 2017, Brown released the promotional single "High End", that features guest vocals from American trap artists Future and Young Thug, announcing the final tracklist of the album. On October 25, 2017, Brown organized with Tidal a free pop-up concert in New York City to perform the singles on the album and promote it for his fans.
Heartbreak on a Full Moon was eventually released as a double-disc album on October 31, 2017, via digital retailers and onto CD, three days later by RCA Records. The album's sound has been as dark and soulful. The songs on it show every emotional aspect of what's been on the singer's mind after a heavy breakup. Its themes include regret, love transforming into hate, the difficulty in managing emotions, the impossibility of getting over someone, and how a reckless lifestyle can't numb the pain of an heartbreak. Its lyrical content was inspired by Brown's breakup with Karrueche Tran. Heartbreak on a Full Moon received widespread acclaim from critics, who celebrated the record's variety, its length, and its introspective lyrical content. Many defined it as the singer's best body of work. Despite being counted for only three days of sales, Heartbreak on a Full Moon debuted at number three on the US Billboard 200, becoming Brown's ninth consecutive top 10 album on the chart. One week after its release Heartbreak on a Full Moon was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for combined sales and album-equivalent units of over 500,000 units in the United States, and Brown became the first R&B male artist that went gold in a week since Usher's Confessions in 2004. In 2019 the album has been certified Double Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
On December 13, 2017, he released a 12-track surprise deluxe edition of the album called Cuffing Season – 12 Days of Christmas as a Christmas present for his fans. The deluxe edition is made off Brown's favorite leftovers of the album and few holiday-themed songs. Brown eventually embarked on his US "Heartbreak on a Full Moon Tour" in June 2018 to further promote the album. The opening acts for the tour were 6lack, H.E.R., Rich the Kid, and Jacquees.
2018–2019: Indigo
Following the overall success of Heartbreak on a Full Moon, Brown and rapper Joyner Lucas announced a collaboration project, titled Angels & Demons on February 25, 2018, with the release of the single "Stranger Things". However the project ended up never being released. On March 15, 2018, Brown was featured in Lil Dicky's smash hit single "Freaky Friday". By April 9, 2018, the video had reached over 100 million views and topped the charts in New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
After drafting the concept for his new album, in August 2018, at the end of the "Heartbreak On A Full Moon tour", Brown started the actual processing work of his ninth album, Indigo. On January 4, 2019, Brown released "Undecided", the first single off it, alongside a video for the song. "Undecided" saw Brown reunite with producer Scott Storch, who previously worked with Brown in 2005 on his breakout hit "Run It!". The single marked Brown's first release after signing an extension and a new license agreement with RCA Records, that gave him the owning of his master recordings, making him one of the youngest artists to do so at the age of 29. On April 11, he released the second single off the album titled "Back to Love", that received positive reviews from music critics who celebrated its lyrical content and its production, but it failed to chart in the US. The third single, "Wobble Up", was released a week later featuring Nicki Minaj and G-Eazy, announcing that the album is expected to be released in June. On April 25, he appeared on a track with Marshmello and Tyga called "Light It Up". In an announcement on May 2, Brown revealed the list of artists he had been working with for his album, Nicki Minaj, Tory Lanez, Tyga, Justin Bieber, Juicy J, Juvenile, H.E.R, Tank, Sage the Gemini, Lil Jon, Lil Wayne, Joyner Lucas, Gunna and Drake were included on the list. Some of these collaborations were surprising to the media, especially Drake, due to their public feud that lasted for several years. He later revealed the artwork of the album and its track list between May and June 2019. On May 31, he appeared on "Easy", a successful single where he duetted with singer DaniLeigh. On June 8, Brown released "No Guidance" featuring Drake as a single. It debuted at number nine on the US Billboard Hot 100, making it Brown's 15th top-ten song, and later peaked at number five. The single won Best Collaboration Performance, Best Dance Performance and Song of the Year at the 2019 Soul Train Music Awards and received a nomination for Best R&B Song at the 62nd Grammy Awards.
Indigo was eventually released on June 28, 2019, as a double album, marking Brown's second album to be released in this style. The disc is an R&B and tropical-pop album, about vibrations, spiritual love and sex, that leaves the introspective, dark and sultry mood of Heartbreak on a Full Moon, for a way more lighthearted sound and tone. In the United States, Indigo debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 with 108,000 album-equivalent units, which included 28,000 pure album sales in its first week, making it his third number-one album in the country. The album was met with positive reviews from critics. Indigo spawned two other singles, "Heat", which topped the Billboard Rhythmic Airplay chart, and earned Brown his 13th number one on the chart, and second during 2019, and "Don't Check on Me", that features vocals from Justin Bieber and vocalist Atia "Ink" Boggs. On October 4, 2019, Brown eventually released a deluxe version of Indigo entitled Indigo Extended, which included 10 additional songs, making the extended version a total of 42 songs.
On June 10, 2019, Brown announced an official headlining concert tour where he performed the album throughout United States, titled "Indigoat Tour". The tour began on August 20, and ended on October 19. The tour was received with very good responses by journalists, that praised its stage settings, and Brown's dancing abilities. "Indigoat Tour" grossed over $30,100,000 in its 37 shows, selling out most of the venues.
2020present: Breezy
In December 2019, Brown revealed that he started working on new material for his tenth studio album. Later, on April 29, 2020, Brown announced the release of a collaborative mixtape with Young Thug, Slime & B. The mixtape was released on May 5, 2020, and features the hit single "Go Crazy", which peaked at number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Brown's first song to spend one full year on the chart. On May 1, 2020, Brown was featured on Drake's Dark Lane Demo Tapes mixtape on the track "Not You Too". The song earned Brown his 100th career entry on the US Billboard Hot 100, as it entered and debuted at number 25. On July 9, 2020, Brown announced via Instagram that the title of his tenth album would be Breezy, a reference to his stage nickname. No release date has been announced yet.
Brown said in July 2021, while working on the album, that he wanted to make some "really endearing music" that "talk to women's soul". On August 2, he announced on his Instagram that his Breezy album would be accompanied by a short film of the same name. Later on December 18, he said that the lead single of Breezy would be released during January 2022. On January 14 he released the song "Iffy".
Artistry
Influences
Brown has cited a number of artists as his inspiration, predominantly Michael Jackson. Brown emphasizes "Michael Jackson is the reason why I do music and why I am an entertainer." In "Fine China", he exemplifies Jackson's influence both musically and visually as Ebony magazine's Britini Danielle asserted that the song was "reminiscent of Michael Jackson's Off the Wall". Choreographically, MTV noticed that it "takes distinct visual cues from classic clips like 'Smooth Criminal' and 'Beat It'", while Billboard complimented his appearance by calling it "a modern way to channel the King of Pop". Usher is also another influence who comes across as a more contemporary figure for Brown. He tells Vibe magazine "He was the one who the youngsters looked up to. I know that we, in the dancing and singing world, looked up to him", and maintains "If it wasn't for Usher, then Chris Brown couldn't exist". Other influences include Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, Ginuwine, Phil Collins, Bobby Brown and R. Kelly. When it comes to his rapping he cited Naughty by Nature, Tupac, Lil' Wayne and Rakim as the rappers he's inspired by.
Musical style
Music critics have commended Brown's introduction to R&B, recognizing his versatility, and considering him an evolver of the genre. Vibe's Iyana Robertson says "As traditional R&B flourished around him, the young singer began an evolution of the genre". She saw his debut single "Run It!" as a "prelude to what Brown would continue to do for the next decade: relentlessly disrupt the constructs of rhythm and blues." By his second album Exclusive, she says he was "tapping more electric up-tempos, swimming deep in hip-hop waters and annihilating the pop arena". Describing the Grammy Award winning F.A.M.E. as "his most diverse offering to date", she remarked "There was no level of musical flexibility comparable. There still isn't." F.A.M.E. is considered to be the album that defined Brown's musical style and persona.
Brown is considered to be, by a big part of critics and general public, the biggest R&B artist of the 2010s, with Andy Kellman of AllMusic crediting him as the "spearhead" of the genre during the period. Brad Wete of Billboard said that his sixth album X showcased "the height of his musical talents", while cultural critic and media personality Joe Budden defined his 2017 album Heartbreak on a Full Moon as "one of the greatest things ever happened to R&B music".
Genres
Brown made his sound mixing the traditional sound of R&B adding different influences to it, most importantly hip hop and pop, but also several other genres in different songs, such as soul, dancehall, alternative R&B, house, EDM, afropop, trap, rock, disco and funk. The multitude of genres influencing his music can be heard in many of his singles, like "Deuces", "Sweet Love", "Liquor", "Zero", "Back to Love" or "Don't Check on Me". His pure side of R&B is densely shown on every album that he has done, even after that his music started to be more tinged from other genres, with some examples being "No BS", "Don't Judge Me", "Back To Sleep" and "Privacy".
Throughout his career Brown has always had a strong influence from hip hop in his music, and following his 2010 mixtapes, he approached the genre differently, starting to rap frequently on mixtapes and features, adding to his albums straight hip-hop songs like "Look at Me Now", "Till I Die" and "Loyal", or by doing performances that switch from his R&B singing to his rapping, like he did in several tracks from his album Heartbreak on a Full Moon. His dance-pop side in the single "Forever" off his second album Exclusive opened the door for many other Europop songs like "Yeah 3x", "Beautiful People", "Turn Up The Music" and "Don't Wake Me Up", but it begun to be less present in his music starting from his album X.
Themes
Brown's lyrical production is typically considered to be "emotional" or "hedonistic". His songs mainly cover themes of sex, lovesickness, regret, romantic love, desire, fast life, and internal conflict, also having some introspections over loneliness and the dark side of fame. Along with his vocal and dancing abilities, his songwriting is considered to be one of the things that distincts him for the better compared to other R&B singers of his time. American media executive and radio personality Ebro Darden stated that Brown is the "most all-around talented person in R&B. Trey Songz is talented, but he can't dance like Chris Brown. Usher is probably the only one that could come close to him, but he doesn't have the songwriting abilities that Chris Brown has".
Brown said in 2013, during an interview for Rolling Stone, that his songs are always "derived from personal experiences, my personal life. Then creativity brings my reality to another dimention. That's what my songs are made of. I always like mixing reality with art".
Voice
Brown possesses a light lyric tenor voice, which spans three and a half octaves, rising from the bass F♯ (F2) to its peak at the soprano C♯.(C♯6) His vocal ability was first recognized by his mother at a young age, as Brown tells People magazine "I was 11 and watching Usher perform 'My Way', and I started trying to mimic it. My mom was like, 'You can sing?' And I was like, 'Well, yeah, Mama.'" subsequently leading to the start of his career. "Take You Down" most notably earned him a Grammy award nomination for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance in 2009.
His vocal performances are characterized by his harmonization, timbre, vocal runs and soulfulness. While his voice on his first two albums, Chris Brown and Exclusive, was considered to be "honeyed", due to his young age, with subsequent projects like Graffiti and F.A.M.E. it was noted for maturing to a "more mature, distinctive and melodious voice", with Brown "coming into his own as a singer". On F.A.M.E. critics noted huge flexibility in his voice, with Steve Jones of USA Today praising the singer's ability to "give top notch vocal performances in R&B, Europop, rap, rock and acoustic records". X and Indigo were noted for displaying his timbre, exemplifying his singing performances.
His harmonizing was found by Andrew Unterberger of Billboard to be notably shown on his songs "Liquor" and "Go Crazy". On "Another Round", "Don't Judge Me" and "It Won't Stop" he did what was considered by Lee Hildebrand of San Francisco Chronicle to be "some of the most soothing and smooth singing of his discography". Jake Indiana of Highsnobiety said that his feature on Kanye West's song "Waves" is one of his best vocal performances, and that it "sounds like ascending to heaven with a choir of angels at your back". The singer was particularly noted for his emotional singing that illustrated his vocal range on songs like "Covered In You", "Lost & Found", "No Guidance" and "Red". On tracks like "Look at Me Now", "No Romeo No Juliet" and "Stranger Things" he displayed his ability of fast-rapping.
Dancing
Brown's dancing abilities and stage presence are widely praised, receiving broad comparisons to those of Michael Jackson. According to Brown, he taught himself how to dance by imitating Jackson's moves since childhood, then developing his own distinct style throughout his career. Most of his music videos feature complex choreographies, including the "futuristic" "Turn Up the Music", the Jackson-inspired choreography of "Fine China", "Zero", where he displayed different dancing styles, including popping and his signature spin move, "Party", where he showcased his remarked footwork, and "Heat", described by The Source as a "silky smooth choreography that shows Brown's unmatchable dancing talent in the classiest way". Some of his most notable dancing live performances include his "Thriller" recreation at the 2006 World Music Awards, his medley at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, where he performed a choreography that included flying parts, and his 2015 freestyled dancing over Future's "March Madness" at the Vestival The Hague Malieveld, that included a highly acclaimed front-flip, done with no hands by standing still, landed perfectly on beat.
In films such as Stomp the Yard and Battle of the Year, Brown displayed his ability to breakdance while in-character.
Street art
Aside from his musical career, he was noted for markedly producing graffiti art. His visual works have been described as "manga-inspired" and "abstract". Brown said that he painted since his childhood, saying "my first approach with it was painting school walls" saying that he's always been captivated by the fact that drawing and painting "gives you the chance to express yourself in whatever way, showing to the world your own dimension".
Brown has produced street art under the pseudonym Konfused, partnering with street artist Kai to produce works for the Miami Basel. The singer painted the buildings of different radio stations such as Hot 97. In 2015 he worked on some of the walls of The Grammy Museum, mixing his spray paint drawings with images of James Brown, Prince, Michael Jackson and himself. Brown has made graffiti works for different cities worldwide, including Los Angeles, London and Amsterdam.
His painting and dancing skills were shown at the same time when Brown, partnering with Spotify's Rap Caviar, painted Heartbreak on a Full Moon 's album cover, mostly from dancing around the canvas. In 2020 he painted a mural in memory of Kobe Bryant, doing a portray that includes Kobe's face, a mamba, and a few pictures of Kobe dribbling and dunking a basketball.
Personal life
Relationships
From 2007 to 2009, Brown dated singer Rihanna until their highly publicized domestic violence case. His emotional state following the happening was theme of a big part of his album Graffiti. In 2011, Brown began dating Karrueche Tran, that at the time was a personal shopper. In October 2012, Brown announced that he ended his relationship with Tran because he did not "want to see her hurt over my friendship with Rihanna." The day after the announcement, Brown released a video entitled "The Real Chris Brown", which features images of himself, Tran, and Rihanna, as Brown wonders, "Is there such thing as loving two people? I don't know if it's possible, but I feel like that."
In January 2013, Rihanna confirmed that she and Brown had resumed their romantic relationship, stating, "It's different now. We don't have those types of arguments anymore. We talk about shit. We value each other. We know exactly what we have now, and we don't want to lose that." Speaking of Brown, Rihanna also said, "He's not the monster everybody thinks. He's a good person. He has a fantastic heart. He's giving and loving. And he's fun to be around. That's what I love about him – he always makes me laugh. All I want to do is laugh, really – and I do that with him". In a May 2013 interview, Brown stated that he and Rihanna had broken up again. He subsequently reunited with Tran, but they parted ways following confirmation of Brown's daughter Royalty with Nia Guzman in 2015. His breakup with Tran inspired several songs off his albums Royalty and Heartbreak on a Full Moon. In 2017, Tran received a 5-year restraining order against Brown after testifying under oath that, during their relationship, in two episodes he was physically abusive, and that he threatened her after they broke up.
On November 20, 2019, Brown welcomed his second child, son Aeko Catori Brown, with Ammika Harris (Pietzker).
Religion
When discussing his upbringing, Brown stated: "We were used to two pairs of shoes for a school year. We used to go to church every day. I was one of those kids that had more church clothes than school clothes." He has also discussed his second work of grace, saying that "he experienced the Holy Ghost while performing 'His Eye Is on the Sparrow' in church". After being released from jail on June 2, 2014, Brown wrote that he was "Humbled and Blessed" and tweeted the words "Thank you GOD."
In 2015, he said during an interview for Vibe, that God is the only thing that he's afraid of. Speaking about prayers he said "I pray everyday, I think we pray unconsciously too. Personally I don't pray for success. I pray for knowledge for understanding and peace of mind. I really try to pray for that because it's a big world, and you can get wrapped up in it trying to please every city. So I just try to get a peace of mind and me understanding that being at peace with my flaws and my talents. I'm cool with that. That's why I think once He shows me certain things, or even the choices that I make, and decisions that I make that are healthy for me. He shows me the right path. When I bless other people, He always blesses me. It's not even about a self-serving journey; it's about just learning. I want to learn people's experiences. I want to give them experiences too." ".
Legal issues
Felony domestic assault of Rihanna
At around 12:30 a.m. (PST) on February 8, 2009, Brown and his then-girlfriend, singer Rihanna, had an argument which escalated into physical violence, leaving Rihanna with visible facial injuries which required hospitalization. Brown turned himself in to the Los Angeles Police Department's Wilshire station at 6:30 p.m. (PST) and was booked under suspicion of making criminal threats. The police report did not name the female in the incident as is policy, but media sources soon revealed that the victim was Rihanna. Following Brown's arrest, several commercial ads and some TV shows featuring him were suspended, his music was withdrawn from multiple radio stations, and he withdrew from public appearances, including one at the 2009 Grammy Awards, where he was replaced by Justin Timberlake and Al Green. Brown hired a crisis management team and released a statement saying, "Words cannot begin to express how sorry and saddened I am over what transpired."
On March 5, 2009, Brown was charged with felony assault and making criminal threats. He was arraigned on April 6, 2009, and pleaded not guilty to one count of assault and one count of making criminal threats. On June 22, 2009, Brown pleaded guilty to a felony and accepted a plea deal of community labor, five years of probation, and domestic violence counseling. On July 20, 2009, Brown released a two-minute video on his official YouTube page apologizing to fans and Rihanna for the assault, expressing the incident as his "deepest regret" and saying that he has repeatedly apologized to Rihanna and "accepts full responsibility". In the video, Brown said he wanted to speak out earlier about the case but was advised by his attorney not to until the legal ramifications were settled. The video was removed, but is still available online. On August 25, Brown received five years of probation. He was ordered to attend one year of domestic violence counseling and undergo six months of community service; the judge retained a five-year restraining order on Brown, which required him to remain 50 yards (45.72 meters) away from Rihanna, reduced to 10 yards at public events. Andy Kellman of AllMusic stated, "A fairly substantial backlash resulted in Brown's songs being pulled from rotation on several radio stations. Ultimately, however, it had little bearing on the progress of his music and acting careers."
On September 2, 2009, Brown spoke about the domestic violence case in a pre-recorded Larry King Live interview, his first public interview about the matter. He was accompanied to the interview by his mother, Joyce Hawkins, and attorney Mark Geragos, as he discussed growing up in a household with his mother being repeatedly assaulted by his stepfather. Brown said of hearing details of his assault of Rihanna, "I'm in shock, because, first of all, that's not who I am as a person, and that's not who I promise I want to be." Brown's mother said Brown "has never, ever been a violent person, ever" and that she does not believe in the cycle of violence. Brown said that it is "tough" for him to look at the famous photograph released of Rihanna's battered face, which may be the one image to haunt and define him forever, and that he still loved her. "I'm pretty sure we can always be friends," said Brown, "and I don't know about our relationship, but I just know definitely that we ended as friends." He stated he did not feel that his career was over, and likened his relationship with Rihanna to Romeo and Juliet, blaming the media attention in the aftermath of the assault for driving them apart.
In June 2010, Brown's application for a visa to enter the UK was rejected on the grounds of him "being guilty of a serious criminal offence" due to his assault on Rihanna. Brown had been planning to do a tour of British cities as part of a European tour but Sony stated that due to "issues surrounding his work visa" the tour was to be postponed. In February 2011, at the request of Brown's lawyer, Judge Patricia Schnegg modified with Rihanna's agreement the restraining order to a "level one order," allowing both singers to appear at awards shows together in the future. The following month, on March 22, 2011, during an interview with Robin Roberts on Good Morning America at the Times Square Studios, where he was asked about the Rihanna situation and restraining order, Brown started crying and became violent in his dressing room during a commercial break before his second performance ending that day's program, and punched a window overlooking Times Square, causing damage to it. He then took off his shirt, and after several angry confrontations with the segment producer, other show staff and building security, left the building shirtless. Following the incident, he apologized and said that he was very tired of people bringing up the incident.
On July 11, 2012, Brown's community service was evaluated and he was ordered to meet a judge. The evaluation was ordered by Superior Court Judge Patricia Schnegg on July 10, 2012. He was scheduled to appear in court with regard to the evaluation on August 21, 2012. While conducting his community service in Virginia, however, Brown was tested positive for cannabis and appeared in court on September 25, 2012, at which time his hearing date was changed to November, to determine whether or not he had violated the terms of his court order. He reappeared in court on November 1, 2012, he attempted to address the court and was told by his lawyer, Mark Geragos, "I don't dance; you don't talk." On March 20, 2015, Brown's probation ended, formally closing the felony case emanating from the Rihanna assault which happened over six years prior.
In a 2017 self-documentary, Welcome to My Life, Brown goes into detail about the abusive relationship, saying he intended to marry Rihanna, but that he lost her trust after finding out that he lied about a sexual encounter with someone who worked with him, that happened prior to their relationship. He also talked about how they already had lighter episodes where they put their hands against each other during their relationship, and he gave a detailed description on how the known fight went down.
Other legal issues
On June 14, 2012, Drake and his entourage were involved in a scuffle with Brown at a nightclub called WIP in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City. About eight people were injured during the brawl, including San Antonio Spurs star Tony Parker, who had to have surgery to remove a piece of glass from his eye. Drake was not arrested. Brown's attorney alleged Drake was the instigator. Brown himself tweeted about the incident and publicly criticized Drake weeks later.
In January 2013, Brown was involved in an altercation with Frank Ocean over a parking space, outside a recording studio in West Hollywood. Police officers in Los Angeles said that Brown was under investigation, describing the incident as "battery" due to Brown allegedly punching Ocean. Although Ocean alleged that Brown had threatened to shoot him, he said he would not press charges.
In July 2013, Brown's probation was revoked after he was involved in an alleged hit-and-run in Los Angeles. He was released from court and was scheduled to reappear in August 2013, to learn whether or not he would serve time in prison. The charges would later be dropped, but Brown would have 1,000 additional hours of community service added to his probation terms.
In October 2013, Brown was arrested for felony assault in Washington, D.C., after refusing to take a picture with a man. The charge was reduced to a misdemeanor. Brown spent 36 hours in a Washington jail and was taken to court in shackles. He was released and ordered to report to his California probation officer within 48 hours. The probation officer prepared a report for the Los Angeles judge, who could have ordered him to complete as many as four years in prison for the beating of Rihanna if found to be in violation of his probation.
On October 30, 2013, Brown voluntarily decided to enter rehab. After Brown completed his 90 days, the judge ordered him to remain a resident at the Malibu treatment facility until a hearing on April 23, 2014. The deal was if Brown left rehab, he would go directly to jail. On March 14, 2014, Brown was kicked out of the rehab facility and sent to Northern Neck Regional Jail for violating internal rules. He was expected to be released on April 23, 2014, but a judge denied his release request from custody either on bail or his own recognizance. At his May 9, 2014, court date, Brown was ordered to serve 131 days in jail for his probation violation. He was sentenced to serve 365 days in custody; however, he was given credit for the 234 days he has already spent in rehab and jail. He was given early release from jail just after midnight on June 2, 2014, because of jail overcrowding calculations that count one day in custody as two days. During Brown's rehab, a probation officer noted in a letter that Brown's brushes with the law may have been caused by untreated bipolar disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder, specifically that "Mr. Brown became aggressive and acted out physically due to his untreated mental health disorder, severe sleep deprivation, inappropriate self-medicating and untreated PTSD". According to the court documents, which were received by E! News and later The Hollywood Reporter, Brown was formally diagnosed with both Bipolar II and PTSD at the unnamed rehab facility.
In the early hours of August 30, 2016, a woman called the police to report that Brown had threatened her with a gun inside his house. Due to his previous felony assault conviction, Brown is prohibited to possess any firearms. Police were called, but Brown denied them entry without a warrant. When they returned with one, Brown refused them entry and began what news sources referred to as a "standoff" with the LAPD, including the robbery-homicide division and SWAT team. During this time, Brown was seen posting videos on Instagram, in which he rails against the police and the media coverage of the activity at his house. He denounced media reports that he was "barricaded" inside his house, complained about the helicopters flying overhead, and called the police "idiots" and "the worst gang in the world." He said that he was innocent and "What I do care about is you are defacing my name and my character and integrity". Brown was arrested and later released from jail on $250,000 bail. On September 1, 2016, Brown's lawyer, Mark Geragos, stated that there was no standoff and that, with regard to the LAPD search, "nothing was found to corroborate her statement." In September, Japan denied Brown entry due to the allegations. Charges were later dropped after prosecutors declined to arraign Brown on the felony charges. Brown later sued the accuser for defamation, prevailing in the lawsuit, after an investigation that proved that the defendant brought to court false and defamatory statements about the singer, through her incriminating text messages where she said "don't you know this freak Chris Brown is kicking me out of his house because I called his friend jewelry fake can you come get me my Uber is messing up if not I'm going to set him up and call the cops and say that he tried to shoot me and that will teach him a lesson I'm going to set his a** up.",. Brown later said through his social media accounts "Because of my past, my character keeps on being defaced by these fake news and allegations highlighted by the media, but I'm glad that all my real supporters know who i really am and can see the truth"
Brown was arrested after his concert during July 6, 2018, night on a felony battery charge stemming from an incident that occurred more than a year before.
The battery charge was connected to an April 2017 incident in a Tampa club, where Brown allegedly punched a man who photographed him without his permission. The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office said Brown was released after about an hour, after that he posted $2,000 bond.
In 2021, Brown was sued by his housekeeper over a 2020 attack by one of his dogs, a Caucasian Ovcharka.
, due to his criminal record, Brown is banned from entering Australia and New Zealand. Previously, other countries that banned the singer because of his criminal record were Canada and United Kingdom, and they revoked their ban respectively in 2019 and 2020.
In January 2022, an anonymous woman filed a civil suit accusing Brown of raping her on a yacht in Miami in December 2020. Court documents revealed that she was not pursuing a criminal case and remained in contact with Brown after the alleged incident took place - visiting his home on two separate occasions in California in January and August 2021 to listen to him record music. The woman is suing Brown for $20 million. Brown has denied the allegation.
Business ventures
In 2007, Brown founded the record label CBE ("Chris Brown Entertainment" or "Culture Beyond Evolution"), under Interscope Records. Brown has since signed frequent collaborator Kevin McCall, singer Sabrina Antoinette, former RichGirl member Sevyn Streeter, singer-songwriter Joelle James, and rock group U.G.L.Y. However, from 2014 the label started to sign exclusively Brown's works.
Brown has stated he owns fourteen Burger King restaurants. In 2012, he launched a streetwear clothing line called Black Pyramid, in collaboration with the founders of the Pink + Dolphin clothing line. In 2016 the clothing label was set for larger release, partnering with streetwear clothing lines such as Snipes for a worldwide distribution, also being distributed through its own Black Pyramid boutiques.
On November 11, 2021 the singer has launched his own cereal, "Breezy's Cosmic Crunch", partnering with SoFlo Snacks for this limited edition of collectible breakfast cereal. Its box was curated by Brown himself, and illustrated by visual artist Adrian Cuevas.
Discography
Chris Brown (2005)
Exclusive (2007)
Graffiti (2009)
F.A.M.E. (2011)
Fortune (2012)
X (2014)
Royalty (2015)
Heartbreak on a Full Moon (2017)
Indigo (2019)
Breezy (2022)
Filmography
Tours
Brown has headlined multiple arenas tours in North America, Europe and World-Wide. Additionally he has co-headlined a North American tour with Trey Songz and served as a supporting act on tours for industry peers such as Rihanna, Drake (musician), Lil Wayne and Beyoncé. In total, Brown has earned an approprixate $157 million from 279 concerts over the course of his career - making him one of the highest grossing African American touring artists of all time.
Headlining
Up Close and Personal Tour (2006)
The UCP Exclusive Tour (2007)
Fan Appreciation Tour (2009)
F.A.M.E. Tour (2011)
Carpe Diem Tour (2012)
One Hell of a Nite Tour (2015–2016)
The Party Tour (2017)
Heartbreak on a Full Moon Tour (2018)
Indigoat Tour (2019)
Co-headlining
Between the Sheets Tour (2015)
Supporting
The Beyoncé Experience (Australia dates) (2007)
Good Girl Gone Bad Tour (the Philippines, Oceania) (2008)
Supafest (2012)
Lil Weezyana Fest (2016)
OVO Fest (2019)
Achievements
List of awards and nominations received by Chris Brown
See also
List of artists who reached number one in the United States
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
List of best-selling music artists
List of Billboard Hot 100 chart achievements and milestones
List of most-followed Instagram accounts
References
External links
Chris Brown on YouTube
1989 births
Living people
21st-century American criminals
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American rappers
21st-century African-American male singers
African-American businesspeople
African-American Christians
African-American male actors
African-American male dancers
African-American male rappers
African-American male singer-songwriters
American businesspeople convicted of crimes
American child singers
American contemporary R&B singers
American dance musicians
American hip hop singers
American male criminals
American male dancers
American male film actors
American male pop singers
American male rappers
American male television actors
American music industry executives
American music video directors
American people convicted of assault
Burger King people
Businesspeople from Virginia
Criminals from Virginia
Grammy Award winners
Jive Records artists
Male actors from Virginia
People from Tappahannock, Virginia
People with bipolar disorder
Pop rappers
Rappers from Virginia
RCA Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Virginia
Singers with a three-octave vocal range
Sony BMG artists
World Music Awards winners | true | [
"Lee Shin-young (born January 24, 1998) is a South Korean actor. He had roles in the Korean television series Crash Landing on You (2019) and How to Buy a Friend (2020).\n\nEarly life\nLee was born on January 24, 1998, in South Korea.\n\nCareer\n\n2018–present: Acting debut\nLee made his acting debut in the web series Just One Bite (2018). He went on to roles in It's Okay To Be Sensitive 2 (2019) and Just One Bite 2 (2019). He played First Lieutenant Park Kwang-beom in the hit drama Crash Landing on You. Lee also starred in the KBS drama How to Buy a Friend alongside Shin Seung-ho in 2020.\n\nFilmography\n\nFilm\n\nTelevision series\n\nWeb series\n\nMusic video appearances\n\nAwards and nominations\n\nReferences\n\nExternal \n (in Korean)\n \n \n \n\n1998 births\nLiving people\nSouth Korean male television actors\n21st-century South Korean male actors",
"Harold Saul Guskin (May 25, 1941 – May 10, 2018) was an American actor and acting coach. He coached Glenn Close, James Gandolfini and Gabriel Macht.\n\nEarly life \nHe learned playing the trombone in high school but replaced it with theatre, then he started attending acting classes and did bachelor's degree in drama at Rutgers University, then earned a master's from Indiana University.\n\nCareer \n\nIn 1970, Guskin began teaching at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, then moved to the New York University Tisch School of the Arts, where he was not happy with academic world. In the 1980 he joined the Public Theater for three years where he did workshops to introduced his acting techniques.\n\nHe published a book \"How to Stop Acting\" (2003) a book about acting techniques.\n\nDeath \nOn May 10, 2018, he died in Park Ridge, New Jersey. His wife reported the cause of death as a pulmonary embolism. He had contracted primary progressive aphasia, a rare form of dementia, over decade before his death.\n\nReferences \n\n1941 births\n2018 deaths\nAmerican male film actors\nAmerican acting coaches\n20th-century American male actors\nMale actors from New York City\nDeaths from pulmonary embolism\nTisch School of the Arts faculty\nIllinois Wesleyan University faculty\nIndiana University alumni\nRutgers University alumni"
] |
[
"Chris Brown",
"2005-2006: Chris Brown and acting debut",
"How did he begin his acting debut?",
"On June 13, 2006, Brown released a DVD entitled Chris Brown's Journey,"
] | C_afa274064906425db3a289f6eace06fe_1 | What did he do in 2005? | 2 | What did Chris Brown do in 2005? | Chris Brown | After being signed to Jive Records in 2004, Brown began recording his self-titled debut studio album in February 2005. By May, there were 50 songs already recorded, 14 of which were picked to the final track listing. The singer worked with several producers and songwriters--Scott Storch, Cool & Dre and Jazze Pha among them--commenting that they "really believed in [him]". Brown also made some input on the album, receiving co-writing credits of five tracks. "I write about the things that 16 year olds go through every day," says Brown. "Like you just got in trouble for sneaking your girl into the house, or you can't drive, so you steal a car or something." The whole album took less than eight weeks to produce. Released on November 29, 2005, the self-titled Chris Brown album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 with first week sales of 154,000 copies. Chris Brown was a relative commercial success with the time; selling over two million copies in the United States--where it was certified two times platinum by the RIAA--and three million copies worldwide. The album's lead single, "Run It!", made Brown the first male act (since Montell Jordan in 1995) to have his debut single to reach the summit of the Billboard Hot 100--later remaining for four additionally weeks. Three of the other singles--"Yo (Excuse Me Miss)", "Gimme That" and "Say Goodbye"--peaked within the top twenty at the same chart. On June 13, 2006, Brown released a DVD entitled Chris Brown's Journey, which shows footage of him traveling in England and Japan, getting ready for his first visit to the Grammy Awards, behind the scenes of his music videos and bloopers. On August 17, 2006, to further promote the album, Brown began his major co-headlining tour, The Up Close and Personal Tour. Due to the tour, production for his next album was pushed back two months. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital received $10,000 in ticket proceeds from Brown's 2006 "Up Close & Personal" tour. Brown has made appearances on UPN's One on One and The N's Brandon T. Jackson Show on its pilot episode. CANNOTANSWER | Released on November 29, 2005, the self-titled Chris Brown album debuted at number two | Christopher Maurice Brown (born May 5, 1989) is an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and actor. According to Billboard, Brown is one of the most influential and successful R&B singers ever, with several considering him the "King of R&B" alongside Usher and R. Kelly. His musical style has been defined as polyhedric, with his R&B being characterized by several influences from other genres, mainly hip hop and pop music. His lyrics develop predominantly over themes of sex, lovesickness, regret, romantic love, fast life, desire, and the difficulty of managing emotions. Being described by media outlets and critics as one of the biggest talents of his time in urban music, Brown gained a cult following, and wide comparisons to Michael Jackson for his stage presence as a singer-dancer.
Born in Tappahannock, Virginia, he was involved in his church choir and several local talent shows from a young age. Having signed with Jive Records in 2004, Brown released his self-titled debut studio album the following year, which became certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). With his first single "Run It!" peaking atop the Billboard Hot 100, Brown became the first male artist since 1995 to have his debut single top the chart. His second album, Exclusive (2007), reached an even bigger commercial success worldwide, also spawning his second Billboard Hot 100 number one "Kiss Kiss". In 2009, Brown pled guilty to felony assault of his then girlfriend, singer Rihanna. In the same year of the episode there was the release of his third album Graffiti, which was considered to be a commercial failure compared to his previous works. Following Graffiti, Brown's fourth album F.A.M.E. (2011) became one of his biggest successes, being his first to top the Billboard 200, containing internationally successful singles such as "Yeah 3x", "Look at Me Now" and "Beautiful People", also earning him the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album. His fifth album Fortune, released in 2012, also topped the Billboard 200.
Following the releases of X and Royalty, his 2017 double-disc album, Heartbreak on a Full Moon, consisting of 45 tracks, was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for combined sales and album-equivalent units of over 500,000 units after one week, and in 2019 it has been certified Double Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. Brown's ninth studio album Indigo was released in 2019, and became his third Billboard 200 number-one album. It included the Drake featured track "No Guidance" which peaked at number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. Its chart success was outdone with the single "Go Crazy" released the following year, alongside Young Thug as part of their collaborative mixtape Slime & B (2020). The track reached number 3 on the Hot 100.
Brown has sold over 193 million records worldwide, making him one of the world's best-selling music artists. Additionally, he is tied for the most digital single sales among R&B artists in the United States with Bruno Mars. Throughout his career, Brown has won several awards, including a Grammy Award, eighteen BET Awards, four Billboard Music Awards, and thirteen Soul Train Music Awards. According to Billboard, Brown has the seventh most Billboard Hot 100 entries with 106 - which is the most of any R&B artist in history. Brown was also ranked 3rd in the Billboard top R&B/Hip-Hop artists of the decade for the 2010s, behind peers Rihanna and Drake in 2nd and 1st, respectively. Brown has also pursued an acting career. In 2007, he made his on-screen feature film debut in Stomp the Yard, and appeared as a guest on the television series The O.C. Other films Brown has appeared in include This Christmas (2007), Takers (2010), Think Like a Man (2012), and Battle of the Year (2013).
Early life
Christopher Maurice Brown was born on May 5, 1989, in the small town of Tappahannock, Virginia, to Joyce Hawkins, a former day care center director, and Clinton Brown, a corrections officer at a local prison. He has an older sister, Lytrell Bundy, who works in a bank. Music was always present in Brown's life beginning in his childhood. He would listen to soul albums that his parents owned, and eventually began to show interest in the hip-hop scene.
Brown taught himself to sing and dance at a young age and often cites Michael Jackson as his inspiration. He began to perform in his church choir and in several local talent shows. When he mimicked an Usher performance of "My Way", his mother recognized his vocal talent, and they began to look for the opportunity of a record deal. At the same time, Brown was going through personal issues. His parents had divorced, and his mother's boyfriend terrified him by subjecting her to domestic violence.
Career
2002–2004: Career beginnings
At age 13, Brown was discovered by Hitmission Records, a local production team that visited his father's gas station while searching for new talent. Hitmission's Lamont Fleming provided voice coaching for Brown, and the team helped to arrange a demo package, under the name of "C. Sizzle", and approached contacts in New York, where Brown started to sojourn, to seek a record deal. Brown attended Essex High School in Virginia until late 2004, when he moved to New York to pursue his music career. Tina Davis, senior A&R executive at Def Jam Recordings, was impressed when Brown auditioned in her New York office, and she immediately took him to meet the former president of the Island Def Jam Music Group, Antonio "L.A." Reid, who offered to sign him that day, but Brown refused his proposal. "I knew that Chris had real talent," says Davis. "I just knew I wanted to be part of it."
The negotiations with Def Jam continued for two months, and ended when Davis lost her job due to a corporate merger. Brown asked her to be his manager, and once Davis accepted, she promoted the singer to other labels such as Jive Records, J-Records and Warner Bros. Records. According to Mark Pitts, in an interview with HitQuarters, Davis presented Brown with a video recording, and Pitts' reaction was: "I saw huge potential ... I didn't love all the records, but I loved his voice. It wasn't a problem because I knew that he could sing, and I knew how to make records." Brown ultimately chose Jive due to its successful work with then-young acts such as Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. Brown stated, "I picked Jive because they had the best success with younger artists in the pop market, [...] I knew I was going to capture my African American audience, but Jive had a lot of strength in the pop area as well as longevity in careers." Brown said that during his permanence in Harlem, when he was trying to get his music heard by major labels, his artistic intention was to both rap and sing on his records, but Jive convinced him to stick to just singing, because he said that "it wasn't acceptable yet" for an R&B singer to also rap on records.
2005–2006: Chris Brown and acting debut
After signing to Jive Records in 2004, Brown began recording his self-titled debut studio album in February 2005. By May, there were 50 songs already recorded, 14 of which were picked to the final track listing. The singer worked with several producers and songwriters—Scott Storch, Cool & Dre, Sean Garrett and Jazze Pha among them—commenting that they "really believed in [him]". Brown co-wrote half of the tracks. "I write about the things that 16 year olds go through every day," says Brown. "Like you just got in trouble for sneaking your girl into the house, or you can't drive, so you steal a car or something." The whole album took less than eight weeks to produce.
Released on November 29, 2005, the self-titled Chris Brown album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 with first week sales of 154,000 copies. Chris Brown was a commercial success with the time; selling over three million copies in the United States—where it was certified three times platinum by the RIAA—and six million copies worldwide. The album's lead single, "Run It!", made Brown the first male act (since Montell Jordan in 1995) to have his debut single to reach the summit of the Billboard Hot 100—later remaining for four additional weeks. Three of the other singles—"Yo (Excuse Me Miss)", "Gimme That" and "Say Goodbye"—peaked within the top twenty at the same chart.
On June 13, 2006, Brown released a DVD entitled Chris Brown's Journey, which shows footage of him traveling through England and Japan, getting ready for his first visit to the Grammy Awards, behind the scenes of his music videos and bloopers. On August 17, 2006, to further promote the album, Brown began his major co-headlining tour, The Up Close and Personal Tour. Due to the tour, production for his next album was pushed back two months. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital received $10,000 in ticket proceeds from Brown's 2006 "Up Close & Personal" tour. Brown has made appearances on UPN's One on One and The N's Brandon T. Jackson Show on its pilot episode.
2007–2008: Exclusive
In January 2007, Brown landed a small role as a band geek in the fourth season of the American television series The O.C.. Brown then made his film debut in Stomp the Yard, alongside Ne-Yo, Meagan Good and Columbus Short on January 12, 2007. In April 2007, Brown was the opening act for Beyoncé, on the Australian leg of her The Beyoncé Experience tour. On July 9, 2007, Brown was featured in an episode of MTV's My Super Sweet 16 (for the event, it was retitled: Chris Brown: My Super 18) celebrating his eighteenth birthday in New York City.
Shortly after ending his summer tour with Ne-Yo, Brown quickly began production for his second studio album, Exclusive. When the album's lead single, "Wall to Wall", was released, it didn't have a great commercial success, peaking at number 79 on US Billboard Hot 100 chart, and number 22 on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, being his lowest charting single at the time. However, "Kiss Kiss", featuring and produced by T-Pain, released as the album's second single, received huge success, reaching number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, and becoming Brown's second number one single following "Run It!" in 2005. "With You", produced by Stargate (duo of producers known at the time for their work with R&B singer Ne-Yo), was released as the third single from Exclusive, had even bigger success than "Kiss Kiss", becoming one of the all-time best-selling singles, and reaching number two on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. Exclusive was released in the United States on November 6, 2007. The album is musically R&B, having slight pop influences that were absent in the previous hip hop soul-influenced disc, reaching a big international success. The album debuted at number four on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 294,000 copies in its first week, and received generally positive reviews from music critics. As of March 23, 2011, it has sold over 1.9 million copies in the United States.
In November 2007, Brown starred as a video host for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's Math-A-Thon program. He showed his support by encouraging students to use their math skills to help children with cancer and other catastrophic diseases. On November 21, 2007, Brown appeared in This Christmas, a family drama starring Regina King. To further support the album Exclusive, Brown embarked on his The Exclusive Holiday Tour, visiting over thirty venues in United States. The tour began in Cincinnati, Ohio, on December 6, 2007, and concluded on February 9, 2008, in Honolulu, Hawaii. In March 2008, Brown was featured on Jordin Sparks' single "No Air", which had worldwide success peaked at number three on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. He also made a guest appearance on David Banner' single "Get Like Me" alongside Yung Joc. The song peaked at number sixteen on the Billboard Hot 100, and number two on the US Hot Rap Songs chart. Brown re-released Exclusive on June 3, 2008, as a deluxe edition, renamed Exclusive: The Forever Edition, seven months after the release of the original version. The re-released version featured four new tracks, including the Eurodisco single "Forever", which became one of his most known singles, reaching number two on Billboard Hot 100. In August 2008, Brown guest-starred on Disney's The Suite Life of Zack & Cody as himself. Towards the end of 2008, Brown was named Artist of the Year by Billboard magazine.
2009–2010: Graffiti and mixtapes
In 2008, Brown began work on his third studio album, to be called Graffiti, promising to experiment with a different musical direction inspired by singers Prince and Michael Jackson. He stated, "I wanted to change it up and really be different. Like my style nowadays, I don't try to be typical urban. I want to be like how Prince, Michael and Stevie Wonder were. They can cross over to any genre of music." Following the domestic violence scandal involving the singer and Rihanna on February 8, 2009, the majority of media took positions against the singer. The incident also caused Brown to lose significant commercial contracts, including one with Doublemint. The singer later participated in numerous television appearances during the year to express himself publicly about it. Graffiti 's lead single "I Can Transform Ya" was released on September 29, 2009. The song peaked at number 20 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. "Crawl" was released as the album's second single on November 23, 2009. The song reached number 53 on the Billboard Hot 100. Graffiti was then released on December 8, 2009, featuring an R&B sound mixed with Eurodisco and rock. Brown, with this album, started to take full control of his art, managing the artistic direction, and writing every song of the album (with the exception of the song "I'll Go", written and produced by Brian Kennedy and James Fauntleroy). Brown started to be the only artistic director of all his future projects. He said that his decision to entirely direct and write his albums and songs came from the fact that he wanted to give his "own perspective of the music [he] wanted to make" and by his wanting to "verbalize whatever [he] was going through". The album, compared to its two precessors, was a commercial and critical failure, debuting at number 7 on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 102,000 copies in its first week, and receiving generally negative reviews from critics. As of March 23, 2011, it has sold 341,000 copies in the United States.
While performing a Michael Jackson Tribute at the 2010 BET Awards, Brown started to cry and fell to his knees while singing Jackson's "Man in the Mirror". The performance and his emotional turmoil resonated with several celebrities present at the ceremony, including Trey Songz, Diddy and Taraji P. Henson. Songz said, "He left his heart on the stage. He gave genuine emotion. I was proud of him and I was happy for him for having that moment". Michael's brother, Jermaine Jackson, expressed similar sentiments stating, "it was very emotional for me, because it was an acceptance from his fans from what has happened to him and also paying tribute to my brother". Later during the award ceremony, Brown stated, "I let y'all down before, but I won't do it again...I promise", while accepting the award for the AOL Fandemonium prize. In August 2010, Brown starred alongside an ensemble cast, including Matt Dillon, Paul Walker, Idris Elba, Hayden Christensen and T.I. in the crime thriller Takers, and also served as executive producer of the film.
During 2010 Brown released the 3 free mixtapes In My Zone (Rhythm & Streets), Fan of a Fan (collaborative mixtape with Tyga), and In My Zone 2, which featured a new style of writing with grown themes, and a different musical style, mixing R&B with hip hop. For the mixtapes he worked with new producers, most notably Kevin McCall. The mixtapes were highly appreciated by the artist's loyal audience, consolidating it. The single "Deuces", extracted from the Fan of a Fan mixtape, obtained critical acclaim, also achieving a good success, peaking at number 1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. The song was later remixed by the biggest names in the hip-hop scene of that time, including Drake, Kanye West, André 3000, Rick Ross, Fabolous, and T.I. He later released the solo track "No BS" as his second single from Fan of a Fan, and decided to include the two singles from the mixtape as anticipation singles for his next album.
2011–2012: F.A.M.E. and Fortune
In September 2010 Brown announced his album, F.A.M.E. [backronym for "Forgiving All My Enemies"], releasing in October the first official single from the album, "Yeah 3x", a dance-pop song, different from his previous songs on the urban mixtapes. The single received enormous international success and entered the top-ten in eleven countries, including Australia, Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.. It was succeeded by the hip-hop single "Look at Me Now", featuring rappers Lil Wayne and Busta Rhymes, that reached number one on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, where it remained for eight consecutive weeks. It also reached number one on the US Hot Rap Songs chart. The single became the best-selling rap song of 2011, as well as one of all-time best-selling singles in the United States.
Brown's fourth studio album F.A.M.E. was first released on March 18, 2011. The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of 270,000 copies, giving Brown his first number-one album in the United States. The album's third single, "Beautiful People", featuring Benny Benassi, peaked at number one on the US Hot Dance Club Songs chart, and became the first number-one single on the chart for both Brown and Benassi. "She Ain't You" was released as the album's fourth US single, while "Next 2 You", featuring Canadian recording artist Justin Bieber, served as the album's fourth international single. To further promote the album, Brown embarked on his F.A.M.E. Tour in Australia and North America.
Brown received six nominations at the 2011 BET Awards and ultimately won five awards, including Best Male R&B Artist, Viewers Choice Award, The Fandemonium Award, Best Collaboration and Video of the Year for "Look at Me Now". He also won three awards at the 2011 BET Hip Hop Awards, including the People's Champ Award, Reese's Perfect Combo Award and Best Hip Hop Video for "Look at Me Now". At the 2011 Soul Train Music Awards, F.A.M.E. won Album of the Year. The album has also earned Brown three Grammy Award nominations at the 54th Grammy Awards for Best R&B Album, as well as Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song for "Look at Me Now". On February 12, 2012, Brown won the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album. During the ceremony, Brown performed several songs marking his first appearance at the awards show since his conviction of felony assault.
Originally, Brown wanted F.A.M.E. to be a double-disc consistent of 25–30 tracks, but the label was contrary to that. Right before the release of F.A.M.E. Brown decided to follow his intentions in an acceptable way for the label, working on a sequel of F.A.M.E. called Fortune, that would be a whole new album that contained new material and even some tracks that didn't make the cut of the previous album, releasing it six months after it. The artist later decided to take more time to work on the album, developing it as a project of its own, with its own concept and sound being different than the one of its precedent album. On October 7, 2011, RCA Music Group announced it was disbanding Jive Records along with Arista Records and J Records. With the shutdown, Brown (and all other artists previously signed to these three labels) will release future material on the RCA Records brand. Brown's fifth studio album Fortune was released on July 3, 2012. The album debuted atop the Billboard 200, but received negative reviews from critics. "Strip", featuring Kevin McCall, was released as the album's buzz single, with "Turn Up the Music" released as the lead single, and "Sweet Love", "Till I Die", "Don't Wake Me Up" and "Don't Judge Me" released as the album's following singles, respectively. To further promote the album, Brown embarked on his Carpe Diem Tour in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Trinidad.
2013–2015: X and Royalty
After concluding his Carpe Diem Tour in 2012, Brown's next studio album started to develop. On February 15, 2013, the singer unofficially released the song "Home", with an official videoclip, where he expresses a reflection on the bitter price of fame, and on how the only moment of respite from that thought is when he returns to the neighborhood where he grew up with people who knew him from the start. On March 26, 2013, Brown announced the release of X, in various interviews and listening sessions, releasing the song "Fine China" as the album lead single. In an interview with Ebony, when Brown spoke of taking his music in a different direction and changing his sound from pop-infused and sexually explicit of the previous album Fortune, to a more mature, soulful and vulnerable theme for the album. On March 29, 2013 he released "Fine China" as the lead single of the album.
Following the dropping of two other anticipation singles off X, "Don't Think They Know" and "Love More", on August 9, 2013, at 1:09 am PDT, Brown was reported to have suffered a seizure from Record Plant Studios in Hollywood, California as a 9-1-1 call was made. When paramedics arrived, Brown allegedly refused to receive treatment and also refused to be transported to the local hospital. (Brown has reportedly suffered from seizures since his childhood.) The next day, Brown's representative reported the seizure was caused by "intense fatigue and extreme emotional stress, both due to the continued onslaught of unfounded legal matters and the nonstop negativity." On November 20, 2013, Brown was sentenced to an anger management rehabilitation center for three months, putting the December 2013 release of X in jeopardy. To "hold [fans] over until [the X album] drops," Brown released a mixtape, titled X Files on November 19, 2013. On February 22, 2014, it was announced that the album would be released on Brown's birthday, May 5, 2014. On April 14, 2014, Brown released a teaser of the new track "Don't Be Gone Too Long" featuring Ariana Grande. However, following Brown's arrest for felony assault in Washington, D.C., on October 27, 2013, the song and album were again delayed due to Brown's prison sentence. While incarcerated, "Loyal" was released as the album's fourth single, becoming one of his most successful songs, by peaking at the top 10 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and in the United Kingdom. On August 3, 2014, Chris announced via Instagram that the album's release date will be on September 16, 2014. On August 6, 2014, the album cover was revealed. The song ended up being never released as a single, instead "New Flame" featuring Usher and Rick Ross was later released as the album's final single. The title track "X" was released as an instant-gratification track alongside the album pre-order on iTunes on August 25, 2014.
Brown's sixth studio album, X was released on September 16, 2014. The album received positive reviews from critics, who celebrated the record's sound and Brown's vocal performances. The album was considered a big improvement compared to its critically panned predecessor Fortune. At the 2015 Grammy Awards, the album was nominated for the Best Urban Contemporary Album, while "New Flame" was nominated for Best R&B Performance and Best R&B Song. Commercially, the album debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 selling 146,000 copies in its first week, becoming his first album to miss the summit of the chart since Graffiti (2009) and his third album to go to number two on the chart overall following Exclusive (2007). It also became his sixth consecutive top ten debut in the United States. By the end of 2015, the album had sold 404,000 copies in the United States. It has been certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Pushing the promotion for the album further, Brown performed and appeared at several televised music events and music festivals across the United States.
On February 24, 2015, Brown released his first collaborative studio album with Tyga, titled Fan of a Fan: The Album. The album was a follow-up to the pairs 2010 mixtape Fan of a Fan. In early 2015, Brown also embarked on his Between The Sheets Tour with Trey Songz. Also in February 2015, Brown said during an interview for The Breakfast Club that he started working on the album going for a direction that would've been the sound predominant overseas. A couple months later he discovered that he had a daughter and simultaneously broke up with his ex-girlfriend Karrueche Tran. That happening made him change the idea for the album, ending up doing mostly R&B songs that he described as "representations of where i was in my life at that point", contemporarily starting his One Hell of a Nite Tour.
In spring of 2015, Brown was featured on DJ Deorro's song "Five More Hours", which received an excellent worldwide success. On June 24, Brown released a new song titled "Liquor". Shortly after, it was announced that "Liquor" was the first single from his seventh studio album. On August 22, 2015, the singer officially declares from his Twitter profile that the new album will be titled "Royalty" in honor of his daughter, Royalty Brown. On October 16 he has revealed the album cover, portraying Chris with Royalty in her arms in a black and white picture. On October 13, 2015, Brown announced that Royalty will be released on November 27, 2015. After it was revealed that the album has been pushed back to December 18, 2015, in exchange on November 27, 2015, he released a free 34-track mixtape called Before the Party as a prelude to Royalty, which features guest appearances from Rihanna, Wiz Khalifa, Pusha T, Wale, Tyga, French Montana and Fetty Wap. On October 16, 2015, the album cover was revealed. The album was released on December 18, 2015, and it debuted at number 3 on the US Billboard 200, selling 184,000 units (162,000 in pure album sales) in its first week, marking an improvement over Brown's last three studio albums. It also became his seventh solo album consecutive top ten debut in the United States.
2016–2017: Heartbreak on a Full Moon
Brown started working and recording tracks for his next album few weeks before the release of Royalty, in late 2015. On January 10, 2016, Brown had previewed 11 unreleased songs on his Periscope and Instagram profiles, showing him dancing and lip-synching these songs. In March 2016, he collaborated again with the Italian DJ Benny Benassi for the song "Paradise" from the album Danceaholic. On May 3 he announced the single "Grass Ain't Greener", showing its cover art and announcing it as the first single from a new album titled Heartbreak on a Full Moon. The single was released on May 5, 2016. On July 7, 2016, after 2016 shooting of Dallas police officers, Brown released on his SoundCloud page two piano ballads, "My Friend" and "A Lot of Love", saying that the songs are "released for free for anybody dealing with injustice or struggle in their lives." In 2016 he released two collaborative mixtapes with his OHB crew, Before the Trap: Nights in Tarzana and Attack the Block, where they rap and sing about a reckless lifestyle full of drugs, sexual encounters with numerous untrustworthy easy women, also illustrating a dangerous street life filled with guns, dirty money and luxurious cars.
Throughout 2016 and 2017 he kept on sharing several snippets from songs that he was working for the album and features. He worked on the album heavily during 2016 and 2017, during two tours as well, the European leg of the One Hell of a Nite Tour and The Party Tour, also building a recording studio inside of his home to record songs for the album. On December 16, 2016, he released the second official single from the album, "Party", that features guest vocals from American R&B singer Usher and rapper Gucci Mane, getting a good commercial success. The singer, while working on the album, realized that he had done too many songs that he thought were quality records that followed perfectly the narrative of the album to make a 15/20 track album, so he decided that he wanted to take it to the next level by working on it as a 40-track album. RCA Records, the record label of the singer, initially wasn't agreeable of satisfying Brown's intentions to make a 40-track album, thinking that it would've damaged its commercial performance, but the singer ended up convincing them. In February 2017 he announced that his previously teased song "Privacy" would have been released as the next single from Heartbreak on a Full Moon. The single was released on March 24, 2017, and received an excellent response from his core audience. On June 7 he released Welcome to My Life, a self-documentary focused on his life and career, directed by Andrew Sandler. Numerous celebrities participated in the movie, making statements and sharing stories about the artist. Among them there are Jennifer Lopez, Mike Tyson, Rita Ora, Usher and Tyga.
On August 4, 2017, he released the album's fourth single "Pills & Automobiles", that features guest vocals from American trap artists Yo Gotti, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie and Kodak Black. Then on August 14, 2017, he announced the release of the fifth official single from the album, "Questions", on August 16, announcing the album release date, saying that it would be released on October 31, 2017. On October 13, 2017, Brown released the promotional single "High End", that features guest vocals from American trap artists Future and Young Thug, announcing the final tracklist of the album. On October 25, 2017, Brown organized with Tidal a free pop-up concert in New York City to perform the singles on the album and promote it for his fans.
Heartbreak on a Full Moon was eventually released as a double-disc album on October 31, 2017, via digital retailers and onto CD, three days later by RCA Records. The album's sound has been as dark and soulful. The songs on it show every emotional aspect of what's been on the singer's mind after a heavy breakup. Its themes include regret, love transforming into hate, the difficulty in managing emotions, the impossibility of getting over someone, and how a reckless lifestyle can't numb the pain of an heartbreak. Its lyrical content was inspired by Brown's breakup with Karrueche Tran. Heartbreak on a Full Moon received widespread acclaim from critics, who celebrated the record's variety, its length, and its introspective lyrical content. Many defined it as the singer's best body of work. Despite being counted for only three days of sales, Heartbreak on a Full Moon debuted at number three on the US Billboard 200, becoming Brown's ninth consecutive top 10 album on the chart. One week after its release Heartbreak on a Full Moon was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for combined sales and album-equivalent units of over 500,000 units in the United States, and Brown became the first R&B male artist that went gold in a week since Usher's Confessions in 2004. In 2019 the album has been certified Double Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
On December 13, 2017, he released a 12-track surprise deluxe edition of the album called Cuffing Season – 12 Days of Christmas as a Christmas present for his fans. The deluxe edition is made off Brown's favorite leftovers of the album and few holiday-themed songs. Brown eventually embarked on his US "Heartbreak on a Full Moon Tour" in June 2018 to further promote the album. The opening acts for the tour were 6lack, H.E.R., Rich the Kid, and Jacquees.
2018–2019: Indigo
Following the overall success of Heartbreak on a Full Moon, Brown and rapper Joyner Lucas announced a collaboration project, titled Angels & Demons on February 25, 2018, with the release of the single "Stranger Things". However the project ended up never being released. On March 15, 2018, Brown was featured in Lil Dicky's smash hit single "Freaky Friday". By April 9, 2018, the video had reached over 100 million views and topped the charts in New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
After drafting the concept for his new album, in August 2018, at the end of the "Heartbreak On A Full Moon tour", Brown started the actual processing work of his ninth album, Indigo. On January 4, 2019, Brown released "Undecided", the first single off it, alongside a video for the song. "Undecided" saw Brown reunite with producer Scott Storch, who previously worked with Brown in 2005 on his breakout hit "Run It!". The single marked Brown's first release after signing an extension and a new license agreement with RCA Records, that gave him the owning of his master recordings, making him one of the youngest artists to do so at the age of 29. On April 11, he released the second single off the album titled "Back to Love", that received positive reviews from music critics who celebrated its lyrical content and its production, but it failed to chart in the US. The third single, "Wobble Up", was released a week later featuring Nicki Minaj and G-Eazy, announcing that the album is expected to be released in June. On April 25, he appeared on a track with Marshmello and Tyga called "Light It Up". In an announcement on May 2, Brown revealed the list of artists he had been working with for his album, Nicki Minaj, Tory Lanez, Tyga, Justin Bieber, Juicy J, Juvenile, H.E.R, Tank, Sage the Gemini, Lil Jon, Lil Wayne, Joyner Lucas, Gunna and Drake were included on the list. Some of these collaborations were surprising to the media, especially Drake, due to their public feud that lasted for several years. He later revealed the artwork of the album and its track list between May and June 2019. On May 31, he appeared on "Easy", a successful single where he duetted with singer DaniLeigh. On June 8, Brown released "No Guidance" featuring Drake as a single. It debuted at number nine on the US Billboard Hot 100, making it Brown's 15th top-ten song, and later peaked at number five. The single won Best Collaboration Performance, Best Dance Performance and Song of the Year at the 2019 Soul Train Music Awards and received a nomination for Best R&B Song at the 62nd Grammy Awards.
Indigo was eventually released on June 28, 2019, as a double album, marking Brown's second album to be released in this style. The disc is an R&B and tropical-pop album, about vibrations, spiritual love and sex, that leaves the introspective, dark and sultry mood of Heartbreak on a Full Moon, for a way more lighthearted sound and tone. In the United States, Indigo debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 with 108,000 album-equivalent units, which included 28,000 pure album sales in its first week, making it his third number-one album in the country. The album was met with positive reviews from critics. Indigo spawned two other singles, "Heat", which topped the Billboard Rhythmic Airplay chart, and earned Brown his 13th number one on the chart, and second during 2019, and "Don't Check on Me", that features vocals from Justin Bieber and vocalist Atia "Ink" Boggs. On October 4, 2019, Brown eventually released a deluxe version of Indigo entitled Indigo Extended, which included 10 additional songs, making the extended version a total of 42 songs.
On June 10, 2019, Brown announced an official headlining concert tour where he performed the album throughout United States, titled "Indigoat Tour". The tour began on August 20, and ended on October 19. The tour was received with very good responses by journalists, that praised its stage settings, and Brown's dancing abilities. "Indigoat Tour" grossed over $30,100,000 in its 37 shows, selling out most of the venues.
2020present: Breezy
In December 2019, Brown revealed that he started working on new material for his tenth studio album. Later, on April 29, 2020, Brown announced the release of a collaborative mixtape with Young Thug, Slime & B. The mixtape was released on May 5, 2020, and features the hit single "Go Crazy", which peaked at number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Brown's first song to spend one full year on the chart. On May 1, 2020, Brown was featured on Drake's Dark Lane Demo Tapes mixtape on the track "Not You Too". The song earned Brown his 100th career entry on the US Billboard Hot 100, as it entered and debuted at number 25. On July 9, 2020, Brown announced via Instagram that the title of his tenth album would be Breezy, a reference to his stage nickname. No release date has been announced yet.
Brown said in July 2021, while working on the album, that he wanted to make some "really endearing music" that "talk to women's soul". On August 2, he announced on his Instagram that his Breezy album would be accompanied by a short film of the same name. Later on December 18, he said that the lead single of Breezy would be released during January 2022. On January 14 he released the song "Iffy".
Artistry
Influences
Brown has cited a number of artists as his inspiration, predominantly Michael Jackson. Brown emphasizes "Michael Jackson is the reason why I do music and why I am an entertainer." In "Fine China", he exemplifies Jackson's influence both musically and visually as Ebony magazine's Britini Danielle asserted that the song was "reminiscent of Michael Jackson's Off the Wall". Choreographically, MTV noticed that it "takes distinct visual cues from classic clips like 'Smooth Criminal' and 'Beat It'", while Billboard complimented his appearance by calling it "a modern way to channel the King of Pop". Usher is also another influence who comes across as a more contemporary figure for Brown. He tells Vibe magazine "He was the one who the youngsters looked up to. I know that we, in the dancing and singing world, looked up to him", and maintains "If it wasn't for Usher, then Chris Brown couldn't exist". Other influences include Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, Ginuwine, Phil Collins, Bobby Brown and R. Kelly. When it comes to his rapping he cited Naughty by Nature, Tupac, Lil' Wayne and Rakim as the rappers he's inspired by.
Musical style
Music critics have commended Brown's introduction to R&B, recognizing his versatility, and considering him an evolver of the genre. Vibe's Iyana Robertson says "As traditional R&B flourished around him, the young singer began an evolution of the genre". She saw his debut single "Run It!" as a "prelude to what Brown would continue to do for the next decade: relentlessly disrupt the constructs of rhythm and blues." By his second album Exclusive, she says he was "tapping more electric up-tempos, swimming deep in hip-hop waters and annihilating the pop arena". Describing the Grammy Award winning F.A.M.E. as "his most diverse offering to date", she remarked "There was no level of musical flexibility comparable. There still isn't." F.A.M.E. is considered to be the album that defined Brown's musical style and persona.
Brown is considered to be, by a big part of critics and general public, the biggest R&B artist of the 2010s, with Andy Kellman of AllMusic crediting him as the "spearhead" of the genre during the period. Brad Wete of Billboard said that his sixth album X showcased "the height of his musical talents", while cultural critic and media personality Joe Budden defined his 2017 album Heartbreak on a Full Moon as "one of the greatest things ever happened to R&B music".
Genres
Brown made his sound mixing the traditional sound of R&B adding different influences to it, most importantly hip hop and pop, but also several other genres in different songs, such as soul, dancehall, alternative R&B, house, EDM, afropop, trap, rock, disco and funk. The multitude of genres influencing his music can be heard in many of his singles, like "Deuces", "Sweet Love", "Liquor", "Zero", "Back to Love" or "Don't Check on Me". His pure side of R&B is densely shown on every album that he has done, even after that his music started to be more tinged from other genres, with some examples being "No BS", "Don't Judge Me", "Back To Sleep" and "Privacy".
Throughout his career Brown has always had a strong influence from hip hop in his music, and following his 2010 mixtapes, he approached the genre differently, starting to rap frequently on mixtapes and features, adding to his albums straight hip-hop songs like "Look at Me Now", "Till I Die" and "Loyal", or by doing performances that switch from his R&B singing to his rapping, like he did in several tracks from his album Heartbreak on a Full Moon. His dance-pop side in the single "Forever" off his second album Exclusive opened the door for many other Europop songs like "Yeah 3x", "Beautiful People", "Turn Up The Music" and "Don't Wake Me Up", but it begun to be less present in his music starting from his album X.
Themes
Brown's lyrical production is typically considered to be "emotional" or "hedonistic". His songs mainly cover themes of sex, lovesickness, regret, romantic love, desire, fast life, and internal conflict, also having some introspections over loneliness and the dark side of fame. Along with his vocal and dancing abilities, his songwriting is considered to be one of the things that distincts him for the better compared to other R&B singers of his time. American media executive and radio personality Ebro Darden stated that Brown is the "most all-around talented person in R&B. Trey Songz is talented, but he can't dance like Chris Brown. Usher is probably the only one that could come close to him, but he doesn't have the songwriting abilities that Chris Brown has".
Brown said in 2013, during an interview for Rolling Stone, that his songs are always "derived from personal experiences, my personal life. Then creativity brings my reality to another dimention. That's what my songs are made of. I always like mixing reality with art".
Voice
Brown possesses a light lyric tenor voice, which spans three and a half octaves, rising from the bass F♯ (F2) to its peak at the soprano C♯.(C♯6) His vocal ability was first recognized by his mother at a young age, as Brown tells People magazine "I was 11 and watching Usher perform 'My Way', and I started trying to mimic it. My mom was like, 'You can sing?' And I was like, 'Well, yeah, Mama.'" subsequently leading to the start of his career. "Take You Down" most notably earned him a Grammy award nomination for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance in 2009.
His vocal performances are characterized by his harmonization, timbre, vocal runs and soulfulness. While his voice on his first two albums, Chris Brown and Exclusive, was considered to be "honeyed", due to his young age, with subsequent projects like Graffiti and F.A.M.E. it was noted for maturing to a "more mature, distinctive and melodious voice", with Brown "coming into his own as a singer". On F.A.M.E. critics noted huge flexibility in his voice, with Steve Jones of USA Today praising the singer's ability to "give top notch vocal performances in R&B, Europop, rap, rock and acoustic records". X and Indigo were noted for displaying his timbre, exemplifying his singing performances.
His harmonizing was found by Andrew Unterberger of Billboard to be notably shown on his songs "Liquor" and "Go Crazy". On "Another Round", "Don't Judge Me" and "It Won't Stop" he did what was considered by Lee Hildebrand of San Francisco Chronicle to be "some of the most soothing and smooth singing of his discography". Jake Indiana of Highsnobiety said that his feature on Kanye West's song "Waves" is one of his best vocal performances, and that it "sounds like ascending to heaven with a choir of angels at your back". The singer was particularly noted for his emotional singing that illustrated his vocal range on songs like "Covered In You", "Lost & Found", "No Guidance" and "Red". On tracks like "Look at Me Now", "No Romeo No Juliet" and "Stranger Things" he displayed his ability of fast-rapping.
Dancing
Brown's dancing abilities and stage presence are widely praised, receiving broad comparisons to those of Michael Jackson. According to Brown, he taught himself how to dance by imitating Jackson's moves since childhood, then developing his own distinct style throughout his career. Most of his music videos feature complex choreographies, including the "futuristic" "Turn Up the Music", the Jackson-inspired choreography of "Fine China", "Zero", where he displayed different dancing styles, including popping and his signature spin move, "Party", where he showcased his remarked footwork, and "Heat", described by The Source as a "silky smooth choreography that shows Brown's unmatchable dancing talent in the classiest way". Some of his most notable dancing live performances include his "Thriller" recreation at the 2006 World Music Awards, his medley at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, where he performed a choreography that included flying parts, and his 2015 freestyled dancing over Future's "March Madness" at the Vestival The Hague Malieveld, that included a highly acclaimed front-flip, done with no hands by standing still, landed perfectly on beat.
In films such as Stomp the Yard and Battle of the Year, Brown displayed his ability to breakdance while in-character.
Street art
Aside from his musical career, he was noted for markedly producing graffiti art. His visual works have been described as "manga-inspired" and "abstract". Brown said that he painted since his childhood, saying "my first approach with it was painting school walls" saying that he's always been captivated by the fact that drawing and painting "gives you the chance to express yourself in whatever way, showing to the world your own dimension".
Brown has produced street art under the pseudonym Konfused, partnering with street artist Kai to produce works for the Miami Basel. The singer painted the buildings of different radio stations such as Hot 97. In 2015 he worked on some of the walls of The Grammy Museum, mixing his spray paint drawings with images of James Brown, Prince, Michael Jackson and himself. Brown has made graffiti works for different cities worldwide, including Los Angeles, London and Amsterdam.
His painting and dancing skills were shown at the same time when Brown, partnering with Spotify's Rap Caviar, painted Heartbreak on a Full Moon 's album cover, mostly from dancing around the canvas. In 2020 he painted a mural in memory of Kobe Bryant, doing a portray that includes Kobe's face, a mamba, and a few pictures of Kobe dribbling and dunking a basketball.
Personal life
Relationships
From 2007 to 2009, Brown dated singer Rihanna until their highly publicized domestic violence case. His emotional state following the happening was theme of a big part of his album Graffiti. In 2011, Brown began dating Karrueche Tran, that at the time was a personal shopper. In October 2012, Brown announced that he ended his relationship with Tran because he did not "want to see her hurt over my friendship with Rihanna." The day after the announcement, Brown released a video entitled "The Real Chris Brown", which features images of himself, Tran, and Rihanna, as Brown wonders, "Is there such thing as loving two people? I don't know if it's possible, but I feel like that."
In January 2013, Rihanna confirmed that she and Brown had resumed their romantic relationship, stating, "It's different now. We don't have those types of arguments anymore. We talk about shit. We value each other. We know exactly what we have now, and we don't want to lose that." Speaking of Brown, Rihanna also said, "He's not the monster everybody thinks. He's a good person. He has a fantastic heart. He's giving and loving. And he's fun to be around. That's what I love about him – he always makes me laugh. All I want to do is laugh, really – and I do that with him". In a May 2013 interview, Brown stated that he and Rihanna had broken up again. He subsequently reunited with Tran, but they parted ways following confirmation of Brown's daughter Royalty with Nia Guzman in 2015. His breakup with Tran inspired several songs off his albums Royalty and Heartbreak on a Full Moon. In 2017, Tran received a 5-year restraining order against Brown after testifying under oath that, during their relationship, in two episodes he was physically abusive, and that he threatened her after they broke up.
On November 20, 2019, Brown welcomed his second child, son Aeko Catori Brown, with Ammika Harris (Pietzker).
Religion
When discussing his upbringing, Brown stated: "We were used to two pairs of shoes for a school year. We used to go to church every day. I was one of those kids that had more church clothes than school clothes." He has also discussed his second work of grace, saying that "he experienced the Holy Ghost while performing 'His Eye Is on the Sparrow' in church". After being released from jail on June 2, 2014, Brown wrote that he was "Humbled and Blessed" and tweeted the words "Thank you GOD."
In 2015, he said during an interview for Vibe, that God is the only thing that he's afraid of. Speaking about prayers he said "I pray everyday, I think we pray unconsciously too. Personally I don't pray for success. I pray for knowledge for understanding and peace of mind. I really try to pray for that because it's a big world, and you can get wrapped up in it trying to please every city. So I just try to get a peace of mind and me understanding that being at peace with my flaws and my talents. I'm cool with that. That's why I think once He shows me certain things, or even the choices that I make, and decisions that I make that are healthy for me. He shows me the right path. When I bless other people, He always blesses me. It's not even about a self-serving journey; it's about just learning. I want to learn people's experiences. I want to give them experiences too." ".
Legal issues
Felony domestic assault of Rihanna
At around 12:30 a.m. (PST) on February 8, 2009, Brown and his then-girlfriend, singer Rihanna, had an argument which escalated into physical violence, leaving Rihanna with visible facial injuries which required hospitalization. Brown turned himself in to the Los Angeles Police Department's Wilshire station at 6:30 p.m. (PST) and was booked under suspicion of making criminal threats. The police report did not name the female in the incident as is policy, but media sources soon revealed that the victim was Rihanna. Following Brown's arrest, several commercial ads and some TV shows featuring him were suspended, his music was withdrawn from multiple radio stations, and he withdrew from public appearances, including one at the 2009 Grammy Awards, where he was replaced by Justin Timberlake and Al Green. Brown hired a crisis management team and released a statement saying, "Words cannot begin to express how sorry and saddened I am over what transpired."
On March 5, 2009, Brown was charged with felony assault and making criminal threats. He was arraigned on April 6, 2009, and pleaded not guilty to one count of assault and one count of making criminal threats. On June 22, 2009, Brown pleaded guilty to a felony and accepted a plea deal of community labor, five years of probation, and domestic violence counseling. On July 20, 2009, Brown released a two-minute video on his official YouTube page apologizing to fans and Rihanna for the assault, expressing the incident as his "deepest regret" and saying that he has repeatedly apologized to Rihanna and "accepts full responsibility". In the video, Brown said he wanted to speak out earlier about the case but was advised by his attorney not to until the legal ramifications were settled. The video was removed, but is still available online. On August 25, Brown received five years of probation. He was ordered to attend one year of domestic violence counseling and undergo six months of community service; the judge retained a five-year restraining order on Brown, which required him to remain 50 yards (45.72 meters) away from Rihanna, reduced to 10 yards at public events. Andy Kellman of AllMusic stated, "A fairly substantial backlash resulted in Brown's songs being pulled from rotation on several radio stations. Ultimately, however, it had little bearing on the progress of his music and acting careers."
On September 2, 2009, Brown spoke about the domestic violence case in a pre-recorded Larry King Live interview, his first public interview about the matter. He was accompanied to the interview by his mother, Joyce Hawkins, and attorney Mark Geragos, as he discussed growing up in a household with his mother being repeatedly assaulted by his stepfather. Brown said of hearing details of his assault of Rihanna, "I'm in shock, because, first of all, that's not who I am as a person, and that's not who I promise I want to be." Brown's mother said Brown "has never, ever been a violent person, ever" and that she does not believe in the cycle of violence. Brown said that it is "tough" for him to look at the famous photograph released of Rihanna's battered face, which may be the one image to haunt and define him forever, and that he still loved her. "I'm pretty sure we can always be friends," said Brown, "and I don't know about our relationship, but I just know definitely that we ended as friends." He stated he did not feel that his career was over, and likened his relationship with Rihanna to Romeo and Juliet, blaming the media attention in the aftermath of the assault for driving them apart.
In June 2010, Brown's application for a visa to enter the UK was rejected on the grounds of him "being guilty of a serious criminal offence" due to his assault on Rihanna. Brown had been planning to do a tour of British cities as part of a European tour but Sony stated that due to "issues surrounding his work visa" the tour was to be postponed. In February 2011, at the request of Brown's lawyer, Judge Patricia Schnegg modified with Rihanna's agreement the restraining order to a "level one order," allowing both singers to appear at awards shows together in the future. The following month, on March 22, 2011, during an interview with Robin Roberts on Good Morning America at the Times Square Studios, where he was asked about the Rihanna situation and restraining order, Brown started crying and became violent in his dressing room during a commercial break before his second performance ending that day's program, and punched a window overlooking Times Square, causing damage to it. He then took off his shirt, and after several angry confrontations with the segment producer, other show staff and building security, left the building shirtless. Following the incident, he apologized and said that he was very tired of people bringing up the incident.
On July 11, 2012, Brown's community service was evaluated and he was ordered to meet a judge. The evaluation was ordered by Superior Court Judge Patricia Schnegg on July 10, 2012. He was scheduled to appear in court with regard to the evaluation on August 21, 2012. While conducting his community service in Virginia, however, Brown was tested positive for cannabis and appeared in court on September 25, 2012, at which time his hearing date was changed to November, to determine whether or not he had violated the terms of his court order. He reappeared in court on November 1, 2012, he attempted to address the court and was told by his lawyer, Mark Geragos, "I don't dance; you don't talk." On March 20, 2015, Brown's probation ended, formally closing the felony case emanating from the Rihanna assault which happened over six years prior.
In a 2017 self-documentary, Welcome to My Life, Brown goes into detail about the abusive relationship, saying he intended to marry Rihanna, but that he lost her trust after finding out that he lied about a sexual encounter with someone who worked with him, that happened prior to their relationship. He also talked about how they already had lighter episodes where they put their hands against each other during their relationship, and he gave a detailed description on how the known fight went down.
Other legal issues
On June 14, 2012, Drake and his entourage were involved in a scuffle with Brown at a nightclub called WIP in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City. About eight people were injured during the brawl, including San Antonio Spurs star Tony Parker, who had to have surgery to remove a piece of glass from his eye. Drake was not arrested. Brown's attorney alleged Drake was the instigator. Brown himself tweeted about the incident and publicly criticized Drake weeks later.
In January 2013, Brown was involved in an altercation with Frank Ocean over a parking space, outside a recording studio in West Hollywood. Police officers in Los Angeles said that Brown was under investigation, describing the incident as "battery" due to Brown allegedly punching Ocean. Although Ocean alleged that Brown had threatened to shoot him, he said he would not press charges.
In July 2013, Brown's probation was revoked after he was involved in an alleged hit-and-run in Los Angeles. He was released from court and was scheduled to reappear in August 2013, to learn whether or not he would serve time in prison. The charges would later be dropped, but Brown would have 1,000 additional hours of community service added to his probation terms.
In October 2013, Brown was arrested for felony assault in Washington, D.C., after refusing to take a picture with a man. The charge was reduced to a misdemeanor. Brown spent 36 hours in a Washington jail and was taken to court in shackles. He was released and ordered to report to his California probation officer within 48 hours. The probation officer prepared a report for the Los Angeles judge, who could have ordered him to complete as many as four years in prison for the beating of Rihanna if found to be in violation of his probation.
On October 30, 2013, Brown voluntarily decided to enter rehab. After Brown completed his 90 days, the judge ordered him to remain a resident at the Malibu treatment facility until a hearing on April 23, 2014. The deal was if Brown left rehab, he would go directly to jail. On March 14, 2014, Brown was kicked out of the rehab facility and sent to Northern Neck Regional Jail for violating internal rules. He was expected to be released on April 23, 2014, but a judge denied his release request from custody either on bail or his own recognizance. At his May 9, 2014, court date, Brown was ordered to serve 131 days in jail for his probation violation. He was sentenced to serve 365 days in custody; however, he was given credit for the 234 days he has already spent in rehab and jail. He was given early release from jail just after midnight on June 2, 2014, because of jail overcrowding calculations that count one day in custody as two days. During Brown's rehab, a probation officer noted in a letter that Brown's brushes with the law may have been caused by untreated bipolar disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder, specifically that "Mr. Brown became aggressive and acted out physically due to his untreated mental health disorder, severe sleep deprivation, inappropriate self-medicating and untreated PTSD". According to the court documents, which were received by E! News and later The Hollywood Reporter, Brown was formally diagnosed with both Bipolar II and PTSD at the unnamed rehab facility.
In the early hours of August 30, 2016, a woman called the police to report that Brown had threatened her with a gun inside his house. Due to his previous felony assault conviction, Brown is prohibited to possess any firearms. Police were called, but Brown denied them entry without a warrant. When they returned with one, Brown refused them entry and began what news sources referred to as a "standoff" with the LAPD, including the robbery-homicide division and SWAT team. During this time, Brown was seen posting videos on Instagram, in which he rails against the police and the media coverage of the activity at his house. He denounced media reports that he was "barricaded" inside his house, complained about the helicopters flying overhead, and called the police "idiots" and "the worst gang in the world." He said that he was innocent and "What I do care about is you are defacing my name and my character and integrity". Brown was arrested and later released from jail on $250,000 bail. On September 1, 2016, Brown's lawyer, Mark Geragos, stated that there was no standoff and that, with regard to the LAPD search, "nothing was found to corroborate her statement." In September, Japan denied Brown entry due to the allegations. Charges were later dropped after prosecutors declined to arraign Brown on the felony charges. Brown later sued the accuser for defamation, prevailing in the lawsuit, after an investigation that proved that the defendant brought to court false and defamatory statements about the singer, through her incriminating text messages where she said "don't you know this freak Chris Brown is kicking me out of his house because I called his friend jewelry fake can you come get me my Uber is messing up if not I'm going to set him up and call the cops and say that he tried to shoot me and that will teach him a lesson I'm going to set his a** up.",. Brown later said through his social media accounts "Because of my past, my character keeps on being defaced by these fake news and allegations highlighted by the media, but I'm glad that all my real supporters know who i really am and can see the truth"
Brown was arrested after his concert during July 6, 2018, night on a felony battery charge stemming from an incident that occurred more than a year before.
The battery charge was connected to an April 2017 incident in a Tampa club, where Brown allegedly punched a man who photographed him without his permission. The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office said Brown was released after about an hour, after that he posted $2,000 bond.
In 2021, Brown was sued by his housekeeper over a 2020 attack by one of his dogs, a Caucasian Ovcharka.
, due to his criminal record, Brown is banned from entering Australia and New Zealand. Previously, other countries that banned the singer because of his criminal record were Canada and United Kingdom, and they revoked their ban respectively in 2019 and 2020.
In January 2022, an anonymous woman filed a civil suit accusing Brown of raping her on a yacht in Miami in December 2020. Court documents revealed that she was not pursuing a criminal case and remained in contact with Brown after the alleged incident took place - visiting his home on two separate occasions in California in January and August 2021 to listen to him record music. The woman is suing Brown for $20 million. Brown has denied the allegation.
Business ventures
In 2007, Brown founded the record label CBE ("Chris Brown Entertainment" or "Culture Beyond Evolution"), under Interscope Records. Brown has since signed frequent collaborator Kevin McCall, singer Sabrina Antoinette, former RichGirl member Sevyn Streeter, singer-songwriter Joelle James, and rock group U.G.L.Y. However, from 2014 the label started to sign exclusively Brown's works.
Brown has stated he owns fourteen Burger King restaurants. In 2012, he launched a streetwear clothing line called Black Pyramid, in collaboration with the founders of the Pink + Dolphin clothing line. In 2016 the clothing label was set for larger release, partnering with streetwear clothing lines such as Snipes for a worldwide distribution, also being distributed through its own Black Pyramid boutiques.
On November 11, 2021 the singer has launched his own cereal, "Breezy's Cosmic Crunch", partnering with SoFlo Snacks for this limited edition of collectible breakfast cereal. Its box was curated by Brown himself, and illustrated by visual artist Adrian Cuevas.
Discography
Chris Brown (2005)
Exclusive (2007)
Graffiti (2009)
F.A.M.E. (2011)
Fortune (2012)
X (2014)
Royalty (2015)
Heartbreak on a Full Moon (2017)
Indigo (2019)
Breezy (2022)
Filmography
Tours
Brown has headlined multiple arenas tours in North America, Europe and World-Wide. Additionally he has co-headlined a North American tour with Trey Songz and served as a supporting act on tours for industry peers such as Rihanna, Drake (musician), Lil Wayne and Beyoncé. In total, Brown has earned an approprixate $157 million from 279 concerts over the course of his career - making him one of the highest grossing African American touring artists of all time.
Headlining
Up Close and Personal Tour (2006)
The UCP Exclusive Tour (2007)
Fan Appreciation Tour (2009)
F.A.M.E. Tour (2011)
Carpe Diem Tour (2012)
One Hell of a Nite Tour (2015–2016)
The Party Tour (2017)
Heartbreak on a Full Moon Tour (2018)
Indigoat Tour (2019)
Co-headlining
Between the Sheets Tour (2015)
Supporting
The Beyoncé Experience (Australia dates) (2007)
Good Girl Gone Bad Tour (the Philippines, Oceania) (2008)
Supafest (2012)
Lil Weezyana Fest (2016)
OVO Fest (2019)
Achievements
List of awards and nominations received by Chris Brown
See also
List of artists who reached number one in the United States
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
List of best-selling music artists
List of Billboard Hot 100 chart achievements and milestones
List of most-followed Instagram accounts
References
External links
Chris Brown on YouTube
1989 births
Living people
21st-century American criminals
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American rappers
21st-century African-American male singers
African-American businesspeople
African-American Christians
African-American male actors
African-American male dancers
African-American male rappers
African-American male singer-songwriters
American businesspeople convicted of crimes
American child singers
American contemporary R&B singers
American dance musicians
American hip hop singers
American male criminals
American male dancers
American male film actors
American male pop singers
American male rappers
American male television actors
American music industry executives
American music video directors
American people convicted of assault
Burger King people
Businesspeople from Virginia
Criminals from Virginia
Grammy Award winners
Jive Records artists
Male actors from Virginia
People from Tappahannock, Virginia
People with bipolar disorder
Pop rappers
Rappers from Virginia
RCA Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Virginia
Singers with a three-octave vocal range
Sony BMG artists
World Music Awards winners | true | [
"\"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)",
"\"What Would Steve Do?\" is the second single released by Mumm-Ra on Columbia Records, which was released on February 19, 2007. It is a re-recorded version of the self-release they did in April 2006. It reached #40 in the UK Singles Chart, making it their highest charting single.\n\nTrack listings\nAll songs written by Mumm-Ra.\n\nCD\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"Cute As\"\n\"Without You\"\n\n7\"\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"What Would Steve Do? (Floorboard Mix)\"\n\nGatefold 7\"\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"Cute As\"\n\nReferences\n\n2007 singles\nMumm-Ra (band) songs\n2006 songs\nColumbia Records singles"
] |
[
"Chris Brown",
"2005-2006: Chris Brown and acting debut",
"How did he begin his acting debut?",
"On June 13, 2006, Brown released a DVD entitled Chris Brown's Journey,",
"What did he do in 2005?",
"Released on November 29, 2005, the self-titled Chris Brown album debuted at number two"
] | C_afa274064906425db3a289f6eace06fe_1 | Are there any hit singles from this record? | 3 | Are there any hit singles from the Chris Brown's record Chris Brown? | Chris Brown | After being signed to Jive Records in 2004, Brown began recording his self-titled debut studio album in February 2005. By May, there were 50 songs already recorded, 14 of which were picked to the final track listing. The singer worked with several producers and songwriters--Scott Storch, Cool & Dre and Jazze Pha among them--commenting that they "really believed in [him]". Brown also made some input on the album, receiving co-writing credits of five tracks. "I write about the things that 16 year olds go through every day," says Brown. "Like you just got in trouble for sneaking your girl into the house, or you can't drive, so you steal a car or something." The whole album took less than eight weeks to produce. Released on November 29, 2005, the self-titled Chris Brown album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 with first week sales of 154,000 copies. Chris Brown was a relative commercial success with the time; selling over two million copies in the United States--where it was certified two times platinum by the RIAA--and three million copies worldwide. The album's lead single, "Run It!", made Brown the first male act (since Montell Jordan in 1995) to have his debut single to reach the summit of the Billboard Hot 100--later remaining for four additionally weeks. Three of the other singles--"Yo (Excuse Me Miss)", "Gimme That" and "Say Goodbye"--peaked within the top twenty at the same chart. On June 13, 2006, Brown released a DVD entitled Chris Brown's Journey, which shows footage of him traveling in England and Japan, getting ready for his first visit to the Grammy Awards, behind the scenes of his music videos and bloopers. On August 17, 2006, to further promote the album, Brown began his major co-headlining tour, The Up Close and Personal Tour. Due to the tour, production for his next album was pushed back two months. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital received $10,000 in ticket proceeds from Brown's 2006 "Up Close & Personal" tour. Brown has made appearances on UPN's One on One and The N's Brandon T. Jackson Show on its pilot episode. CANNOTANSWER | Run It | Christopher Maurice Brown (born May 5, 1989) is an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and actor. According to Billboard, Brown is one of the most influential and successful R&B singers ever, with several considering him the "King of R&B" alongside Usher and R. Kelly. His musical style has been defined as polyhedric, with his R&B being characterized by several influences from other genres, mainly hip hop and pop music. His lyrics develop predominantly over themes of sex, lovesickness, regret, romantic love, fast life, desire, and the difficulty of managing emotions. Being described by media outlets and critics as one of the biggest talents of his time in urban music, Brown gained a cult following, and wide comparisons to Michael Jackson for his stage presence as a singer-dancer.
Born in Tappahannock, Virginia, he was involved in his church choir and several local talent shows from a young age. Having signed with Jive Records in 2004, Brown released his self-titled debut studio album the following year, which became certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). With his first single "Run It!" peaking atop the Billboard Hot 100, Brown became the first male artist since 1995 to have his debut single top the chart. His second album, Exclusive (2007), reached an even bigger commercial success worldwide, also spawning his second Billboard Hot 100 number one "Kiss Kiss". In 2009, Brown pled guilty to felony assault of his then girlfriend, singer Rihanna. In the same year of the episode there was the release of his third album Graffiti, which was considered to be a commercial failure compared to his previous works. Following Graffiti, Brown's fourth album F.A.M.E. (2011) became one of his biggest successes, being his first to top the Billboard 200, containing internationally successful singles such as "Yeah 3x", "Look at Me Now" and "Beautiful People", also earning him the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album. His fifth album Fortune, released in 2012, also topped the Billboard 200.
Following the releases of X and Royalty, his 2017 double-disc album, Heartbreak on a Full Moon, consisting of 45 tracks, was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for combined sales and album-equivalent units of over 500,000 units after one week, and in 2019 it has been certified Double Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. Brown's ninth studio album Indigo was released in 2019, and became his third Billboard 200 number-one album. It included the Drake featured track "No Guidance" which peaked at number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. Its chart success was outdone with the single "Go Crazy" released the following year, alongside Young Thug as part of their collaborative mixtape Slime & B (2020). The track reached number 3 on the Hot 100.
Brown has sold over 193 million records worldwide, making him one of the world's best-selling music artists. Additionally, he is tied for the most digital single sales among R&B artists in the United States with Bruno Mars. Throughout his career, Brown has won several awards, including a Grammy Award, eighteen BET Awards, four Billboard Music Awards, and thirteen Soul Train Music Awards. According to Billboard, Brown has the seventh most Billboard Hot 100 entries with 106 - which is the most of any R&B artist in history. Brown was also ranked 3rd in the Billboard top R&B/Hip-Hop artists of the decade for the 2010s, behind peers Rihanna and Drake in 2nd and 1st, respectively. Brown has also pursued an acting career. In 2007, he made his on-screen feature film debut in Stomp the Yard, and appeared as a guest on the television series The O.C. Other films Brown has appeared in include This Christmas (2007), Takers (2010), Think Like a Man (2012), and Battle of the Year (2013).
Early life
Christopher Maurice Brown was born on May 5, 1989, in the small town of Tappahannock, Virginia, to Joyce Hawkins, a former day care center director, and Clinton Brown, a corrections officer at a local prison. He has an older sister, Lytrell Bundy, who works in a bank. Music was always present in Brown's life beginning in his childhood. He would listen to soul albums that his parents owned, and eventually began to show interest in the hip-hop scene.
Brown taught himself to sing and dance at a young age and often cites Michael Jackson as his inspiration. He began to perform in his church choir and in several local talent shows. When he mimicked an Usher performance of "My Way", his mother recognized his vocal talent, and they began to look for the opportunity of a record deal. At the same time, Brown was going through personal issues. His parents had divorced, and his mother's boyfriend terrified him by subjecting her to domestic violence.
Career
2002–2004: Career beginnings
At age 13, Brown was discovered by Hitmission Records, a local production team that visited his father's gas station while searching for new talent. Hitmission's Lamont Fleming provided voice coaching for Brown, and the team helped to arrange a demo package, under the name of "C. Sizzle", and approached contacts in New York, where Brown started to sojourn, to seek a record deal. Brown attended Essex High School in Virginia until late 2004, when he moved to New York to pursue his music career. Tina Davis, senior A&R executive at Def Jam Recordings, was impressed when Brown auditioned in her New York office, and she immediately took him to meet the former president of the Island Def Jam Music Group, Antonio "L.A." Reid, who offered to sign him that day, but Brown refused his proposal. "I knew that Chris had real talent," says Davis. "I just knew I wanted to be part of it."
The negotiations with Def Jam continued for two months, and ended when Davis lost her job due to a corporate merger. Brown asked her to be his manager, and once Davis accepted, she promoted the singer to other labels such as Jive Records, J-Records and Warner Bros. Records. According to Mark Pitts, in an interview with HitQuarters, Davis presented Brown with a video recording, and Pitts' reaction was: "I saw huge potential ... I didn't love all the records, but I loved his voice. It wasn't a problem because I knew that he could sing, and I knew how to make records." Brown ultimately chose Jive due to its successful work with then-young acts such as Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. Brown stated, "I picked Jive because they had the best success with younger artists in the pop market, [...] I knew I was going to capture my African American audience, but Jive had a lot of strength in the pop area as well as longevity in careers." Brown said that during his permanence in Harlem, when he was trying to get his music heard by major labels, his artistic intention was to both rap and sing on his records, but Jive convinced him to stick to just singing, because he said that "it wasn't acceptable yet" for an R&B singer to also rap on records.
2005–2006: Chris Brown and acting debut
After signing to Jive Records in 2004, Brown began recording his self-titled debut studio album in February 2005. By May, there were 50 songs already recorded, 14 of which were picked to the final track listing. The singer worked with several producers and songwriters—Scott Storch, Cool & Dre, Sean Garrett and Jazze Pha among them—commenting that they "really believed in [him]". Brown co-wrote half of the tracks. "I write about the things that 16 year olds go through every day," says Brown. "Like you just got in trouble for sneaking your girl into the house, or you can't drive, so you steal a car or something." The whole album took less than eight weeks to produce.
Released on November 29, 2005, the self-titled Chris Brown album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 with first week sales of 154,000 copies. Chris Brown was a commercial success with the time; selling over three million copies in the United States—where it was certified three times platinum by the RIAA—and six million copies worldwide. The album's lead single, "Run It!", made Brown the first male act (since Montell Jordan in 1995) to have his debut single to reach the summit of the Billboard Hot 100—later remaining for four additional weeks. Three of the other singles—"Yo (Excuse Me Miss)", "Gimme That" and "Say Goodbye"—peaked within the top twenty at the same chart.
On June 13, 2006, Brown released a DVD entitled Chris Brown's Journey, which shows footage of him traveling through England and Japan, getting ready for his first visit to the Grammy Awards, behind the scenes of his music videos and bloopers. On August 17, 2006, to further promote the album, Brown began his major co-headlining tour, The Up Close and Personal Tour. Due to the tour, production for his next album was pushed back two months. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital received $10,000 in ticket proceeds from Brown's 2006 "Up Close & Personal" tour. Brown has made appearances on UPN's One on One and The N's Brandon T. Jackson Show on its pilot episode.
2007–2008: Exclusive
In January 2007, Brown landed a small role as a band geek in the fourth season of the American television series The O.C.. Brown then made his film debut in Stomp the Yard, alongside Ne-Yo, Meagan Good and Columbus Short on January 12, 2007. In April 2007, Brown was the opening act for Beyoncé, on the Australian leg of her The Beyoncé Experience tour. On July 9, 2007, Brown was featured in an episode of MTV's My Super Sweet 16 (for the event, it was retitled: Chris Brown: My Super 18) celebrating his eighteenth birthday in New York City.
Shortly after ending his summer tour with Ne-Yo, Brown quickly began production for his second studio album, Exclusive. When the album's lead single, "Wall to Wall", was released, it didn't have a great commercial success, peaking at number 79 on US Billboard Hot 100 chart, and number 22 on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, being his lowest charting single at the time. However, "Kiss Kiss", featuring and produced by T-Pain, released as the album's second single, received huge success, reaching number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, and becoming Brown's second number one single following "Run It!" in 2005. "With You", produced by Stargate (duo of producers known at the time for their work with R&B singer Ne-Yo), was released as the third single from Exclusive, had even bigger success than "Kiss Kiss", becoming one of the all-time best-selling singles, and reaching number two on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. Exclusive was released in the United States on November 6, 2007. The album is musically R&B, having slight pop influences that were absent in the previous hip hop soul-influenced disc, reaching a big international success. The album debuted at number four on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 294,000 copies in its first week, and received generally positive reviews from music critics. As of March 23, 2011, it has sold over 1.9 million copies in the United States.
In November 2007, Brown starred as a video host for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's Math-A-Thon program. He showed his support by encouraging students to use their math skills to help children with cancer and other catastrophic diseases. On November 21, 2007, Brown appeared in This Christmas, a family drama starring Regina King. To further support the album Exclusive, Brown embarked on his The Exclusive Holiday Tour, visiting over thirty venues in United States. The tour began in Cincinnati, Ohio, on December 6, 2007, and concluded on February 9, 2008, in Honolulu, Hawaii. In March 2008, Brown was featured on Jordin Sparks' single "No Air", which had worldwide success peaked at number three on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. He also made a guest appearance on David Banner' single "Get Like Me" alongside Yung Joc. The song peaked at number sixteen on the Billboard Hot 100, and number two on the US Hot Rap Songs chart. Brown re-released Exclusive on June 3, 2008, as a deluxe edition, renamed Exclusive: The Forever Edition, seven months after the release of the original version. The re-released version featured four new tracks, including the Eurodisco single "Forever", which became one of his most known singles, reaching number two on Billboard Hot 100. In August 2008, Brown guest-starred on Disney's The Suite Life of Zack & Cody as himself. Towards the end of 2008, Brown was named Artist of the Year by Billboard magazine.
2009–2010: Graffiti and mixtapes
In 2008, Brown began work on his third studio album, to be called Graffiti, promising to experiment with a different musical direction inspired by singers Prince and Michael Jackson. He stated, "I wanted to change it up and really be different. Like my style nowadays, I don't try to be typical urban. I want to be like how Prince, Michael and Stevie Wonder were. They can cross over to any genre of music." Following the domestic violence scandal involving the singer and Rihanna on February 8, 2009, the majority of media took positions against the singer. The incident also caused Brown to lose significant commercial contracts, including one with Doublemint. The singer later participated in numerous television appearances during the year to express himself publicly about it. Graffiti 's lead single "I Can Transform Ya" was released on September 29, 2009. The song peaked at number 20 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. "Crawl" was released as the album's second single on November 23, 2009. The song reached number 53 on the Billboard Hot 100. Graffiti was then released on December 8, 2009, featuring an R&B sound mixed with Eurodisco and rock. Brown, with this album, started to take full control of his art, managing the artistic direction, and writing every song of the album (with the exception of the song "I'll Go", written and produced by Brian Kennedy and James Fauntleroy). Brown started to be the only artistic director of all his future projects. He said that his decision to entirely direct and write his albums and songs came from the fact that he wanted to give his "own perspective of the music [he] wanted to make" and by his wanting to "verbalize whatever [he] was going through". The album, compared to its two precessors, was a commercial and critical failure, debuting at number 7 on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 102,000 copies in its first week, and receiving generally negative reviews from critics. As of March 23, 2011, it has sold 341,000 copies in the United States.
While performing a Michael Jackson Tribute at the 2010 BET Awards, Brown started to cry and fell to his knees while singing Jackson's "Man in the Mirror". The performance and his emotional turmoil resonated with several celebrities present at the ceremony, including Trey Songz, Diddy and Taraji P. Henson. Songz said, "He left his heart on the stage. He gave genuine emotion. I was proud of him and I was happy for him for having that moment". Michael's brother, Jermaine Jackson, expressed similar sentiments stating, "it was very emotional for me, because it was an acceptance from his fans from what has happened to him and also paying tribute to my brother". Later during the award ceremony, Brown stated, "I let y'all down before, but I won't do it again...I promise", while accepting the award for the AOL Fandemonium prize. In August 2010, Brown starred alongside an ensemble cast, including Matt Dillon, Paul Walker, Idris Elba, Hayden Christensen and T.I. in the crime thriller Takers, and also served as executive producer of the film.
During 2010 Brown released the 3 free mixtapes In My Zone (Rhythm & Streets), Fan of a Fan (collaborative mixtape with Tyga), and In My Zone 2, which featured a new style of writing with grown themes, and a different musical style, mixing R&B with hip hop. For the mixtapes he worked with new producers, most notably Kevin McCall. The mixtapes were highly appreciated by the artist's loyal audience, consolidating it. The single "Deuces", extracted from the Fan of a Fan mixtape, obtained critical acclaim, also achieving a good success, peaking at number 1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. The song was later remixed by the biggest names in the hip-hop scene of that time, including Drake, Kanye West, André 3000, Rick Ross, Fabolous, and T.I. He later released the solo track "No BS" as his second single from Fan of a Fan, and decided to include the two singles from the mixtape as anticipation singles for his next album.
2011–2012: F.A.M.E. and Fortune
In September 2010 Brown announced his album, F.A.M.E. [backronym for "Forgiving All My Enemies"], releasing in October the first official single from the album, "Yeah 3x", a dance-pop song, different from his previous songs on the urban mixtapes. The single received enormous international success and entered the top-ten in eleven countries, including Australia, Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.. It was succeeded by the hip-hop single "Look at Me Now", featuring rappers Lil Wayne and Busta Rhymes, that reached number one on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, where it remained for eight consecutive weeks. It also reached number one on the US Hot Rap Songs chart. The single became the best-selling rap song of 2011, as well as one of all-time best-selling singles in the United States.
Brown's fourth studio album F.A.M.E. was first released on March 18, 2011. The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of 270,000 copies, giving Brown his first number-one album in the United States. The album's third single, "Beautiful People", featuring Benny Benassi, peaked at number one on the US Hot Dance Club Songs chart, and became the first number-one single on the chart for both Brown and Benassi. "She Ain't You" was released as the album's fourth US single, while "Next 2 You", featuring Canadian recording artist Justin Bieber, served as the album's fourth international single. To further promote the album, Brown embarked on his F.A.M.E. Tour in Australia and North America.
Brown received six nominations at the 2011 BET Awards and ultimately won five awards, including Best Male R&B Artist, Viewers Choice Award, The Fandemonium Award, Best Collaboration and Video of the Year for "Look at Me Now". He also won three awards at the 2011 BET Hip Hop Awards, including the People's Champ Award, Reese's Perfect Combo Award and Best Hip Hop Video for "Look at Me Now". At the 2011 Soul Train Music Awards, F.A.M.E. won Album of the Year. The album has also earned Brown three Grammy Award nominations at the 54th Grammy Awards for Best R&B Album, as well as Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song for "Look at Me Now". On February 12, 2012, Brown won the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album. During the ceremony, Brown performed several songs marking his first appearance at the awards show since his conviction of felony assault.
Originally, Brown wanted F.A.M.E. to be a double-disc consistent of 25–30 tracks, but the label was contrary to that. Right before the release of F.A.M.E. Brown decided to follow his intentions in an acceptable way for the label, working on a sequel of F.A.M.E. called Fortune, that would be a whole new album that contained new material and even some tracks that didn't make the cut of the previous album, releasing it six months after it. The artist later decided to take more time to work on the album, developing it as a project of its own, with its own concept and sound being different than the one of its precedent album. On October 7, 2011, RCA Music Group announced it was disbanding Jive Records along with Arista Records and J Records. With the shutdown, Brown (and all other artists previously signed to these three labels) will release future material on the RCA Records brand. Brown's fifth studio album Fortune was released on July 3, 2012. The album debuted atop the Billboard 200, but received negative reviews from critics. "Strip", featuring Kevin McCall, was released as the album's buzz single, with "Turn Up the Music" released as the lead single, and "Sweet Love", "Till I Die", "Don't Wake Me Up" and "Don't Judge Me" released as the album's following singles, respectively. To further promote the album, Brown embarked on his Carpe Diem Tour in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Trinidad.
2013–2015: X and Royalty
After concluding his Carpe Diem Tour in 2012, Brown's next studio album started to develop. On February 15, 2013, the singer unofficially released the song "Home", with an official videoclip, where he expresses a reflection on the bitter price of fame, and on how the only moment of respite from that thought is when he returns to the neighborhood where he grew up with people who knew him from the start. On March 26, 2013, Brown announced the release of X, in various interviews and listening sessions, releasing the song "Fine China" as the album lead single. In an interview with Ebony, when Brown spoke of taking his music in a different direction and changing his sound from pop-infused and sexually explicit of the previous album Fortune, to a more mature, soulful and vulnerable theme for the album. On March 29, 2013 he released "Fine China" as the lead single of the album.
Following the dropping of two other anticipation singles off X, "Don't Think They Know" and "Love More", on August 9, 2013, at 1:09 am PDT, Brown was reported to have suffered a seizure from Record Plant Studios in Hollywood, California as a 9-1-1 call was made. When paramedics arrived, Brown allegedly refused to receive treatment and also refused to be transported to the local hospital. (Brown has reportedly suffered from seizures since his childhood.) The next day, Brown's representative reported the seizure was caused by "intense fatigue and extreme emotional stress, both due to the continued onslaught of unfounded legal matters and the nonstop negativity." On November 20, 2013, Brown was sentenced to an anger management rehabilitation center for three months, putting the December 2013 release of X in jeopardy. To "hold [fans] over until [the X album] drops," Brown released a mixtape, titled X Files on November 19, 2013. On February 22, 2014, it was announced that the album would be released on Brown's birthday, May 5, 2014. On April 14, 2014, Brown released a teaser of the new track "Don't Be Gone Too Long" featuring Ariana Grande. However, following Brown's arrest for felony assault in Washington, D.C., on October 27, 2013, the song and album were again delayed due to Brown's prison sentence. While incarcerated, "Loyal" was released as the album's fourth single, becoming one of his most successful songs, by peaking at the top 10 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and in the United Kingdom. On August 3, 2014, Chris announced via Instagram that the album's release date will be on September 16, 2014. On August 6, 2014, the album cover was revealed. The song ended up being never released as a single, instead "New Flame" featuring Usher and Rick Ross was later released as the album's final single. The title track "X" was released as an instant-gratification track alongside the album pre-order on iTunes on August 25, 2014.
Brown's sixth studio album, X was released on September 16, 2014. The album received positive reviews from critics, who celebrated the record's sound and Brown's vocal performances. The album was considered a big improvement compared to its critically panned predecessor Fortune. At the 2015 Grammy Awards, the album was nominated for the Best Urban Contemporary Album, while "New Flame" was nominated for Best R&B Performance and Best R&B Song. Commercially, the album debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 selling 146,000 copies in its first week, becoming his first album to miss the summit of the chart since Graffiti (2009) and his third album to go to number two on the chart overall following Exclusive (2007). It also became his sixth consecutive top ten debut in the United States. By the end of 2015, the album had sold 404,000 copies in the United States. It has been certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Pushing the promotion for the album further, Brown performed and appeared at several televised music events and music festivals across the United States.
On February 24, 2015, Brown released his first collaborative studio album with Tyga, titled Fan of a Fan: The Album. The album was a follow-up to the pairs 2010 mixtape Fan of a Fan. In early 2015, Brown also embarked on his Between The Sheets Tour with Trey Songz. Also in February 2015, Brown said during an interview for The Breakfast Club that he started working on the album going for a direction that would've been the sound predominant overseas. A couple months later he discovered that he had a daughter and simultaneously broke up with his ex-girlfriend Karrueche Tran. That happening made him change the idea for the album, ending up doing mostly R&B songs that he described as "representations of where i was in my life at that point", contemporarily starting his One Hell of a Nite Tour.
In spring of 2015, Brown was featured on DJ Deorro's song "Five More Hours", which received an excellent worldwide success. On June 24, Brown released a new song titled "Liquor". Shortly after, it was announced that "Liquor" was the first single from his seventh studio album. On August 22, 2015, the singer officially declares from his Twitter profile that the new album will be titled "Royalty" in honor of his daughter, Royalty Brown. On October 16 he has revealed the album cover, portraying Chris with Royalty in her arms in a black and white picture. On October 13, 2015, Brown announced that Royalty will be released on November 27, 2015. After it was revealed that the album has been pushed back to December 18, 2015, in exchange on November 27, 2015, he released a free 34-track mixtape called Before the Party as a prelude to Royalty, which features guest appearances from Rihanna, Wiz Khalifa, Pusha T, Wale, Tyga, French Montana and Fetty Wap. On October 16, 2015, the album cover was revealed. The album was released on December 18, 2015, and it debuted at number 3 on the US Billboard 200, selling 184,000 units (162,000 in pure album sales) in its first week, marking an improvement over Brown's last three studio albums. It also became his seventh solo album consecutive top ten debut in the United States.
2016–2017: Heartbreak on a Full Moon
Brown started working and recording tracks for his next album few weeks before the release of Royalty, in late 2015. On January 10, 2016, Brown had previewed 11 unreleased songs on his Periscope and Instagram profiles, showing him dancing and lip-synching these songs. In March 2016, he collaborated again with the Italian DJ Benny Benassi for the song "Paradise" from the album Danceaholic. On May 3 he announced the single "Grass Ain't Greener", showing its cover art and announcing it as the first single from a new album titled Heartbreak on a Full Moon. The single was released on May 5, 2016. On July 7, 2016, after 2016 shooting of Dallas police officers, Brown released on his SoundCloud page two piano ballads, "My Friend" and "A Lot of Love", saying that the songs are "released for free for anybody dealing with injustice or struggle in their lives." In 2016 he released two collaborative mixtapes with his OHB crew, Before the Trap: Nights in Tarzana and Attack the Block, where they rap and sing about a reckless lifestyle full of drugs, sexual encounters with numerous untrustworthy easy women, also illustrating a dangerous street life filled with guns, dirty money and luxurious cars.
Throughout 2016 and 2017 he kept on sharing several snippets from songs that he was working for the album and features. He worked on the album heavily during 2016 and 2017, during two tours as well, the European leg of the One Hell of a Nite Tour and The Party Tour, also building a recording studio inside of his home to record songs for the album. On December 16, 2016, he released the second official single from the album, "Party", that features guest vocals from American R&B singer Usher and rapper Gucci Mane, getting a good commercial success. The singer, while working on the album, realized that he had done too many songs that he thought were quality records that followed perfectly the narrative of the album to make a 15/20 track album, so he decided that he wanted to take it to the next level by working on it as a 40-track album. RCA Records, the record label of the singer, initially wasn't agreeable of satisfying Brown's intentions to make a 40-track album, thinking that it would've damaged its commercial performance, but the singer ended up convincing them. In February 2017 he announced that his previously teased song "Privacy" would have been released as the next single from Heartbreak on a Full Moon. The single was released on March 24, 2017, and received an excellent response from his core audience. On June 7 he released Welcome to My Life, a self-documentary focused on his life and career, directed by Andrew Sandler. Numerous celebrities participated in the movie, making statements and sharing stories about the artist. Among them there are Jennifer Lopez, Mike Tyson, Rita Ora, Usher and Tyga.
On August 4, 2017, he released the album's fourth single "Pills & Automobiles", that features guest vocals from American trap artists Yo Gotti, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie and Kodak Black. Then on August 14, 2017, he announced the release of the fifth official single from the album, "Questions", on August 16, announcing the album release date, saying that it would be released on October 31, 2017. On October 13, 2017, Brown released the promotional single "High End", that features guest vocals from American trap artists Future and Young Thug, announcing the final tracklist of the album. On October 25, 2017, Brown organized with Tidal a free pop-up concert in New York City to perform the singles on the album and promote it for his fans.
Heartbreak on a Full Moon was eventually released as a double-disc album on October 31, 2017, via digital retailers and onto CD, three days later by RCA Records. The album's sound has been as dark and soulful. The songs on it show every emotional aspect of what's been on the singer's mind after a heavy breakup. Its themes include regret, love transforming into hate, the difficulty in managing emotions, the impossibility of getting over someone, and how a reckless lifestyle can't numb the pain of an heartbreak. Its lyrical content was inspired by Brown's breakup with Karrueche Tran. Heartbreak on a Full Moon received widespread acclaim from critics, who celebrated the record's variety, its length, and its introspective lyrical content. Many defined it as the singer's best body of work. Despite being counted for only three days of sales, Heartbreak on a Full Moon debuted at number three on the US Billboard 200, becoming Brown's ninth consecutive top 10 album on the chart. One week after its release Heartbreak on a Full Moon was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for combined sales and album-equivalent units of over 500,000 units in the United States, and Brown became the first R&B male artist that went gold in a week since Usher's Confessions in 2004. In 2019 the album has been certified Double Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
On December 13, 2017, he released a 12-track surprise deluxe edition of the album called Cuffing Season – 12 Days of Christmas as a Christmas present for his fans. The deluxe edition is made off Brown's favorite leftovers of the album and few holiday-themed songs. Brown eventually embarked on his US "Heartbreak on a Full Moon Tour" in June 2018 to further promote the album. The opening acts for the tour were 6lack, H.E.R., Rich the Kid, and Jacquees.
2018–2019: Indigo
Following the overall success of Heartbreak on a Full Moon, Brown and rapper Joyner Lucas announced a collaboration project, titled Angels & Demons on February 25, 2018, with the release of the single "Stranger Things". However the project ended up never being released. On March 15, 2018, Brown was featured in Lil Dicky's smash hit single "Freaky Friday". By April 9, 2018, the video had reached over 100 million views and topped the charts in New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
After drafting the concept for his new album, in August 2018, at the end of the "Heartbreak On A Full Moon tour", Brown started the actual processing work of his ninth album, Indigo. On January 4, 2019, Brown released "Undecided", the first single off it, alongside a video for the song. "Undecided" saw Brown reunite with producer Scott Storch, who previously worked with Brown in 2005 on his breakout hit "Run It!". The single marked Brown's first release after signing an extension and a new license agreement with RCA Records, that gave him the owning of his master recordings, making him one of the youngest artists to do so at the age of 29. On April 11, he released the second single off the album titled "Back to Love", that received positive reviews from music critics who celebrated its lyrical content and its production, but it failed to chart in the US. The third single, "Wobble Up", was released a week later featuring Nicki Minaj and G-Eazy, announcing that the album is expected to be released in June. On April 25, he appeared on a track with Marshmello and Tyga called "Light It Up". In an announcement on May 2, Brown revealed the list of artists he had been working with for his album, Nicki Minaj, Tory Lanez, Tyga, Justin Bieber, Juicy J, Juvenile, H.E.R, Tank, Sage the Gemini, Lil Jon, Lil Wayne, Joyner Lucas, Gunna and Drake were included on the list. Some of these collaborations were surprising to the media, especially Drake, due to their public feud that lasted for several years. He later revealed the artwork of the album and its track list between May and June 2019. On May 31, he appeared on "Easy", a successful single where he duetted with singer DaniLeigh. On June 8, Brown released "No Guidance" featuring Drake as a single. It debuted at number nine on the US Billboard Hot 100, making it Brown's 15th top-ten song, and later peaked at number five. The single won Best Collaboration Performance, Best Dance Performance and Song of the Year at the 2019 Soul Train Music Awards and received a nomination for Best R&B Song at the 62nd Grammy Awards.
Indigo was eventually released on June 28, 2019, as a double album, marking Brown's second album to be released in this style. The disc is an R&B and tropical-pop album, about vibrations, spiritual love and sex, that leaves the introspective, dark and sultry mood of Heartbreak on a Full Moon, for a way more lighthearted sound and tone. In the United States, Indigo debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 with 108,000 album-equivalent units, which included 28,000 pure album sales in its first week, making it his third number-one album in the country. The album was met with positive reviews from critics. Indigo spawned two other singles, "Heat", which topped the Billboard Rhythmic Airplay chart, and earned Brown his 13th number one on the chart, and second during 2019, and "Don't Check on Me", that features vocals from Justin Bieber and vocalist Atia "Ink" Boggs. On October 4, 2019, Brown eventually released a deluxe version of Indigo entitled Indigo Extended, which included 10 additional songs, making the extended version a total of 42 songs.
On June 10, 2019, Brown announced an official headlining concert tour where he performed the album throughout United States, titled "Indigoat Tour". The tour began on August 20, and ended on October 19. The tour was received with very good responses by journalists, that praised its stage settings, and Brown's dancing abilities. "Indigoat Tour" grossed over $30,100,000 in its 37 shows, selling out most of the venues.
2020present: Breezy
In December 2019, Brown revealed that he started working on new material for his tenth studio album. Later, on April 29, 2020, Brown announced the release of a collaborative mixtape with Young Thug, Slime & B. The mixtape was released on May 5, 2020, and features the hit single "Go Crazy", which peaked at number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Brown's first song to spend one full year on the chart. On May 1, 2020, Brown was featured on Drake's Dark Lane Demo Tapes mixtape on the track "Not You Too". The song earned Brown his 100th career entry on the US Billboard Hot 100, as it entered and debuted at number 25. On July 9, 2020, Brown announced via Instagram that the title of his tenth album would be Breezy, a reference to his stage nickname. No release date has been announced yet.
Brown said in July 2021, while working on the album, that he wanted to make some "really endearing music" that "talk to women's soul". On August 2, he announced on his Instagram that his Breezy album would be accompanied by a short film of the same name. Later on December 18, he said that the lead single of Breezy would be released during January 2022. On January 14 he released the song "Iffy".
Artistry
Influences
Brown has cited a number of artists as his inspiration, predominantly Michael Jackson. Brown emphasizes "Michael Jackson is the reason why I do music and why I am an entertainer." In "Fine China", he exemplifies Jackson's influence both musically and visually as Ebony magazine's Britini Danielle asserted that the song was "reminiscent of Michael Jackson's Off the Wall". Choreographically, MTV noticed that it "takes distinct visual cues from classic clips like 'Smooth Criminal' and 'Beat It'", while Billboard complimented his appearance by calling it "a modern way to channel the King of Pop". Usher is also another influence who comes across as a more contemporary figure for Brown. He tells Vibe magazine "He was the one who the youngsters looked up to. I know that we, in the dancing and singing world, looked up to him", and maintains "If it wasn't for Usher, then Chris Brown couldn't exist". Other influences include Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, Ginuwine, Phil Collins, Bobby Brown and R. Kelly. When it comes to his rapping he cited Naughty by Nature, Tupac, Lil' Wayne and Rakim as the rappers he's inspired by.
Musical style
Music critics have commended Brown's introduction to R&B, recognizing his versatility, and considering him an evolver of the genre. Vibe's Iyana Robertson says "As traditional R&B flourished around him, the young singer began an evolution of the genre". She saw his debut single "Run It!" as a "prelude to what Brown would continue to do for the next decade: relentlessly disrupt the constructs of rhythm and blues." By his second album Exclusive, she says he was "tapping more electric up-tempos, swimming deep in hip-hop waters and annihilating the pop arena". Describing the Grammy Award winning F.A.M.E. as "his most diverse offering to date", she remarked "There was no level of musical flexibility comparable. There still isn't." F.A.M.E. is considered to be the album that defined Brown's musical style and persona.
Brown is considered to be, by a big part of critics and general public, the biggest R&B artist of the 2010s, with Andy Kellman of AllMusic crediting him as the "spearhead" of the genre during the period. Brad Wete of Billboard said that his sixth album X showcased "the height of his musical talents", while cultural critic and media personality Joe Budden defined his 2017 album Heartbreak on a Full Moon as "one of the greatest things ever happened to R&B music".
Genres
Brown made his sound mixing the traditional sound of R&B adding different influences to it, most importantly hip hop and pop, but also several other genres in different songs, such as soul, dancehall, alternative R&B, house, EDM, afropop, trap, rock, disco and funk. The multitude of genres influencing his music can be heard in many of his singles, like "Deuces", "Sweet Love", "Liquor", "Zero", "Back to Love" or "Don't Check on Me". His pure side of R&B is densely shown on every album that he has done, even after that his music started to be more tinged from other genres, with some examples being "No BS", "Don't Judge Me", "Back To Sleep" and "Privacy".
Throughout his career Brown has always had a strong influence from hip hop in his music, and following his 2010 mixtapes, he approached the genre differently, starting to rap frequently on mixtapes and features, adding to his albums straight hip-hop songs like "Look at Me Now", "Till I Die" and "Loyal", or by doing performances that switch from his R&B singing to his rapping, like he did in several tracks from his album Heartbreak on a Full Moon. His dance-pop side in the single "Forever" off his second album Exclusive opened the door for many other Europop songs like "Yeah 3x", "Beautiful People", "Turn Up The Music" and "Don't Wake Me Up", but it begun to be less present in his music starting from his album X.
Themes
Brown's lyrical production is typically considered to be "emotional" or "hedonistic". His songs mainly cover themes of sex, lovesickness, regret, romantic love, desire, fast life, and internal conflict, also having some introspections over loneliness and the dark side of fame. Along with his vocal and dancing abilities, his songwriting is considered to be one of the things that distincts him for the better compared to other R&B singers of his time. American media executive and radio personality Ebro Darden stated that Brown is the "most all-around talented person in R&B. Trey Songz is talented, but he can't dance like Chris Brown. Usher is probably the only one that could come close to him, but he doesn't have the songwriting abilities that Chris Brown has".
Brown said in 2013, during an interview for Rolling Stone, that his songs are always "derived from personal experiences, my personal life. Then creativity brings my reality to another dimention. That's what my songs are made of. I always like mixing reality with art".
Voice
Brown possesses a light lyric tenor voice, which spans three and a half octaves, rising from the bass F♯ (F2) to its peak at the soprano C♯.(C♯6) His vocal ability was first recognized by his mother at a young age, as Brown tells People magazine "I was 11 and watching Usher perform 'My Way', and I started trying to mimic it. My mom was like, 'You can sing?' And I was like, 'Well, yeah, Mama.'" subsequently leading to the start of his career. "Take You Down" most notably earned him a Grammy award nomination for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance in 2009.
His vocal performances are characterized by his harmonization, timbre, vocal runs and soulfulness. While his voice on his first two albums, Chris Brown and Exclusive, was considered to be "honeyed", due to his young age, with subsequent projects like Graffiti and F.A.M.E. it was noted for maturing to a "more mature, distinctive and melodious voice", with Brown "coming into his own as a singer". On F.A.M.E. critics noted huge flexibility in his voice, with Steve Jones of USA Today praising the singer's ability to "give top notch vocal performances in R&B, Europop, rap, rock and acoustic records". X and Indigo were noted for displaying his timbre, exemplifying his singing performances.
His harmonizing was found by Andrew Unterberger of Billboard to be notably shown on his songs "Liquor" and "Go Crazy". On "Another Round", "Don't Judge Me" and "It Won't Stop" he did what was considered by Lee Hildebrand of San Francisco Chronicle to be "some of the most soothing and smooth singing of his discography". Jake Indiana of Highsnobiety said that his feature on Kanye West's song "Waves" is one of his best vocal performances, and that it "sounds like ascending to heaven with a choir of angels at your back". The singer was particularly noted for his emotional singing that illustrated his vocal range on songs like "Covered In You", "Lost & Found", "No Guidance" and "Red". On tracks like "Look at Me Now", "No Romeo No Juliet" and "Stranger Things" he displayed his ability of fast-rapping.
Dancing
Brown's dancing abilities and stage presence are widely praised, receiving broad comparisons to those of Michael Jackson. According to Brown, he taught himself how to dance by imitating Jackson's moves since childhood, then developing his own distinct style throughout his career. Most of his music videos feature complex choreographies, including the "futuristic" "Turn Up the Music", the Jackson-inspired choreography of "Fine China", "Zero", where he displayed different dancing styles, including popping and his signature spin move, "Party", where he showcased his remarked footwork, and "Heat", described by The Source as a "silky smooth choreography that shows Brown's unmatchable dancing talent in the classiest way". Some of his most notable dancing live performances include his "Thriller" recreation at the 2006 World Music Awards, his medley at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, where he performed a choreography that included flying parts, and his 2015 freestyled dancing over Future's "March Madness" at the Vestival The Hague Malieveld, that included a highly acclaimed front-flip, done with no hands by standing still, landed perfectly on beat.
In films such as Stomp the Yard and Battle of the Year, Brown displayed his ability to breakdance while in-character.
Street art
Aside from his musical career, he was noted for markedly producing graffiti art. His visual works have been described as "manga-inspired" and "abstract". Brown said that he painted since his childhood, saying "my first approach with it was painting school walls" saying that he's always been captivated by the fact that drawing and painting "gives you the chance to express yourself in whatever way, showing to the world your own dimension".
Brown has produced street art under the pseudonym Konfused, partnering with street artist Kai to produce works for the Miami Basel. The singer painted the buildings of different radio stations such as Hot 97. In 2015 he worked on some of the walls of The Grammy Museum, mixing his spray paint drawings with images of James Brown, Prince, Michael Jackson and himself. Brown has made graffiti works for different cities worldwide, including Los Angeles, London and Amsterdam.
His painting and dancing skills were shown at the same time when Brown, partnering with Spotify's Rap Caviar, painted Heartbreak on a Full Moon 's album cover, mostly from dancing around the canvas. In 2020 he painted a mural in memory of Kobe Bryant, doing a portray that includes Kobe's face, a mamba, and a few pictures of Kobe dribbling and dunking a basketball.
Personal life
Relationships
From 2007 to 2009, Brown dated singer Rihanna until their highly publicized domestic violence case. His emotional state following the happening was theme of a big part of his album Graffiti. In 2011, Brown began dating Karrueche Tran, that at the time was a personal shopper. In October 2012, Brown announced that he ended his relationship with Tran because he did not "want to see her hurt over my friendship with Rihanna." The day after the announcement, Brown released a video entitled "The Real Chris Brown", which features images of himself, Tran, and Rihanna, as Brown wonders, "Is there such thing as loving two people? I don't know if it's possible, but I feel like that."
In January 2013, Rihanna confirmed that she and Brown had resumed their romantic relationship, stating, "It's different now. We don't have those types of arguments anymore. We talk about shit. We value each other. We know exactly what we have now, and we don't want to lose that." Speaking of Brown, Rihanna also said, "He's not the monster everybody thinks. He's a good person. He has a fantastic heart. He's giving and loving. And he's fun to be around. That's what I love about him – he always makes me laugh. All I want to do is laugh, really – and I do that with him". In a May 2013 interview, Brown stated that he and Rihanna had broken up again. He subsequently reunited with Tran, but they parted ways following confirmation of Brown's daughter Royalty with Nia Guzman in 2015. His breakup with Tran inspired several songs off his albums Royalty and Heartbreak on a Full Moon. In 2017, Tran received a 5-year restraining order against Brown after testifying under oath that, during their relationship, in two episodes he was physically abusive, and that he threatened her after they broke up.
On November 20, 2019, Brown welcomed his second child, son Aeko Catori Brown, with Ammika Harris (Pietzker).
Religion
When discussing his upbringing, Brown stated: "We were used to two pairs of shoes for a school year. We used to go to church every day. I was one of those kids that had more church clothes than school clothes." He has also discussed his second work of grace, saying that "he experienced the Holy Ghost while performing 'His Eye Is on the Sparrow' in church". After being released from jail on June 2, 2014, Brown wrote that he was "Humbled and Blessed" and tweeted the words "Thank you GOD."
In 2015, he said during an interview for Vibe, that God is the only thing that he's afraid of. Speaking about prayers he said "I pray everyday, I think we pray unconsciously too. Personally I don't pray for success. I pray for knowledge for understanding and peace of mind. I really try to pray for that because it's a big world, and you can get wrapped up in it trying to please every city. So I just try to get a peace of mind and me understanding that being at peace with my flaws and my talents. I'm cool with that. That's why I think once He shows me certain things, or even the choices that I make, and decisions that I make that are healthy for me. He shows me the right path. When I bless other people, He always blesses me. It's not even about a self-serving journey; it's about just learning. I want to learn people's experiences. I want to give them experiences too." ".
Legal issues
Felony domestic assault of Rihanna
At around 12:30 a.m. (PST) on February 8, 2009, Brown and his then-girlfriend, singer Rihanna, had an argument which escalated into physical violence, leaving Rihanna with visible facial injuries which required hospitalization. Brown turned himself in to the Los Angeles Police Department's Wilshire station at 6:30 p.m. (PST) and was booked under suspicion of making criminal threats. The police report did not name the female in the incident as is policy, but media sources soon revealed that the victim was Rihanna. Following Brown's arrest, several commercial ads and some TV shows featuring him were suspended, his music was withdrawn from multiple radio stations, and he withdrew from public appearances, including one at the 2009 Grammy Awards, where he was replaced by Justin Timberlake and Al Green. Brown hired a crisis management team and released a statement saying, "Words cannot begin to express how sorry and saddened I am over what transpired."
On March 5, 2009, Brown was charged with felony assault and making criminal threats. He was arraigned on April 6, 2009, and pleaded not guilty to one count of assault and one count of making criminal threats. On June 22, 2009, Brown pleaded guilty to a felony and accepted a plea deal of community labor, five years of probation, and domestic violence counseling. On July 20, 2009, Brown released a two-minute video on his official YouTube page apologizing to fans and Rihanna for the assault, expressing the incident as his "deepest regret" and saying that he has repeatedly apologized to Rihanna and "accepts full responsibility". In the video, Brown said he wanted to speak out earlier about the case but was advised by his attorney not to until the legal ramifications were settled. The video was removed, but is still available online. On August 25, Brown received five years of probation. He was ordered to attend one year of domestic violence counseling and undergo six months of community service; the judge retained a five-year restraining order on Brown, which required him to remain 50 yards (45.72 meters) away from Rihanna, reduced to 10 yards at public events. Andy Kellman of AllMusic stated, "A fairly substantial backlash resulted in Brown's songs being pulled from rotation on several radio stations. Ultimately, however, it had little bearing on the progress of his music and acting careers."
On September 2, 2009, Brown spoke about the domestic violence case in a pre-recorded Larry King Live interview, his first public interview about the matter. He was accompanied to the interview by his mother, Joyce Hawkins, and attorney Mark Geragos, as he discussed growing up in a household with his mother being repeatedly assaulted by his stepfather. Brown said of hearing details of his assault of Rihanna, "I'm in shock, because, first of all, that's not who I am as a person, and that's not who I promise I want to be." Brown's mother said Brown "has never, ever been a violent person, ever" and that she does not believe in the cycle of violence. Brown said that it is "tough" for him to look at the famous photograph released of Rihanna's battered face, which may be the one image to haunt and define him forever, and that he still loved her. "I'm pretty sure we can always be friends," said Brown, "and I don't know about our relationship, but I just know definitely that we ended as friends." He stated he did not feel that his career was over, and likened his relationship with Rihanna to Romeo and Juliet, blaming the media attention in the aftermath of the assault for driving them apart.
In June 2010, Brown's application for a visa to enter the UK was rejected on the grounds of him "being guilty of a serious criminal offence" due to his assault on Rihanna. Brown had been planning to do a tour of British cities as part of a European tour but Sony stated that due to "issues surrounding his work visa" the tour was to be postponed. In February 2011, at the request of Brown's lawyer, Judge Patricia Schnegg modified with Rihanna's agreement the restraining order to a "level one order," allowing both singers to appear at awards shows together in the future. The following month, on March 22, 2011, during an interview with Robin Roberts on Good Morning America at the Times Square Studios, where he was asked about the Rihanna situation and restraining order, Brown started crying and became violent in his dressing room during a commercial break before his second performance ending that day's program, and punched a window overlooking Times Square, causing damage to it. He then took off his shirt, and after several angry confrontations with the segment producer, other show staff and building security, left the building shirtless. Following the incident, he apologized and said that he was very tired of people bringing up the incident.
On July 11, 2012, Brown's community service was evaluated and he was ordered to meet a judge. The evaluation was ordered by Superior Court Judge Patricia Schnegg on July 10, 2012. He was scheduled to appear in court with regard to the evaluation on August 21, 2012. While conducting his community service in Virginia, however, Brown was tested positive for cannabis and appeared in court on September 25, 2012, at which time his hearing date was changed to November, to determine whether or not he had violated the terms of his court order. He reappeared in court on November 1, 2012, he attempted to address the court and was told by his lawyer, Mark Geragos, "I don't dance; you don't talk." On March 20, 2015, Brown's probation ended, formally closing the felony case emanating from the Rihanna assault which happened over six years prior.
In a 2017 self-documentary, Welcome to My Life, Brown goes into detail about the abusive relationship, saying he intended to marry Rihanna, but that he lost her trust after finding out that he lied about a sexual encounter with someone who worked with him, that happened prior to their relationship. He also talked about how they already had lighter episodes where they put their hands against each other during their relationship, and he gave a detailed description on how the known fight went down.
Other legal issues
On June 14, 2012, Drake and his entourage were involved in a scuffle with Brown at a nightclub called WIP in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City. About eight people were injured during the brawl, including San Antonio Spurs star Tony Parker, who had to have surgery to remove a piece of glass from his eye. Drake was not arrested. Brown's attorney alleged Drake was the instigator. Brown himself tweeted about the incident and publicly criticized Drake weeks later.
In January 2013, Brown was involved in an altercation with Frank Ocean over a parking space, outside a recording studio in West Hollywood. Police officers in Los Angeles said that Brown was under investigation, describing the incident as "battery" due to Brown allegedly punching Ocean. Although Ocean alleged that Brown had threatened to shoot him, he said he would not press charges.
In July 2013, Brown's probation was revoked after he was involved in an alleged hit-and-run in Los Angeles. He was released from court and was scheduled to reappear in August 2013, to learn whether or not he would serve time in prison. The charges would later be dropped, but Brown would have 1,000 additional hours of community service added to his probation terms.
In October 2013, Brown was arrested for felony assault in Washington, D.C., after refusing to take a picture with a man. The charge was reduced to a misdemeanor. Brown spent 36 hours in a Washington jail and was taken to court in shackles. He was released and ordered to report to his California probation officer within 48 hours. The probation officer prepared a report for the Los Angeles judge, who could have ordered him to complete as many as four years in prison for the beating of Rihanna if found to be in violation of his probation.
On October 30, 2013, Brown voluntarily decided to enter rehab. After Brown completed his 90 days, the judge ordered him to remain a resident at the Malibu treatment facility until a hearing on April 23, 2014. The deal was if Brown left rehab, he would go directly to jail. On March 14, 2014, Brown was kicked out of the rehab facility and sent to Northern Neck Regional Jail for violating internal rules. He was expected to be released on April 23, 2014, but a judge denied his release request from custody either on bail or his own recognizance. At his May 9, 2014, court date, Brown was ordered to serve 131 days in jail for his probation violation. He was sentenced to serve 365 days in custody; however, he was given credit for the 234 days he has already spent in rehab and jail. He was given early release from jail just after midnight on June 2, 2014, because of jail overcrowding calculations that count one day in custody as two days. During Brown's rehab, a probation officer noted in a letter that Brown's brushes with the law may have been caused by untreated bipolar disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder, specifically that "Mr. Brown became aggressive and acted out physically due to his untreated mental health disorder, severe sleep deprivation, inappropriate self-medicating and untreated PTSD". According to the court documents, which were received by E! News and later The Hollywood Reporter, Brown was formally diagnosed with both Bipolar II and PTSD at the unnamed rehab facility.
In the early hours of August 30, 2016, a woman called the police to report that Brown had threatened her with a gun inside his house. Due to his previous felony assault conviction, Brown is prohibited to possess any firearms. Police were called, but Brown denied them entry without a warrant. When they returned with one, Brown refused them entry and began what news sources referred to as a "standoff" with the LAPD, including the robbery-homicide division and SWAT team. During this time, Brown was seen posting videos on Instagram, in which he rails against the police and the media coverage of the activity at his house. He denounced media reports that he was "barricaded" inside his house, complained about the helicopters flying overhead, and called the police "idiots" and "the worst gang in the world." He said that he was innocent and "What I do care about is you are defacing my name and my character and integrity". Brown was arrested and later released from jail on $250,000 bail. On September 1, 2016, Brown's lawyer, Mark Geragos, stated that there was no standoff and that, with regard to the LAPD search, "nothing was found to corroborate her statement." In September, Japan denied Brown entry due to the allegations. Charges were later dropped after prosecutors declined to arraign Brown on the felony charges. Brown later sued the accuser for defamation, prevailing in the lawsuit, after an investigation that proved that the defendant brought to court false and defamatory statements about the singer, through her incriminating text messages where she said "don't you know this freak Chris Brown is kicking me out of his house because I called his friend jewelry fake can you come get me my Uber is messing up if not I'm going to set him up and call the cops and say that he tried to shoot me and that will teach him a lesson I'm going to set his a** up.",. Brown later said through his social media accounts "Because of my past, my character keeps on being defaced by these fake news and allegations highlighted by the media, but I'm glad that all my real supporters know who i really am and can see the truth"
Brown was arrested after his concert during July 6, 2018, night on a felony battery charge stemming from an incident that occurred more than a year before.
The battery charge was connected to an April 2017 incident in a Tampa club, where Brown allegedly punched a man who photographed him without his permission. The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office said Brown was released after about an hour, after that he posted $2,000 bond.
In 2021, Brown was sued by his housekeeper over a 2020 attack by one of his dogs, a Caucasian Ovcharka.
, due to his criminal record, Brown is banned from entering Australia and New Zealand. Previously, other countries that banned the singer because of his criminal record were Canada and United Kingdom, and they revoked their ban respectively in 2019 and 2020.
In January 2022, an anonymous woman filed a civil suit accusing Brown of raping her on a yacht in Miami in December 2020. Court documents revealed that she was not pursuing a criminal case and remained in contact with Brown after the alleged incident took place - visiting his home on two separate occasions in California in January and August 2021 to listen to him record music. The woman is suing Brown for $20 million. Brown has denied the allegation.
Business ventures
In 2007, Brown founded the record label CBE ("Chris Brown Entertainment" or "Culture Beyond Evolution"), under Interscope Records. Brown has since signed frequent collaborator Kevin McCall, singer Sabrina Antoinette, former RichGirl member Sevyn Streeter, singer-songwriter Joelle James, and rock group U.G.L.Y. However, from 2014 the label started to sign exclusively Brown's works.
Brown has stated he owns fourteen Burger King restaurants. In 2012, he launched a streetwear clothing line called Black Pyramid, in collaboration with the founders of the Pink + Dolphin clothing line. In 2016 the clothing label was set for larger release, partnering with streetwear clothing lines such as Snipes for a worldwide distribution, also being distributed through its own Black Pyramid boutiques.
On November 11, 2021 the singer has launched his own cereal, "Breezy's Cosmic Crunch", partnering with SoFlo Snacks for this limited edition of collectible breakfast cereal. Its box was curated by Brown himself, and illustrated by visual artist Adrian Cuevas.
Discography
Chris Brown (2005)
Exclusive (2007)
Graffiti (2009)
F.A.M.E. (2011)
Fortune (2012)
X (2014)
Royalty (2015)
Heartbreak on a Full Moon (2017)
Indigo (2019)
Breezy (2022)
Filmography
Tours
Brown has headlined multiple arenas tours in North America, Europe and World-Wide. Additionally he has co-headlined a North American tour with Trey Songz and served as a supporting act on tours for industry peers such as Rihanna, Drake (musician), Lil Wayne and Beyoncé. In total, Brown has earned an approprixate $157 million from 279 concerts over the course of his career - making him one of the highest grossing African American touring artists of all time.
Headlining
Up Close and Personal Tour (2006)
The UCP Exclusive Tour (2007)
Fan Appreciation Tour (2009)
F.A.M.E. Tour (2011)
Carpe Diem Tour (2012)
One Hell of a Nite Tour (2015–2016)
The Party Tour (2017)
Heartbreak on a Full Moon Tour (2018)
Indigoat Tour (2019)
Co-headlining
Between the Sheets Tour (2015)
Supporting
The Beyoncé Experience (Australia dates) (2007)
Good Girl Gone Bad Tour (the Philippines, Oceania) (2008)
Supafest (2012)
Lil Weezyana Fest (2016)
OVO Fest (2019)
Achievements
List of awards and nominations received by Chris Brown
See also
List of artists who reached number one in the United States
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
List of best-selling music artists
List of Billboard Hot 100 chart achievements and milestones
List of most-followed Instagram accounts
References
External links
Chris Brown on YouTube
1989 births
Living people
21st-century American criminals
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American rappers
21st-century African-American male singers
African-American businesspeople
African-American Christians
African-American male actors
African-American male dancers
African-American male rappers
African-American male singer-songwriters
American businesspeople convicted of crimes
American child singers
American contemporary R&B singers
American dance musicians
American hip hop singers
American male criminals
American male dancers
American male film actors
American male pop singers
American male rappers
American male television actors
American music industry executives
American music video directors
American people convicted of assault
Burger King people
Businesspeople from Virginia
Criminals from Virginia
Grammy Award winners
Jive Records artists
Male actors from Virginia
People from Tappahannock, Virginia
People with bipolar disorder
Pop rappers
Rappers from Virginia
RCA Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Virginia
Singers with a three-octave vocal range
Sony BMG artists
World Music Awards winners | true | [
"This is a list of Number 1 hit singles in 1961 in New Zealand from the Lever Hit Parade.\n\nChart\n\nReferences\n\n Number One Singles Of 1961\n\n1961 in New Zealand\n1961 record charts\n1961\n1960s in New Zealand music",
"This is a list of Number 1 hit singles in 1964 in New Zealand from the Lever Hit Parade.\n\nChart\n\nReferences\n\n Number One Singles Of 1964\n\n1964 in New Zealand\n1964 record charts\n1964\n1960s in New Zealand music"
] |
[
"Chris Brown",
"2005-2006: Chris Brown and acting debut",
"How did he begin his acting debut?",
"On June 13, 2006, Brown released a DVD entitled Chris Brown's Journey,",
"What did he do in 2005?",
"Released on November 29, 2005, the self-titled Chris Brown album debuted at number two",
"Are there any hit singles from this record?",
"Run It"
] | C_afa274064906425db3a289f6eace06fe_1 | What else is significant during this time period/ | 4 | Besides releasing a DVD entitled Chris Brown's Journey and an album entitle Chris Brown, what else is significant about Chris Brown during 2005-2006? | Chris Brown | After being signed to Jive Records in 2004, Brown began recording his self-titled debut studio album in February 2005. By May, there were 50 songs already recorded, 14 of which were picked to the final track listing. The singer worked with several producers and songwriters--Scott Storch, Cool & Dre and Jazze Pha among them--commenting that they "really believed in [him]". Brown also made some input on the album, receiving co-writing credits of five tracks. "I write about the things that 16 year olds go through every day," says Brown. "Like you just got in trouble for sneaking your girl into the house, or you can't drive, so you steal a car or something." The whole album took less than eight weeks to produce. Released on November 29, 2005, the self-titled Chris Brown album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 with first week sales of 154,000 copies. Chris Brown was a relative commercial success with the time; selling over two million copies in the United States--where it was certified two times platinum by the RIAA--and three million copies worldwide. The album's lead single, "Run It!", made Brown the first male act (since Montell Jordan in 1995) to have his debut single to reach the summit of the Billboard Hot 100--later remaining for four additionally weeks. Three of the other singles--"Yo (Excuse Me Miss)", "Gimme That" and "Say Goodbye"--peaked within the top twenty at the same chart. On June 13, 2006, Brown released a DVD entitled Chris Brown's Journey, which shows footage of him traveling in England and Japan, getting ready for his first visit to the Grammy Awards, behind the scenes of his music videos and bloopers. On August 17, 2006, to further promote the album, Brown began his major co-headlining tour, The Up Close and Personal Tour. Due to the tour, production for his next album was pushed back two months. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital received $10,000 in ticket proceeds from Brown's 2006 "Up Close & Personal" tour. Brown has made appearances on UPN's One on One and The N's Brandon T. Jackson Show on its pilot episode. CANNOTANSWER | Brown the first male act | Christopher Maurice Brown (born May 5, 1989) is an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and actor. According to Billboard, Brown is one of the most influential and successful R&B singers ever, with several considering him the "King of R&B" alongside Usher and R. Kelly. His musical style has been defined as polyhedric, with his R&B being characterized by several influences from other genres, mainly hip hop and pop music. His lyrics develop predominantly over themes of sex, lovesickness, regret, romantic love, fast life, desire, and the difficulty of managing emotions. Being described by media outlets and critics as one of the biggest talents of his time in urban music, Brown gained a cult following, and wide comparisons to Michael Jackson for his stage presence as a singer-dancer.
Born in Tappahannock, Virginia, he was involved in his church choir and several local talent shows from a young age. Having signed with Jive Records in 2004, Brown released his self-titled debut studio album the following year, which became certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). With his first single "Run It!" peaking atop the Billboard Hot 100, Brown became the first male artist since 1995 to have his debut single top the chart. His second album, Exclusive (2007), reached an even bigger commercial success worldwide, also spawning his second Billboard Hot 100 number one "Kiss Kiss". In 2009, Brown pled guilty to felony assault of his then girlfriend, singer Rihanna. In the same year of the episode there was the release of his third album Graffiti, which was considered to be a commercial failure compared to his previous works. Following Graffiti, Brown's fourth album F.A.M.E. (2011) became one of his biggest successes, being his first to top the Billboard 200, containing internationally successful singles such as "Yeah 3x", "Look at Me Now" and "Beautiful People", also earning him the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album. His fifth album Fortune, released in 2012, also topped the Billboard 200.
Following the releases of X and Royalty, his 2017 double-disc album, Heartbreak on a Full Moon, consisting of 45 tracks, was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for combined sales and album-equivalent units of over 500,000 units after one week, and in 2019 it has been certified Double Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. Brown's ninth studio album Indigo was released in 2019, and became his third Billboard 200 number-one album. It included the Drake featured track "No Guidance" which peaked at number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. Its chart success was outdone with the single "Go Crazy" released the following year, alongside Young Thug as part of their collaborative mixtape Slime & B (2020). The track reached number 3 on the Hot 100.
Brown has sold over 193 million records worldwide, making him one of the world's best-selling music artists. Additionally, he is tied for the most digital single sales among R&B artists in the United States with Bruno Mars. Throughout his career, Brown has won several awards, including a Grammy Award, eighteen BET Awards, four Billboard Music Awards, and thirteen Soul Train Music Awards. According to Billboard, Brown has the seventh most Billboard Hot 100 entries with 106 - which is the most of any R&B artist in history. Brown was also ranked 3rd in the Billboard top R&B/Hip-Hop artists of the decade for the 2010s, behind peers Rihanna and Drake in 2nd and 1st, respectively. Brown has also pursued an acting career. In 2007, he made his on-screen feature film debut in Stomp the Yard, and appeared as a guest on the television series The O.C. Other films Brown has appeared in include This Christmas (2007), Takers (2010), Think Like a Man (2012), and Battle of the Year (2013).
Early life
Christopher Maurice Brown was born on May 5, 1989, in the small town of Tappahannock, Virginia, to Joyce Hawkins, a former day care center director, and Clinton Brown, a corrections officer at a local prison. He has an older sister, Lytrell Bundy, who works in a bank. Music was always present in Brown's life beginning in his childhood. He would listen to soul albums that his parents owned, and eventually began to show interest in the hip-hop scene.
Brown taught himself to sing and dance at a young age and often cites Michael Jackson as his inspiration. He began to perform in his church choir and in several local talent shows. When he mimicked an Usher performance of "My Way", his mother recognized his vocal talent, and they began to look for the opportunity of a record deal. At the same time, Brown was going through personal issues. His parents had divorced, and his mother's boyfriend terrified him by subjecting her to domestic violence.
Career
2002–2004: Career beginnings
At age 13, Brown was discovered by Hitmission Records, a local production team that visited his father's gas station while searching for new talent. Hitmission's Lamont Fleming provided voice coaching for Brown, and the team helped to arrange a demo package, under the name of "C. Sizzle", and approached contacts in New York, where Brown started to sojourn, to seek a record deal. Brown attended Essex High School in Virginia until late 2004, when he moved to New York to pursue his music career. Tina Davis, senior A&R executive at Def Jam Recordings, was impressed when Brown auditioned in her New York office, and she immediately took him to meet the former president of the Island Def Jam Music Group, Antonio "L.A." Reid, who offered to sign him that day, but Brown refused his proposal. "I knew that Chris had real talent," says Davis. "I just knew I wanted to be part of it."
The negotiations with Def Jam continued for two months, and ended when Davis lost her job due to a corporate merger. Brown asked her to be his manager, and once Davis accepted, she promoted the singer to other labels such as Jive Records, J-Records and Warner Bros. Records. According to Mark Pitts, in an interview with HitQuarters, Davis presented Brown with a video recording, and Pitts' reaction was: "I saw huge potential ... I didn't love all the records, but I loved his voice. It wasn't a problem because I knew that he could sing, and I knew how to make records." Brown ultimately chose Jive due to its successful work with then-young acts such as Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. Brown stated, "I picked Jive because they had the best success with younger artists in the pop market, [...] I knew I was going to capture my African American audience, but Jive had a lot of strength in the pop area as well as longevity in careers." Brown said that during his permanence in Harlem, when he was trying to get his music heard by major labels, his artistic intention was to both rap and sing on his records, but Jive convinced him to stick to just singing, because he said that "it wasn't acceptable yet" for an R&B singer to also rap on records.
2005–2006: Chris Brown and acting debut
After signing to Jive Records in 2004, Brown began recording his self-titled debut studio album in February 2005. By May, there were 50 songs already recorded, 14 of which were picked to the final track listing. The singer worked with several producers and songwriters—Scott Storch, Cool & Dre, Sean Garrett and Jazze Pha among them—commenting that they "really believed in [him]". Brown co-wrote half of the tracks. "I write about the things that 16 year olds go through every day," says Brown. "Like you just got in trouble for sneaking your girl into the house, or you can't drive, so you steal a car or something." The whole album took less than eight weeks to produce.
Released on November 29, 2005, the self-titled Chris Brown album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 with first week sales of 154,000 copies. Chris Brown was a commercial success with the time; selling over three million copies in the United States—where it was certified three times platinum by the RIAA—and six million copies worldwide. The album's lead single, "Run It!", made Brown the first male act (since Montell Jordan in 1995) to have his debut single to reach the summit of the Billboard Hot 100—later remaining for four additional weeks. Three of the other singles—"Yo (Excuse Me Miss)", "Gimme That" and "Say Goodbye"—peaked within the top twenty at the same chart.
On June 13, 2006, Brown released a DVD entitled Chris Brown's Journey, which shows footage of him traveling through England and Japan, getting ready for his first visit to the Grammy Awards, behind the scenes of his music videos and bloopers. On August 17, 2006, to further promote the album, Brown began his major co-headlining tour, The Up Close and Personal Tour. Due to the tour, production for his next album was pushed back two months. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital received $10,000 in ticket proceeds from Brown's 2006 "Up Close & Personal" tour. Brown has made appearances on UPN's One on One and The N's Brandon T. Jackson Show on its pilot episode.
2007–2008: Exclusive
In January 2007, Brown landed a small role as a band geek in the fourth season of the American television series The O.C.. Brown then made his film debut in Stomp the Yard, alongside Ne-Yo, Meagan Good and Columbus Short on January 12, 2007. In April 2007, Brown was the opening act for Beyoncé, on the Australian leg of her The Beyoncé Experience tour. On July 9, 2007, Brown was featured in an episode of MTV's My Super Sweet 16 (for the event, it was retitled: Chris Brown: My Super 18) celebrating his eighteenth birthday in New York City.
Shortly after ending his summer tour with Ne-Yo, Brown quickly began production for his second studio album, Exclusive. When the album's lead single, "Wall to Wall", was released, it didn't have a great commercial success, peaking at number 79 on US Billboard Hot 100 chart, and number 22 on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, being his lowest charting single at the time. However, "Kiss Kiss", featuring and produced by T-Pain, released as the album's second single, received huge success, reaching number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, and becoming Brown's second number one single following "Run It!" in 2005. "With You", produced by Stargate (duo of producers known at the time for their work with R&B singer Ne-Yo), was released as the third single from Exclusive, had even bigger success than "Kiss Kiss", becoming one of the all-time best-selling singles, and reaching number two on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. Exclusive was released in the United States on November 6, 2007. The album is musically R&B, having slight pop influences that were absent in the previous hip hop soul-influenced disc, reaching a big international success. The album debuted at number four on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 294,000 copies in its first week, and received generally positive reviews from music critics. As of March 23, 2011, it has sold over 1.9 million copies in the United States.
In November 2007, Brown starred as a video host for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's Math-A-Thon program. He showed his support by encouraging students to use their math skills to help children with cancer and other catastrophic diseases. On November 21, 2007, Brown appeared in This Christmas, a family drama starring Regina King. To further support the album Exclusive, Brown embarked on his The Exclusive Holiday Tour, visiting over thirty venues in United States. The tour began in Cincinnati, Ohio, on December 6, 2007, and concluded on February 9, 2008, in Honolulu, Hawaii. In March 2008, Brown was featured on Jordin Sparks' single "No Air", which had worldwide success peaked at number three on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. He also made a guest appearance on David Banner' single "Get Like Me" alongside Yung Joc. The song peaked at number sixteen on the Billboard Hot 100, and number two on the US Hot Rap Songs chart. Brown re-released Exclusive on June 3, 2008, as a deluxe edition, renamed Exclusive: The Forever Edition, seven months after the release of the original version. The re-released version featured four new tracks, including the Eurodisco single "Forever", which became one of his most known singles, reaching number two on Billboard Hot 100. In August 2008, Brown guest-starred on Disney's The Suite Life of Zack & Cody as himself. Towards the end of 2008, Brown was named Artist of the Year by Billboard magazine.
2009–2010: Graffiti and mixtapes
In 2008, Brown began work on his third studio album, to be called Graffiti, promising to experiment with a different musical direction inspired by singers Prince and Michael Jackson. He stated, "I wanted to change it up and really be different. Like my style nowadays, I don't try to be typical urban. I want to be like how Prince, Michael and Stevie Wonder were. They can cross over to any genre of music." Following the domestic violence scandal involving the singer and Rihanna on February 8, 2009, the majority of media took positions against the singer. The incident also caused Brown to lose significant commercial contracts, including one with Doublemint. The singer later participated in numerous television appearances during the year to express himself publicly about it. Graffiti 's lead single "I Can Transform Ya" was released on September 29, 2009. The song peaked at number 20 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. "Crawl" was released as the album's second single on November 23, 2009. The song reached number 53 on the Billboard Hot 100. Graffiti was then released on December 8, 2009, featuring an R&B sound mixed with Eurodisco and rock. Brown, with this album, started to take full control of his art, managing the artistic direction, and writing every song of the album (with the exception of the song "I'll Go", written and produced by Brian Kennedy and James Fauntleroy). Brown started to be the only artistic director of all his future projects. He said that his decision to entirely direct and write his albums and songs came from the fact that he wanted to give his "own perspective of the music [he] wanted to make" and by his wanting to "verbalize whatever [he] was going through". The album, compared to its two precessors, was a commercial and critical failure, debuting at number 7 on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 102,000 copies in its first week, and receiving generally negative reviews from critics. As of March 23, 2011, it has sold 341,000 copies in the United States.
While performing a Michael Jackson Tribute at the 2010 BET Awards, Brown started to cry and fell to his knees while singing Jackson's "Man in the Mirror". The performance and his emotional turmoil resonated with several celebrities present at the ceremony, including Trey Songz, Diddy and Taraji P. Henson. Songz said, "He left his heart on the stage. He gave genuine emotion. I was proud of him and I was happy for him for having that moment". Michael's brother, Jermaine Jackson, expressed similar sentiments stating, "it was very emotional for me, because it was an acceptance from his fans from what has happened to him and also paying tribute to my brother". Later during the award ceremony, Brown stated, "I let y'all down before, but I won't do it again...I promise", while accepting the award for the AOL Fandemonium prize. In August 2010, Brown starred alongside an ensemble cast, including Matt Dillon, Paul Walker, Idris Elba, Hayden Christensen and T.I. in the crime thriller Takers, and also served as executive producer of the film.
During 2010 Brown released the 3 free mixtapes In My Zone (Rhythm & Streets), Fan of a Fan (collaborative mixtape with Tyga), and In My Zone 2, which featured a new style of writing with grown themes, and a different musical style, mixing R&B with hip hop. For the mixtapes he worked with new producers, most notably Kevin McCall. The mixtapes were highly appreciated by the artist's loyal audience, consolidating it. The single "Deuces", extracted from the Fan of a Fan mixtape, obtained critical acclaim, also achieving a good success, peaking at number 1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. The song was later remixed by the biggest names in the hip-hop scene of that time, including Drake, Kanye West, André 3000, Rick Ross, Fabolous, and T.I. He later released the solo track "No BS" as his second single from Fan of a Fan, and decided to include the two singles from the mixtape as anticipation singles for his next album.
2011–2012: F.A.M.E. and Fortune
In September 2010 Brown announced his album, F.A.M.E. [backronym for "Forgiving All My Enemies"], releasing in October the first official single from the album, "Yeah 3x", a dance-pop song, different from his previous songs on the urban mixtapes. The single received enormous international success and entered the top-ten in eleven countries, including Australia, Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.. It was succeeded by the hip-hop single "Look at Me Now", featuring rappers Lil Wayne and Busta Rhymes, that reached number one on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, where it remained for eight consecutive weeks. It also reached number one on the US Hot Rap Songs chart. The single became the best-selling rap song of 2011, as well as one of all-time best-selling singles in the United States.
Brown's fourth studio album F.A.M.E. was first released on March 18, 2011. The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of 270,000 copies, giving Brown his first number-one album in the United States. The album's third single, "Beautiful People", featuring Benny Benassi, peaked at number one on the US Hot Dance Club Songs chart, and became the first number-one single on the chart for both Brown and Benassi. "She Ain't You" was released as the album's fourth US single, while "Next 2 You", featuring Canadian recording artist Justin Bieber, served as the album's fourth international single. To further promote the album, Brown embarked on his F.A.M.E. Tour in Australia and North America.
Brown received six nominations at the 2011 BET Awards and ultimately won five awards, including Best Male R&B Artist, Viewers Choice Award, The Fandemonium Award, Best Collaboration and Video of the Year for "Look at Me Now". He also won three awards at the 2011 BET Hip Hop Awards, including the People's Champ Award, Reese's Perfect Combo Award and Best Hip Hop Video for "Look at Me Now". At the 2011 Soul Train Music Awards, F.A.M.E. won Album of the Year. The album has also earned Brown three Grammy Award nominations at the 54th Grammy Awards for Best R&B Album, as well as Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song for "Look at Me Now". On February 12, 2012, Brown won the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album. During the ceremony, Brown performed several songs marking his first appearance at the awards show since his conviction of felony assault.
Originally, Brown wanted F.A.M.E. to be a double-disc consistent of 25–30 tracks, but the label was contrary to that. Right before the release of F.A.M.E. Brown decided to follow his intentions in an acceptable way for the label, working on a sequel of F.A.M.E. called Fortune, that would be a whole new album that contained new material and even some tracks that didn't make the cut of the previous album, releasing it six months after it. The artist later decided to take more time to work on the album, developing it as a project of its own, with its own concept and sound being different than the one of its precedent album. On October 7, 2011, RCA Music Group announced it was disbanding Jive Records along with Arista Records and J Records. With the shutdown, Brown (and all other artists previously signed to these three labels) will release future material on the RCA Records brand. Brown's fifth studio album Fortune was released on July 3, 2012. The album debuted atop the Billboard 200, but received negative reviews from critics. "Strip", featuring Kevin McCall, was released as the album's buzz single, with "Turn Up the Music" released as the lead single, and "Sweet Love", "Till I Die", "Don't Wake Me Up" and "Don't Judge Me" released as the album's following singles, respectively. To further promote the album, Brown embarked on his Carpe Diem Tour in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Trinidad.
2013–2015: X and Royalty
After concluding his Carpe Diem Tour in 2012, Brown's next studio album started to develop. On February 15, 2013, the singer unofficially released the song "Home", with an official videoclip, where he expresses a reflection on the bitter price of fame, and on how the only moment of respite from that thought is when he returns to the neighborhood where he grew up with people who knew him from the start. On March 26, 2013, Brown announced the release of X, in various interviews and listening sessions, releasing the song "Fine China" as the album lead single. In an interview with Ebony, when Brown spoke of taking his music in a different direction and changing his sound from pop-infused and sexually explicit of the previous album Fortune, to a more mature, soulful and vulnerable theme for the album. On March 29, 2013 he released "Fine China" as the lead single of the album.
Following the dropping of two other anticipation singles off X, "Don't Think They Know" and "Love More", on August 9, 2013, at 1:09 am PDT, Brown was reported to have suffered a seizure from Record Plant Studios in Hollywood, California as a 9-1-1 call was made. When paramedics arrived, Brown allegedly refused to receive treatment and also refused to be transported to the local hospital. (Brown has reportedly suffered from seizures since his childhood.) The next day, Brown's representative reported the seizure was caused by "intense fatigue and extreme emotional stress, both due to the continued onslaught of unfounded legal matters and the nonstop negativity." On November 20, 2013, Brown was sentenced to an anger management rehabilitation center for three months, putting the December 2013 release of X in jeopardy. To "hold [fans] over until [the X album] drops," Brown released a mixtape, titled X Files on November 19, 2013. On February 22, 2014, it was announced that the album would be released on Brown's birthday, May 5, 2014. On April 14, 2014, Brown released a teaser of the new track "Don't Be Gone Too Long" featuring Ariana Grande. However, following Brown's arrest for felony assault in Washington, D.C., on October 27, 2013, the song and album were again delayed due to Brown's prison sentence. While incarcerated, "Loyal" was released as the album's fourth single, becoming one of his most successful songs, by peaking at the top 10 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and in the United Kingdom. On August 3, 2014, Chris announced via Instagram that the album's release date will be on September 16, 2014. On August 6, 2014, the album cover was revealed. The song ended up being never released as a single, instead "New Flame" featuring Usher and Rick Ross was later released as the album's final single. The title track "X" was released as an instant-gratification track alongside the album pre-order on iTunes on August 25, 2014.
Brown's sixth studio album, X was released on September 16, 2014. The album received positive reviews from critics, who celebrated the record's sound and Brown's vocal performances. The album was considered a big improvement compared to its critically panned predecessor Fortune. At the 2015 Grammy Awards, the album was nominated for the Best Urban Contemporary Album, while "New Flame" was nominated for Best R&B Performance and Best R&B Song. Commercially, the album debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 selling 146,000 copies in its first week, becoming his first album to miss the summit of the chart since Graffiti (2009) and his third album to go to number two on the chart overall following Exclusive (2007). It also became his sixth consecutive top ten debut in the United States. By the end of 2015, the album had sold 404,000 copies in the United States. It has been certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Pushing the promotion for the album further, Brown performed and appeared at several televised music events and music festivals across the United States.
On February 24, 2015, Brown released his first collaborative studio album with Tyga, titled Fan of a Fan: The Album. The album was a follow-up to the pairs 2010 mixtape Fan of a Fan. In early 2015, Brown also embarked on his Between The Sheets Tour with Trey Songz. Also in February 2015, Brown said during an interview for The Breakfast Club that he started working on the album going for a direction that would've been the sound predominant overseas. A couple months later he discovered that he had a daughter and simultaneously broke up with his ex-girlfriend Karrueche Tran. That happening made him change the idea for the album, ending up doing mostly R&B songs that he described as "representations of where i was in my life at that point", contemporarily starting his One Hell of a Nite Tour.
In spring of 2015, Brown was featured on DJ Deorro's song "Five More Hours", which received an excellent worldwide success. On June 24, Brown released a new song titled "Liquor". Shortly after, it was announced that "Liquor" was the first single from his seventh studio album. On August 22, 2015, the singer officially declares from his Twitter profile that the new album will be titled "Royalty" in honor of his daughter, Royalty Brown. On October 16 he has revealed the album cover, portraying Chris with Royalty in her arms in a black and white picture. On October 13, 2015, Brown announced that Royalty will be released on November 27, 2015. After it was revealed that the album has been pushed back to December 18, 2015, in exchange on November 27, 2015, he released a free 34-track mixtape called Before the Party as a prelude to Royalty, which features guest appearances from Rihanna, Wiz Khalifa, Pusha T, Wale, Tyga, French Montana and Fetty Wap. On October 16, 2015, the album cover was revealed. The album was released on December 18, 2015, and it debuted at number 3 on the US Billboard 200, selling 184,000 units (162,000 in pure album sales) in its first week, marking an improvement over Brown's last three studio albums. It also became his seventh solo album consecutive top ten debut in the United States.
2016–2017: Heartbreak on a Full Moon
Brown started working and recording tracks for his next album few weeks before the release of Royalty, in late 2015. On January 10, 2016, Brown had previewed 11 unreleased songs on his Periscope and Instagram profiles, showing him dancing and lip-synching these songs. In March 2016, he collaborated again with the Italian DJ Benny Benassi for the song "Paradise" from the album Danceaholic. On May 3 he announced the single "Grass Ain't Greener", showing its cover art and announcing it as the first single from a new album titled Heartbreak on a Full Moon. The single was released on May 5, 2016. On July 7, 2016, after 2016 shooting of Dallas police officers, Brown released on his SoundCloud page two piano ballads, "My Friend" and "A Lot of Love", saying that the songs are "released for free for anybody dealing with injustice or struggle in their lives." In 2016 he released two collaborative mixtapes with his OHB crew, Before the Trap: Nights in Tarzana and Attack the Block, where they rap and sing about a reckless lifestyle full of drugs, sexual encounters with numerous untrustworthy easy women, also illustrating a dangerous street life filled with guns, dirty money and luxurious cars.
Throughout 2016 and 2017 he kept on sharing several snippets from songs that he was working for the album and features. He worked on the album heavily during 2016 and 2017, during two tours as well, the European leg of the One Hell of a Nite Tour and The Party Tour, also building a recording studio inside of his home to record songs for the album. On December 16, 2016, he released the second official single from the album, "Party", that features guest vocals from American R&B singer Usher and rapper Gucci Mane, getting a good commercial success. The singer, while working on the album, realized that he had done too many songs that he thought were quality records that followed perfectly the narrative of the album to make a 15/20 track album, so he decided that he wanted to take it to the next level by working on it as a 40-track album. RCA Records, the record label of the singer, initially wasn't agreeable of satisfying Brown's intentions to make a 40-track album, thinking that it would've damaged its commercial performance, but the singer ended up convincing them. In February 2017 he announced that his previously teased song "Privacy" would have been released as the next single from Heartbreak on a Full Moon. The single was released on March 24, 2017, and received an excellent response from his core audience. On June 7 he released Welcome to My Life, a self-documentary focused on his life and career, directed by Andrew Sandler. Numerous celebrities participated in the movie, making statements and sharing stories about the artist. Among them there are Jennifer Lopez, Mike Tyson, Rita Ora, Usher and Tyga.
On August 4, 2017, he released the album's fourth single "Pills & Automobiles", that features guest vocals from American trap artists Yo Gotti, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie and Kodak Black. Then on August 14, 2017, he announced the release of the fifth official single from the album, "Questions", on August 16, announcing the album release date, saying that it would be released on October 31, 2017. On October 13, 2017, Brown released the promotional single "High End", that features guest vocals from American trap artists Future and Young Thug, announcing the final tracklist of the album. On October 25, 2017, Brown organized with Tidal a free pop-up concert in New York City to perform the singles on the album and promote it for his fans.
Heartbreak on a Full Moon was eventually released as a double-disc album on October 31, 2017, via digital retailers and onto CD, three days later by RCA Records. The album's sound has been as dark and soulful. The songs on it show every emotional aspect of what's been on the singer's mind after a heavy breakup. Its themes include regret, love transforming into hate, the difficulty in managing emotions, the impossibility of getting over someone, and how a reckless lifestyle can't numb the pain of an heartbreak. Its lyrical content was inspired by Brown's breakup with Karrueche Tran. Heartbreak on a Full Moon received widespread acclaim from critics, who celebrated the record's variety, its length, and its introspective lyrical content. Many defined it as the singer's best body of work. Despite being counted for only three days of sales, Heartbreak on a Full Moon debuted at number three on the US Billboard 200, becoming Brown's ninth consecutive top 10 album on the chart. One week after its release Heartbreak on a Full Moon was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for combined sales and album-equivalent units of over 500,000 units in the United States, and Brown became the first R&B male artist that went gold in a week since Usher's Confessions in 2004. In 2019 the album has been certified Double Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
On December 13, 2017, he released a 12-track surprise deluxe edition of the album called Cuffing Season – 12 Days of Christmas as a Christmas present for his fans. The deluxe edition is made off Brown's favorite leftovers of the album and few holiday-themed songs. Brown eventually embarked on his US "Heartbreak on a Full Moon Tour" in June 2018 to further promote the album. The opening acts for the tour were 6lack, H.E.R., Rich the Kid, and Jacquees.
2018–2019: Indigo
Following the overall success of Heartbreak on a Full Moon, Brown and rapper Joyner Lucas announced a collaboration project, titled Angels & Demons on February 25, 2018, with the release of the single "Stranger Things". However the project ended up never being released. On March 15, 2018, Brown was featured in Lil Dicky's smash hit single "Freaky Friday". By April 9, 2018, the video had reached over 100 million views and topped the charts in New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
After drafting the concept for his new album, in August 2018, at the end of the "Heartbreak On A Full Moon tour", Brown started the actual processing work of his ninth album, Indigo. On January 4, 2019, Brown released "Undecided", the first single off it, alongside a video for the song. "Undecided" saw Brown reunite with producer Scott Storch, who previously worked with Brown in 2005 on his breakout hit "Run It!". The single marked Brown's first release after signing an extension and a new license agreement with RCA Records, that gave him the owning of his master recordings, making him one of the youngest artists to do so at the age of 29. On April 11, he released the second single off the album titled "Back to Love", that received positive reviews from music critics who celebrated its lyrical content and its production, but it failed to chart in the US. The third single, "Wobble Up", was released a week later featuring Nicki Minaj and G-Eazy, announcing that the album is expected to be released in June. On April 25, he appeared on a track with Marshmello and Tyga called "Light It Up". In an announcement on May 2, Brown revealed the list of artists he had been working with for his album, Nicki Minaj, Tory Lanez, Tyga, Justin Bieber, Juicy J, Juvenile, H.E.R, Tank, Sage the Gemini, Lil Jon, Lil Wayne, Joyner Lucas, Gunna and Drake were included on the list. Some of these collaborations were surprising to the media, especially Drake, due to their public feud that lasted for several years. He later revealed the artwork of the album and its track list between May and June 2019. On May 31, he appeared on "Easy", a successful single where he duetted with singer DaniLeigh. On June 8, Brown released "No Guidance" featuring Drake as a single. It debuted at number nine on the US Billboard Hot 100, making it Brown's 15th top-ten song, and later peaked at number five. The single won Best Collaboration Performance, Best Dance Performance and Song of the Year at the 2019 Soul Train Music Awards and received a nomination for Best R&B Song at the 62nd Grammy Awards.
Indigo was eventually released on June 28, 2019, as a double album, marking Brown's second album to be released in this style. The disc is an R&B and tropical-pop album, about vibrations, spiritual love and sex, that leaves the introspective, dark and sultry mood of Heartbreak on a Full Moon, for a way more lighthearted sound and tone. In the United States, Indigo debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 with 108,000 album-equivalent units, which included 28,000 pure album sales in its first week, making it his third number-one album in the country. The album was met with positive reviews from critics. Indigo spawned two other singles, "Heat", which topped the Billboard Rhythmic Airplay chart, and earned Brown his 13th number one on the chart, and second during 2019, and "Don't Check on Me", that features vocals from Justin Bieber and vocalist Atia "Ink" Boggs. On October 4, 2019, Brown eventually released a deluxe version of Indigo entitled Indigo Extended, which included 10 additional songs, making the extended version a total of 42 songs.
On June 10, 2019, Brown announced an official headlining concert tour where he performed the album throughout United States, titled "Indigoat Tour". The tour began on August 20, and ended on October 19. The tour was received with very good responses by journalists, that praised its stage settings, and Brown's dancing abilities. "Indigoat Tour" grossed over $30,100,000 in its 37 shows, selling out most of the venues.
2020present: Breezy
In December 2019, Brown revealed that he started working on new material for his tenth studio album. Later, on April 29, 2020, Brown announced the release of a collaborative mixtape with Young Thug, Slime & B. The mixtape was released on May 5, 2020, and features the hit single "Go Crazy", which peaked at number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Brown's first song to spend one full year on the chart. On May 1, 2020, Brown was featured on Drake's Dark Lane Demo Tapes mixtape on the track "Not You Too". The song earned Brown his 100th career entry on the US Billboard Hot 100, as it entered and debuted at number 25. On July 9, 2020, Brown announced via Instagram that the title of his tenth album would be Breezy, a reference to his stage nickname. No release date has been announced yet.
Brown said in July 2021, while working on the album, that he wanted to make some "really endearing music" that "talk to women's soul". On August 2, he announced on his Instagram that his Breezy album would be accompanied by a short film of the same name. Later on December 18, he said that the lead single of Breezy would be released during January 2022. On January 14 he released the song "Iffy".
Artistry
Influences
Brown has cited a number of artists as his inspiration, predominantly Michael Jackson. Brown emphasizes "Michael Jackson is the reason why I do music and why I am an entertainer." In "Fine China", he exemplifies Jackson's influence both musically and visually as Ebony magazine's Britini Danielle asserted that the song was "reminiscent of Michael Jackson's Off the Wall". Choreographically, MTV noticed that it "takes distinct visual cues from classic clips like 'Smooth Criminal' and 'Beat It'", while Billboard complimented his appearance by calling it "a modern way to channel the King of Pop". Usher is also another influence who comes across as a more contemporary figure for Brown. He tells Vibe magazine "He was the one who the youngsters looked up to. I know that we, in the dancing and singing world, looked up to him", and maintains "If it wasn't for Usher, then Chris Brown couldn't exist". Other influences include Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, Ginuwine, Phil Collins, Bobby Brown and R. Kelly. When it comes to his rapping he cited Naughty by Nature, Tupac, Lil' Wayne and Rakim as the rappers he's inspired by.
Musical style
Music critics have commended Brown's introduction to R&B, recognizing his versatility, and considering him an evolver of the genre. Vibe's Iyana Robertson says "As traditional R&B flourished around him, the young singer began an evolution of the genre". She saw his debut single "Run It!" as a "prelude to what Brown would continue to do for the next decade: relentlessly disrupt the constructs of rhythm and blues." By his second album Exclusive, she says he was "tapping more electric up-tempos, swimming deep in hip-hop waters and annihilating the pop arena". Describing the Grammy Award winning F.A.M.E. as "his most diverse offering to date", she remarked "There was no level of musical flexibility comparable. There still isn't." F.A.M.E. is considered to be the album that defined Brown's musical style and persona.
Brown is considered to be, by a big part of critics and general public, the biggest R&B artist of the 2010s, with Andy Kellman of AllMusic crediting him as the "spearhead" of the genre during the period. Brad Wete of Billboard said that his sixth album X showcased "the height of his musical talents", while cultural critic and media personality Joe Budden defined his 2017 album Heartbreak on a Full Moon as "one of the greatest things ever happened to R&B music".
Genres
Brown made his sound mixing the traditional sound of R&B adding different influences to it, most importantly hip hop and pop, but also several other genres in different songs, such as soul, dancehall, alternative R&B, house, EDM, afropop, trap, rock, disco and funk. The multitude of genres influencing his music can be heard in many of his singles, like "Deuces", "Sweet Love", "Liquor", "Zero", "Back to Love" or "Don't Check on Me". His pure side of R&B is densely shown on every album that he has done, even after that his music started to be more tinged from other genres, with some examples being "No BS", "Don't Judge Me", "Back To Sleep" and "Privacy".
Throughout his career Brown has always had a strong influence from hip hop in his music, and following his 2010 mixtapes, he approached the genre differently, starting to rap frequently on mixtapes and features, adding to his albums straight hip-hop songs like "Look at Me Now", "Till I Die" and "Loyal", or by doing performances that switch from his R&B singing to his rapping, like he did in several tracks from his album Heartbreak on a Full Moon. His dance-pop side in the single "Forever" off his second album Exclusive opened the door for many other Europop songs like "Yeah 3x", "Beautiful People", "Turn Up The Music" and "Don't Wake Me Up", but it begun to be less present in his music starting from his album X.
Themes
Brown's lyrical production is typically considered to be "emotional" or "hedonistic". His songs mainly cover themes of sex, lovesickness, regret, romantic love, desire, fast life, and internal conflict, also having some introspections over loneliness and the dark side of fame. Along with his vocal and dancing abilities, his songwriting is considered to be one of the things that distincts him for the better compared to other R&B singers of his time. American media executive and radio personality Ebro Darden stated that Brown is the "most all-around talented person in R&B. Trey Songz is talented, but he can't dance like Chris Brown. Usher is probably the only one that could come close to him, but he doesn't have the songwriting abilities that Chris Brown has".
Brown said in 2013, during an interview for Rolling Stone, that his songs are always "derived from personal experiences, my personal life. Then creativity brings my reality to another dimention. That's what my songs are made of. I always like mixing reality with art".
Voice
Brown possesses a light lyric tenor voice, which spans three and a half octaves, rising from the bass F♯ (F2) to its peak at the soprano C♯.(C♯6) His vocal ability was first recognized by his mother at a young age, as Brown tells People magazine "I was 11 and watching Usher perform 'My Way', and I started trying to mimic it. My mom was like, 'You can sing?' And I was like, 'Well, yeah, Mama.'" subsequently leading to the start of his career. "Take You Down" most notably earned him a Grammy award nomination for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance in 2009.
His vocal performances are characterized by his harmonization, timbre, vocal runs and soulfulness. While his voice on his first two albums, Chris Brown and Exclusive, was considered to be "honeyed", due to his young age, with subsequent projects like Graffiti and F.A.M.E. it was noted for maturing to a "more mature, distinctive and melodious voice", with Brown "coming into his own as a singer". On F.A.M.E. critics noted huge flexibility in his voice, with Steve Jones of USA Today praising the singer's ability to "give top notch vocal performances in R&B, Europop, rap, rock and acoustic records". X and Indigo were noted for displaying his timbre, exemplifying his singing performances.
His harmonizing was found by Andrew Unterberger of Billboard to be notably shown on his songs "Liquor" and "Go Crazy". On "Another Round", "Don't Judge Me" and "It Won't Stop" he did what was considered by Lee Hildebrand of San Francisco Chronicle to be "some of the most soothing and smooth singing of his discography". Jake Indiana of Highsnobiety said that his feature on Kanye West's song "Waves" is one of his best vocal performances, and that it "sounds like ascending to heaven with a choir of angels at your back". The singer was particularly noted for his emotional singing that illustrated his vocal range on songs like "Covered In You", "Lost & Found", "No Guidance" and "Red". On tracks like "Look at Me Now", "No Romeo No Juliet" and "Stranger Things" he displayed his ability of fast-rapping.
Dancing
Brown's dancing abilities and stage presence are widely praised, receiving broad comparisons to those of Michael Jackson. According to Brown, he taught himself how to dance by imitating Jackson's moves since childhood, then developing his own distinct style throughout his career. Most of his music videos feature complex choreographies, including the "futuristic" "Turn Up the Music", the Jackson-inspired choreography of "Fine China", "Zero", where he displayed different dancing styles, including popping and his signature spin move, "Party", where he showcased his remarked footwork, and "Heat", described by The Source as a "silky smooth choreography that shows Brown's unmatchable dancing talent in the classiest way". Some of his most notable dancing live performances include his "Thriller" recreation at the 2006 World Music Awards, his medley at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, where he performed a choreography that included flying parts, and his 2015 freestyled dancing over Future's "March Madness" at the Vestival The Hague Malieveld, that included a highly acclaimed front-flip, done with no hands by standing still, landed perfectly on beat.
In films such as Stomp the Yard and Battle of the Year, Brown displayed his ability to breakdance while in-character.
Street art
Aside from his musical career, he was noted for markedly producing graffiti art. His visual works have been described as "manga-inspired" and "abstract". Brown said that he painted since his childhood, saying "my first approach with it was painting school walls" saying that he's always been captivated by the fact that drawing and painting "gives you the chance to express yourself in whatever way, showing to the world your own dimension".
Brown has produced street art under the pseudonym Konfused, partnering with street artist Kai to produce works for the Miami Basel. The singer painted the buildings of different radio stations such as Hot 97. In 2015 he worked on some of the walls of The Grammy Museum, mixing his spray paint drawings with images of James Brown, Prince, Michael Jackson and himself. Brown has made graffiti works for different cities worldwide, including Los Angeles, London and Amsterdam.
His painting and dancing skills were shown at the same time when Brown, partnering with Spotify's Rap Caviar, painted Heartbreak on a Full Moon 's album cover, mostly from dancing around the canvas. In 2020 he painted a mural in memory of Kobe Bryant, doing a portray that includes Kobe's face, a mamba, and a few pictures of Kobe dribbling and dunking a basketball.
Personal life
Relationships
From 2007 to 2009, Brown dated singer Rihanna until their highly publicized domestic violence case. His emotional state following the happening was theme of a big part of his album Graffiti. In 2011, Brown began dating Karrueche Tran, that at the time was a personal shopper. In October 2012, Brown announced that he ended his relationship with Tran because he did not "want to see her hurt over my friendship with Rihanna." The day after the announcement, Brown released a video entitled "The Real Chris Brown", which features images of himself, Tran, and Rihanna, as Brown wonders, "Is there such thing as loving two people? I don't know if it's possible, but I feel like that."
In January 2013, Rihanna confirmed that she and Brown had resumed their romantic relationship, stating, "It's different now. We don't have those types of arguments anymore. We talk about shit. We value each other. We know exactly what we have now, and we don't want to lose that." Speaking of Brown, Rihanna also said, "He's not the monster everybody thinks. He's a good person. He has a fantastic heart. He's giving and loving. And he's fun to be around. That's what I love about him – he always makes me laugh. All I want to do is laugh, really – and I do that with him". In a May 2013 interview, Brown stated that he and Rihanna had broken up again. He subsequently reunited with Tran, but they parted ways following confirmation of Brown's daughter Royalty with Nia Guzman in 2015. His breakup with Tran inspired several songs off his albums Royalty and Heartbreak on a Full Moon. In 2017, Tran received a 5-year restraining order against Brown after testifying under oath that, during their relationship, in two episodes he was physically abusive, and that he threatened her after they broke up.
On November 20, 2019, Brown welcomed his second child, son Aeko Catori Brown, with Ammika Harris (Pietzker).
Religion
When discussing his upbringing, Brown stated: "We were used to two pairs of shoes for a school year. We used to go to church every day. I was one of those kids that had more church clothes than school clothes." He has also discussed his second work of grace, saying that "he experienced the Holy Ghost while performing 'His Eye Is on the Sparrow' in church". After being released from jail on June 2, 2014, Brown wrote that he was "Humbled and Blessed" and tweeted the words "Thank you GOD."
In 2015, he said during an interview for Vibe, that God is the only thing that he's afraid of. Speaking about prayers he said "I pray everyday, I think we pray unconsciously too. Personally I don't pray for success. I pray for knowledge for understanding and peace of mind. I really try to pray for that because it's a big world, and you can get wrapped up in it trying to please every city. So I just try to get a peace of mind and me understanding that being at peace with my flaws and my talents. I'm cool with that. That's why I think once He shows me certain things, or even the choices that I make, and decisions that I make that are healthy for me. He shows me the right path. When I bless other people, He always blesses me. It's not even about a self-serving journey; it's about just learning. I want to learn people's experiences. I want to give them experiences too." ".
Legal issues
Felony domestic assault of Rihanna
At around 12:30 a.m. (PST) on February 8, 2009, Brown and his then-girlfriend, singer Rihanna, had an argument which escalated into physical violence, leaving Rihanna with visible facial injuries which required hospitalization. Brown turned himself in to the Los Angeles Police Department's Wilshire station at 6:30 p.m. (PST) and was booked under suspicion of making criminal threats. The police report did not name the female in the incident as is policy, but media sources soon revealed that the victim was Rihanna. Following Brown's arrest, several commercial ads and some TV shows featuring him were suspended, his music was withdrawn from multiple radio stations, and he withdrew from public appearances, including one at the 2009 Grammy Awards, where he was replaced by Justin Timberlake and Al Green. Brown hired a crisis management team and released a statement saying, "Words cannot begin to express how sorry and saddened I am over what transpired."
On March 5, 2009, Brown was charged with felony assault and making criminal threats. He was arraigned on April 6, 2009, and pleaded not guilty to one count of assault and one count of making criminal threats. On June 22, 2009, Brown pleaded guilty to a felony and accepted a plea deal of community labor, five years of probation, and domestic violence counseling. On July 20, 2009, Brown released a two-minute video on his official YouTube page apologizing to fans and Rihanna for the assault, expressing the incident as his "deepest regret" and saying that he has repeatedly apologized to Rihanna and "accepts full responsibility". In the video, Brown said he wanted to speak out earlier about the case but was advised by his attorney not to until the legal ramifications were settled. The video was removed, but is still available online. On August 25, Brown received five years of probation. He was ordered to attend one year of domestic violence counseling and undergo six months of community service; the judge retained a five-year restraining order on Brown, which required him to remain 50 yards (45.72 meters) away from Rihanna, reduced to 10 yards at public events. Andy Kellman of AllMusic stated, "A fairly substantial backlash resulted in Brown's songs being pulled from rotation on several radio stations. Ultimately, however, it had little bearing on the progress of his music and acting careers."
On September 2, 2009, Brown spoke about the domestic violence case in a pre-recorded Larry King Live interview, his first public interview about the matter. He was accompanied to the interview by his mother, Joyce Hawkins, and attorney Mark Geragos, as he discussed growing up in a household with his mother being repeatedly assaulted by his stepfather. Brown said of hearing details of his assault of Rihanna, "I'm in shock, because, first of all, that's not who I am as a person, and that's not who I promise I want to be." Brown's mother said Brown "has never, ever been a violent person, ever" and that she does not believe in the cycle of violence. Brown said that it is "tough" for him to look at the famous photograph released of Rihanna's battered face, which may be the one image to haunt and define him forever, and that he still loved her. "I'm pretty sure we can always be friends," said Brown, "and I don't know about our relationship, but I just know definitely that we ended as friends." He stated he did not feel that his career was over, and likened his relationship with Rihanna to Romeo and Juliet, blaming the media attention in the aftermath of the assault for driving them apart.
In June 2010, Brown's application for a visa to enter the UK was rejected on the grounds of him "being guilty of a serious criminal offence" due to his assault on Rihanna. Brown had been planning to do a tour of British cities as part of a European tour but Sony stated that due to "issues surrounding his work visa" the tour was to be postponed. In February 2011, at the request of Brown's lawyer, Judge Patricia Schnegg modified with Rihanna's agreement the restraining order to a "level one order," allowing both singers to appear at awards shows together in the future. The following month, on March 22, 2011, during an interview with Robin Roberts on Good Morning America at the Times Square Studios, where he was asked about the Rihanna situation and restraining order, Brown started crying and became violent in his dressing room during a commercial break before his second performance ending that day's program, and punched a window overlooking Times Square, causing damage to it. He then took off his shirt, and after several angry confrontations with the segment producer, other show staff and building security, left the building shirtless. Following the incident, he apologized and said that he was very tired of people bringing up the incident.
On July 11, 2012, Brown's community service was evaluated and he was ordered to meet a judge. The evaluation was ordered by Superior Court Judge Patricia Schnegg on July 10, 2012. He was scheduled to appear in court with regard to the evaluation on August 21, 2012. While conducting his community service in Virginia, however, Brown was tested positive for cannabis and appeared in court on September 25, 2012, at which time his hearing date was changed to November, to determine whether or not he had violated the terms of his court order. He reappeared in court on November 1, 2012, he attempted to address the court and was told by his lawyer, Mark Geragos, "I don't dance; you don't talk." On March 20, 2015, Brown's probation ended, formally closing the felony case emanating from the Rihanna assault which happened over six years prior.
In a 2017 self-documentary, Welcome to My Life, Brown goes into detail about the abusive relationship, saying he intended to marry Rihanna, but that he lost her trust after finding out that he lied about a sexual encounter with someone who worked with him, that happened prior to their relationship. He also talked about how they already had lighter episodes where they put their hands against each other during their relationship, and he gave a detailed description on how the known fight went down.
Other legal issues
On June 14, 2012, Drake and his entourage were involved in a scuffle with Brown at a nightclub called WIP in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City. About eight people were injured during the brawl, including San Antonio Spurs star Tony Parker, who had to have surgery to remove a piece of glass from his eye. Drake was not arrested. Brown's attorney alleged Drake was the instigator. Brown himself tweeted about the incident and publicly criticized Drake weeks later.
In January 2013, Brown was involved in an altercation with Frank Ocean over a parking space, outside a recording studio in West Hollywood. Police officers in Los Angeles said that Brown was under investigation, describing the incident as "battery" due to Brown allegedly punching Ocean. Although Ocean alleged that Brown had threatened to shoot him, he said he would not press charges.
In July 2013, Brown's probation was revoked after he was involved in an alleged hit-and-run in Los Angeles. He was released from court and was scheduled to reappear in August 2013, to learn whether or not he would serve time in prison. The charges would later be dropped, but Brown would have 1,000 additional hours of community service added to his probation terms.
In October 2013, Brown was arrested for felony assault in Washington, D.C., after refusing to take a picture with a man. The charge was reduced to a misdemeanor. Brown spent 36 hours in a Washington jail and was taken to court in shackles. He was released and ordered to report to his California probation officer within 48 hours. The probation officer prepared a report for the Los Angeles judge, who could have ordered him to complete as many as four years in prison for the beating of Rihanna if found to be in violation of his probation.
On October 30, 2013, Brown voluntarily decided to enter rehab. After Brown completed his 90 days, the judge ordered him to remain a resident at the Malibu treatment facility until a hearing on April 23, 2014. The deal was if Brown left rehab, he would go directly to jail. On March 14, 2014, Brown was kicked out of the rehab facility and sent to Northern Neck Regional Jail for violating internal rules. He was expected to be released on April 23, 2014, but a judge denied his release request from custody either on bail or his own recognizance. At his May 9, 2014, court date, Brown was ordered to serve 131 days in jail for his probation violation. He was sentenced to serve 365 days in custody; however, he was given credit for the 234 days he has already spent in rehab and jail. He was given early release from jail just after midnight on June 2, 2014, because of jail overcrowding calculations that count one day in custody as two days. During Brown's rehab, a probation officer noted in a letter that Brown's brushes with the law may have been caused by untreated bipolar disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder, specifically that "Mr. Brown became aggressive and acted out physically due to his untreated mental health disorder, severe sleep deprivation, inappropriate self-medicating and untreated PTSD". According to the court documents, which were received by E! News and later The Hollywood Reporter, Brown was formally diagnosed with both Bipolar II and PTSD at the unnamed rehab facility.
In the early hours of August 30, 2016, a woman called the police to report that Brown had threatened her with a gun inside his house. Due to his previous felony assault conviction, Brown is prohibited to possess any firearms. Police were called, but Brown denied them entry without a warrant. When they returned with one, Brown refused them entry and began what news sources referred to as a "standoff" with the LAPD, including the robbery-homicide division and SWAT team. During this time, Brown was seen posting videos on Instagram, in which he rails against the police and the media coverage of the activity at his house. He denounced media reports that he was "barricaded" inside his house, complained about the helicopters flying overhead, and called the police "idiots" and "the worst gang in the world." He said that he was innocent and "What I do care about is you are defacing my name and my character and integrity". Brown was arrested and later released from jail on $250,000 bail. On September 1, 2016, Brown's lawyer, Mark Geragos, stated that there was no standoff and that, with regard to the LAPD search, "nothing was found to corroborate her statement." In September, Japan denied Brown entry due to the allegations. Charges were later dropped after prosecutors declined to arraign Brown on the felony charges. Brown later sued the accuser for defamation, prevailing in the lawsuit, after an investigation that proved that the defendant brought to court false and defamatory statements about the singer, through her incriminating text messages where she said "don't you know this freak Chris Brown is kicking me out of his house because I called his friend jewelry fake can you come get me my Uber is messing up if not I'm going to set him up and call the cops and say that he tried to shoot me and that will teach him a lesson I'm going to set his a** up.",. Brown later said through his social media accounts "Because of my past, my character keeps on being defaced by these fake news and allegations highlighted by the media, but I'm glad that all my real supporters know who i really am and can see the truth"
Brown was arrested after his concert during July 6, 2018, night on a felony battery charge stemming from an incident that occurred more than a year before.
The battery charge was connected to an April 2017 incident in a Tampa club, where Brown allegedly punched a man who photographed him without his permission. The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office said Brown was released after about an hour, after that he posted $2,000 bond.
In 2021, Brown was sued by his housekeeper over a 2020 attack by one of his dogs, a Caucasian Ovcharka.
, due to his criminal record, Brown is banned from entering Australia and New Zealand. Previously, other countries that banned the singer because of his criminal record were Canada and United Kingdom, and they revoked their ban respectively in 2019 and 2020.
In January 2022, an anonymous woman filed a civil suit accusing Brown of raping her on a yacht in Miami in December 2020. Court documents revealed that she was not pursuing a criminal case and remained in contact with Brown after the alleged incident took place - visiting his home on two separate occasions in California in January and August 2021 to listen to him record music. The woman is suing Brown for $20 million. Brown has denied the allegation.
Business ventures
In 2007, Brown founded the record label CBE ("Chris Brown Entertainment" or "Culture Beyond Evolution"), under Interscope Records. Brown has since signed frequent collaborator Kevin McCall, singer Sabrina Antoinette, former RichGirl member Sevyn Streeter, singer-songwriter Joelle James, and rock group U.G.L.Y. However, from 2014 the label started to sign exclusively Brown's works.
Brown has stated he owns fourteen Burger King restaurants. In 2012, he launched a streetwear clothing line called Black Pyramid, in collaboration with the founders of the Pink + Dolphin clothing line. In 2016 the clothing label was set for larger release, partnering with streetwear clothing lines such as Snipes for a worldwide distribution, also being distributed through its own Black Pyramid boutiques.
On November 11, 2021 the singer has launched his own cereal, "Breezy's Cosmic Crunch", partnering with SoFlo Snacks for this limited edition of collectible breakfast cereal. Its box was curated by Brown himself, and illustrated by visual artist Adrian Cuevas.
Discography
Chris Brown (2005)
Exclusive (2007)
Graffiti (2009)
F.A.M.E. (2011)
Fortune (2012)
X (2014)
Royalty (2015)
Heartbreak on a Full Moon (2017)
Indigo (2019)
Breezy (2022)
Filmography
Tours
Brown has headlined multiple arenas tours in North America, Europe and World-Wide. Additionally he has co-headlined a North American tour with Trey Songz and served as a supporting act on tours for industry peers such as Rihanna, Drake (musician), Lil Wayne and Beyoncé. In total, Brown has earned an approprixate $157 million from 279 concerts over the course of his career - making him one of the highest grossing African American touring artists of all time.
Headlining
Up Close and Personal Tour (2006)
The UCP Exclusive Tour (2007)
Fan Appreciation Tour (2009)
F.A.M.E. Tour (2011)
Carpe Diem Tour (2012)
One Hell of a Nite Tour (2015–2016)
The Party Tour (2017)
Heartbreak on a Full Moon Tour (2018)
Indigoat Tour (2019)
Co-headlining
Between the Sheets Tour (2015)
Supporting
The Beyoncé Experience (Australia dates) (2007)
Good Girl Gone Bad Tour (the Philippines, Oceania) (2008)
Supafest (2012)
Lil Weezyana Fest (2016)
OVO Fest (2019)
Achievements
List of awards and nominations received by Chris Brown
See also
List of artists who reached number one in the United States
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
List of best-selling music artists
List of Billboard Hot 100 chart achievements and milestones
List of most-followed Instagram accounts
References
External links
Chris Brown on YouTube
1989 births
Living people
21st-century American criminals
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American rappers
21st-century African-American male singers
African-American businesspeople
African-American Christians
African-American male actors
African-American male dancers
African-American male rappers
African-American male singer-songwriters
American businesspeople convicted of crimes
American child singers
American contemporary R&B singers
American dance musicians
American hip hop singers
American male criminals
American male dancers
American male film actors
American male pop singers
American male rappers
American male television actors
American music industry executives
American music video directors
American people convicted of assault
Burger King people
Businesspeople from Virginia
Criminals from Virginia
Grammy Award winners
Jive Records artists
Male actors from Virginia
People from Tappahannock, Virginia
People with bipolar disorder
Pop rappers
Rappers from Virginia
RCA Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Virginia
Singers with a three-octave vocal range
Sony BMG artists
World Music Awards winners | true | [
"\"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",
"Morris Massey (born 1939) is a marketing professor/sociologist, and producer of training videos.\n\nEducation\nHis undergraduate and M.B.A. degrees are from the University of Texas, Austin, and his Ph.D. in business is from Louisiana State University.\n\nCareer\nDuring the late 1960s through the 1970s, as an Associate Dean and Professor of Marketing, at the University of Colorado at Boulder, he received four awards for teaching excellence.\n\nDr Massey was honored with the W.M. McFeely award presented by the International Management Council for \"significant contribution to the field of management and human relations.\" During the 1980s and 90s he was the #1 ranked resource for the Young Presidents Organization International. In What Works At Work (Lakewood Publications, 1988) he was cited as one of the 27 most influential workplace experts of the time. His work is focused on values, generations, and Significant Emotional Events (SEE).\n\nDevelopment of values\nMorris Massey has described three major periods during which values are developed.\n\n1. The Imprint Period. Up to the age of seven, we are like sponges, absorbing everything around us and accepting much of it as true, especially when it comes from our parents. The confusion and blind belief of this period can also lead to the early formation of trauma and other deep problems. The critical thing here is to learn a sense of right and wrong, good and bad. This is a human construction which we nevertheless often assume would exist even if we were not here (which is an indication of how deeply imprinted it has become).\n\n2. The Modeling Period. Between the ages of eight and thirteen, we copy people, often our parents, but also other people. Rather than blind acceptance, we are trying on things like suit of clothes, to see how they feel. We may be much impressed with religion or our teachers. You may remember being particularly influenced by junior school teachers who seemed so knowledgeable—maybe even more so than your parents.\n\n3. The Socialization Period. Between 13 and 21, we are very largely influenced by our peers. As we develop as individuals and look for ways to get away from the earlier programming, we naturally turn to people who seem more like us. Other influences at these ages include the media, especially those parts which seem to resonate with the values of our peer groups.\n\nRetirement\nHe retired in 1995 from the consulting/speaking circuit and now lives with his wife, Judith Ford Massey, in New Orleans, Louisiana. They have twin sons, Ryan Massey and Blake Massey.\n\nVideo programs \n What You Are Is Where You Were When... AGAIN!\n Just Get It!\n Flashpoint: When Values Collide\n The Original Massey Tapes - 1: What You Are Is Where You Were When\n The Original Massey Tapes - 3: What You Are Is\n The Original Massey Tapes - 4: What You Are Is Where You See\n What You Are Is What You Choose…So Don't Screw It Up\n Dancing With The Bogeyman\n The Massey Triad Program 1: What You Are Is Where You Were When\n The Massey Triad Program 2: What You Are is Not What You Have To Be\n The Massey Triad Program 3: What You Are Is Where You See\n\nSee also \n Significant Emotional Event (SEE)\n University of Colorado at Boulder\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Changing Minds\n\n1939 births\nLiving people\nLouisiana State University alumni"
] |
[
"Chris Brown",
"2005-2006: Chris Brown and acting debut",
"How did he begin his acting debut?",
"On June 13, 2006, Brown released a DVD entitled Chris Brown's Journey,",
"What did he do in 2005?",
"Released on November 29, 2005, the self-titled Chris Brown album debuted at number two",
"Are there any hit singles from this record?",
"Run It",
"What else is significant during this time period/",
"Brown the first male act"
] | C_afa274064906425db3a289f6eace06fe_1 | What was he the first male act of? | 5 | What was Chris Brown's the first male act of? | Chris Brown | After being signed to Jive Records in 2004, Brown began recording his self-titled debut studio album in February 2005. By May, there were 50 songs already recorded, 14 of which were picked to the final track listing. The singer worked with several producers and songwriters--Scott Storch, Cool & Dre and Jazze Pha among them--commenting that they "really believed in [him]". Brown also made some input on the album, receiving co-writing credits of five tracks. "I write about the things that 16 year olds go through every day," says Brown. "Like you just got in trouble for sneaking your girl into the house, or you can't drive, so you steal a car or something." The whole album took less than eight weeks to produce. Released on November 29, 2005, the self-titled Chris Brown album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 with first week sales of 154,000 copies. Chris Brown was a relative commercial success with the time; selling over two million copies in the United States--where it was certified two times platinum by the RIAA--and three million copies worldwide. The album's lead single, "Run It!", made Brown the first male act (since Montell Jordan in 1995) to have his debut single to reach the summit of the Billboard Hot 100--later remaining for four additionally weeks. Three of the other singles--"Yo (Excuse Me Miss)", "Gimme That" and "Say Goodbye"--peaked within the top twenty at the same chart. On June 13, 2006, Brown released a DVD entitled Chris Brown's Journey, which shows footage of him traveling in England and Japan, getting ready for his first visit to the Grammy Awards, behind the scenes of his music videos and bloopers. On August 17, 2006, to further promote the album, Brown began his major co-headlining tour, The Up Close and Personal Tour. Due to the tour, production for his next album was pushed back two months. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital received $10,000 in ticket proceeds from Brown's 2006 "Up Close & Personal" tour. Brown has made appearances on UPN's One on One and The N's Brandon T. Jackson Show on its pilot episode. CANNOTANSWER | ) to have his debut single to reach the summit of the Billboard Hot 100 | Christopher Maurice Brown (born May 5, 1989) is an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and actor. According to Billboard, Brown is one of the most influential and successful R&B singers ever, with several considering him the "King of R&B" alongside Usher and R. Kelly. His musical style has been defined as polyhedric, with his R&B being characterized by several influences from other genres, mainly hip hop and pop music. His lyrics develop predominantly over themes of sex, lovesickness, regret, romantic love, fast life, desire, and the difficulty of managing emotions. Being described by media outlets and critics as one of the biggest talents of his time in urban music, Brown gained a cult following, and wide comparisons to Michael Jackson for his stage presence as a singer-dancer.
Born in Tappahannock, Virginia, he was involved in his church choir and several local talent shows from a young age. Having signed with Jive Records in 2004, Brown released his self-titled debut studio album the following year, which became certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). With his first single "Run It!" peaking atop the Billboard Hot 100, Brown became the first male artist since 1995 to have his debut single top the chart. His second album, Exclusive (2007), reached an even bigger commercial success worldwide, also spawning his second Billboard Hot 100 number one "Kiss Kiss". In 2009, Brown pled guilty to felony assault of his then girlfriend, singer Rihanna. In the same year of the episode there was the release of his third album Graffiti, which was considered to be a commercial failure compared to his previous works. Following Graffiti, Brown's fourth album F.A.M.E. (2011) became one of his biggest successes, being his first to top the Billboard 200, containing internationally successful singles such as "Yeah 3x", "Look at Me Now" and "Beautiful People", also earning him the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album. His fifth album Fortune, released in 2012, also topped the Billboard 200.
Following the releases of X and Royalty, his 2017 double-disc album, Heartbreak on a Full Moon, consisting of 45 tracks, was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for combined sales and album-equivalent units of over 500,000 units after one week, and in 2019 it has been certified Double Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. Brown's ninth studio album Indigo was released in 2019, and became his third Billboard 200 number-one album. It included the Drake featured track "No Guidance" which peaked at number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. Its chart success was outdone with the single "Go Crazy" released the following year, alongside Young Thug as part of their collaborative mixtape Slime & B (2020). The track reached number 3 on the Hot 100.
Brown has sold over 193 million records worldwide, making him one of the world's best-selling music artists. Additionally, he is tied for the most digital single sales among R&B artists in the United States with Bruno Mars. Throughout his career, Brown has won several awards, including a Grammy Award, eighteen BET Awards, four Billboard Music Awards, and thirteen Soul Train Music Awards. According to Billboard, Brown has the seventh most Billboard Hot 100 entries with 106 - which is the most of any R&B artist in history. Brown was also ranked 3rd in the Billboard top R&B/Hip-Hop artists of the decade for the 2010s, behind peers Rihanna and Drake in 2nd and 1st, respectively. Brown has also pursued an acting career. In 2007, he made his on-screen feature film debut in Stomp the Yard, and appeared as a guest on the television series The O.C. Other films Brown has appeared in include This Christmas (2007), Takers (2010), Think Like a Man (2012), and Battle of the Year (2013).
Early life
Christopher Maurice Brown was born on May 5, 1989, in the small town of Tappahannock, Virginia, to Joyce Hawkins, a former day care center director, and Clinton Brown, a corrections officer at a local prison. He has an older sister, Lytrell Bundy, who works in a bank. Music was always present in Brown's life beginning in his childhood. He would listen to soul albums that his parents owned, and eventually began to show interest in the hip-hop scene.
Brown taught himself to sing and dance at a young age and often cites Michael Jackson as his inspiration. He began to perform in his church choir and in several local talent shows. When he mimicked an Usher performance of "My Way", his mother recognized his vocal talent, and they began to look for the opportunity of a record deal. At the same time, Brown was going through personal issues. His parents had divorced, and his mother's boyfriend terrified him by subjecting her to domestic violence.
Career
2002–2004: Career beginnings
At age 13, Brown was discovered by Hitmission Records, a local production team that visited his father's gas station while searching for new talent. Hitmission's Lamont Fleming provided voice coaching for Brown, and the team helped to arrange a demo package, under the name of "C. Sizzle", and approached contacts in New York, where Brown started to sojourn, to seek a record deal. Brown attended Essex High School in Virginia until late 2004, when he moved to New York to pursue his music career. Tina Davis, senior A&R executive at Def Jam Recordings, was impressed when Brown auditioned in her New York office, and she immediately took him to meet the former president of the Island Def Jam Music Group, Antonio "L.A." Reid, who offered to sign him that day, but Brown refused his proposal. "I knew that Chris had real talent," says Davis. "I just knew I wanted to be part of it."
The negotiations with Def Jam continued for two months, and ended when Davis lost her job due to a corporate merger. Brown asked her to be his manager, and once Davis accepted, she promoted the singer to other labels such as Jive Records, J-Records and Warner Bros. Records. According to Mark Pitts, in an interview with HitQuarters, Davis presented Brown with a video recording, and Pitts' reaction was: "I saw huge potential ... I didn't love all the records, but I loved his voice. It wasn't a problem because I knew that he could sing, and I knew how to make records." Brown ultimately chose Jive due to its successful work with then-young acts such as Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. Brown stated, "I picked Jive because they had the best success with younger artists in the pop market, [...] I knew I was going to capture my African American audience, but Jive had a lot of strength in the pop area as well as longevity in careers." Brown said that during his permanence in Harlem, when he was trying to get his music heard by major labels, his artistic intention was to both rap and sing on his records, but Jive convinced him to stick to just singing, because he said that "it wasn't acceptable yet" for an R&B singer to also rap on records.
2005–2006: Chris Brown and acting debut
After signing to Jive Records in 2004, Brown began recording his self-titled debut studio album in February 2005. By May, there were 50 songs already recorded, 14 of which were picked to the final track listing. The singer worked with several producers and songwriters—Scott Storch, Cool & Dre, Sean Garrett and Jazze Pha among them—commenting that they "really believed in [him]". Brown co-wrote half of the tracks. "I write about the things that 16 year olds go through every day," says Brown. "Like you just got in trouble for sneaking your girl into the house, or you can't drive, so you steal a car or something." The whole album took less than eight weeks to produce.
Released on November 29, 2005, the self-titled Chris Brown album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 with first week sales of 154,000 copies. Chris Brown was a commercial success with the time; selling over three million copies in the United States—where it was certified three times platinum by the RIAA—and six million copies worldwide. The album's lead single, "Run It!", made Brown the first male act (since Montell Jordan in 1995) to have his debut single to reach the summit of the Billboard Hot 100—later remaining for four additional weeks. Three of the other singles—"Yo (Excuse Me Miss)", "Gimme That" and "Say Goodbye"—peaked within the top twenty at the same chart.
On June 13, 2006, Brown released a DVD entitled Chris Brown's Journey, which shows footage of him traveling through England and Japan, getting ready for his first visit to the Grammy Awards, behind the scenes of his music videos and bloopers. On August 17, 2006, to further promote the album, Brown began his major co-headlining tour, The Up Close and Personal Tour. Due to the tour, production for his next album was pushed back two months. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital received $10,000 in ticket proceeds from Brown's 2006 "Up Close & Personal" tour. Brown has made appearances on UPN's One on One and The N's Brandon T. Jackson Show on its pilot episode.
2007–2008: Exclusive
In January 2007, Brown landed a small role as a band geek in the fourth season of the American television series The O.C.. Brown then made his film debut in Stomp the Yard, alongside Ne-Yo, Meagan Good and Columbus Short on January 12, 2007. In April 2007, Brown was the opening act for Beyoncé, on the Australian leg of her The Beyoncé Experience tour. On July 9, 2007, Brown was featured in an episode of MTV's My Super Sweet 16 (for the event, it was retitled: Chris Brown: My Super 18) celebrating his eighteenth birthday in New York City.
Shortly after ending his summer tour with Ne-Yo, Brown quickly began production for his second studio album, Exclusive. When the album's lead single, "Wall to Wall", was released, it didn't have a great commercial success, peaking at number 79 on US Billboard Hot 100 chart, and number 22 on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, being his lowest charting single at the time. However, "Kiss Kiss", featuring and produced by T-Pain, released as the album's second single, received huge success, reaching number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, and becoming Brown's second number one single following "Run It!" in 2005. "With You", produced by Stargate (duo of producers known at the time for their work with R&B singer Ne-Yo), was released as the third single from Exclusive, had even bigger success than "Kiss Kiss", becoming one of the all-time best-selling singles, and reaching number two on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. Exclusive was released in the United States on November 6, 2007. The album is musically R&B, having slight pop influences that were absent in the previous hip hop soul-influenced disc, reaching a big international success. The album debuted at number four on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 294,000 copies in its first week, and received generally positive reviews from music critics. As of March 23, 2011, it has sold over 1.9 million copies in the United States.
In November 2007, Brown starred as a video host for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's Math-A-Thon program. He showed his support by encouraging students to use their math skills to help children with cancer and other catastrophic diseases. On November 21, 2007, Brown appeared in This Christmas, a family drama starring Regina King. To further support the album Exclusive, Brown embarked on his The Exclusive Holiday Tour, visiting over thirty venues in United States. The tour began in Cincinnati, Ohio, on December 6, 2007, and concluded on February 9, 2008, in Honolulu, Hawaii. In March 2008, Brown was featured on Jordin Sparks' single "No Air", which had worldwide success peaked at number three on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. He also made a guest appearance on David Banner' single "Get Like Me" alongside Yung Joc. The song peaked at number sixteen on the Billboard Hot 100, and number two on the US Hot Rap Songs chart. Brown re-released Exclusive on June 3, 2008, as a deluxe edition, renamed Exclusive: The Forever Edition, seven months after the release of the original version. The re-released version featured four new tracks, including the Eurodisco single "Forever", which became one of his most known singles, reaching number two on Billboard Hot 100. In August 2008, Brown guest-starred on Disney's The Suite Life of Zack & Cody as himself. Towards the end of 2008, Brown was named Artist of the Year by Billboard magazine.
2009–2010: Graffiti and mixtapes
In 2008, Brown began work on his third studio album, to be called Graffiti, promising to experiment with a different musical direction inspired by singers Prince and Michael Jackson. He stated, "I wanted to change it up and really be different. Like my style nowadays, I don't try to be typical urban. I want to be like how Prince, Michael and Stevie Wonder were. They can cross over to any genre of music." Following the domestic violence scandal involving the singer and Rihanna on February 8, 2009, the majority of media took positions against the singer. The incident also caused Brown to lose significant commercial contracts, including one with Doublemint. The singer later participated in numerous television appearances during the year to express himself publicly about it. Graffiti 's lead single "I Can Transform Ya" was released on September 29, 2009. The song peaked at number 20 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. "Crawl" was released as the album's second single on November 23, 2009. The song reached number 53 on the Billboard Hot 100. Graffiti was then released on December 8, 2009, featuring an R&B sound mixed with Eurodisco and rock. Brown, with this album, started to take full control of his art, managing the artistic direction, and writing every song of the album (with the exception of the song "I'll Go", written and produced by Brian Kennedy and James Fauntleroy). Brown started to be the only artistic director of all his future projects. He said that his decision to entirely direct and write his albums and songs came from the fact that he wanted to give his "own perspective of the music [he] wanted to make" and by his wanting to "verbalize whatever [he] was going through". The album, compared to its two precessors, was a commercial and critical failure, debuting at number 7 on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 102,000 copies in its first week, and receiving generally negative reviews from critics. As of March 23, 2011, it has sold 341,000 copies in the United States.
While performing a Michael Jackson Tribute at the 2010 BET Awards, Brown started to cry and fell to his knees while singing Jackson's "Man in the Mirror". The performance and his emotional turmoil resonated with several celebrities present at the ceremony, including Trey Songz, Diddy and Taraji P. Henson. Songz said, "He left his heart on the stage. He gave genuine emotion. I was proud of him and I was happy for him for having that moment". Michael's brother, Jermaine Jackson, expressed similar sentiments stating, "it was very emotional for me, because it was an acceptance from his fans from what has happened to him and also paying tribute to my brother". Later during the award ceremony, Brown stated, "I let y'all down before, but I won't do it again...I promise", while accepting the award for the AOL Fandemonium prize. In August 2010, Brown starred alongside an ensemble cast, including Matt Dillon, Paul Walker, Idris Elba, Hayden Christensen and T.I. in the crime thriller Takers, and also served as executive producer of the film.
During 2010 Brown released the 3 free mixtapes In My Zone (Rhythm & Streets), Fan of a Fan (collaborative mixtape with Tyga), and In My Zone 2, which featured a new style of writing with grown themes, and a different musical style, mixing R&B with hip hop. For the mixtapes he worked with new producers, most notably Kevin McCall. The mixtapes were highly appreciated by the artist's loyal audience, consolidating it. The single "Deuces", extracted from the Fan of a Fan mixtape, obtained critical acclaim, also achieving a good success, peaking at number 1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. The song was later remixed by the biggest names in the hip-hop scene of that time, including Drake, Kanye West, André 3000, Rick Ross, Fabolous, and T.I. He later released the solo track "No BS" as his second single from Fan of a Fan, and decided to include the two singles from the mixtape as anticipation singles for his next album.
2011–2012: F.A.M.E. and Fortune
In September 2010 Brown announced his album, F.A.M.E. [backronym for "Forgiving All My Enemies"], releasing in October the first official single from the album, "Yeah 3x", a dance-pop song, different from his previous songs on the urban mixtapes. The single received enormous international success and entered the top-ten in eleven countries, including Australia, Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.. It was succeeded by the hip-hop single "Look at Me Now", featuring rappers Lil Wayne and Busta Rhymes, that reached number one on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, where it remained for eight consecutive weeks. It also reached number one on the US Hot Rap Songs chart. The single became the best-selling rap song of 2011, as well as one of all-time best-selling singles in the United States.
Brown's fourth studio album F.A.M.E. was first released on March 18, 2011. The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of 270,000 copies, giving Brown his first number-one album in the United States. The album's third single, "Beautiful People", featuring Benny Benassi, peaked at number one on the US Hot Dance Club Songs chart, and became the first number-one single on the chart for both Brown and Benassi. "She Ain't You" was released as the album's fourth US single, while "Next 2 You", featuring Canadian recording artist Justin Bieber, served as the album's fourth international single. To further promote the album, Brown embarked on his F.A.M.E. Tour in Australia and North America.
Brown received six nominations at the 2011 BET Awards and ultimately won five awards, including Best Male R&B Artist, Viewers Choice Award, The Fandemonium Award, Best Collaboration and Video of the Year for "Look at Me Now". He also won three awards at the 2011 BET Hip Hop Awards, including the People's Champ Award, Reese's Perfect Combo Award and Best Hip Hop Video for "Look at Me Now". At the 2011 Soul Train Music Awards, F.A.M.E. won Album of the Year. The album has also earned Brown three Grammy Award nominations at the 54th Grammy Awards for Best R&B Album, as well as Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song for "Look at Me Now". On February 12, 2012, Brown won the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album. During the ceremony, Brown performed several songs marking his first appearance at the awards show since his conviction of felony assault.
Originally, Brown wanted F.A.M.E. to be a double-disc consistent of 25–30 tracks, but the label was contrary to that. Right before the release of F.A.M.E. Brown decided to follow his intentions in an acceptable way for the label, working on a sequel of F.A.M.E. called Fortune, that would be a whole new album that contained new material and even some tracks that didn't make the cut of the previous album, releasing it six months after it. The artist later decided to take more time to work on the album, developing it as a project of its own, with its own concept and sound being different than the one of its precedent album. On October 7, 2011, RCA Music Group announced it was disbanding Jive Records along with Arista Records and J Records. With the shutdown, Brown (and all other artists previously signed to these three labels) will release future material on the RCA Records brand. Brown's fifth studio album Fortune was released on July 3, 2012. The album debuted atop the Billboard 200, but received negative reviews from critics. "Strip", featuring Kevin McCall, was released as the album's buzz single, with "Turn Up the Music" released as the lead single, and "Sweet Love", "Till I Die", "Don't Wake Me Up" and "Don't Judge Me" released as the album's following singles, respectively. To further promote the album, Brown embarked on his Carpe Diem Tour in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Trinidad.
2013–2015: X and Royalty
After concluding his Carpe Diem Tour in 2012, Brown's next studio album started to develop. On February 15, 2013, the singer unofficially released the song "Home", with an official videoclip, where he expresses a reflection on the bitter price of fame, and on how the only moment of respite from that thought is when he returns to the neighborhood where he grew up with people who knew him from the start. On March 26, 2013, Brown announced the release of X, in various interviews and listening sessions, releasing the song "Fine China" as the album lead single. In an interview with Ebony, when Brown spoke of taking his music in a different direction and changing his sound from pop-infused and sexually explicit of the previous album Fortune, to a more mature, soulful and vulnerable theme for the album. On March 29, 2013 he released "Fine China" as the lead single of the album.
Following the dropping of two other anticipation singles off X, "Don't Think They Know" and "Love More", on August 9, 2013, at 1:09 am PDT, Brown was reported to have suffered a seizure from Record Plant Studios in Hollywood, California as a 9-1-1 call was made. When paramedics arrived, Brown allegedly refused to receive treatment and also refused to be transported to the local hospital. (Brown has reportedly suffered from seizures since his childhood.) The next day, Brown's representative reported the seizure was caused by "intense fatigue and extreme emotional stress, both due to the continued onslaught of unfounded legal matters and the nonstop negativity." On November 20, 2013, Brown was sentenced to an anger management rehabilitation center for three months, putting the December 2013 release of X in jeopardy. To "hold [fans] over until [the X album] drops," Brown released a mixtape, titled X Files on November 19, 2013. On February 22, 2014, it was announced that the album would be released on Brown's birthday, May 5, 2014. On April 14, 2014, Brown released a teaser of the new track "Don't Be Gone Too Long" featuring Ariana Grande. However, following Brown's arrest for felony assault in Washington, D.C., on October 27, 2013, the song and album were again delayed due to Brown's prison sentence. While incarcerated, "Loyal" was released as the album's fourth single, becoming one of his most successful songs, by peaking at the top 10 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and in the United Kingdom. On August 3, 2014, Chris announced via Instagram that the album's release date will be on September 16, 2014. On August 6, 2014, the album cover was revealed. The song ended up being never released as a single, instead "New Flame" featuring Usher and Rick Ross was later released as the album's final single. The title track "X" was released as an instant-gratification track alongside the album pre-order on iTunes on August 25, 2014.
Brown's sixth studio album, X was released on September 16, 2014. The album received positive reviews from critics, who celebrated the record's sound and Brown's vocal performances. The album was considered a big improvement compared to its critically panned predecessor Fortune. At the 2015 Grammy Awards, the album was nominated for the Best Urban Contemporary Album, while "New Flame" was nominated for Best R&B Performance and Best R&B Song. Commercially, the album debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 selling 146,000 copies in its first week, becoming his first album to miss the summit of the chart since Graffiti (2009) and his third album to go to number two on the chart overall following Exclusive (2007). It also became his sixth consecutive top ten debut in the United States. By the end of 2015, the album had sold 404,000 copies in the United States. It has been certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Pushing the promotion for the album further, Brown performed and appeared at several televised music events and music festivals across the United States.
On February 24, 2015, Brown released his first collaborative studio album with Tyga, titled Fan of a Fan: The Album. The album was a follow-up to the pairs 2010 mixtape Fan of a Fan. In early 2015, Brown also embarked on his Between The Sheets Tour with Trey Songz. Also in February 2015, Brown said during an interview for The Breakfast Club that he started working on the album going for a direction that would've been the sound predominant overseas. A couple months later he discovered that he had a daughter and simultaneously broke up with his ex-girlfriend Karrueche Tran. That happening made him change the idea for the album, ending up doing mostly R&B songs that he described as "representations of where i was in my life at that point", contemporarily starting his One Hell of a Nite Tour.
In spring of 2015, Brown was featured on DJ Deorro's song "Five More Hours", which received an excellent worldwide success. On June 24, Brown released a new song titled "Liquor". Shortly after, it was announced that "Liquor" was the first single from his seventh studio album. On August 22, 2015, the singer officially declares from his Twitter profile that the new album will be titled "Royalty" in honor of his daughter, Royalty Brown. On October 16 he has revealed the album cover, portraying Chris with Royalty in her arms in a black and white picture. On October 13, 2015, Brown announced that Royalty will be released on November 27, 2015. After it was revealed that the album has been pushed back to December 18, 2015, in exchange on November 27, 2015, he released a free 34-track mixtape called Before the Party as a prelude to Royalty, which features guest appearances from Rihanna, Wiz Khalifa, Pusha T, Wale, Tyga, French Montana and Fetty Wap. On October 16, 2015, the album cover was revealed. The album was released on December 18, 2015, and it debuted at number 3 on the US Billboard 200, selling 184,000 units (162,000 in pure album sales) in its first week, marking an improvement over Brown's last three studio albums. It also became his seventh solo album consecutive top ten debut in the United States.
2016–2017: Heartbreak on a Full Moon
Brown started working and recording tracks for his next album few weeks before the release of Royalty, in late 2015. On January 10, 2016, Brown had previewed 11 unreleased songs on his Periscope and Instagram profiles, showing him dancing and lip-synching these songs. In March 2016, he collaborated again with the Italian DJ Benny Benassi for the song "Paradise" from the album Danceaholic. On May 3 he announced the single "Grass Ain't Greener", showing its cover art and announcing it as the first single from a new album titled Heartbreak on a Full Moon. The single was released on May 5, 2016. On July 7, 2016, after 2016 shooting of Dallas police officers, Brown released on his SoundCloud page two piano ballads, "My Friend" and "A Lot of Love", saying that the songs are "released for free for anybody dealing with injustice or struggle in their lives." In 2016 he released two collaborative mixtapes with his OHB crew, Before the Trap: Nights in Tarzana and Attack the Block, where they rap and sing about a reckless lifestyle full of drugs, sexual encounters with numerous untrustworthy easy women, also illustrating a dangerous street life filled with guns, dirty money and luxurious cars.
Throughout 2016 and 2017 he kept on sharing several snippets from songs that he was working for the album and features. He worked on the album heavily during 2016 and 2017, during two tours as well, the European leg of the One Hell of a Nite Tour and The Party Tour, also building a recording studio inside of his home to record songs for the album. On December 16, 2016, he released the second official single from the album, "Party", that features guest vocals from American R&B singer Usher and rapper Gucci Mane, getting a good commercial success. The singer, while working on the album, realized that he had done too many songs that he thought were quality records that followed perfectly the narrative of the album to make a 15/20 track album, so he decided that he wanted to take it to the next level by working on it as a 40-track album. RCA Records, the record label of the singer, initially wasn't agreeable of satisfying Brown's intentions to make a 40-track album, thinking that it would've damaged its commercial performance, but the singer ended up convincing them. In February 2017 he announced that his previously teased song "Privacy" would have been released as the next single from Heartbreak on a Full Moon. The single was released on March 24, 2017, and received an excellent response from his core audience. On June 7 he released Welcome to My Life, a self-documentary focused on his life and career, directed by Andrew Sandler. Numerous celebrities participated in the movie, making statements and sharing stories about the artist. Among them there are Jennifer Lopez, Mike Tyson, Rita Ora, Usher and Tyga.
On August 4, 2017, he released the album's fourth single "Pills & Automobiles", that features guest vocals from American trap artists Yo Gotti, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie and Kodak Black. Then on August 14, 2017, he announced the release of the fifth official single from the album, "Questions", on August 16, announcing the album release date, saying that it would be released on October 31, 2017. On October 13, 2017, Brown released the promotional single "High End", that features guest vocals from American trap artists Future and Young Thug, announcing the final tracklist of the album. On October 25, 2017, Brown organized with Tidal a free pop-up concert in New York City to perform the singles on the album and promote it for his fans.
Heartbreak on a Full Moon was eventually released as a double-disc album on October 31, 2017, via digital retailers and onto CD, three days later by RCA Records. The album's sound has been as dark and soulful. The songs on it show every emotional aspect of what's been on the singer's mind after a heavy breakup. Its themes include regret, love transforming into hate, the difficulty in managing emotions, the impossibility of getting over someone, and how a reckless lifestyle can't numb the pain of an heartbreak. Its lyrical content was inspired by Brown's breakup with Karrueche Tran. Heartbreak on a Full Moon received widespread acclaim from critics, who celebrated the record's variety, its length, and its introspective lyrical content. Many defined it as the singer's best body of work. Despite being counted for only three days of sales, Heartbreak on a Full Moon debuted at number three on the US Billboard 200, becoming Brown's ninth consecutive top 10 album on the chart. One week after its release Heartbreak on a Full Moon was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for combined sales and album-equivalent units of over 500,000 units in the United States, and Brown became the first R&B male artist that went gold in a week since Usher's Confessions in 2004. In 2019 the album has been certified Double Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
On December 13, 2017, he released a 12-track surprise deluxe edition of the album called Cuffing Season – 12 Days of Christmas as a Christmas present for his fans. The deluxe edition is made off Brown's favorite leftovers of the album and few holiday-themed songs. Brown eventually embarked on his US "Heartbreak on a Full Moon Tour" in June 2018 to further promote the album. The opening acts for the tour were 6lack, H.E.R., Rich the Kid, and Jacquees.
2018–2019: Indigo
Following the overall success of Heartbreak on a Full Moon, Brown and rapper Joyner Lucas announced a collaboration project, titled Angels & Demons on February 25, 2018, with the release of the single "Stranger Things". However the project ended up never being released. On March 15, 2018, Brown was featured in Lil Dicky's smash hit single "Freaky Friday". By April 9, 2018, the video had reached over 100 million views and topped the charts in New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
After drafting the concept for his new album, in August 2018, at the end of the "Heartbreak On A Full Moon tour", Brown started the actual processing work of his ninth album, Indigo. On January 4, 2019, Brown released "Undecided", the first single off it, alongside a video for the song. "Undecided" saw Brown reunite with producer Scott Storch, who previously worked with Brown in 2005 on his breakout hit "Run It!". The single marked Brown's first release after signing an extension and a new license agreement with RCA Records, that gave him the owning of his master recordings, making him one of the youngest artists to do so at the age of 29. On April 11, he released the second single off the album titled "Back to Love", that received positive reviews from music critics who celebrated its lyrical content and its production, but it failed to chart in the US. The third single, "Wobble Up", was released a week later featuring Nicki Minaj and G-Eazy, announcing that the album is expected to be released in June. On April 25, he appeared on a track with Marshmello and Tyga called "Light It Up". In an announcement on May 2, Brown revealed the list of artists he had been working with for his album, Nicki Minaj, Tory Lanez, Tyga, Justin Bieber, Juicy J, Juvenile, H.E.R, Tank, Sage the Gemini, Lil Jon, Lil Wayne, Joyner Lucas, Gunna and Drake were included on the list. Some of these collaborations were surprising to the media, especially Drake, due to their public feud that lasted for several years. He later revealed the artwork of the album and its track list between May and June 2019. On May 31, he appeared on "Easy", a successful single where he duetted with singer DaniLeigh. On June 8, Brown released "No Guidance" featuring Drake as a single. It debuted at number nine on the US Billboard Hot 100, making it Brown's 15th top-ten song, and later peaked at number five. The single won Best Collaboration Performance, Best Dance Performance and Song of the Year at the 2019 Soul Train Music Awards and received a nomination for Best R&B Song at the 62nd Grammy Awards.
Indigo was eventually released on June 28, 2019, as a double album, marking Brown's second album to be released in this style. The disc is an R&B and tropical-pop album, about vibrations, spiritual love and sex, that leaves the introspective, dark and sultry mood of Heartbreak on a Full Moon, for a way more lighthearted sound and tone. In the United States, Indigo debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 with 108,000 album-equivalent units, which included 28,000 pure album sales in its first week, making it his third number-one album in the country. The album was met with positive reviews from critics. Indigo spawned two other singles, "Heat", which topped the Billboard Rhythmic Airplay chart, and earned Brown his 13th number one on the chart, and second during 2019, and "Don't Check on Me", that features vocals from Justin Bieber and vocalist Atia "Ink" Boggs. On October 4, 2019, Brown eventually released a deluxe version of Indigo entitled Indigo Extended, which included 10 additional songs, making the extended version a total of 42 songs.
On June 10, 2019, Brown announced an official headlining concert tour where he performed the album throughout United States, titled "Indigoat Tour". The tour began on August 20, and ended on October 19. The tour was received with very good responses by journalists, that praised its stage settings, and Brown's dancing abilities. "Indigoat Tour" grossed over $30,100,000 in its 37 shows, selling out most of the venues.
2020present: Breezy
In December 2019, Brown revealed that he started working on new material for his tenth studio album. Later, on April 29, 2020, Brown announced the release of a collaborative mixtape with Young Thug, Slime & B. The mixtape was released on May 5, 2020, and features the hit single "Go Crazy", which peaked at number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Brown's first song to spend one full year on the chart. On May 1, 2020, Brown was featured on Drake's Dark Lane Demo Tapes mixtape on the track "Not You Too". The song earned Brown his 100th career entry on the US Billboard Hot 100, as it entered and debuted at number 25. On July 9, 2020, Brown announced via Instagram that the title of his tenth album would be Breezy, a reference to his stage nickname. No release date has been announced yet.
Brown said in July 2021, while working on the album, that he wanted to make some "really endearing music" that "talk to women's soul". On August 2, he announced on his Instagram that his Breezy album would be accompanied by a short film of the same name. Later on December 18, he said that the lead single of Breezy would be released during January 2022. On January 14 he released the song "Iffy".
Artistry
Influences
Brown has cited a number of artists as his inspiration, predominantly Michael Jackson. Brown emphasizes "Michael Jackson is the reason why I do music and why I am an entertainer." In "Fine China", he exemplifies Jackson's influence both musically and visually as Ebony magazine's Britini Danielle asserted that the song was "reminiscent of Michael Jackson's Off the Wall". Choreographically, MTV noticed that it "takes distinct visual cues from classic clips like 'Smooth Criminal' and 'Beat It'", while Billboard complimented his appearance by calling it "a modern way to channel the King of Pop". Usher is also another influence who comes across as a more contemporary figure for Brown. He tells Vibe magazine "He was the one who the youngsters looked up to. I know that we, in the dancing and singing world, looked up to him", and maintains "If it wasn't for Usher, then Chris Brown couldn't exist". Other influences include Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, Ginuwine, Phil Collins, Bobby Brown and R. Kelly. When it comes to his rapping he cited Naughty by Nature, Tupac, Lil' Wayne and Rakim as the rappers he's inspired by.
Musical style
Music critics have commended Brown's introduction to R&B, recognizing his versatility, and considering him an evolver of the genre. Vibe's Iyana Robertson says "As traditional R&B flourished around him, the young singer began an evolution of the genre". She saw his debut single "Run It!" as a "prelude to what Brown would continue to do for the next decade: relentlessly disrupt the constructs of rhythm and blues." By his second album Exclusive, she says he was "tapping more electric up-tempos, swimming deep in hip-hop waters and annihilating the pop arena". Describing the Grammy Award winning F.A.M.E. as "his most diverse offering to date", she remarked "There was no level of musical flexibility comparable. There still isn't." F.A.M.E. is considered to be the album that defined Brown's musical style and persona.
Brown is considered to be, by a big part of critics and general public, the biggest R&B artist of the 2010s, with Andy Kellman of AllMusic crediting him as the "spearhead" of the genre during the period. Brad Wete of Billboard said that his sixth album X showcased "the height of his musical talents", while cultural critic and media personality Joe Budden defined his 2017 album Heartbreak on a Full Moon as "one of the greatest things ever happened to R&B music".
Genres
Brown made his sound mixing the traditional sound of R&B adding different influences to it, most importantly hip hop and pop, but also several other genres in different songs, such as soul, dancehall, alternative R&B, house, EDM, afropop, trap, rock, disco and funk. The multitude of genres influencing his music can be heard in many of his singles, like "Deuces", "Sweet Love", "Liquor", "Zero", "Back to Love" or "Don't Check on Me". His pure side of R&B is densely shown on every album that he has done, even after that his music started to be more tinged from other genres, with some examples being "No BS", "Don't Judge Me", "Back To Sleep" and "Privacy".
Throughout his career Brown has always had a strong influence from hip hop in his music, and following his 2010 mixtapes, he approached the genre differently, starting to rap frequently on mixtapes and features, adding to his albums straight hip-hop songs like "Look at Me Now", "Till I Die" and "Loyal", or by doing performances that switch from his R&B singing to his rapping, like he did in several tracks from his album Heartbreak on a Full Moon. His dance-pop side in the single "Forever" off his second album Exclusive opened the door for many other Europop songs like "Yeah 3x", "Beautiful People", "Turn Up The Music" and "Don't Wake Me Up", but it begun to be less present in his music starting from his album X.
Themes
Brown's lyrical production is typically considered to be "emotional" or "hedonistic". His songs mainly cover themes of sex, lovesickness, regret, romantic love, desire, fast life, and internal conflict, also having some introspections over loneliness and the dark side of fame. Along with his vocal and dancing abilities, his songwriting is considered to be one of the things that distincts him for the better compared to other R&B singers of his time. American media executive and radio personality Ebro Darden stated that Brown is the "most all-around talented person in R&B. Trey Songz is talented, but he can't dance like Chris Brown. Usher is probably the only one that could come close to him, but he doesn't have the songwriting abilities that Chris Brown has".
Brown said in 2013, during an interview for Rolling Stone, that his songs are always "derived from personal experiences, my personal life. Then creativity brings my reality to another dimention. That's what my songs are made of. I always like mixing reality with art".
Voice
Brown possesses a light lyric tenor voice, which spans three and a half octaves, rising from the bass F♯ (F2) to its peak at the soprano C♯.(C♯6) His vocal ability was first recognized by his mother at a young age, as Brown tells People magazine "I was 11 and watching Usher perform 'My Way', and I started trying to mimic it. My mom was like, 'You can sing?' And I was like, 'Well, yeah, Mama.'" subsequently leading to the start of his career. "Take You Down" most notably earned him a Grammy award nomination for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance in 2009.
His vocal performances are characterized by his harmonization, timbre, vocal runs and soulfulness. While his voice on his first two albums, Chris Brown and Exclusive, was considered to be "honeyed", due to his young age, with subsequent projects like Graffiti and F.A.M.E. it was noted for maturing to a "more mature, distinctive and melodious voice", with Brown "coming into his own as a singer". On F.A.M.E. critics noted huge flexibility in his voice, with Steve Jones of USA Today praising the singer's ability to "give top notch vocal performances in R&B, Europop, rap, rock and acoustic records". X and Indigo were noted for displaying his timbre, exemplifying his singing performances.
His harmonizing was found by Andrew Unterberger of Billboard to be notably shown on his songs "Liquor" and "Go Crazy". On "Another Round", "Don't Judge Me" and "It Won't Stop" he did what was considered by Lee Hildebrand of San Francisco Chronicle to be "some of the most soothing and smooth singing of his discography". Jake Indiana of Highsnobiety said that his feature on Kanye West's song "Waves" is one of his best vocal performances, and that it "sounds like ascending to heaven with a choir of angels at your back". The singer was particularly noted for his emotional singing that illustrated his vocal range on songs like "Covered In You", "Lost & Found", "No Guidance" and "Red". On tracks like "Look at Me Now", "No Romeo No Juliet" and "Stranger Things" he displayed his ability of fast-rapping.
Dancing
Brown's dancing abilities and stage presence are widely praised, receiving broad comparisons to those of Michael Jackson. According to Brown, he taught himself how to dance by imitating Jackson's moves since childhood, then developing his own distinct style throughout his career. Most of his music videos feature complex choreographies, including the "futuristic" "Turn Up the Music", the Jackson-inspired choreography of "Fine China", "Zero", where he displayed different dancing styles, including popping and his signature spin move, "Party", where he showcased his remarked footwork, and "Heat", described by The Source as a "silky smooth choreography that shows Brown's unmatchable dancing talent in the classiest way". Some of his most notable dancing live performances include his "Thriller" recreation at the 2006 World Music Awards, his medley at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, where he performed a choreography that included flying parts, and his 2015 freestyled dancing over Future's "March Madness" at the Vestival The Hague Malieveld, that included a highly acclaimed front-flip, done with no hands by standing still, landed perfectly on beat.
In films such as Stomp the Yard and Battle of the Year, Brown displayed his ability to breakdance while in-character.
Street art
Aside from his musical career, he was noted for markedly producing graffiti art. His visual works have been described as "manga-inspired" and "abstract". Brown said that he painted since his childhood, saying "my first approach with it was painting school walls" saying that he's always been captivated by the fact that drawing and painting "gives you the chance to express yourself in whatever way, showing to the world your own dimension".
Brown has produced street art under the pseudonym Konfused, partnering with street artist Kai to produce works for the Miami Basel. The singer painted the buildings of different radio stations such as Hot 97. In 2015 he worked on some of the walls of The Grammy Museum, mixing his spray paint drawings with images of James Brown, Prince, Michael Jackson and himself. Brown has made graffiti works for different cities worldwide, including Los Angeles, London and Amsterdam.
His painting and dancing skills were shown at the same time when Brown, partnering with Spotify's Rap Caviar, painted Heartbreak on a Full Moon 's album cover, mostly from dancing around the canvas. In 2020 he painted a mural in memory of Kobe Bryant, doing a portray that includes Kobe's face, a mamba, and a few pictures of Kobe dribbling and dunking a basketball.
Personal life
Relationships
From 2007 to 2009, Brown dated singer Rihanna until their highly publicized domestic violence case. His emotional state following the happening was theme of a big part of his album Graffiti. In 2011, Brown began dating Karrueche Tran, that at the time was a personal shopper. In October 2012, Brown announced that he ended his relationship with Tran because he did not "want to see her hurt over my friendship with Rihanna." The day after the announcement, Brown released a video entitled "The Real Chris Brown", which features images of himself, Tran, and Rihanna, as Brown wonders, "Is there such thing as loving two people? I don't know if it's possible, but I feel like that."
In January 2013, Rihanna confirmed that she and Brown had resumed their romantic relationship, stating, "It's different now. We don't have those types of arguments anymore. We talk about shit. We value each other. We know exactly what we have now, and we don't want to lose that." Speaking of Brown, Rihanna also said, "He's not the monster everybody thinks. He's a good person. He has a fantastic heart. He's giving and loving. And he's fun to be around. That's what I love about him – he always makes me laugh. All I want to do is laugh, really – and I do that with him". In a May 2013 interview, Brown stated that he and Rihanna had broken up again. He subsequently reunited with Tran, but they parted ways following confirmation of Brown's daughter Royalty with Nia Guzman in 2015. His breakup with Tran inspired several songs off his albums Royalty and Heartbreak on a Full Moon. In 2017, Tran received a 5-year restraining order against Brown after testifying under oath that, during their relationship, in two episodes he was physically abusive, and that he threatened her after they broke up.
On November 20, 2019, Brown welcomed his second child, son Aeko Catori Brown, with Ammika Harris (Pietzker).
Religion
When discussing his upbringing, Brown stated: "We were used to two pairs of shoes for a school year. We used to go to church every day. I was one of those kids that had more church clothes than school clothes." He has also discussed his second work of grace, saying that "he experienced the Holy Ghost while performing 'His Eye Is on the Sparrow' in church". After being released from jail on June 2, 2014, Brown wrote that he was "Humbled and Blessed" and tweeted the words "Thank you GOD."
In 2015, he said during an interview for Vibe, that God is the only thing that he's afraid of. Speaking about prayers he said "I pray everyday, I think we pray unconsciously too. Personally I don't pray for success. I pray for knowledge for understanding and peace of mind. I really try to pray for that because it's a big world, and you can get wrapped up in it trying to please every city. So I just try to get a peace of mind and me understanding that being at peace with my flaws and my talents. I'm cool with that. That's why I think once He shows me certain things, or even the choices that I make, and decisions that I make that are healthy for me. He shows me the right path. When I bless other people, He always blesses me. It's not even about a self-serving journey; it's about just learning. I want to learn people's experiences. I want to give them experiences too." ".
Legal issues
Felony domestic assault of Rihanna
At around 12:30 a.m. (PST) on February 8, 2009, Brown and his then-girlfriend, singer Rihanna, had an argument which escalated into physical violence, leaving Rihanna with visible facial injuries which required hospitalization. Brown turned himself in to the Los Angeles Police Department's Wilshire station at 6:30 p.m. (PST) and was booked under suspicion of making criminal threats. The police report did not name the female in the incident as is policy, but media sources soon revealed that the victim was Rihanna. Following Brown's arrest, several commercial ads and some TV shows featuring him were suspended, his music was withdrawn from multiple radio stations, and he withdrew from public appearances, including one at the 2009 Grammy Awards, where he was replaced by Justin Timberlake and Al Green. Brown hired a crisis management team and released a statement saying, "Words cannot begin to express how sorry and saddened I am over what transpired."
On March 5, 2009, Brown was charged with felony assault and making criminal threats. He was arraigned on April 6, 2009, and pleaded not guilty to one count of assault and one count of making criminal threats. On June 22, 2009, Brown pleaded guilty to a felony and accepted a plea deal of community labor, five years of probation, and domestic violence counseling. On July 20, 2009, Brown released a two-minute video on his official YouTube page apologizing to fans and Rihanna for the assault, expressing the incident as his "deepest regret" and saying that he has repeatedly apologized to Rihanna and "accepts full responsibility". In the video, Brown said he wanted to speak out earlier about the case but was advised by his attorney not to until the legal ramifications were settled. The video was removed, but is still available online. On August 25, Brown received five years of probation. He was ordered to attend one year of domestic violence counseling and undergo six months of community service; the judge retained a five-year restraining order on Brown, which required him to remain 50 yards (45.72 meters) away from Rihanna, reduced to 10 yards at public events. Andy Kellman of AllMusic stated, "A fairly substantial backlash resulted in Brown's songs being pulled from rotation on several radio stations. Ultimately, however, it had little bearing on the progress of his music and acting careers."
On September 2, 2009, Brown spoke about the domestic violence case in a pre-recorded Larry King Live interview, his first public interview about the matter. He was accompanied to the interview by his mother, Joyce Hawkins, and attorney Mark Geragos, as he discussed growing up in a household with his mother being repeatedly assaulted by his stepfather. Brown said of hearing details of his assault of Rihanna, "I'm in shock, because, first of all, that's not who I am as a person, and that's not who I promise I want to be." Brown's mother said Brown "has never, ever been a violent person, ever" and that she does not believe in the cycle of violence. Brown said that it is "tough" for him to look at the famous photograph released of Rihanna's battered face, which may be the one image to haunt and define him forever, and that he still loved her. "I'm pretty sure we can always be friends," said Brown, "and I don't know about our relationship, but I just know definitely that we ended as friends." He stated he did not feel that his career was over, and likened his relationship with Rihanna to Romeo and Juliet, blaming the media attention in the aftermath of the assault for driving them apart.
In June 2010, Brown's application for a visa to enter the UK was rejected on the grounds of him "being guilty of a serious criminal offence" due to his assault on Rihanna. Brown had been planning to do a tour of British cities as part of a European tour but Sony stated that due to "issues surrounding his work visa" the tour was to be postponed. In February 2011, at the request of Brown's lawyer, Judge Patricia Schnegg modified with Rihanna's agreement the restraining order to a "level one order," allowing both singers to appear at awards shows together in the future. The following month, on March 22, 2011, during an interview with Robin Roberts on Good Morning America at the Times Square Studios, where he was asked about the Rihanna situation and restraining order, Brown started crying and became violent in his dressing room during a commercial break before his second performance ending that day's program, and punched a window overlooking Times Square, causing damage to it. He then took off his shirt, and after several angry confrontations with the segment producer, other show staff and building security, left the building shirtless. Following the incident, he apologized and said that he was very tired of people bringing up the incident.
On July 11, 2012, Brown's community service was evaluated and he was ordered to meet a judge. The evaluation was ordered by Superior Court Judge Patricia Schnegg on July 10, 2012. He was scheduled to appear in court with regard to the evaluation on August 21, 2012. While conducting his community service in Virginia, however, Brown was tested positive for cannabis and appeared in court on September 25, 2012, at which time his hearing date was changed to November, to determine whether or not he had violated the terms of his court order. He reappeared in court on November 1, 2012, he attempted to address the court and was told by his lawyer, Mark Geragos, "I don't dance; you don't talk." On March 20, 2015, Brown's probation ended, formally closing the felony case emanating from the Rihanna assault which happened over six years prior.
In a 2017 self-documentary, Welcome to My Life, Brown goes into detail about the abusive relationship, saying he intended to marry Rihanna, but that he lost her trust after finding out that he lied about a sexual encounter with someone who worked with him, that happened prior to their relationship. He also talked about how they already had lighter episodes where they put their hands against each other during their relationship, and he gave a detailed description on how the known fight went down.
Other legal issues
On June 14, 2012, Drake and his entourage were involved in a scuffle with Brown at a nightclub called WIP in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City. About eight people were injured during the brawl, including San Antonio Spurs star Tony Parker, who had to have surgery to remove a piece of glass from his eye. Drake was not arrested. Brown's attorney alleged Drake was the instigator. Brown himself tweeted about the incident and publicly criticized Drake weeks later.
In January 2013, Brown was involved in an altercation with Frank Ocean over a parking space, outside a recording studio in West Hollywood. Police officers in Los Angeles said that Brown was under investigation, describing the incident as "battery" due to Brown allegedly punching Ocean. Although Ocean alleged that Brown had threatened to shoot him, he said he would not press charges.
In July 2013, Brown's probation was revoked after he was involved in an alleged hit-and-run in Los Angeles. He was released from court and was scheduled to reappear in August 2013, to learn whether or not he would serve time in prison. The charges would later be dropped, but Brown would have 1,000 additional hours of community service added to his probation terms.
In October 2013, Brown was arrested for felony assault in Washington, D.C., after refusing to take a picture with a man. The charge was reduced to a misdemeanor. Brown spent 36 hours in a Washington jail and was taken to court in shackles. He was released and ordered to report to his California probation officer within 48 hours. The probation officer prepared a report for the Los Angeles judge, who could have ordered him to complete as many as four years in prison for the beating of Rihanna if found to be in violation of his probation.
On October 30, 2013, Brown voluntarily decided to enter rehab. After Brown completed his 90 days, the judge ordered him to remain a resident at the Malibu treatment facility until a hearing on April 23, 2014. The deal was if Brown left rehab, he would go directly to jail. On March 14, 2014, Brown was kicked out of the rehab facility and sent to Northern Neck Regional Jail for violating internal rules. He was expected to be released on April 23, 2014, but a judge denied his release request from custody either on bail or his own recognizance. At his May 9, 2014, court date, Brown was ordered to serve 131 days in jail for his probation violation. He was sentenced to serve 365 days in custody; however, he was given credit for the 234 days he has already spent in rehab and jail. He was given early release from jail just after midnight on June 2, 2014, because of jail overcrowding calculations that count one day in custody as two days. During Brown's rehab, a probation officer noted in a letter that Brown's brushes with the law may have been caused by untreated bipolar disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder, specifically that "Mr. Brown became aggressive and acted out physically due to his untreated mental health disorder, severe sleep deprivation, inappropriate self-medicating and untreated PTSD". According to the court documents, which were received by E! News and later The Hollywood Reporter, Brown was formally diagnosed with both Bipolar II and PTSD at the unnamed rehab facility.
In the early hours of August 30, 2016, a woman called the police to report that Brown had threatened her with a gun inside his house. Due to his previous felony assault conviction, Brown is prohibited to possess any firearms. Police were called, but Brown denied them entry without a warrant. When they returned with one, Brown refused them entry and began what news sources referred to as a "standoff" with the LAPD, including the robbery-homicide division and SWAT team. During this time, Brown was seen posting videos on Instagram, in which he rails against the police and the media coverage of the activity at his house. He denounced media reports that he was "barricaded" inside his house, complained about the helicopters flying overhead, and called the police "idiots" and "the worst gang in the world." He said that he was innocent and "What I do care about is you are defacing my name and my character and integrity". Brown was arrested and later released from jail on $250,000 bail. On September 1, 2016, Brown's lawyer, Mark Geragos, stated that there was no standoff and that, with regard to the LAPD search, "nothing was found to corroborate her statement." In September, Japan denied Brown entry due to the allegations. Charges were later dropped after prosecutors declined to arraign Brown on the felony charges. Brown later sued the accuser for defamation, prevailing in the lawsuit, after an investigation that proved that the defendant brought to court false and defamatory statements about the singer, through her incriminating text messages where she said "don't you know this freak Chris Brown is kicking me out of his house because I called his friend jewelry fake can you come get me my Uber is messing up if not I'm going to set him up and call the cops and say that he tried to shoot me and that will teach him a lesson I'm going to set his a** up.",. Brown later said through his social media accounts "Because of my past, my character keeps on being defaced by these fake news and allegations highlighted by the media, but I'm glad that all my real supporters know who i really am and can see the truth"
Brown was arrested after his concert during July 6, 2018, night on a felony battery charge stemming from an incident that occurred more than a year before.
The battery charge was connected to an April 2017 incident in a Tampa club, where Brown allegedly punched a man who photographed him without his permission. The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office said Brown was released after about an hour, after that he posted $2,000 bond.
In 2021, Brown was sued by his housekeeper over a 2020 attack by one of his dogs, a Caucasian Ovcharka.
, due to his criminal record, Brown is banned from entering Australia and New Zealand. Previously, other countries that banned the singer because of his criminal record were Canada and United Kingdom, and they revoked their ban respectively in 2019 and 2020.
In January 2022, an anonymous woman filed a civil suit accusing Brown of raping her on a yacht in Miami in December 2020. Court documents revealed that she was not pursuing a criminal case and remained in contact with Brown after the alleged incident took place - visiting his home on two separate occasions in California in January and August 2021 to listen to him record music. The woman is suing Brown for $20 million. Brown has denied the allegation.
Business ventures
In 2007, Brown founded the record label CBE ("Chris Brown Entertainment" or "Culture Beyond Evolution"), under Interscope Records. Brown has since signed frequent collaborator Kevin McCall, singer Sabrina Antoinette, former RichGirl member Sevyn Streeter, singer-songwriter Joelle James, and rock group U.G.L.Y. However, from 2014 the label started to sign exclusively Brown's works.
Brown has stated he owns fourteen Burger King restaurants. In 2012, he launched a streetwear clothing line called Black Pyramid, in collaboration with the founders of the Pink + Dolphin clothing line. In 2016 the clothing label was set for larger release, partnering with streetwear clothing lines such as Snipes for a worldwide distribution, also being distributed through its own Black Pyramid boutiques.
On November 11, 2021 the singer has launched his own cereal, "Breezy's Cosmic Crunch", partnering with SoFlo Snacks for this limited edition of collectible breakfast cereal. Its box was curated by Brown himself, and illustrated by visual artist Adrian Cuevas.
Discography
Chris Brown (2005)
Exclusive (2007)
Graffiti (2009)
F.A.M.E. (2011)
Fortune (2012)
X (2014)
Royalty (2015)
Heartbreak on a Full Moon (2017)
Indigo (2019)
Breezy (2022)
Filmography
Tours
Brown has headlined multiple arenas tours in North America, Europe and World-Wide. Additionally he has co-headlined a North American tour with Trey Songz and served as a supporting act on tours for industry peers such as Rihanna, Drake (musician), Lil Wayne and Beyoncé. In total, Brown has earned an approprixate $157 million from 279 concerts over the course of his career - making him one of the highest grossing African American touring artists of all time.
Headlining
Up Close and Personal Tour (2006)
The UCP Exclusive Tour (2007)
Fan Appreciation Tour (2009)
F.A.M.E. Tour (2011)
Carpe Diem Tour (2012)
One Hell of a Nite Tour (2015–2016)
The Party Tour (2017)
Heartbreak on a Full Moon Tour (2018)
Indigoat Tour (2019)
Co-headlining
Between the Sheets Tour (2015)
Supporting
The Beyoncé Experience (Australia dates) (2007)
Good Girl Gone Bad Tour (the Philippines, Oceania) (2008)
Supafest (2012)
Lil Weezyana Fest (2016)
OVO Fest (2019)
Achievements
List of awards and nominations received by Chris Brown
See also
List of artists who reached number one in the United States
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
List of best-selling music artists
List of Billboard Hot 100 chart achievements and milestones
List of most-followed Instagram accounts
References
External links
Chris Brown on YouTube
1989 births
Living people
21st-century American criminals
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American rappers
21st-century African-American male singers
African-American businesspeople
African-American Christians
African-American male actors
African-American male dancers
African-American male rappers
African-American male singer-songwriters
American businesspeople convicted of crimes
American child singers
American contemporary R&B singers
American dance musicians
American hip hop singers
American male criminals
American male dancers
American male film actors
American male pop singers
American male rappers
American male television actors
American music industry executives
American music video directors
American people convicted of assault
Burger King people
Businesspeople from Virginia
Criminals from Virginia
Grammy Award winners
Jive Records artists
Male actors from Virginia
People from Tappahannock, Virginia
People with bipolar disorder
Pop rappers
Rappers from Virginia
RCA Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Virginia
Singers with a three-octave vocal range
Sony BMG artists
World Music Awards winners | true | [
"The Nullity of Marriage Act 1971 was an act that defined valid reasons for annulment according to British law. This act was the first time in British law that marriage was explicitly defined by statute as being between a male and a female. A marriage could therefore be annulled if the partners were not respectively male and female.\n\nThe provisions of the Act were incorporated into the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 and the Act itself was repealed. The provision that a marriage must be between a male and a female has subsequently been overturned by the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013.\n\nContents \nThe first clause of the act states that lack of consent in a marriage due to mental health problems, duress, or a mistake in getting married were grounds for a marriage to be void. The second clause stated that, if the partners getting married were not male and female, then the marriage was void. The third clause states that epilepsy attacks at the time of marriage was no longer a valid reason for annulment. The act only applied to marriages if there had been a marriage ceremony. The act came into force on August 1, 1971.\n\nSee also\n Same-sex marriage in the United Kingdom\n Marriage in the United Kingdom\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Commentary on the Nullity of Marriage Act 1971, from (1972), STATUTES. The Modern Law Review, 35: 57–72. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2230.1972.tb01319.x\n\nUnited Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1971\nRepealed United Kingdom Acts of Parliament\nMarriage law in the United Kingdom",
"The Holy Days and Fasting Days Act 1551 (5 & 6 Edw 6 c 3) was an Act of the Parliament of England.\n\nIt is commonly stated that this act is still in force and attention is drawn to a portion of the act that states citizens must walk to a Christian church on Christmas Day. In fact, what had not been repealed of this act in previous legislation was repealed as part of the Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1969, under section 1 of, and Part II of the Schedule to, the 1969 act.\n\nSection 2\nThis section, from \"it is also\" to first \"aforesaide\" was repealed by section 1(1) of, and Part I of the Schedule to, the Statute Law Revision Act 1888.\n\nSection 3\nThis section, from \"it is enacted\" to \"abovesaide\" was repealed by section 1(1) of, and Part I of the Schedule to, the Statute Law Revision Act 1888.\n\nSection 5\nThis section, from \"and it is\" to first \"aforesaide\" was repealed by section 1(1) of, and Part I of the Schedule to, the Statute Law Revision Act 1888.\n\nSection 6\nThis section, from \"and it is\" to first \"aforesaide\" was repealed by section 1(1) of, and Part I of the Schedule to, the Statute Law Revision Act 1888.\n\nSection 7\nThis section, from \"and be it\" to \"aforesaide\" was repealed by section 1(1) of, and Part I of the Schedule to, the Statute Law Revision Act 1888.\n\nReferences\nHalsbury's Statutes\n\nActs of the Parliament of England (1485–1603)\n1551 in law\n1551 in England"
] |
[
"Billy Gunn",
"Billy and Chuck (2001-2002)"
] | C_acab549694dc4ed9946ffa652de2d406_0 | What happened between Billy and Gunn | 1 | What happened between Billy and Chuck? | Billy Gunn | In a 2001 match on Sunday Night Heat, Gunn was defeated by Chuck Palumbo, who recently left The Alliance to join the WWF. After the match, Gunn suggested that they form a tag team. Palumbo agreed, and Billy and Chuck quickly rose to the top of the tag team division. Initially they were a generic face tandem, but soon turned heel when they were given a gimmick where they grew increasingly affectionate toward each other, showing evidence of a storyline homosexual relationship. In February 2002, Billy and Chuck defeated Spike Dudley and Tazz to win the Tag Team Championship for the first time as a team. After winning the titles, Billy and Chuck found a "Personal Stylist" in the ambiguously flamboyant Rico. After retaining the title against the Acolytes Protection Agency, the Dudley Boyz, and the Hardy Boyz in a Four Corners Elimination Match at WrestleMania X8 and against Al Snow and Maven at Backlash, Billy and Chuck began a feud with Rikishi. At Judgment Day, Rikishi and Rico (Rikishi's mystery partner of Mr. McMahon's choosing) defeated Billy and Chuck for the Tag Team Title after Rico accidentally hit Chuck with a roundhouse kick. Billy and Chuck quickly won the title back two weeks later on SmackDown! with Rico's help. They held the championship for almost a month before losing it to the team of Edge and Hulk Hogan. On the September 5 edition of Smackdown!, after Gunn lost a match to Rey Mysterio, Chuck proposed to Billy, asking him to be his "partner for life" and gave him a wedding ring. Gunn agreed, and one week later, on the September 12 episode of SmackDown!, Billy and Chuck had their wedding ceremony. However, just before they tied the knot, they revealed that the entire ordeal was a publicity stunt and disavowed their on-screen homosexuality, admitting that they were just friends. The "preacher" revealed himself to be Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff (who was wearing a skin mask), who then summoned 3-Minute Warning to beat up Billy and Chuck. Rico, furious that Billy and Chuck gave up their gimmick, became the manager of Three Minute Warning and defected to Raw, effectively turning Billy and Chuck face in the process. At Unforgiven, Three Minute Warning defeated Billy Gunn and Chuck Palumbo. Their final match together occurred on SmackDown! in the first round of a tournament for the newly created WWE Tag Team Championship. They lost the match to the team of Ron Simmons and Reverend D-Von. Afterwards, Sopp took a few months off because of a shoulder injury and the team of Billy and Chuck quietly disbanded. CANNOTANSWER | Chuck proposed to Billy, asking him to be his "partner for life" and gave him a wedding ring. | Monty "Kip" Sopp (born November 1, 1963), better known by his ring name Billy Gunn, is an American professional wrestler. He is currently signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW) as a wrestler and coach. Gunn is best known for his appearances in the World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment (WWF/E) from 1993 to 2004 and from 2012 to 2015. He also served as a coach on WWE's Tough Enough and was a trainer in NXT. He is also known for his appearances with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) from 2005 to 2009.
Primarily a tag team wrestler, Gunn is an overall 13-time tag team champion in WWE with three different partners (with Bart Gunn as The Smoking Gunns, with Road Dogg as The New Age Outlaws, and with Chuck Palumbo as Billy and Chuck). He is also a one time WWF Intercontinental Champion and a two time WWF Hardcore Champion, giving him 14 total championships in WWE. He is the 1999 King of the Ring tournament winner, and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2019 as a member of D-Generation X.
Professional wrestling career
Early career (1985–1993)
After a stint as a professional bull rider in Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, Sopp left the profession in his early-20s in order to pursue a career as a professional wrestler. Trained by Jerry Grey, Sopp wrestled on the independent circuit for eight years (including a brief stint as enhancement talent for World Championship Wrestling (WCW) before signing a contract with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in 1993.
World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment (1993–2004)
The Smoking Gunns (1993–1996)
After weeks of vignettes, Sopp, under the name Billy Gunn, made his WWF debut on the May 17, 1993 episode of Raw, teaming with his on-screen brother, Bart Gunn to defeat Tony Vadja and Glenn Ruth. The duo, now known as The Smoking Gunns, made their pay-per-view debut at King of the Ring, teaming with The Steiner Brothers to defeat Money Inc. and The Headshrinkers in an eight-man tag team match. At SummerSlam, the duo teamed with Tatanka to pick up a win against Bam Bam Bigelow and the Headshrinkers. On January 22, 1994, Gunn entered his first Royal Rumble match at the namesake event, but was eliminated by Diesel. In early 1995, the Gunns won their first Tag Team Championship by defeating the makeshift team of Bob Holly and 1-2-3 Kid. They held the title until WrestleMania XI, where they were defeated by the team of Owen Hart and Yokozuna. They won the titles again in September 1995.
On February 15, 1996, the Gunns vacated the title because Billy was in need of neck surgery. After Billy returned from hiatus, The Smoking Gunns won the Tag Team Title for the third time by defeating The Godwinns in May. After the match, The Godwinns' manager Sunny turned on her team in favor of the Gunns. On September 22 at In Your House: Mind Games, the Gunns lost the Tag Team Title to Owen Hart and The British Bulldog. After the match, Sunny abandoned The Gunns, saying that she would only manage title holders. Billy, frustrated with losing both the championship and Sunny, walked out on Bart, breaking up The Smoking Gunns.
Rockabilly, The New Age Outlaws and D-Generation X (1997–1998)
After The Smoking Gunns disbanded, Gunn took some time off to nurse an injury. At WrestleMania 13, he defeated Flash Funk catching the attention of The Honky Tonk Man, who made Gunn his protégé. During this time, he adopted a new gimmick, Rockabilly, He would use this gimmick throughout much of 1997 and eventually had a short-lived feud with "The Real Double J" Jesse James. On the October 4, 1997 episode of Shotgun Saturday Night, James realized both of their careers were going nowhere and suggested that they become a tag team. Gunn agreed and smashed a guitar over the Honky Tonk Man's head to solidify their new alliance.
James and Rockabilly were quickly rebranded as "Road Dogg" Jesse James and "Badd Ass" Billy Gunn, respectively, and their tag team was dubbed the New Age Outlaws. They quickly rose to the top of the tag team ranks and won the Tag Team Championship from the Legion of Doom on November 24. They also defeated the LOD in a rematch at In Your House: D-Generation X.
The Outlaws slowly began to align themselves with D-Generation X. At the Royal Rumble, the New Age Outlaws interfered in a Casket match to help Shawn Michaels defeat The Undertaker. At No Way Out Of Texas, the Outlaws teamed up with Triple H and Savio Vega (who replaced the injured Shawn Michaels) to face Chainsaw Charlie, Cactus Jack, Owen Hart, and Steve Austin. They were, however, defeated. On February 2, The Outlaws locked Cactus and Chainsaw in a dumpster and pushed it off the stage. This led to a Dumpster match at WrestleMania XIV where Cactus and Chainsaw defeated the Outlaws for the Tag Titles. The next night on Raw, the New Age Outlaws won the Tag Team Championship for a second time by defeating Chainsaw and Cactus in a Steel cage match, but only after interference from Triple H, Chyna, and X-Pac. After the match, the Outlaws officially became members of D-Generation X (DX).
After joining DX, the Outlaws successfully defended their Tag Team Title against the Legion of Doom 2000 at Unforgiven. DX began to feud with Owen Hart and his new stablemates, The Nation. At Over The Edge, the Outlaws and Triple H were defeated by Nation members Owen, Kama Mustafa, and D'Lo Brown in a Six Man Tag Match.
During this time, the Outlaws began a feud with Kane and Mankind. At SummerSlam, Mankind faced the Outlaws in a Handicap match after Kane no-showed the title defense. The Outlaws defeated Mankind to win the titles for the third time. In December, the Outlaws lost the title to The Big Boss Man and Ken Shamrock from The Corporation.
Mr. Ass and reformation of the Outlaws and DX (1999–2000)
The Outlaws then began to focus more on singles competition. The Road Dogg won the Hardcore Championship in December 1998, and Gunn set his sights on the Intercontinental Championship. At the 1999 Royal Rumble, Gunn unsuccessfully challenged Ken Shamrock for the Intercontinental Title. The next month at St. Valentine's Day Massacre, Gunn was the special guest referee for the Intercontinental Championship match between Val Venis and champion Ken Shamrock, where Gunn made a fast count and declared Venis the new champion before attacking both men.
In March, Gunn won the Hardcore Championship from Hardcore Holly. At WrestleMania XV, Gunn lost the title to Holly in a Triple Threat match which also included Al Snow. The New Age Outlaws then reunited to defeat Jeff Jarrett and Owen Hart at Backlash. After Backlash, Gunn left D-Generation X and aligned himself with Triple H and Chyna. Gunn defeated his former partner, Road Dogg, in a match at Over the Edge. Gunn then won the King of the Ring tournament by defeating Ken Shamrock, Kane, and his former ally, X-Pac. After King of the Ring, Gunn, Triple H, and Chyna went on to feud with X-Pac and Road Dogg over the rights to the D-Generation X name. This feud culminated at Fully Loaded when X-Pac and Road Dogg defeated Gunn and Chyna.
Gunn then began a brief feud with The Rock. At SummerSlam, The Rock defeated Gunn in a Kiss My Ass Match. Following this, Gunn then briefly feuded with Jeff Jarrett for the Intercontinental Title before reuniting with Road Dogg to reform The New Age Outlaws. The Outlaws won their fourth tag team championship by defeating The Rock 'n' Sock Connection in September 1999. The Outlaws later reunited with X-Pac and Triple H to reform D-Generation X. During this time, The Outlaws won their fifth Tag Team Championship after defeating Mankind and Al Snow. At the 2000 Royal Rumble, The New Age Outlaws retained their title against The Acolytes after interference from X-Pac. The Outlaws then had a feud with The Dudley Boyz, who won the Tag Team Championship from The Outlaws at No Way Out. After suffering a torn rotator cuff in the match with The Dudley Boyz, Gunn was kicked out of D-Generation X for "losing his cool" to explain his impending absence to recover from his injury.
The One (2000–2001)
Gunn made his return in October and immediately teamed with Chyna to feud with Right to Censor, who wanted to "censor" his Mr. Ass gimmick. At No Mercy, Right to Censor members Steven Richards and Val Venis defeated Chyna and Gunn. Due to a stipulation, Gunn could no longer use the Mr. Ass gimmick, so he renamed himself Billy G. for a few weeks before settling on "The One" Billy Gunn. Gunn then feuded with Eddie Guerrero and the rest of The Radicalz. At Survivor Series, Gunn teamed with Road Dogg, Chyna, and K-Kwik in a losing effort against The Radicalz. A few weeks later on SmackDown!, Gunn won the Intercontinental Championship from Guerrero. However, the title reign was short-lived, as Chris Benoit defeated him for the title two weeks later at Armageddon. After feuding with Benoit, Gunn participated in the 2001 Royal Rumble where he made it to the final four, Gunn interfered in the Hardcore Championship Match at No Way Out, and taking advantage of the 24/7 Rule, pinning Raven for the title. The reign was short-lived, as Raven won it back a few minutes later.
Billy and Chuck (2001–2002)
In a 2001 match on Sunday Night Heat, Gunn was defeated by Chuck Palumbo, who recently left The Alliance to join the WWF. After the match, Gunn suggested that they form a tag team. Palumbo agreed, and Billy and Chuck quickly rose to the top of the tag team division. Initially they were a generic tandem, but they were given a gimmick where they grew increasingly affectionate toward each other, showing evidence of a storyline homosexual relationship.
In February 2002, Billy and Chuck defeated Spike Dudley and Tazz to win the WWF Tag Team Championship for the first time as a team. After winning the titles, Billy and Chuck found a "Personal Stylist" in the ambiguously flamboyant Rico. After retaining the title against the Acolytes Protection Agency, the Dudley Boyz, and the Hardy Boyz in a Four Corners Elimination Match at WrestleMania X8 and against Al Snow and Maven at Backlash, Billy and Chuck began a feud with Rikishi. At Judgment Day, Rikishi and Rico (Rikishi's mystery partner of Mr. McMahon's choosing) defeated Billy and Chuck for the WWE Tag Team Championship after Rico accidentally hit Chuck with a roundhouse kick. Billy and Chuck quickly won the title back two weeks later on SmackDown! with Rico's help. They held the championship for almost a month before losing it to the team of Edge and Hollywood Hulk Hogan on the July 4 episode of SmackDown!.
On the September 5 edition of SmackDown!, after Billy lost a match to Rey Mysterio, Chuck proposed to Billy, asking him to be his "partner for life" and gave him a wedding ring. Billy agreed, and one week later, on the September 12 episode of SmackDown!, Billy and Chuck had their wedding ceremony. However, just before they tied the knot, they revealed that the entire ordeal was a publicity stunt and disavowed their on-screen homosexuality, admitting that they were just friends. The "preacher" revealed himself to be Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff (who was wearing a skin mask), who then summoned 3-Minute Warning to beat up Billy and Chuck. Rico, furious that Billy and Chuck gave up their gimmick, became the manager of Three Minute Warning and defected to Raw. At Unforgiven, Three Minute Warning defeated Billy and Chuck. Their final match together occurred on the October 3 episode of SmackDown! in the first round of a tournament for the newly created WWE Tag Team Championship. They lost the match to the team of Ron Simmons and Reverend D-Von. Afterwards, Gunn took a few months off because of a shoulder injury and the team of Billy and Chuck quietly disbanded.
SmackDown! and return to singles competition (2003–2004)
After returning in the summer of 2003, Gunn reverted to the "Mr. Ass" gimmick, defeating A-Train, and Torrie Wilson became his new manager. He started a feud with Jamie Noble, which led to an "Indecent Proposal" Match at Vengeance, which Noble won and due to the match's stipulation, won a night with Torrie. After taking time off again due to a shoulder injury, Gunn returned to action at the 2004 Royal Rumble, but was eliminated by Goldberg. Afterward, he wrestled mainly on Velocity, forming an occasional tag team with Hardcore Holly. At Judgment Day, Gunn and Holly challenged Charlie Haas and Rico for the WWE Tag Team Championship, but were unsuccessful. At The Great American Bash, Gunn lost to Kenzo Suzuki.
On November 1, 2004, Sopp was released from his WWE contract. In June 2005, Sopp gave an interview in which he was heavily critical of WWE and the events that led to his release. Many of the negative comments were directed towards Triple H, who Sopp claimed "runs the show up there".
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (2005–2009)
Planet Jarrett (2005)
On February 13, 2005, Sopp debuted in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) without a name (as Billy Gunn is a WWE trademark, although announcers recognized him as such) at Against All Odds with the same gimmick, helping Jeff Jarrett retain the NWA World Heavyweight Championship in a match with Kevin Nash. Sopp, using the name The New Age Outlaw, then formed a stable with Jarrett and Monty Brown known as Planet Jarrett. However, WWE threatened TNA with legal action if Sopp continued the use of the name "The New Age Outlaw", so he shortened his name to The Outlaw. Due to the legal issues with WWE, all TNA -DVD releases featuring footage with Sopp as "The Outlaw" (and presumably also as "The New Age Outlaw") have had the name on on-screen graphics blurred, the name silenced out of the audio, and match commentary completely replaced to reflect a retroactive name change to "Kip James". One such DVD is the pay-per-view Lockdown, included in the "TNA Anthology: The Epic Set" box set, in which the silencing of the name during a segment where Dusty Rhodes picks his name from a lottery leaves DVD viewers in the dark as to who just got picked.
The Outlaw began a campaign to make former ally B.G. James leave the 3Live Kru and defect to Planet Jarrett, reforming the old tag team with Outlaw. At No Surrender, he renamed himself Kip James and was announced as "wrestling out of Marietta, Georgia" (the family seat of the Armstrong family) as a psychological ploy. As a result of his campaign, Kip attracted the ire of 3Live Kru members Ron Killings and Konnan, leading to a series of tag team matches pitting Kip and Monty Brown against Killings and Konnan, with a conflicted James unwilling to take sides. Kip's efforts ultimately proved futile; James, the guest referee in a final match between Brown and Kip versus Konnan and Killings at Sacrifice, attacked Kip enabling a 3Live Kru victory.
In September at Unbreakable, Kip teamed with Brown to defeat the team of Apolo and Lance Hoyt. There was clear tension between the partners because Brown was unhappy at the series of losses at the hands of the 3Live Kru, and Kip was irked by Brown's decision to leave Planet Jarrett. Despite the victory, the partners argued after the match. On the October 8, 2005 episode of Impact!, Kip rekindled his feud with the 3Live Kru, running to the ring after a bout between the 3LK and Team Canada in order to prevent Team Canada captain Petey Williams from beating down B.G. James. He saved James, and then engaged in a staredown with Konnan and Killings. Kip saved James from Team Canada once again at Bound for Glory. Though Killings showed signs of gratitude, Konnan remained skeptical as to his true intentions. Later that night, Kip took part in an over-the-top-rope gauntlet match for the number one contendership to the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. After he was eliminated, he tried in vain to prevent Killings from being eliminated as well, before being sent away from ringside by the referees.
The James Gang/Voodoo Kin Mafia (2005–2008)
On the November 26 episode of Impact!, B.G. brought Kip and the 3Live Kru to ringside and asked Killings and Konnan whether Kip could join the stable. Following a heated argument between Konnan and B.G., both Killings and Konnan gave their approval, and the 4Live Kru was born. However, at Turning Point, Konnan attacked both B.G. and Kip, costing them their match against Team Canada and initiating a feud between himself and the remainder of the Kru. Shortly thereafter, B.G. James's father, Bob Armstrong, attempted to reconcile the group, but was instead attacked by Konnan and his new stablemates, Apolo and Homicide. Killings later stated that he had severed his ties with the Kru. With Konnan and Killings no longer members of the Kru, Kip and B.G. began referring to themselves as The James Gang and continued to feud with the Konnan-managed Latin American Exchange, whose third man position as Homicide's partner would switch from Apolo to Machete, and then from him to Hernandez, who finally stuck, during the course of this feud. At Final Resolution, The James Gang defeated The Diamonds in the Rough (David Young and Elix Skipper). At Against All Odds, The James Gang defeated LAX (Homicide and Machete). At Destination X, The James Gang and Bob Armstrong defeated Latin American Exchange in a six-man tag team match. At Sacrifice, The James Gang defeated Team 3D which led to a rematch at Slammiversary where Team 3D defeated The James Gang in a Bingo Hall Brawl. At Victory Road, The James Gang and Abyss defeated Team 3D and their newest member Brother Runt. At No Surrender, The James Gang competed in a Triple Chance tag team battle royal but failed to win the match. At Bound for Glory, The James Gang competed in a Four-way tag team match which was won by Team 3D.
By November 2006, Kip and B.G. began to show displeasure in TNA and threatened to go find work elsewhere if they did not receive gold soon. They began performing the crotch chop, a reference to the WWE's DX. On the November 2 edition of Impact!, Kip and B.G. threatened to quit. Kip grabbed the mic and tried to say something to the TNA administration and Spike TV, but each time his mic was cut off. Kip then tried to use the announcer's headset, but it was cut off as well. Frustrated, he started yelling loudly to the crowd, but he was cut off again as the show went to a commercial break. When the show returned, the announcers speculated that they may have been frustrated due to the influx of new talent entering TNA. It was reported that the segment was a worked shoot that Vince Russo had written in order to renew interest upon their eventual return. Kip and BG appeared in an internet video on TNA's website where they addressed the owner of WWE Vince McMahon.
A few weeks later on Impact!, The James Gang re-emerged under a new name Voodoo Kin Mafia (VKM for short, a play on Vincent Kennedy McMahon's initials). They mentioned their new right of 'creative control', meaning they could do whatever they wanted. They also declared 'war' on Paul Levesque, Michael Hickenbottom, and Vincent K. McMahon (Triple H, Shawn Michaels, and Vince McMahon, respectively). Kip then declared that 'Triple Hollywood' and 'Shawn Kiss-my-bottom' were failing as the group they (Kip and BG) used to be a part of: D-Generation X. After the initial shock value of this incident wore off, at Genesis, The Voodoo Kin Mafia defeated Kazarian, Maverick Matt and Johnny Devine in a handicap match. VKM began a feud with the villainous Christy Hemme. Hemme then searched for a tag team to square-off against VKM. At Destination X, The Voodoo Kin Mafia defeated Hemme's handpicked team of The Heartbreakers (Antonio Thomas & Romeo Roselli). On the Lockdown preshow The Voodoo Kin Mafia defeated another one of Hemme's handpicked team Serotonin (Kaz & Havok) in a Six Sides of Steel match. The final tag team was Damaja and Basham, who appeared on an episode of Impact! and beat down VKM. They also held up Kip James so Hemme could slap him. B.G James was taken out by Basham and Damaja which led to Kip James competed against Basham and Damaja in a handicap match at Sacrifice where he lost. However, they beat Hemme's team at Slammiversary. After the match, VKM were betrayed by their associate Lance Hoyt. At Victory Road, they introduced their new manager, the Voodoo Queen, Roxxi Laveaux, to embarrass Christy Hemme. At Hard Justice, The Voodoo Kin Mafia lost to The Latin American Exchange. At No Surrender, The Voodoo Kin Mafia competed in a Ten-team tag team gauntlet match which was won by A.J. Styles and Tomko. At Bound for Glory, Kip James competed in the Fight for the Right Reverse Battle Royal which was won by Eric Young. On the October 25 edition of Impact!, VKM teamed with A.J. Styles and Tomko in a losing effort to the Latin American Xchange and the Steiner Brothers. At Genesis, B.G. was present along with Kip in the corner of Roxxi Laveaux at ringside for the Fatal Four Way knockout match for the TNA Women's Championship in which Gail Kim retained the title. At Turning Point, James competed in the Feast or Fired where he grabbed a case but threw it to BG James. It was revealed that the case was for a shot at the TNA World Tag Team Championship and BG James picked his dad to be his partner at Against All Odds, James and Bob Armstrong failed to win the titles and on February 21, 2008 episode of Impact! he turned on B.G. and B.G's father "Bullet" Bob Armstrong by hitting them both with a crutch.
The Beautiful People (2008–2009)
On April 13, 2008, he faced former partner B.G. James at Lockdown and lost. After the match, he appeared to want to make amends as he raised B.G.'s hand after the match, only to clothesline him down to the mat and taunt him with a DX crotch chop. Kip went on to declare himself "The Megastar", an arrogant gimmick similar to "The One" gimmick from his WWF tenure. Kip later stopped making appearances on Impact! until April 24 when he was attacked backstage by Matt Morgan for no reason. The next week on Impact!, Kip got back at Morgan by attacking him backstage in Jim Cornette's office. On May 8, 2008, Cornette forced Morgan into being Kip's tag team partner for the Deuces Wild tournament at Sacrifice, though both were unable to win. Kip went on another brief disappearance from television until the June 5 edition of Impact!, where he partnered with Lance Hoyt and James Storm in a losing effort against Morgan and The Latin American Xchange.
On the August 14 episode of Impact!, Kip was revealed to be the new image consultant and member of The Beautiful People, dubbed Cute Kip and was using his Mr.Ass Attire, after they brought him out during their interview on Karen Angle's show Karen's Angle. at Bound for Glory IV, Kip, Love and Sky lost to Rhino, ODB and Rhaka Khan in a Bimbo Brawl. at Final Resolution (December 2008), Kip competed in the Feast or Fired match but failed to get a case. At Genesis 2009, Kip became the one-night-only replacement for the injured Kevin Nash in the Main Event Mafia.
As of March 19, 2009, Sopp was taken off of TNA Impact! along with Jacqueline Moore to become road agents. Sopp returned as Cute Kip and lost to Awesome Kong in an intergender stretcher match on May 14, 2009. On the May 28 edition of Impact!, Kip was fired by The Beautiful People. On the June 18 edition of Impact!, Mick Foley hired him as his handyman, turning Kip into a face. he made another appearance on the August 6 edition of Impact where Kip had to clean up the IMPACT Zone after a chaotic fifteen minute "riot". On October 9 edition of Xplosion, Kip was defeated by Rhino. On October 30 edition of Xplosion, Kip defeated Sheik Abdul Bashir. on the November 13 edition of Xplosion, Kip lost to Rob Terry and on December 3, 2009 edition of Xplosion, Kip competed in his final TNA match where he lost to Kiyoshi.
Sopp's profile was removed from the TNA website on December 29, 2009, confirming his departure from the promotion.
Independent circuit (2009–2012)
After leaving TNA, Sopp reunited with B.G. James to reform The New Age Outlaws, with both men resuming their Billy Gunn and Road Dogg ring names. After joining TWA Powerhouse in 2010, the Outlaws defeated Canadian Extreme to win the promotion's Tag Team Championship on July 25. They re-lost the title to Canadian Extreme on June 5, 2011.
On July 30, 2011, Sopp, working under the ring name Kip Gunn, made his debut for Lucha Libre USA as a member of the heel stable The Right. Later that night, Gunn lost in his debut match against Marco Corleone. On June 26, 2012, Sopp won the American Pro Wrestling Alliance American Championship. However, he lost the title due to travel issues. On September 8 and 9, 2012, he wrestled in a Bad Boys of Wrestling Federation tournament. He defeated Rhino in the semi-finals and Scott Steiner in the final, winning the BBWF Aruba Championship.
Return to WWE (2012–2015)
On July 23, Sopp, under his Billy Gunn name, made his first WWE appearance in nearly eight years as he reunited with Road Dogg, X-Pac, Shawn Michaels and Triple H to reform D-Generation X for one night only on the 1000th episode of Raw. In December 2012, he was hired by WWE as a trainer for the NXT Wrestling territory in Tampa, Florida. On March 4, 2013, Gunn and Road Dogg made a return at Old School Raw, defeating Primo and Epico. On March 11, 2013, they accepted a challenge from Team Rhodes Scholars and faced them in a match, which was interrupted by Brock Lesnar, who hit both Outlaws with an F-5 as part of his ongoing feud with Triple H.
He then appeared alongside Road Dogg to help CM Punk clear out The Shield in aid of Roddy Piper on Old School Raw on January 6, 2014. On the January 10 episode of SmackDown, the Outlaws teamed with CM Punk in a six-man tag match against The Shield in a losing effort. On the January 13 episode of Raw, the Outlaws again teamed with Punk in a rematch against The Shield, only to abandon Punk and lose the match. On January 26 during the Royal Rumble Kickoff Show, Gunn and Road Dogg beat Cody Rhodes and Goldust to win the WWE Tag Team Championship. The next night on Raw the New Age Outlaws retained the championship against Rhodes and Goldust via disqualification when Brock Lesnar attacked the brothers. The next week on Raw the New Age Outlaws retained the championship against Rhodes and Goldust in a steel cage match. On March 3, the Outlaws lost the Tag Team Championship to The Usos. Gunn sustained hemoptysis after he and his New Age Outlaws partner, Road Dogg, suffered a double-Triple Powerbomb by The Shield at WrestleMania XXX.
Gunn returned to Raw with Road Dogg in January 2015, attacking The Ascension along with the nWo and the APA. At the Royal Rumble, the Outlaws faced The Ascension in a losing effort. At WrestleMania 31, Gunn, with Road Dogg, X-Pac and Shawn Michaels, reunited as D-Generation X to help Triple H in his match against Sting. In May, Gunn was announced as a coach along with WWE Hall of Famers Booker T and Lita for the sixth season of Tough Enough.
On November 13, 2015, WWE officially announced that Sopp was released from his WWE contract after failing a test for performance-enhancing drugs. He had tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone at a powerlifting event on July 25, 2015, and was suspended from powerlifting for four years.
Independent circuit (2015–2020)
On December 26, 2015, Gunn teamed up with Kevin Thorn to defeat Brian Klass and Rob Street. One month later, Gunn defeated Ken Dixon for the MCW Pro Wrestling MCW Rage Television Championship. On February 5, 2016, Gunn defeated Joey Hayes in the Preston City Wrestling PCW Road to Glory tournament, on February 6 he lost to T-Bone in the quarter-finals that same night Gunn teamed up with Mr. Anderson and Tajiri to defeat Dave Raynes, Joey Hayes, and Martin Kirby. On February 7, 2016 Gunn challenged for the Pro Wrestling Pride Heavyweight championship losing to Steve Griffiths. On March 19, 2016, Gunn lost the title to Ken Dixon. On June 12, 2016, Gunn won the Smashmouth Pro Wrestling championship from KC Huber but lost it on the same night, Gunn teamed again with Anderson in a losing effort against the UK Hooligans at PCW Tribute to the Troops on June 25, 2016. He defeated Hardcore Holly in a singles match at PCW Top Gunn on July 2, 2016.
On September 4, 2016, Gunn made his debut for Chikara, representing DX alongside X-Pac in a tag team gauntlet match. The two entered the match as the final team and scored the win over Prakash Sabar and The Proletariat Boar of Moldova.
New Japan Pro-Wrestling (2016–2017)
On November 5, 2016, at the New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) event Power Struggle, Yoshitatsu announced Gunn as the newest member of his Hunter Club stable and his partner for the upcoming 2016 World Tag League. Gunn and Yoshitatsu finished the tournament on December 8 with a record of three wins and four losses, failing to advance from their block. Gunn returned to NJPW on January 4, 2017, taking part in the pre-show New Japan Rumble at Wrestle Kingdom 11 in Tokyo Dome, from which he was eliminated by the eventual winner Michael Elgin. While Gunn did not appear for NJPW for the next six months, he was brought up in May by Yoshitatsu, who told Hiroshi Tanahashi that Gunn had requested a match against him. When Tanahashi captured the IWGP Intercontinental Championship the following month, he immediately nominated Gunn as his first challenger. Gunn was defeated in the title match on July 2 at G1 Special in USA, and it was his final match in NJPW.
WWE appearances (2018–2019)
Gunn and numerous other WWE legends appeared on the January 22, 2018 episode of Raw 25 Years as part of the D-Generation X reunion. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2019 as a member of D-Generation X.
All Elite Wrestling (2019–present)
In January 2019, Gunn was hired by All Elite Wrestling as a coach. At May 25 at the AEW Double or Nothing event he competed in the pre-show battle royal. Gunn made his first televised appearance for AEW on the November 20, 2019 episode of AEW Dynamite, competing in a battle royal. He also appeared during the January 1, 2020 episode of Dynamite, wrestling in a dark match with his son Austin that aired on January 7, 2020. They wrestled again together on another dark match during the January 8, 2020 episode of Dynamite, airing on January 17, 2020, with the tag team name "The Gunn Club", defeating the team of Peter Avalon and Shawn Spears. Gunn has also appeared in the crowd (made up of AEW wrestlers and other employees) on numerous episodes of Dynamite during the COVID-19 pandemic. On the May 27, 2020 episode of Dynamite, Gunn now under the shortened ring name of Billy participated in a battle royal match to determine the number one contender for the TNT Championship. He also would wrestle MJF in a singles match on the June 17, 2020 episode of Dynamite as well. The Gunn Club would wrestle in more tag team matches on more episodes of AEW Dark.
On the November 4, 2020 episode of Dynamite, The Gunn Club teamed with Cody Rhodes to successfully defeat The Dark Order (John Silver, 10 and Colt Cabana). On the November 17, 2020 episode of Dark, The Gunn Club, which now added Austin's brother and Gunn's other son Colten to the stable, defeated Bshp King, Joey O'Riley and Sean Maluta by pinfall in a six-man tag team match. On the same day the AEW website's roster page got updated and his name was once again changed to its long form, Billy Gunn. The three man Gunn Club would then defeat Cezar Bononi, KTB, and Seth Gargis in another six man tag team match on the November 24, 2020 episode of Dark. On the December 8, 2020 episode of Dark The three man Gunn Club-which entered the ring on a golf cart with the words "Taz Taxi" on the side, defeated Shawn Dean, Sean Maluta & RYZIN. On the December 1, 2021 episode of Dynamite, The Gunn Club stable's undefeated streak in AEW ended when Billy and Colten Gunn lost to the team of Sting and Darby Allin.
Professional wrestling style, persona and reception
Gunn has had several gimmicks throughout his career, ranging from his cowboy-themed gimmick with the Smoking Gunns to his The Ambiguously Gay Duo-esque tag team with Chuck Palumbo. Gunn has stated on multiple shoot interviews that he has no regrets with his gimmicks as he was performing a job and doing what was asked of him to do.
By far, Gunn's most infamous gimmick was his "Mr. Ass" persona based around his ass. The gimmick started during his New Age Outlaws days when Road Dogg would refer to themselves as "Mr. Dogg" and "Mr. Ass" in promos, though the "Bad Ass" name wasn't referring to his backside at that time. What was originally a throwaway joke turned into Gunn mooning his opponents and the live crowd, though as the original incarnation of DX also did this, it could originally be argued that it was an extension of the Outlaws joining DX.
Upon leaving DX, Gunn fully embraced the "Mr. Ass" gimmick by placing emphasis on his "moneymaker". While Road Dogg kept the New Age Outlaws entrance music for his own, Gunn adopted the song "Ass Man" as part of the gimmick, and for a time even changed his ring tights to be see-through, wearing only a thong underneath his tights, although he would eventually revert back to the DX-era tights.
The "Mr. Ass" gimmick has mixed reviews. One web site ranked it near the middle of Gunn's various gimmicks, while a writer for Bleacher Report thought it was the worst gimmick ever even though Gunn was at his peak popularity with the persona. Gunn himself told Chris Van Vliet in 2021 that he never paid attention to the "Ass Man" lyrics until a college professor broke down each expression.
Due to the enduring legacy of the "Mr. Ass" gimmick, in November 2021 Ring of Honor wrestler Danhausen began a Twitter feud with the Gunn Club, referring to Billy as "Billy Ass," and Colten and Austin as The "Ass Boys," in reference to Gunn's infamous "Mr. Ass" gimmick in the Attitude Era. While Gunn himself initially had no comment, the rest of Gunn Club despised the nickname after fans began chanting "Ass Boys" during their matches, notably during an AEW event at Chartway Arena in Norfolk, Virginia. Gunn finally commented when he surprised his sons by wearing an "Ass Boys" shirt, encouraging them to "embrace the assness" and even started teasing mooning the crowd again. Gunn also thanked Danhausen publicly for getting his sons over in a way that he couldn't.
Other media
Filmography
Video Games
WWF Attitude
WWF WrestleMania 2000
WWF SmackDown!
WWF No Mercy
WWF SmackDown! 2: Know Your Role
WWF Road To WrestleMania
WWF SmackDown! Just Bring It
WWF Raw
WWE SmackDown! Shut Your Mouth
WWE Raw 2
WWE '13
WWE 2K16
WWE 2K17
Personal life
Sopp was born on November 1, 1963 in Orlando, Florida and claims Austin, Texas as his hometown. In November 1990, Sopp was arrested in Florida for disorderly conduct. Sopp married his first wife Tina Tinnell on March 3, 1990. Together, they have two sons: Colten (born May 18, 1991) and Austin (born August 26, 1994) who are also professional wrestlers. The couple separated in January 2000 and their divorce was finalized on December 11, 2002. Sopp has since married his long-time girlfriend Paula on January 24, 2009.
Sopp's sons Austin and Colten, better known by the ring names Austin Gunn and Colten Gunn, are currently signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW) where alongside their father they form a stable known as "Gunn Club".
Sopp attended Sam Houston State University.
Championships and accomplishments
American Pro Wrestling Alliance
APWA American Championship (1 time)
Bad Boys of Wrestling Federation
BBFW Aruba Championship (1 time)
BBFW Aruba Championship Tournament (2012)
International Wrestling Federation
IWF Tag Team Championship (2 times) – with Brett Colt
Freedom Pro Wrestling
FPW Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Road Dogg
Maryland Championship Wrestling
MCW Rage Television Championship (1 time)
MCW Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with B.G. James
Pro Wrestling Illustrated
Tag Team of the Year (1998) with Road Dogg
Tag Team of the Year (2002) with Chuck
Ranked #39 of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 1999
Ranked #231 of the top 500 singles wrestlers of the "PWI Years" in 2003
Ranked #43 of the top 100 tag teams of the "PWI Years" with Road Dogg in 2003
SmashMouth Pro Wrestling
SPW World Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
TWA Powerhouse
TWA Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with B.G. James
Vanguard Championship Wrestling
VCW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
World Pro Wrestling
WPW World Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
Worst Worked Match of the Year (2006) TNA Reverse Battle Royal on TNA Impact!
WWE/World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment
WWF Hardcore Championship (2 times)
WWF Intercontinental Championship (1 time)
WWE Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Road Dogg
WWF World Tag Team Championship (10 times) – with Bart Gunn (3), Road Dogg (5) and Chuck (2)
King of the Ring (1999)
Raw Bowl – with Bart Gunn
WWE Hall of Fame (Class of 2019) - as a member of D-Generation X
References
External links
1963 births
All Elite Wrestling personnel
American male professional wrestlers
American powerlifters
Bull riders
D-Generation X members
Expatriate professional wrestlers in Japan
LGBT characters in professional wrestling
Living people
Professional wrestlers from Florida
Professional wrestling trainers
Sam Houston State University alumni
Sportspeople from Orlando, Florida
The Authority (professional wrestling) members
WWE Hall of Fame inductees
WWF/WWE Hardcore Champions
WWF/WWE Intercontinental Champions
WWF/WWE King Crown's Champions/King of the Ring winners
American expatriate sportspeople in Japan | true | [
"Colten Sopp (born May 18, 1991), better known by the ring name Colten Gunn, is an American professional wrestler. He is currently signed to the promotion All Elite Wrestling, where he is part of the stable Gunn Club alongside his father Billy and his brother Austin.\n\nEarly life \nSopp attended Florida State University, graduating in 2013. Prior to becoming a professional wrestler, he worked in the construction industry in Southern California.\n\nProfessional wrestling career\n\nAll Elite Wrestling (2020–present) \n\nSopp was trained to wrestle by his father, Billy Gunn. On June 17, 2020, he appeared with the Jacksonville, Florida-based promotion All Elite Wrestling (AEW), accompanying his father to ringside for his match against Maxwell Jacob Friedman on AEW Dynamite and being confronted by Friedman's bodyguard Wardlow. Later that month, Sopp's father filed a trademark for \"Colten Gunn\". On episode #53 of the web television show AEW Dark, which aired on September 22, Sopp accompanied his father and his brother to ringside for a tag team match.\n\nSopp made his professional wrestling debut with AEW on November 11, 2020 as \"Colten Gunn\", teaming with his father and his brother Austin (as \"Gunn Club\") to defeat BSHP King, Joey O'Riley, and Sean Maluta in a six-man tag team match. The match was broadcast on episode #62 of AEW Dark on November 17, 2020. He returned in the following weeks, teaming with his father and brother in further six-man tag team matches and tag team matches. As part of Gunn Club, Gunn became a member of Cody Rhodes' Nightmare Family stable. On the March 3, 2021 episode of AEW Dynamite, Gunn Club were at ringside for a tag team match pitting Rhodes and Red Velvet against Shaquille O'Neal and Jade Cargill; during the match, Austin Gunn attacked O'Neal at ringside, prompting him to beat down Austin and Colten. Gunn wrestled his first match on pay-per-view at Revolution on March 7, 2021, competing alongside Austin in a \"casino\" tag team battle royal. Throughout the remainder of 2021, Gunn primarily teamed with his father in tag team bouts on AEW Dark and AEW Dark: Elevation. Gunn wrestled his first match on AEW Dynamite on August 25, 2021, teaming with his father and brother to defeat The Factory in a six-man tag team match. On the September 1, 2021 episode of AEW Dynamite, the Gunn Club turned heel by attacking Paul Wight. In November 2021, the Gunn Club began a short feud with Darby Allin and Sting that saw Colten sustain his first defeat on the December 1, 2021 episode of Dynamite when he was pinned by Sting; this loss also marked the end of the Gunn Club's undefeated streak in AEW. On February 9, 2022, in a match which would air two days later on AEW Rampage, Colten and Austin Gunn wrestled for the AEW World Tag Team Championship, losing to reigning champions Jurassic Express.\n\nProfessional wrestling style and persona \nGunn's finishing move is the Colt 45, a butterfly neckbreaker. He previously used a leg drop bulldog, also called the Colt 45; his father Billy Gunn used the same move, calling it the Fame-Ass-Er. Gunn and his brother Austin/his father also use the 3:10 to Yuma as a double-team maneuver: a back body drop by Colton into a neckbreaker by Austin/Billy.\n\nIn November 2021, professional wrestler Danhausen began a Twitter \"feud\" with the Gunn Club, referring to Colten and Austin as \"Ass Boys\", in reference to Billy Gunn's \"Mr. Ass\" gimmick during the Attitude Era. While Billy Gunn himself initially had no comment, the rest of the Gunn Club despised the nickname after fans began chanting \"Ass Boys\" during their matches. Billy Gunn finally commented when he surprised his sons by wearing an \"Ass Boys\" shirt, encouraging them to \"embrace the assness\" and teasing mooning the crowd as he did during his days as Mr. Ass.\n\nPersonal life \nSopp is the son of professional wrestler Billy Gunn. His brother, Austin Gunn, is also a professional wrestler.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n \n \n\n1991 births\nAll Elite Wrestling personnel\nAmerican male professional wrestlers\nFlorida State University alumni\nLiving people\nProfessional wrestlers from Florida\nSportspeople from Orlando, Florida",
"Austin Sopp (born August 26, 1994), better known by the ring name Austin Gunn, is an American professional wrestler, Rapper and reality television personality currently signed with All Elite Wrestling (AEW) where he is part of the stable Gunn Club alongside his father and his brother Colten. Gunn is a second-generation professional wrestler, as he is a son of professional wrestler Billy Gunn.\n\nProfessional wrestling career\n\nRing of Honor (2019)\nIn June 2019, Gunn confirmed that he had signed a contract with Ring of Honor (ROH). He made his ROH debut on August 26, 2019 in a dark match as part of the ROH Top Prospect Tournament, defeating Brian Johnson in the quarterfinals and Dante Caballero in the semifinals. On September 28, 2019, Gunn was defeated by Dak Draper in the finals of the Top Prospect Tournament.\n\nAll Elite Wrestling (2020–present)\nOn January 9, 2020, it was announced that Gunn had officially signed with All Elite Wrestling.\n\nOn January 14, 2020, Gunn made his AEW debut in a tag team match on AEW Dark teaming with his father Billy Gunn as The Gunn Club defeating the team of Peter Avalon and Shawn Spears. Gunn suffered a torn PCL injury during the match. On November 4, 2020, Gunn, who had previously been involved with his father in tag team matches on Dark, officially made his debut on AEW Dynamite, teaming with not only his father, but also Cody Rhodes to defeat Dark Order members 10, John Silver and Colt Cabana. \nOn the November 17, 2020 episode of Dark, Austin's brother Colten, now wrestling as a fellow Gunn Club member, would team with Austin and their father in a match which saw the Gunn Club defeat BSHP King, Joey O’Riley and Sean Maluta by pinfall in a six man tag team match. The three man Gunn Club would then defeat Cezar Bononi, KTB, and Seth Gargis in another six man tag team match on the November 24, 2020 episode of Dark. On the December 8, 2020 episode of Dark The three man Gunn Club-which entered the ring on a golf cart with the words \"Taz Taxi\" on the side, defeated Shawn Dean, Sean Maluta & RYZIN. On February 9, 2022, in a match which would air two days later on AEW Rampage, Austin and Colten Gunn wrestled for the AEW Tag Championship, losing to reigning champions Jurassic Express (Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus).\n\nSomewhat outside of AEW, in November 2021 Ring of Honor wrestler Danhausen began a Twitter feud with the Gunn Club, referring to Colten and Austin as \"Ass Boys\", in reference to Billy Gunn's infamous \"Mr. Ass\" gimmick in the Attitude Era. While Billy Gunn himself initially had no comment, the rest of Gunn Club despised the nickname after fans began chanting \"Ass Boys\" during their matches. Billy Gunn finally commented when he surprised his sons by wearing an \"Ass Boys\" shirt, encouraging them to \"embrace the assness\" and even started teasing mooning the crowd again.\n\nOther media\nOn December 6, 2021, it was revealed that Gunn would be featured in the E! reality television series Relatively Famous: Ranch Rules.\n\nPersonal life\nSopp was born on August 26, 1994 in Orlando, Florida. He is a son of professional wrestler Billy Gunn and the brother of professional wrestler Colten Gunn. Sopp attended Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida from 2013 to 2017 he graduated with a degree in elementary education.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1994 births\nAll Elite Wrestling personnel\nAmerican male professional wrestlers\nLiving people\nProfessional wrestlers from Florida\nRollins College alumni\nSportspeople from Orlando, Florida\nParticipants in American reality television series\nAmerican male rappers"
] |
[
"Billy Gunn",
"Billy and Chuck (2001-2002)",
"What happened between Billy and Gunn",
"Chuck proposed to Billy, asking him to be his \"partner for life\" and gave him a wedding ring."
] | C_acab549694dc4ed9946ffa652de2d406_0 | Were they ever defeated? | 2 | Were Billy and Chuck ever defeated? | Billy Gunn | In a 2001 match on Sunday Night Heat, Gunn was defeated by Chuck Palumbo, who recently left The Alliance to join the WWF. After the match, Gunn suggested that they form a tag team. Palumbo agreed, and Billy and Chuck quickly rose to the top of the tag team division. Initially they were a generic face tandem, but soon turned heel when they were given a gimmick where they grew increasingly affectionate toward each other, showing evidence of a storyline homosexual relationship. In February 2002, Billy and Chuck defeated Spike Dudley and Tazz to win the Tag Team Championship for the first time as a team. After winning the titles, Billy and Chuck found a "Personal Stylist" in the ambiguously flamboyant Rico. After retaining the title against the Acolytes Protection Agency, the Dudley Boyz, and the Hardy Boyz in a Four Corners Elimination Match at WrestleMania X8 and against Al Snow and Maven at Backlash, Billy and Chuck began a feud with Rikishi. At Judgment Day, Rikishi and Rico (Rikishi's mystery partner of Mr. McMahon's choosing) defeated Billy and Chuck for the Tag Team Title after Rico accidentally hit Chuck with a roundhouse kick. Billy and Chuck quickly won the title back two weeks later on SmackDown! with Rico's help. They held the championship for almost a month before losing it to the team of Edge and Hulk Hogan. On the September 5 edition of Smackdown!, after Gunn lost a match to Rey Mysterio, Chuck proposed to Billy, asking him to be his "partner for life" and gave him a wedding ring. Gunn agreed, and one week later, on the September 12 episode of SmackDown!, Billy and Chuck had their wedding ceremony. However, just before they tied the knot, they revealed that the entire ordeal was a publicity stunt and disavowed their on-screen homosexuality, admitting that they were just friends. The "preacher" revealed himself to be Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff (who was wearing a skin mask), who then summoned 3-Minute Warning to beat up Billy and Chuck. Rico, furious that Billy and Chuck gave up their gimmick, became the manager of Three Minute Warning and defected to Raw, effectively turning Billy and Chuck face in the process. At Unforgiven, Three Minute Warning defeated Billy Gunn and Chuck Palumbo. Their final match together occurred on SmackDown! in the first round of a tournament for the newly created WWE Tag Team Championship. They lost the match to the team of Ron Simmons and Reverend D-Von. Afterwards, Sopp took a few months off because of a shoulder injury and the team of Billy and Chuck quietly disbanded. CANNOTANSWER | just before they tied the knot, they revealed that the entire ordeal was a publicity stunt | Monty "Kip" Sopp (born November 1, 1963), better known by his ring name Billy Gunn, is an American professional wrestler. He is currently signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW) as a wrestler and coach. Gunn is best known for his appearances in the World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment (WWF/E) from 1993 to 2004 and from 2012 to 2015. He also served as a coach on WWE's Tough Enough and was a trainer in NXT. He is also known for his appearances with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) from 2005 to 2009.
Primarily a tag team wrestler, Gunn is an overall 13-time tag team champion in WWE with three different partners (with Bart Gunn as The Smoking Gunns, with Road Dogg as The New Age Outlaws, and with Chuck Palumbo as Billy and Chuck). He is also a one time WWF Intercontinental Champion and a two time WWF Hardcore Champion, giving him 14 total championships in WWE. He is the 1999 King of the Ring tournament winner, and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2019 as a member of D-Generation X.
Professional wrestling career
Early career (1985–1993)
After a stint as a professional bull rider in Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, Sopp left the profession in his early-20s in order to pursue a career as a professional wrestler. Trained by Jerry Grey, Sopp wrestled on the independent circuit for eight years (including a brief stint as enhancement talent for World Championship Wrestling (WCW) before signing a contract with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in 1993.
World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment (1993–2004)
The Smoking Gunns (1993–1996)
After weeks of vignettes, Sopp, under the name Billy Gunn, made his WWF debut on the May 17, 1993 episode of Raw, teaming with his on-screen brother, Bart Gunn to defeat Tony Vadja and Glenn Ruth. The duo, now known as The Smoking Gunns, made their pay-per-view debut at King of the Ring, teaming with The Steiner Brothers to defeat Money Inc. and The Headshrinkers in an eight-man tag team match. At SummerSlam, the duo teamed with Tatanka to pick up a win against Bam Bam Bigelow and the Headshrinkers. On January 22, 1994, Gunn entered his first Royal Rumble match at the namesake event, but was eliminated by Diesel. In early 1995, the Gunns won their first Tag Team Championship by defeating the makeshift team of Bob Holly and 1-2-3 Kid. They held the title until WrestleMania XI, where they were defeated by the team of Owen Hart and Yokozuna. They won the titles again in September 1995.
On February 15, 1996, the Gunns vacated the title because Billy was in need of neck surgery. After Billy returned from hiatus, The Smoking Gunns won the Tag Team Title for the third time by defeating The Godwinns in May. After the match, The Godwinns' manager Sunny turned on her team in favor of the Gunns. On September 22 at In Your House: Mind Games, the Gunns lost the Tag Team Title to Owen Hart and The British Bulldog. After the match, Sunny abandoned The Gunns, saying that she would only manage title holders. Billy, frustrated with losing both the championship and Sunny, walked out on Bart, breaking up The Smoking Gunns.
Rockabilly, The New Age Outlaws and D-Generation X (1997–1998)
After The Smoking Gunns disbanded, Gunn took some time off to nurse an injury. At WrestleMania 13, he defeated Flash Funk catching the attention of The Honky Tonk Man, who made Gunn his protégé. During this time, he adopted a new gimmick, Rockabilly, He would use this gimmick throughout much of 1997 and eventually had a short-lived feud with "The Real Double J" Jesse James. On the October 4, 1997 episode of Shotgun Saturday Night, James realized both of their careers were going nowhere and suggested that they become a tag team. Gunn agreed and smashed a guitar over the Honky Tonk Man's head to solidify their new alliance.
James and Rockabilly were quickly rebranded as "Road Dogg" Jesse James and "Badd Ass" Billy Gunn, respectively, and their tag team was dubbed the New Age Outlaws. They quickly rose to the top of the tag team ranks and won the Tag Team Championship from the Legion of Doom on November 24. They also defeated the LOD in a rematch at In Your House: D-Generation X.
The Outlaws slowly began to align themselves with D-Generation X. At the Royal Rumble, the New Age Outlaws interfered in a Casket match to help Shawn Michaels defeat The Undertaker. At No Way Out Of Texas, the Outlaws teamed up with Triple H and Savio Vega (who replaced the injured Shawn Michaels) to face Chainsaw Charlie, Cactus Jack, Owen Hart, and Steve Austin. They were, however, defeated. On February 2, The Outlaws locked Cactus and Chainsaw in a dumpster and pushed it off the stage. This led to a Dumpster match at WrestleMania XIV where Cactus and Chainsaw defeated the Outlaws for the Tag Titles. The next night on Raw, the New Age Outlaws won the Tag Team Championship for a second time by defeating Chainsaw and Cactus in a Steel cage match, but only after interference from Triple H, Chyna, and X-Pac. After the match, the Outlaws officially became members of D-Generation X (DX).
After joining DX, the Outlaws successfully defended their Tag Team Title against the Legion of Doom 2000 at Unforgiven. DX began to feud with Owen Hart and his new stablemates, The Nation. At Over The Edge, the Outlaws and Triple H were defeated by Nation members Owen, Kama Mustafa, and D'Lo Brown in a Six Man Tag Match.
During this time, the Outlaws began a feud with Kane and Mankind. At SummerSlam, Mankind faced the Outlaws in a Handicap match after Kane no-showed the title defense. The Outlaws defeated Mankind to win the titles for the third time. In December, the Outlaws lost the title to The Big Boss Man and Ken Shamrock from The Corporation.
Mr. Ass and reformation of the Outlaws and DX (1999–2000)
The Outlaws then began to focus more on singles competition. The Road Dogg won the Hardcore Championship in December 1998, and Gunn set his sights on the Intercontinental Championship. At the 1999 Royal Rumble, Gunn unsuccessfully challenged Ken Shamrock for the Intercontinental Title. The next month at St. Valentine's Day Massacre, Gunn was the special guest referee for the Intercontinental Championship match between Val Venis and champion Ken Shamrock, where Gunn made a fast count and declared Venis the new champion before attacking both men.
In March, Gunn won the Hardcore Championship from Hardcore Holly. At WrestleMania XV, Gunn lost the title to Holly in a Triple Threat match which also included Al Snow. The New Age Outlaws then reunited to defeat Jeff Jarrett and Owen Hart at Backlash. After Backlash, Gunn left D-Generation X and aligned himself with Triple H and Chyna. Gunn defeated his former partner, Road Dogg, in a match at Over the Edge. Gunn then won the King of the Ring tournament by defeating Ken Shamrock, Kane, and his former ally, X-Pac. After King of the Ring, Gunn, Triple H, and Chyna went on to feud with X-Pac and Road Dogg over the rights to the D-Generation X name. This feud culminated at Fully Loaded when X-Pac and Road Dogg defeated Gunn and Chyna.
Gunn then began a brief feud with The Rock. At SummerSlam, The Rock defeated Gunn in a Kiss My Ass Match. Following this, Gunn then briefly feuded with Jeff Jarrett for the Intercontinental Title before reuniting with Road Dogg to reform The New Age Outlaws. The Outlaws won their fourth tag team championship by defeating The Rock 'n' Sock Connection in September 1999. The Outlaws later reunited with X-Pac and Triple H to reform D-Generation X. During this time, The Outlaws won their fifth Tag Team Championship after defeating Mankind and Al Snow. At the 2000 Royal Rumble, The New Age Outlaws retained their title against The Acolytes after interference from X-Pac. The Outlaws then had a feud with The Dudley Boyz, who won the Tag Team Championship from The Outlaws at No Way Out. After suffering a torn rotator cuff in the match with The Dudley Boyz, Gunn was kicked out of D-Generation X for "losing his cool" to explain his impending absence to recover from his injury.
The One (2000–2001)
Gunn made his return in October and immediately teamed with Chyna to feud with Right to Censor, who wanted to "censor" his Mr. Ass gimmick. At No Mercy, Right to Censor members Steven Richards and Val Venis defeated Chyna and Gunn. Due to a stipulation, Gunn could no longer use the Mr. Ass gimmick, so he renamed himself Billy G. for a few weeks before settling on "The One" Billy Gunn. Gunn then feuded with Eddie Guerrero and the rest of The Radicalz. At Survivor Series, Gunn teamed with Road Dogg, Chyna, and K-Kwik in a losing effort against The Radicalz. A few weeks later on SmackDown!, Gunn won the Intercontinental Championship from Guerrero. However, the title reign was short-lived, as Chris Benoit defeated him for the title two weeks later at Armageddon. After feuding with Benoit, Gunn participated in the 2001 Royal Rumble where he made it to the final four, Gunn interfered in the Hardcore Championship Match at No Way Out, and taking advantage of the 24/7 Rule, pinning Raven for the title. The reign was short-lived, as Raven won it back a few minutes later.
Billy and Chuck (2001–2002)
In a 2001 match on Sunday Night Heat, Gunn was defeated by Chuck Palumbo, who recently left The Alliance to join the WWF. After the match, Gunn suggested that they form a tag team. Palumbo agreed, and Billy and Chuck quickly rose to the top of the tag team division. Initially they were a generic tandem, but they were given a gimmick where they grew increasingly affectionate toward each other, showing evidence of a storyline homosexual relationship.
In February 2002, Billy and Chuck defeated Spike Dudley and Tazz to win the WWF Tag Team Championship for the first time as a team. After winning the titles, Billy and Chuck found a "Personal Stylist" in the ambiguously flamboyant Rico. After retaining the title against the Acolytes Protection Agency, the Dudley Boyz, and the Hardy Boyz in a Four Corners Elimination Match at WrestleMania X8 and against Al Snow and Maven at Backlash, Billy and Chuck began a feud with Rikishi. At Judgment Day, Rikishi and Rico (Rikishi's mystery partner of Mr. McMahon's choosing) defeated Billy and Chuck for the WWE Tag Team Championship after Rico accidentally hit Chuck with a roundhouse kick. Billy and Chuck quickly won the title back two weeks later on SmackDown! with Rico's help. They held the championship for almost a month before losing it to the team of Edge and Hollywood Hulk Hogan on the July 4 episode of SmackDown!.
On the September 5 edition of SmackDown!, after Billy lost a match to Rey Mysterio, Chuck proposed to Billy, asking him to be his "partner for life" and gave him a wedding ring. Billy agreed, and one week later, on the September 12 episode of SmackDown!, Billy and Chuck had their wedding ceremony. However, just before they tied the knot, they revealed that the entire ordeal was a publicity stunt and disavowed their on-screen homosexuality, admitting that they were just friends. The "preacher" revealed himself to be Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff (who was wearing a skin mask), who then summoned 3-Minute Warning to beat up Billy and Chuck. Rico, furious that Billy and Chuck gave up their gimmick, became the manager of Three Minute Warning and defected to Raw. At Unforgiven, Three Minute Warning defeated Billy and Chuck. Their final match together occurred on the October 3 episode of SmackDown! in the first round of a tournament for the newly created WWE Tag Team Championship. They lost the match to the team of Ron Simmons and Reverend D-Von. Afterwards, Gunn took a few months off because of a shoulder injury and the team of Billy and Chuck quietly disbanded.
SmackDown! and return to singles competition (2003–2004)
After returning in the summer of 2003, Gunn reverted to the "Mr. Ass" gimmick, defeating A-Train, and Torrie Wilson became his new manager. He started a feud with Jamie Noble, which led to an "Indecent Proposal" Match at Vengeance, which Noble won and due to the match's stipulation, won a night with Torrie. After taking time off again due to a shoulder injury, Gunn returned to action at the 2004 Royal Rumble, but was eliminated by Goldberg. Afterward, he wrestled mainly on Velocity, forming an occasional tag team with Hardcore Holly. At Judgment Day, Gunn and Holly challenged Charlie Haas and Rico for the WWE Tag Team Championship, but were unsuccessful. At The Great American Bash, Gunn lost to Kenzo Suzuki.
On November 1, 2004, Sopp was released from his WWE contract. In June 2005, Sopp gave an interview in which he was heavily critical of WWE and the events that led to his release. Many of the negative comments were directed towards Triple H, who Sopp claimed "runs the show up there".
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (2005–2009)
Planet Jarrett (2005)
On February 13, 2005, Sopp debuted in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) without a name (as Billy Gunn is a WWE trademark, although announcers recognized him as such) at Against All Odds with the same gimmick, helping Jeff Jarrett retain the NWA World Heavyweight Championship in a match with Kevin Nash. Sopp, using the name The New Age Outlaw, then formed a stable with Jarrett and Monty Brown known as Planet Jarrett. However, WWE threatened TNA with legal action if Sopp continued the use of the name "The New Age Outlaw", so he shortened his name to The Outlaw. Due to the legal issues with WWE, all TNA -DVD releases featuring footage with Sopp as "The Outlaw" (and presumably also as "The New Age Outlaw") have had the name on on-screen graphics blurred, the name silenced out of the audio, and match commentary completely replaced to reflect a retroactive name change to "Kip James". One such DVD is the pay-per-view Lockdown, included in the "TNA Anthology: The Epic Set" box set, in which the silencing of the name during a segment where Dusty Rhodes picks his name from a lottery leaves DVD viewers in the dark as to who just got picked.
The Outlaw began a campaign to make former ally B.G. James leave the 3Live Kru and defect to Planet Jarrett, reforming the old tag team with Outlaw. At No Surrender, he renamed himself Kip James and was announced as "wrestling out of Marietta, Georgia" (the family seat of the Armstrong family) as a psychological ploy. As a result of his campaign, Kip attracted the ire of 3Live Kru members Ron Killings and Konnan, leading to a series of tag team matches pitting Kip and Monty Brown against Killings and Konnan, with a conflicted James unwilling to take sides. Kip's efforts ultimately proved futile; James, the guest referee in a final match between Brown and Kip versus Konnan and Killings at Sacrifice, attacked Kip enabling a 3Live Kru victory.
In September at Unbreakable, Kip teamed with Brown to defeat the team of Apolo and Lance Hoyt. There was clear tension between the partners because Brown was unhappy at the series of losses at the hands of the 3Live Kru, and Kip was irked by Brown's decision to leave Planet Jarrett. Despite the victory, the partners argued after the match. On the October 8, 2005 episode of Impact!, Kip rekindled his feud with the 3Live Kru, running to the ring after a bout between the 3LK and Team Canada in order to prevent Team Canada captain Petey Williams from beating down B.G. James. He saved James, and then engaged in a staredown with Konnan and Killings. Kip saved James from Team Canada once again at Bound for Glory. Though Killings showed signs of gratitude, Konnan remained skeptical as to his true intentions. Later that night, Kip took part in an over-the-top-rope gauntlet match for the number one contendership to the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. After he was eliminated, he tried in vain to prevent Killings from being eliminated as well, before being sent away from ringside by the referees.
The James Gang/Voodoo Kin Mafia (2005–2008)
On the November 26 episode of Impact!, B.G. brought Kip and the 3Live Kru to ringside and asked Killings and Konnan whether Kip could join the stable. Following a heated argument between Konnan and B.G., both Killings and Konnan gave their approval, and the 4Live Kru was born. However, at Turning Point, Konnan attacked both B.G. and Kip, costing them their match against Team Canada and initiating a feud between himself and the remainder of the Kru. Shortly thereafter, B.G. James's father, Bob Armstrong, attempted to reconcile the group, but was instead attacked by Konnan and his new stablemates, Apolo and Homicide. Killings later stated that he had severed his ties with the Kru. With Konnan and Killings no longer members of the Kru, Kip and B.G. began referring to themselves as The James Gang and continued to feud with the Konnan-managed Latin American Exchange, whose third man position as Homicide's partner would switch from Apolo to Machete, and then from him to Hernandez, who finally stuck, during the course of this feud. At Final Resolution, The James Gang defeated The Diamonds in the Rough (David Young and Elix Skipper). At Against All Odds, The James Gang defeated LAX (Homicide and Machete). At Destination X, The James Gang and Bob Armstrong defeated Latin American Exchange in a six-man tag team match. At Sacrifice, The James Gang defeated Team 3D which led to a rematch at Slammiversary where Team 3D defeated The James Gang in a Bingo Hall Brawl. At Victory Road, The James Gang and Abyss defeated Team 3D and their newest member Brother Runt. At No Surrender, The James Gang competed in a Triple Chance tag team battle royal but failed to win the match. At Bound for Glory, The James Gang competed in a Four-way tag team match which was won by Team 3D.
By November 2006, Kip and B.G. began to show displeasure in TNA and threatened to go find work elsewhere if they did not receive gold soon. They began performing the crotch chop, a reference to the WWE's DX. On the November 2 edition of Impact!, Kip and B.G. threatened to quit. Kip grabbed the mic and tried to say something to the TNA administration and Spike TV, but each time his mic was cut off. Kip then tried to use the announcer's headset, but it was cut off as well. Frustrated, he started yelling loudly to the crowd, but he was cut off again as the show went to a commercial break. When the show returned, the announcers speculated that they may have been frustrated due to the influx of new talent entering TNA. It was reported that the segment was a worked shoot that Vince Russo had written in order to renew interest upon their eventual return. Kip and BG appeared in an internet video on TNA's website where they addressed the owner of WWE Vince McMahon.
A few weeks later on Impact!, The James Gang re-emerged under a new name Voodoo Kin Mafia (VKM for short, a play on Vincent Kennedy McMahon's initials). They mentioned their new right of 'creative control', meaning they could do whatever they wanted. They also declared 'war' on Paul Levesque, Michael Hickenbottom, and Vincent K. McMahon (Triple H, Shawn Michaels, and Vince McMahon, respectively). Kip then declared that 'Triple Hollywood' and 'Shawn Kiss-my-bottom' were failing as the group they (Kip and BG) used to be a part of: D-Generation X. After the initial shock value of this incident wore off, at Genesis, The Voodoo Kin Mafia defeated Kazarian, Maverick Matt and Johnny Devine in a handicap match. VKM began a feud with the villainous Christy Hemme. Hemme then searched for a tag team to square-off against VKM. At Destination X, The Voodoo Kin Mafia defeated Hemme's handpicked team of The Heartbreakers (Antonio Thomas & Romeo Roselli). On the Lockdown preshow The Voodoo Kin Mafia defeated another one of Hemme's handpicked team Serotonin (Kaz & Havok) in a Six Sides of Steel match. The final tag team was Damaja and Basham, who appeared on an episode of Impact! and beat down VKM. They also held up Kip James so Hemme could slap him. B.G James was taken out by Basham and Damaja which led to Kip James competed against Basham and Damaja in a handicap match at Sacrifice where he lost. However, they beat Hemme's team at Slammiversary. After the match, VKM were betrayed by their associate Lance Hoyt. At Victory Road, they introduced their new manager, the Voodoo Queen, Roxxi Laveaux, to embarrass Christy Hemme. At Hard Justice, The Voodoo Kin Mafia lost to The Latin American Exchange. At No Surrender, The Voodoo Kin Mafia competed in a Ten-team tag team gauntlet match which was won by A.J. Styles and Tomko. At Bound for Glory, Kip James competed in the Fight for the Right Reverse Battle Royal which was won by Eric Young. On the October 25 edition of Impact!, VKM teamed with A.J. Styles and Tomko in a losing effort to the Latin American Xchange and the Steiner Brothers. At Genesis, B.G. was present along with Kip in the corner of Roxxi Laveaux at ringside for the Fatal Four Way knockout match for the TNA Women's Championship in which Gail Kim retained the title. At Turning Point, James competed in the Feast or Fired where he grabbed a case but threw it to BG James. It was revealed that the case was for a shot at the TNA World Tag Team Championship and BG James picked his dad to be his partner at Against All Odds, James and Bob Armstrong failed to win the titles and on February 21, 2008 episode of Impact! he turned on B.G. and B.G's father "Bullet" Bob Armstrong by hitting them both with a crutch.
The Beautiful People (2008–2009)
On April 13, 2008, he faced former partner B.G. James at Lockdown and lost. After the match, he appeared to want to make amends as he raised B.G.'s hand after the match, only to clothesline him down to the mat and taunt him with a DX crotch chop. Kip went on to declare himself "The Megastar", an arrogant gimmick similar to "The One" gimmick from his WWF tenure. Kip later stopped making appearances on Impact! until April 24 when he was attacked backstage by Matt Morgan for no reason. The next week on Impact!, Kip got back at Morgan by attacking him backstage in Jim Cornette's office. On May 8, 2008, Cornette forced Morgan into being Kip's tag team partner for the Deuces Wild tournament at Sacrifice, though both were unable to win. Kip went on another brief disappearance from television until the June 5 edition of Impact!, where he partnered with Lance Hoyt and James Storm in a losing effort against Morgan and The Latin American Xchange.
On the August 14 episode of Impact!, Kip was revealed to be the new image consultant and member of The Beautiful People, dubbed Cute Kip and was using his Mr.Ass Attire, after they brought him out during their interview on Karen Angle's show Karen's Angle. at Bound for Glory IV, Kip, Love and Sky lost to Rhino, ODB and Rhaka Khan in a Bimbo Brawl. at Final Resolution (December 2008), Kip competed in the Feast or Fired match but failed to get a case. At Genesis 2009, Kip became the one-night-only replacement for the injured Kevin Nash in the Main Event Mafia.
As of March 19, 2009, Sopp was taken off of TNA Impact! along with Jacqueline Moore to become road agents. Sopp returned as Cute Kip and lost to Awesome Kong in an intergender stretcher match on May 14, 2009. On the May 28 edition of Impact!, Kip was fired by The Beautiful People. On the June 18 edition of Impact!, Mick Foley hired him as his handyman, turning Kip into a face. he made another appearance on the August 6 edition of Impact where Kip had to clean up the IMPACT Zone after a chaotic fifteen minute "riot". On October 9 edition of Xplosion, Kip was defeated by Rhino. On October 30 edition of Xplosion, Kip defeated Sheik Abdul Bashir. on the November 13 edition of Xplosion, Kip lost to Rob Terry and on December 3, 2009 edition of Xplosion, Kip competed in his final TNA match where he lost to Kiyoshi.
Sopp's profile was removed from the TNA website on December 29, 2009, confirming his departure from the promotion.
Independent circuit (2009–2012)
After leaving TNA, Sopp reunited with B.G. James to reform The New Age Outlaws, with both men resuming their Billy Gunn and Road Dogg ring names. After joining TWA Powerhouse in 2010, the Outlaws defeated Canadian Extreme to win the promotion's Tag Team Championship on July 25. They re-lost the title to Canadian Extreme on June 5, 2011.
On July 30, 2011, Sopp, working under the ring name Kip Gunn, made his debut for Lucha Libre USA as a member of the heel stable The Right. Later that night, Gunn lost in his debut match against Marco Corleone. On June 26, 2012, Sopp won the American Pro Wrestling Alliance American Championship. However, he lost the title due to travel issues. On September 8 and 9, 2012, he wrestled in a Bad Boys of Wrestling Federation tournament. He defeated Rhino in the semi-finals and Scott Steiner in the final, winning the BBWF Aruba Championship.
Return to WWE (2012–2015)
On July 23, Sopp, under his Billy Gunn name, made his first WWE appearance in nearly eight years as he reunited with Road Dogg, X-Pac, Shawn Michaels and Triple H to reform D-Generation X for one night only on the 1000th episode of Raw. In December 2012, he was hired by WWE as a trainer for the NXT Wrestling territory in Tampa, Florida. On March 4, 2013, Gunn and Road Dogg made a return at Old School Raw, defeating Primo and Epico. On March 11, 2013, they accepted a challenge from Team Rhodes Scholars and faced them in a match, which was interrupted by Brock Lesnar, who hit both Outlaws with an F-5 as part of his ongoing feud with Triple H.
He then appeared alongside Road Dogg to help CM Punk clear out The Shield in aid of Roddy Piper on Old School Raw on January 6, 2014. On the January 10 episode of SmackDown, the Outlaws teamed with CM Punk in a six-man tag match against The Shield in a losing effort. On the January 13 episode of Raw, the Outlaws again teamed with Punk in a rematch against The Shield, only to abandon Punk and lose the match. On January 26 during the Royal Rumble Kickoff Show, Gunn and Road Dogg beat Cody Rhodes and Goldust to win the WWE Tag Team Championship. The next night on Raw the New Age Outlaws retained the championship against Rhodes and Goldust via disqualification when Brock Lesnar attacked the brothers. The next week on Raw the New Age Outlaws retained the championship against Rhodes and Goldust in a steel cage match. On March 3, the Outlaws lost the Tag Team Championship to The Usos. Gunn sustained hemoptysis after he and his New Age Outlaws partner, Road Dogg, suffered a double-Triple Powerbomb by The Shield at WrestleMania XXX.
Gunn returned to Raw with Road Dogg in January 2015, attacking The Ascension along with the nWo and the APA. At the Royal Rumble, the Outlaws faced The Ascension in a losing effort. At WrestleMania 31, Gunn, with Road Dogg, X-Pac and Shawn Michaels, reunited as D-Generation X to help Triple H in his match against Sting. In May, Gunn was announced as a coach along with WWE Hall of Famers Booker T and Lita for the sixth season of Tough Enough.
On November 13, 2015, WWE officially announced that Sopp was released from his WWE contract after failing a test for performance-enhancing drugs. He had tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone at a powerlifting event on July 25, 2015, and was suspended from powerlifting for four years.
Independent circuit (2015–2020)
On December 26, 2015, Gunn teamed up with Kevin Thorn to defeat Brian Klass and Rob Street. One month later, Gunn defeated Ken Dixon for the MCW Pro Wrestling MCW Rage Television Championship. On February 5, 2016, Gunn defeated Joey Hayes in the Preston City Wrestling PCW Road to Glory tournament, on February 6 he lost to T-Bone in the quarter-finals that same night Gunn teamed up with Mr. Anderson and Tajiri to defeat Dave Raynes, Joey Hayes, and Martin Kirby. On February 7, 2016 Gunn challenged for the Pro Wrestling Pride Heavyweight championship losing to Steve Griffiths. On March 19, 2016, Gunn lost the title to Ken Dixon. On June 12, 2016, Gunn won the Smashmouth Pro Wrestling championship from KC Huber but lost it on the same night, Gunn teamed again with Anderson in a losing effort against the UK Hooligans at PCW Tribute to the Troops on June 25, 2016. He defeated Hardcore Holly in a singles match at PCW Top Gunn on July 2, 2016.
On September 4, 2016, Gunn made his debut for Chikara, representing DX alongside X-Pac in a tag team gauntlet match. The two entered the match as the final team and scored the win over Prakash Sabar and The Proletariat Boar of Moldova.
New Japan Pro-Wrestling (2016–2017)
On November 5, 2016, at the New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) event Power Struggle, Yoshitatsu announced Gunn as the newest member of his Hunter Club stable and his partner for the upcoming 2016 World Tag League. Gunn and Yoshitatsu finished the tournament on December 8 with a record of three wins and four losses, failing to advance from their block. Gunn returned to NJPW on January 4, 2017, taking part in the pre-show New Japan Rumble at Wrestle Kingdom 11 in Tokyo Dome, from which he was eliminated by the eventual winner Michael Elgin. While Gunn did not appear for NJPW for the next six months, he was brought up in May by Yoshitatsu, who told Hiroshi Tanahashi that Gunn had requested a match against him. When Tanahashi captured the IWGP Intercontinental Championship the following month, he immediately nominated Gunn as his first challenger. Gunn was defeated in the title match on July 2 at G1 Special in USA, and it was his final match in NJPW.
WWE appearances (2018–2019)
Gunn and numerous other WWE legends appeared on the January 22, 2018 episode of Raw 25 Years as part of the D-Generation X reunion. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2019 as a member of D-Generation X.
All Elite Wrestling (2019–present)
In January 2019, Gunn was hired by All Elite Wrestling as a coach. At May 25 at the AEW Double or Nothing event he competed in the pre-show battle royal. Gunn made his first televised appearance for AEW on the November 20, 2019 episode of AEW Dynamite, competing in a battle royal. He also appeared during the January 1, 2020 episode of Dynamite, wrestling in a dark match with his son Austin that aired on January 7, 2020. They wrestled again together on another dark match during the January 8, 2020 episode of Dynamite, airing on January 17, 2020, with the tag team name "The Gunn Club", defeating the team of Peter Avalon and Shawn Spears. Gunn has also appeared in the crowd (made up of AEW wrestlers and other employees) on numerous episodes of Dynamite during the COVID-19 pandemic. On the May 27, 2020 episode of Dynamite, Gunn now under the shortened ring name of Billy participated in a battle royal match to determine the number one contender for the TNT Championship. He also would wrestle MJF in a singles match on the June 17, 2020 episode of Dynamite as well. The Gunn Club would wrestle in more tag team matches on more episodes of AEW Dark.
On the November 4, 2020 episode of Dynamite, The Gunn Club teamed with Cody Rhodes to successfully defeat The Dark Order (John Silver, 10 and Colt Cabana). On the November 17, 2020 episode of Dark, The Gunn Club, which now added Austin's brother and Gunn's other son Colten to the stable, defeated Bshp King, Joey O'Riley and Sean Maluta by pinfall in a six-man tag team match. On the same day the AEW website's roster page got updated and his name was once again changed to its long form, Billy Gunn. The three man Gunn Club would then defeat Cezar Bononi, KTB, and Seth Gargis in another six man tag team match on the November 24, 2020 episode of Dark. On the December 8, 2020 episode of Dark The three man Gunn Club-which entered the ring on a golf cart with the words "Taz Taxi" on the side, defeated Shawn Dean, Sean Maluta & RYZIN. On the December 1, 2021 episode of Dynamite, The Gunn Club stable's undefeated streak in AEW ended when Billy and Colten Gunn lost to the team of Sting and Darby Allin.
Professional wrestling style, persona and reception
Gunn has had several gimmicks throughout his career, ranging from his cowboy-themed gimmick with the Smoking Gunns to his The Ambiguously Gay Duo-esque tag team with Chuck Palumbo. Gunn has stated on multiple shoot interviews that he has no regrets with his gimmicks as he was performing a job and doing what was asked of him to do.
By far, Gunn's most infamous gimmick was his "Mr. Ass" persona based around his ass. The gimmick started during his New Age Outlaws days when Road Dogg would refer to themselves as "Mr. Dogg" and "Mr. Ass" in promos, though the "Bad Ass" name wasn't referring to his backside at that time. What was originally a throwaway joke turned into Gunn mooning his opponents and the live crowd, though as the original incarnation of DX also did this, it could originally be argued that it was an extension of the Outlaws joining DX.
Upon leaving DX, Gunn fully embraced the "Mr. Ass" gimmick by placing emphasis on his "moneymaker". While Road Dogg kept the New Age Outlaws entrance music for his own, Gunn adopted the song "Ass Man" as part of the gimmick, and for a time even changed his ring tights to be see-through, wearing only a thong underneath his tights, although he would eventually revert back to the DX-era tights.
The "Mr. Ass" gimmick has mixed reviews. One web site ranked it near the middle of Gunn's various gimmicks, while a writer for Bleacher Report thought it was the worst gimmick ever even though Gunn was at his peak popularity with the persona. Gunn himself told Chris Van Vliet in 2021 that he never paid attention to the "Ass Man" lyrics until a college professor broke down each expression.
Due to the enduring legacy of the "Mr. Ass" gimmick, in November 2021 Ring of Honor wrestler Danhausen began a Twitter feud with the Gunn Club, referring to Billy as "Billy Ass," and Colten and Austin as The "Ass Boys," in reference to Gunn's infamous "Mr. Ass" gimmick in the Attitude Era. While Gunn himself initially had no comment, the rest of Gunn Club despised the nickname after fans began chanting "Ass Boys" during their matches, notably during an AEW event at Chartway Arena in Norfolk, Virginia. Gunn finally commented when he surprised his sons by wearing an "Ass Boys" shirt, encouraging them to "embrace the assness" and even started teasing mooning the crowd again. Gunn also thanked Danhausen publicly for getting his sons over in a way that he couldn't.
Other media
Filmography
Video Games
WWF Attitude
WWF WrestleMania 2000
WWF SmackDown!
WWF No Mercy
WWF SmackDown! 2: Know Your Role
WWF Road To WrestleMania
WWF SmackDown! Just Bring It
WWF Raw
WWE SmackDown! Shut Your Mouth
WWE Raw 2
WWE '13
WWE 2K16
WWE 2K17
Personal life
Sopp was born on November 1, 1963 in Orlando, Florida and claims Austin, Texas as his hometown. In November 1990, Sopp was arrested in Florida for disorderly conduct. Sopp married his first wife Tina Tinnell on March 3, 1990. Together, they have two sons: Colten (born May 18, 1991) and Austin (born August 26, 1994) who are also professional wrestlers. The couple separated in January 2000 and their divorce was finalized on December 11, 2002. Sopp has since married his long-time girlfriend Paula on January 24, 2009.
Sopp's sons Austin and Colten, better known by the ring names Austin Gunn and Colten Gunn, are currently signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW) where alongside their father they form a stable known as "Gunn Club".
Sopp attended Sam Houston State University.
Championships and accomplishments
American Pro Wrestling Alliance
APWA American Championship (1 time)
Bad Boys of Wrestling Federation
BBFW Aruba Championship (1 time)
BBFW Aruba Championship Tournament (2012)
International Wrestling Federation
IWF Tag Team Championship (2 times) – with Brett Colt
Freedom Pro Wrestling
FPW Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Road Dogg
Maryland Championship Wrestling
MCW Rage Television Championship (1 time)
MCW Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with B.G. James
Pro Wrestling Illustrated
Tag Team of the Year (1998) with Road Dogg
Tag Team of the Year (2002) with Chuck
Ranked #39 of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 1999
Ranked #231 of the top 500 singles wrestlers of the "PWI Years" in 2003
Ranked #43 of the top 100 tag teams of the "PWI Years" with Road Dogg in 2003
SmashMouth Pro Wrestling
SPW World Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
TWA Powerhouse
TWA Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with B.G. James
Vanguard Championship Wrestling
VCW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
World Pro Wrestling
WPW World Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
Worst Worked Match of the Year (2006) TNA Reverse Battle Royal on TNA Impact!
WWE/World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment
WWF Hardcore Championship (2 times)
WWF Intercontinental Championship (1 time)
WWE Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Road Dogg
WWF World Tag Team Championship (10 times) – with Bart Gunn (3), Road Dogg (5) and Chuck (2)
King of the Ring (1999)
Raw Bowl – with Bart Gunn
WWE Hall of Fame (Class of 2019) - as a member of D-Generation X
References
External links
1963 births
All Elite Wrestling personnel
American male professional wrestlers
American powerlifters
Bull riders
D-Generation X members
Expatriate professional wrestlers in Japan
LGBT characters in professional wrestling
Living people
Professional wrestlers from Florida
Professional wrestling trainers
Sam Houston State University alumni
Sportspeople from Orlando, Florida
The Authority (professional wrestling) members
WWE Hall of Fame inductees
WWF/WWE Hardcore Champions
WWF/WWE Intercontinental Champions
WWF/WWE King Crown's Champions/King of the Ring winners
American expatriate sportspeople in Japan | true | [
"The Weston Dodgers are a defunct Tier II Junior \"A\" ice hockey team from Weston, Ontario, Canada. They were a part of the Ontario Provincial Junior A Hockey League. The franchise was previously known as the Woodbridge Dodgers from 1953 to 1962, and became the Weston Dodgers after that.\n\nHistory\nThe Dodgers started out in Woodbridge, Ontario as part of the Toronto Metro Junior B Hockey League. In 1962, the Dodgers were moved to Weston. With the formation of the Junior A Ontario Hockey Association, the Dodgers moved up in the OPJHL in 1972.\n\nMoved in 1972, the Dodgers played five seasons of OPJHL Hockey. Their best season was their first season where they finished in 6th place overall, but it is doubtful they ever made the playoffs after that year. After four straight losing seasons, the Dodgers folded in 1977.\n\nSeason-by-season results\n\nPlayoffs\n1973 Lost Quarter-final\nWexford Raiders defeated Weston Dodgers 4-games-to-1\n1974 DNQ\n1975 DNQ\n1976 Lost Quarter-final\nWeston Dodgers defeated Newmarket Flyers 3-games-to-2\nToronto Nationals defeated Weston Dodgers 2-games-to-none\n1977 DNQ\n\nSutherland Cup appearances\n1964: Waterloo Siskins defeated Weston Dodgers 4-games-to-1\n\nExternal links\nOHA Website\n\nDefunct ice hockey teams in Canada\nIce hockey teams in Ontario",
"The Temiscaming Royals were a Junior ice hockey team based in Témiscaming, Quebec, Canada. They were members of the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League, but originated in the Greater Metro Junior A Hockey League.\n\nHistory\nThe announcement of the Temiscaming Royals as the first Quebec-based team in the Greater Metro Junior A Hockey League came on April 4, 2007.\n\nThe expansion of the Royals makes them the ninth team in the independent GMHL and one of six 2007 expansion teams. Temiscaming is roughly 65 kilometers from North Bay, Ontario and will make for decent locational rivalries with the Nipissing Alouettes and Espanola Kings.\n\nThe Temiscaming Royals played their first game on September 7, 2007 in Verner, Ontario against the Nipissing Alouettes. The Royals defeated the Alouettes 6-4 for their first ever win.\n\nThe Royals were undefeated in regulation in their first fourteen games of the season. Their first loss came on November 1, 2007, 7-4, at the hands of the Nipissing Alouettes, largely in part to Alouettes former goaltender Tristan Jones and his 58 save performance. The Royals would later acquire Jones at the deadline to help Piche guide the Royals on their playoff run.\n\nOn January 4, 2008, the Royals hosted the Moscow Selects All-star team in an exhibition game. The Selects won the game by a score of 9-3. This was the sixth game of seven that the Moscow team played against different GMHL clubs.\n\nIn the 07-08 Greater Metro Junior A playoffs, the Temiscaming Royals selected to play the Espanola Kings in the 1st round. Game 1 took place in Temiscaming with the Royals defeating the Kings with a score of 8-0 to win their first ever playoff game in team history. Marc Desgagnes recorded the first ever Temiscaming Royals playoff goal in the team's history. Guillaume Piche recorded the first ever win and shutout in the club's playoff history.\n\nIn June 2008, the GMHL announced that the Royals have left the league with ambitions of joining the NOJHL. Temsicaming is the second Québécois team in NOJHL history, after the Rouyn-Noranda Capitales who were in the league from 1989 to 1996.\n\nOn September 7, 2008, the Royals played their first Northern Ontario Jr. game against the North Bay Skyhawks. The Skyhawks won 2-0. The Royals first NOJHL win came on September 19, 2008, as they defeated the Sudbury Jr. Wolves 9-5 at home.\n\nOn December 4, 2010, Matt Zawadzki recorded a 48 save shutout against the Abitibi Eskimos. With his shutout he has the Royals first ever shutout in NOJHL history.\n\nOn May 7, 2011, the NOJHL's Spring AGM was concluded. The Royals were officially listed as disbanded from the league. Owner Steve McCharles has failed to make a deal with a group from Temiscaming for a sale. That group turned around and negotiated with the Town of Temiscaming and created a new team in the GMHL called the Temiscaming Titans and took the Royals' allotted ice time. McCharles then failed to make a deal with an ownership group from Kirkland Lake, Ontario and left the team to fold.\n\nSeason-by-Season Standings\n\nPlayoffs\n2008 Lost Semi-final\nTemiscaming Royals defeated Espanola Kings 4-games-to-none in bye round\nTemiscaming Royals defeated King Wild 4-games-to-2 in quarter-final\nInnisfil Lakers defeated Temiscaming Royals 4-games-to-2 in semi-final\n2009 Lost Quarter-final\nNorth Bay Skyhawks defeated Temiscaming Royals 4-games-to-none in quarter-final\n2010 Lost Quarter-final\nAbitibi Eskimos defeated Temiscaming Royals 4-games-to-one in quarter-final\n2011 Lost Quarter-final\nSudbury Jr. Wolves defeated Temiscaming Royals 4-games-to-none in quarter-final\n\nHead coaches\n\nTeam Captains\nMichael Sauvageau, 2007–08\nPier-Paul Landry, 2008–09\n No Captain, 2009–10\nRobin Mendelsohn, 2010–11\n\nAll Time Royals\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nTemiscaming Royals Webpage\n\nSport in Abitibi-Témiscamingue\nIce hockey teams in Quebec\nNorthern Ontario Junior Hockey League teams"
] |
[
"Billy Gunn",
"Billy and Chuck (2001-2002)",
"What happened between Billy and Gunn",
"Chuck proposed to Billy, asking him to be his \"partner for life\" and gave him a wedding ring.",
"Were they ever defeated?",
"just before they tied the knot, they revealed that the entire ordeal was a publicity stunt"
] | C_acab549694dc4ed9946ffa652de2d406_0 | Who defeated them? | 3 | Who defeated Billy and Chuck? | Billy Gunn | In a 2001 match on Sunday Night Heat, Gunn was defeated by Chuck Palumbo, who recently left The Alliance to join the WWF. After the match, Gunn suggested that they form a tag team. Palumbo agreed, and Billy and Chuck quickly rose to the top of the tag team division. Initially they were a generic face tandem, but soon turned heel when they were given a gimmick where they grew increasingly affectionate toward each other, showing evidence of a storyline homosexual relationship. In February 2002, Billy and Chuck defeated Spike Dudley and Tazz to win the Tag Team Championship for the first time as a team. After winning the titles, Billy and Chuck found a "Personal Stylist" in the ambiguously flamboyant Rico. After retaining the title against the Acolytes Protection Agency, the Dudley Boyz, and the Hardy Boyz in a Four Corners Elimination Match at WrestleMania X8 and against Al Snow and Maven at Backlash, Billy and Chuck began a feud with Rikishi. At Judgment Day, Rikishi and Rico (Rikishi's mystery partner of Mr. McMahon's choosing) defeated Billy and Chuck for the Tag Team Title after Rico accidentally hit Chuck with a roundhouse kick. Billy and Chuck quickly won the title back two weeks later on SmackDown! with Rico's help. They held the championship for almost a month before losing it to the team of Edge and Hulk Hogan. On the September 5 edition of Smackdown!, after Gunn lost a match to Rey Mysterio, Chuck proposed to Billy, asking him to be his "partner for life" and gave him a wedding ring. Gunn agreed, and one week later, on the September 12 episode of SmackDown!, Billy and Chuck had their wedding ceremony. However, just before they tied the knot, they revealed that the entire ordeal was a publicity stunt and disavowed their on-screen homosexuality, admitting that they were just friends. The "preacher" revealed himself to be Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff (who was wearing a skin mask), who then summoned 3-Minute Warning to beat up Billy and Chuck. Rico, furious that Billy and Chuck gave up their gimmick, became the manager of Three Minute Warning and defected to Raw, effectively turning Billy and Chuck face in the process. At Unforgiven, Three Minute Warning defeated Billy Gunn and Chuck Palumbo. Their final match together occurred on SmackDown! in the first round of a tournament for the newly created WWE Tag Team Championship. They lost the match to the team of Ron Simmons and Reverend D-Von. Afterwards, Sopp took a few months off because of a shoulder injury and the team of Billy and Chuck quietly disbanded. CANNOTANSWER | Three Minute Warning defeated Billy Gunn and Chuck Palumbo. | Monty "Kip" Sopp (born November 1, 1963), better known by his ring name Billy Gunn, is an American professional wrestler. He is currently signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW) as a wrestler and coach. Gunn is best known for his appearances in the World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment (WWF/E) from 1993 to 2004 and from 2012 to 2015. He also served as a coach on WWE's Tough Enough and was a trainer in NXT. He is also known for his appearances with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) from 2005 to 2009.
Primarily a tag team wrestler, Gunn is an overall 13-time tag team champion in WWE with three different partners (with Bart Gunn as The Smoking Gunns, with Road Dogg as The New Age Outlaws, and with Chuck Palumbo as Billy and Chuck). He is also a one time WWF Intercontinental Champion and a two time WWF Hardcore Champion, giving him 14 total championships in WWE. He is the 1999 King of the Ring tournament winner, and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2019 as a member of D-Generation X.
Professional wrestling career
Early career (1985–1993)
After a stint as a professional bull rider in Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, Sopp left the profession in his early-20s in order to pursue a career as a professional wrestler. Trained by Jerry Grey, Sopp wrestled on the independent circuit for eight years (including a brief stint as enhancement talent for World Championship Wrestling (WCW) before signing a contract with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in 1993.
World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment (1993–2004)
The Smoking Gunns (1993–1996)
After weeks of vignettes, Sopp, under the name Billy Gunn, made his WWF debut on the May 17, 1993 episode of Raw, teaming with his on-screen brother, Bart Gunn to defeat Tony Vadja and Glenn Ruth. The duo, now known as The Smoking Gunns, made their pay-per-view debut at King of the Ring, teaming with The Steiner Brothers to defeat Money Inc. and The Headshrinkers in an eight-man tag team match. At SummerSlam, the duo teamed with Tatanka to pick up a win against Bam Bam Bigelow and the Headshrinkers. On January 22, 1994, Gunn entered his first Royal Rumble match at the namesake event, but was eliminated by Diesel. In early 1995, the Gunns won their first Tag Team Championship by defeating the makeshift team of Bob Holly and 1-2-3 Kid. They held the title until WrestleMania XI, where they were defeated by the team of Owen Hart and Yokozuna. They won the titles again in September 1995.
On February 15, 1996, the Gunns vacated the title because Billy was in need of neck surgery. After Billy returned from hiatus, The Smoking Gunns won the Tag Team Title for the third time by defeating The Godwinns in May. After the match, The Godwinns' manager Sunny turned on her team in favor of the Gunns. On September 22 at In Your House: Mind Games, the Gunns lost the Tag Team Title to Owen Hart and The British Bulldog. After the match, Sunny abandoned The Gunns, saying that she would only manage title holders. Billy, frustrated with losing both the championship and Sunny, walked out on Bart, breaking up The Smoking Gunns.
Rockabilly, The New Age Outlaws and D-Generation X (1997–1998)
After The Smoking Gunns disbanded, Gunn took some time off to nurse an injury. At WrestleMania 13, he defeated Flash Funk catching the attention of The Honky Tonk Man, who made Gunn his protégé. During this time, he adopted a new gimmick, Rockabilly, He would use this gimmick throughout much of 1997 and eventually had a short-lived feud with "The Real Double J" Jesse James. On the October 4, 1997 episode of Shotgun Saturday Night, James realized both of their careers were going nowhere and suggested that they become a tag team. Gunn agreed and smashed a guitar over the Honky Tonk Man's head to solidify their new alliance.
James and Rockabilly were quickly rebranded as "Road Dogg" Jesse James and "Badd Ass" Billy Gunn, respectively, and their tag team was dubbed the New Age Outlaws. They quickly rose to the top of the tag team ranks and won the Tag Team Championship from the Legion of Doom on November 24. They also defeated the LOD in a rematch at In Your House: D-Generation X.
The Outlaws slowly began to align themselves with D-Generation X. At the Royal Rumble, the New Age Outlaws interfered in a Casket match to help Shawn Michaels defeat The Undertaker. At No Way Out Of Texas, the Outlaws teamed up with Triple H and Savio Vega (who replaced the injured Shawn Michaels) to face Chainsaw Charlie, Cactus Jack, Owen Hart, and Steve Austin. They were, however, defeated. On February 2, The Outlaws locked Cactus and Chainsaw in a dumpster and pushed it off the stage. This led to a Dumpster match at WrestleMania XIV where Cactus and Chainsaw defeated the Outlaws for the Tag Titles. The next night on Raw, the New Age Outlaws won the Tag Team Championship for a second time by defeating Chainsaw and Cactus in a Steel cage match, but only after interference from Triple H, Chyna, and X-Pac. After the match, the Outlaws officially became members of D-Generation X (DX).
After joining DX, the Outlaws successfully defended their Tag Team Title against the Legion of Doom 2000 at Unforgiven. DX began to feud with Owen Hart and his new stablemates, The Nation. At Over The Edge, the Outlaws and Triple H were defeated by Nation members Owen, Kama Mustafa, and D'Lo Brown in a Six Man Tag Match.
During this time, the Outlaws began a feud with Kane and Mankind. At SummerSlam, Mankind faced the Outlaws in a Handicap match after Kane no-showed the title defense. The Outlaws defeated Mankind to win the titles for the third time. In December, the Outlaws lost the title to The Big Boss Man and Ken Shamrock from The Corporation.
Mr. Ass and reformation of the Outlaws and DX (1999–2000)
The Outlaws then began to focus more on singles competition. The Road Dogg won the Hardcore Championship in December 1998, and Gunn set his sights on the Intercontinental Championship. At the 1999 Royal Rumble, Gunn unsuccessfully challenged Ken Shamrock for the Intercontinental Title. The next month at St. Valentine's Day Massacre, Gunn was the special guest referee for the Intercontinental Championship match between Val Venis and champion Ken Shamrock, where Gunn made a fast count and declared Venis the new champion before attacking both men.
In March, Gunn won the Hardcore Championship from Hardcore Holly. At WrestleMania XV, Gunn lost the title to Holly in a Triple Threat match which also included Al Snow. The New Age Outlaws then reunited to defeat Jeff Jarrett and Owen Hart at Backlash. After Backlash, Gunn left D-Generation X and aligned himself with Triple H and Chyna. Gunn defeated his former partner, Road Dogg, in a match at Over the Edge. Gunn then won the King of the Ring tournament by defeating Ken Shamrock, Kane, and his former ally, X-Pac. After King of the Ring, Gunn, Triple H, and Chyna went on to feud with X-Pac and Road Dogg over the rights to the D-Generation X name. This feud culminated at Fully Loaded when X-Pac and Road Dogg defeated Gunn and Chyna.
Gunn then began a brief feud with The Rock. At SummerSlam, The Rock defeated Gunn in a Kiss My Ass Match. Following this, Gunn then briefly feuded with Jeff Jarrett for the Intercontinental Title before reuniting with Road Dogg to reform The New Age Outlaws. The Outlaws won their fourth tag team championship by defeating The Rock 'n' Sock Connection in September 1999. The Outlaws later reunited with X-Pac and Triple H to reform D-Generation X. During this time, The Outlaws won their fifth Tag Team Championship after defeating Mankind and Al Snow. At the 2000 Royal Rumble, The New Age Outlaws retained their title against The Acolytes after interference from X-Pac. The Outlaws then had a feud with The Dudley Boyz, who won the Tag Team Championship from The Outlaws at No Way Out. After suffering a torn rotator cuff in the match with The Dudley Boyz, Gunn was kicked out of D-Generation X for "losing his cool" to explain his impending absence to recover from his injury.
The One (2000–2001)
Gunn made his return in October and immediately teamed with Chyna to feud with Right to Censor, who wanted to "censor" his Mr. Ass gimmick. At No Mercy, Right to Censor members Steven Richards and Val Venis defeated Chyna and Gunn. Due to a stipulation, Gunn could no longer use the Mr. Ass gimmick, so he renamed himself Billy G. for a few weeks before settling on "The One" Billy Gunn. Gunn then feuded with Eddie Guerrero and the rest of The Radicalz. At Survivor Series, Gunn teamed with Road Dogg, Chyna, and K-Kwik in a losing effort against The Radicalz. A few weeks later on SmackDown!, Gunn won the Intercontinental Championship from Guerrero. However, the title reign was short-lived, as Chris Benoit defeated him for the title two weeks later at Armageddon. After feuding with Benoit, Gunn participated in the 2001 Royal Rumble where he made it to the final four, Gunn interfered in the Hardcore Championship Match at No Way Out, and taking advantage of the 24/7 Rule, pinning Raven for the title. The reign was short-lived, as Raven won it back a few minutes later.
Billy and Chuck (2001–2002)
In a 2001 match on Sunday Night Heat, Gunn was defeated by Chuck Palumbo, who recently left The Alliance to join the WWF. After the match, Gunn suggested that they form a tag team. Palumbo agreed, and Billy and Chuck quickly rose to the top of the tag team division. Initially they were a generic tandem, but they were given a gimmick where they grew increasingly affectionate toward each other, showing evidence of a storyline homosexual relationship.
In February 2002, Billy and Chuck defeated Spike Dudley and Tazz to win the WWF Tag Team Championship for the first time as a team. After winning the titles, Billy and Chuck found a "Personal Stylist" in the ambiguously flamboyant Rico. After retaining the title against the Acolytes Protection Agency, the Dudley Boyz, and the Hardy Boyz in a Four Corners Elimination Match at WrestleMania X8 and against Al Snow and Maven at Backlash, Billy and Chuck began a feud with Rikishi. At Judgment Day, Rikishi and Rico (Rikishi's mystery partner of Mr. McMahon's choosing) defeated Billy and Chuck for the WWE Tag Team Championship after Rico accidentally hit Chuck with a roundhouse kick. Billy and Chuck quickly won the title back two weeks later on SmackDown! with Rico's help. They held the championship for almost a month before losing it to the team of Edge and Hollywood Hulk Hogan on the July 4 episode of SmackDown!.
On the September 5 edition of SmackDown!, after Billy lost a match to Rey Mysterio, Chuck proposed to Billy, asking him to be his "partner for life" and gave him a wedding ring. Billy agreed, and one week later, on the September 12 episode of SmackDown!, Billy and Chuck had their wedding ceremony. However, just before they tied the knot, they revealed that the entire ordeal was a publicity stunt and disavowed their on-screen homosexuality, admitting that they were just friends. The "preacher" revealed himself to be Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff (who was wearing a skin mask), who then summoned 3-Minute Warning to beat up Billy and Chuck. Rico, furious that Billy and Chuck gave up their gimmick, became the manager of Three Minute Warning and defected to Raw. At Unforgiven, Three Minute Warning defeated Billy and Chuck. Their final match together occurred on the October 3 episode of SmackDown! in the first round of a tournament for the newly created WWE Tag Team Championship. They lost the match to the team of Ron Simmons and Reverend D-Von. Afterwards, Gunn took a few months off because of a shoulder injury and the team of Billy and Chuck quietly disbanded.
SmackDown! and return to singles competition (2003–2004)
After returning in the summer of 2003, Gunn reverted to the "Mr. Ass" gimmick, defeating A-Train, and Torrie Wilson became his new manager. He started a feud with Jamie Noble, which led to an "Indecent Proposal" Match at Vengeance, which Noble won and due to the match's stipulation, won a night with Torrie. After taking time off again due to a shoulder injury, Gunn returned to action at the 2004 Royal Rumble, but was eliminated by Goldberg. Afterward, he wrestled mainly on Velocity, forming an occasional tag team with Hardcore Holly. At Judgment Day, Gunn and Holly challenged Charlie Haas and Rico for the WWE Tag Team Championship, but were unsuccessful. At The Great American Bash, Gunn lost to Kenzo Suzuki.
On November 1, 2004, Sopp was released from his WWE contract. In June 2005, Sopp gave an interview in which he was heavily critical of WWE and the events that led to his release. Many of the negative comments were directed towards Triple H, who Sopp claimed "runs the show up there".
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (2005–2009)
Planet Jarrett (2005)
On February 13, 2005, Sopp debuted in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) without a name (as Billy Gunn is a WWE trademark, although announcers recognized him as such) at Against All Odds with the same gimmick, helping Jeff Jarrett retain the NWA World Heavyweight Championship in a match with Kevin Nash. Sopp, using the name The New Age Outlaw, then formed a stable with Jarrett and Monty Brown known as Planet Jarrett. However, WWE threatened TNA with legal action if Sopp continued the use of the name "The New Age Outlaw", so he shortened his name to The Outlaw. Due to the legal issues with WWE, all TNA -DVD releases featuring footage with Sopp as "The Outlaw" (and presumably also as "The New Age Outlaw") have had the name on on-screen graphics blurred, the name silenced out of the audio, and match commentary completely replaced to reflect a retroactive name change to "Kip James". One such DVD is the pay-per-view Lockdown, included in the "TNA Anthology: The Epic Set" box set, in which the silencing of the name during a segment where Dusty Rhodes picks his name from a lottery leaves DVD viewers in the dark as to who just got picked.
The Outlaw began a campaign to make former ally B.G. James leave the 3Live Kru and defect to Planet Jarrett, reforming the old tag team with Outlaw. At No Surrender, he renamed himself Kip James and was announced as "wrestling out of Marietta, Georgia" (the family seat of the Armstrong family) as a psychological ploy. As a result of his campaign, Kip attracted the ire of 3Live Kru members Ron Killings and Konnan, leading to a series of tag team matches pitting Kip and Monty Brown against Killings and Konnan, with a conflicted James unwilling to take sides. Kip's efforts ultimately proved futile; James, the guest referee in a final match between Brown and Kip versus Konnan and Killings at Sacrifice, attacked Kip enabling a 3Live Kru victory.
In September at Unbreakable, Kip teamed with Brown to defeat the team of Apolo and Lance Hoyt. There was clear tension between the partners because Brown was unhappy at the series of losses at the hands of the 3Live Kru, and Kip was irked by Brown's decision to leave Planet Jarrett. Despite the victory, the partners argued after the match. On the October 8, 2005 episode of Impact!, Kip rekindled his feud with the 3Live Kru, running to the ring after a bout between the 3LK and Team Canada in order to prevent Team Canada captain Petey Williams from beating down B.G. James. He saved James, and then engaged in a staredown with Konnan and Killings. Kip saved James from Team Canada once again at Bound for Glory. Though Killings showed signs of gratitude, Konnan remained skeptical as to his true intentions. Later that night, Kip took part in an over-the-top-rope gauntlet match for the number one contendership to the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. After he was eliminated, he tried in vain to prevent Killings from being eliminated as well, before being sent away from ringside by the referees.
The James Gang/Voodoo Kin Mafia (2005–2008)
On the November 26 episode of Impact!, B.G. brought Kip and the 3Live Kru to ringside and asked Killings and Konnan whether Kip could join the stable. Following a heated argument between Konnan and B.G., both Killings and Konnan gave their approval, and the 4Live Kru was born. However, at Turning Point, Konnan attacked both B.G. and Kip, costing them their match against Team Canada and initiating a feud between himself and the remainder of the Kru. Shortly thereafter, B.G. James's father, Bob Armstrong, attempted to reconcile the group, but was instead attacked by Konnan and his new stablemates, Apolo and Homicide. Killings later stated that he had severed his ties with the Kru. With Konnan and Killings no longer members of the Kru, Kip and B.G. began referring to themselves as The James Gang and continued to feud with the Konnan-managed Latin American Exchange, whose third man position as Homicide's partner would switch from Apolo to Machete, and then from him to Hernandez, who finally stuck, during the course of this feud. At Final Resolution, The James Gang defeated The Diamonds in the Rough (David Young and Elix Skipper). At Against All Odds, The James Gang defeated LAX (Homicide and Machete). At Destination X, The James Gang and Bob Armstrong defeated Latin American Exchange in a six-man tag team match. At Sacrifice, The James Gang defeated Team 3D which led to a rematch at Slammiversary where Team 3D defeated The James Gang in a Bingo Hall Brawl. At Victory Road, The James Gang and Abyss defeated Team 3D and their newest member Brother Runt. At No Surrender, The James Gang competed in a Triple Chance tag team battle royal but failed to win the match. At Bound for Glory, The James Gang competed in a Four-way tag team match which was won by Team 3D.
By November 2006, Kip and B.G. began to show displeasure in TNA and threatened to go find work elsewhere if they did not receive gold soon. They began performing the crotch chop, a reference to the WWE's DX. On the November 2 edition of Impact!, Kip and B.G. threatened to quit. Kip grabbed the mic and tried to say something to the TNA administration and Spike TV, but each time his mic was cut off. Kip then tried to use the announcer's headset, but it was cut off as well. Frustrated, he started yelling loudly to the crowd, but he was cut off again as the show went to a commercial break. When the show returned, the announcers speculated that they may have been frustrated due to the influx of new talent entering TNA. It was reported that the segment was a worked shoot that Vince Russo had written in order to renew interest upon their eventual return. Kip and BG appeared in an internet video on TNA's website where they addressed the owner of WWE Vince McMahon.
A few weeks later on Impact!, The James Gang re-emerged under a new name Voodoo Kin Mafia (VKM for short, a play on Vincent Kennedy McMahon's initials). They mentioned their new right of 'creative control', meaning they could do whatever they wanted. They also declared 'war' on Paul Levesque, Michael Hickenbottom, and Vincent K. McMahon (Triple H, Shawn Michaels, and Vince McMahon, respectively). Kip then declared that 'Triple Hollywood' and 'Shawn Kiss-my-bottom' were failing as the group they (Kip and BG) used to be a part of: D-Generation X. After the initial shock value of this incident wore off, at Genesis, The Voodoo Kin Mafia defeated Kazarian, Maverick Matt and Johnny Devine in a handicap match. VKM began a feud with the villainous Christy Hemme. Hemme then searched for a tag team to square-off against VKM. At Destination X, The Voodoo Kin Mafia defeated Hemme's handpicked team of The Heartbreakers (Antonio Thomas & Romeo Roselli). On the Lockdown preshow The Voodoo Kin Mafia defeated another one of Hemme's handpicked team Serotonin (Kaz & Havok) in a Six Sides of Steel match. The final tag team was Damaja and Basham, who appeared on an episode of Impact! and beat down VKM. They also held up Kip James so Hemme could slap him. B.G James was taken out by Basham and Damaja which led to Kip James competed against Basham and Damaja in a handicap match at Sacrifice where he lost. However, they beat Hemme's team at Slammiversary. After the match, VKM were betrayed by their associate Lance Hoyt. At Victory Road, they introduced their new manager, the Voodoo Queen, Roxxi Laveaux, to embarrass Christy Hemme. At Hard Justice, The Voodoo Kin Mafia lost to The Latin American Exchange. At No Surrender, The Voodoo Kin Mafia competed in a Ten-team tag team gauntlet match which was won by A.J. Styles and Tomko. At Bound for Glory, Kip James competed in the Fight for the Right Reverse Battle Royal which was won by Eric Young. On the October 25 edition of Impact!, VKM teamed with A.J. Styles and Tomko in a losing effort to the Latin American Xchange and the Steiner Brothers. At Genesis, B.G. was present along with Kip in the corner of Roxxi Laveaux at ringside for the Fatal Four Way knockout match for the TNA Women's Championship in which Gail Kim retained the title. At Turning Point, James competed in the Feast or Fired where he grabbed a case but threw it to BG James. It was revealed that the case was for a shot at the TNA World Tag Team Championship and BG James picked his dad to be his partner at Against All Odds, James and Bob Armstrong failed to win the titles and on February 21, 2008 episode of Impact! he turned on B.G. and B.G's father "Bullet" Bob Armstrong by hitting them both with a crutch.
The Beautiful People (2008–2009)
On April 13, 2008, he faced former partner B.G. James at Lockdown and lost. After the match, he appeared to want to make amends as he raised B.G.'s hand after the match, only to clothesline him down to the mat and taunt him with a DX crotch chop. Kip went on to declare himself "The Megastar", an arrogant gimmick similar to "The One" gimmick from his WWF tenure. Kip later stopped making appearances on Impact! until April 24 when he was attacked backstage by Matt Morgan for no reason. The next week on Impact!, Kip got back at Morgan by attacking him backstage in Jim Cornette's office. On May 8, 2008, Cornette forced Morgan into being Kip's tag team partner for the Deuces Wild tournament at Sacrifice, though both were unable to win. Kip went on another brief disappearance from television until the June 5 edition of Impact!, where he partnered with Lance Hoyt and James Storm in a losing effort against Morgan and The Latin American Xchange.
On the August 14 episode of Impact!, Kip was revealed to be the new image consultant and member of The Beautiful People, dubbed Cute Kip and was using his Mr.Ass Attire, after they brought him out during their interview on Karen Angle's show Karen's Angle. at Bound for Glory IV, Kip, Love and Sky lost to Rhino, ODB and Rhaka Khan in a Bimbo Brawl. at Final Resolution (December 2008), Kip competed in the Feast or Fired match but failed to get a case. At Genesis 2009, Kip became the one-night-only replacement for the injured Kevin Nash in the Main Event Mafia.
As of March 19, 2009, Sopp was taken off of TNA Impact! along with Jacqueline Moore to become road agents. Sopp returned as Cute Kip and lost to Awesome Kong in an intergender stretcher match on May 14, 2009. On the May 28 edition of Impact!, Kip was fired by The Beautiful People. On the June 18 edition of Impact!, Mick Foley hired him as his handyman, turning Kip into a face. he made another appearance on the August 6 edition of Impact where Kip had to clean up the IMPACT Zone after a chaotic fifteen minute "riot". On October 9 edition of Xplosion, Kip was defeated by Rhino. On October 30 edition of Xplosion, Kip defeated Sheik Abdul Bashir. on the November 13 edition of Xplosion, Kip lost to Rob Terry and on December 3, 2009 edition of Xplosion, Kip competed in his final TNA match where he lost to Kiyoshi.
Sopp's profile was removed from the TNA website on December 29, 2009, confirming his departure from the promotion.
Independent circuit (2009–2012)
After leaving TNA, Sopp reunited with B.G. James to reform The New Age Outlaws, with both men resuming their Billy Gunn and Road Dogg ring names. After joining TWA Powerhouse in 2010, the Outlaws defeated Canadian Extreme to win the promotion's Tag Team Championship on July 25. They re-lost the title to Canadian Extreme on June 5, 2011.
On July 30, 2011, Sopp, working under the ring name Kip Gunn, made his debut for Lucha Libre USA as a member of the heel stable The Right. Later that night, Gunn lost in his debut match against Marco Corleone. On June 26, 2012, Sopp won the American Pro Wrestling Alliance American Championship. However, he lost the title due to travel issues. On September 8 and 9, 2012, he wrestled in a Bad Boys of Wrestling Federation tournament. He defeated Rhino in the semi-finals and Scott Steiner in the final, winning the BBWF Aruba Championship.
Return to WWE (2012–2015)
On July 23, Sopp, under his Billy Gunn name, made his first WWE appearance in nearly eight years as he reunited with Road Dogg, X-Pac, Shawn Michaels and Triple H to reform D-Generation X for one night only on the 1000th episode of Raw. In December 2012, he was hired by WWE as a trainer for the NXT Wrestling territory in Tampa, Florida. On March 4, 2013, Gunn and Road Dogg made a return at Old School Raw, defeating Primo and Epico. On March 11, 2013, they accepted a challenge from Team Rhodes Scholars and faced them in a match, which was interrupted by Brock Lesnar, who hit both Outlaws with an F-5 as part of his ongoing feud with Triple H.
He then appeared alongside Road Dogg to help CM Punk clear out The Shield in aid of Roddy Piper on Old School Raw on January 6, 2014. On the January 10 episode of SmackDown, the Outlaws teamed with CM Punk in a six-man tag match against The Shield in a losing effort. On the January 13 episode of Raw, the Outlaws again teamed with Punk in a rematch against The Shield, only to abandon Punk and lose the match. On January 26 during the Royal Rumble Kickoff Show, Gunn and Road Dogg beat Cody Rhodes and Goldust to win the WWE Tag Team Championship. The next night on Raw the New Age Outlaws retained the championship against Rhodes and Goldust via disqualification when Brock Lesnar attacked the brothers. The next week on Raw the New Age Outlaws retained the championship against Rhodes and Goldust in a steel cage match. On March 3, the Outlaws lost the Tag Team Championship to The Usos. Gunn sustained hemoptysis after he and his New Age Outlaws partner, Road Dogg, suffered a double-Triple Powerbomb by The Shield at WrestleMania XXX.
Gunn returned to Raw with Road Dogg in January 2015, attacking The Ascension along with the nWo and the APA. At the Royal Rumble, the Outlaws faced The Ascension in a losing effort. At WrestleMania 31, Gunn, with Road Dogg, X-Pac and Shawn Michaels, reunited as D-Generation X to help Triple H in his match against Sting. In May, Gunn was announced as a coach along with WWE Hall of Famers Booker T and Lita for the sixth season of Tough Enough.
On November 13, 2015, WWE officially announced that Sopp was released from his WWE contract after failing a test for performance-enhancing drugs. He had tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone at a powerlifting event on July 25, 2015, and was suspended from powerlifting for four years.
Independent circuit (2015–2020)
On December 26, 2015, Gunn teamed up with Kevin Thorn to defeat Brian Klass and Rob Street. One month later, Gunn defeated Ken Dixon for the MCW Pro Wrestling MCW Rage Television Championship. On February 5, 2016, Gunn defeated Joey Hayes in the Preston City Wrestling PCW Road to Glory tournament, on February 6 he lost to T-Bone in the quarter-finals that same night Gunn teamed up with Mr. Anderson and Tajiri to defeat Dave Raynes, Joey Hayes, and Martin Kirby. On February 7, 2016 Gunn challenged for the Pro Wrestling Pride Heavyweight championship losing to Steve Griffiths. On March 19, 2016, Gunn lost the title to Ken Dixon. On June 12, 2016, Gunn won the Smashmouth Pro Wrestling championship from KC Huber but lost it on the same night, Gunn teamed again with Anderson in a losing effort against the UK Hooligans at PCW Tribute to the Troops on June 25, 2016. He defeated Hardcore Holly in a singles match at PCW Top Gunn on July 2, 2016.
On September 4, 2016, Gunn made his debut for Chikara, representing DX alongside X-Pac in a tag team gauntlet match. The two entered the match as the final team and scored the win over Prakash Sabar and The Proletariat Boar of Moldova.
New Japan Pro-Wrestling (2016–2017)
On November 5, 2016, at the New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) event Power Struggle, Yoshitatsu announced Gunn as the newest member of his Hunter Club stable and his partner for the upcoming 2016 World Tag League. Gunn and Yoshitatsu finished the tournament on December 8 with a record of three wins and four losses, failing to advance from their block. Gunn returned to NJPW on January 4, 2017, taking part in the pre-show New Japan Rumble at Wrestle Kingdom 11 in Tokyo Dome, from which he was eliminated by the eventual winner Michael Elgin. While Gunn did not appear for NJPW for the next six months, he was brought up in May by Yoshitatsu, who told Hiroshi Tanahashi that Gunn had requested a match against him. When Tanahashi captured the IWGP Intercontinental Championship the following month, he immediately nominated Gunn as his first challenger. Gunn was defeated in the title match on July 2 at G1 Special in USA, and it was his final match in NJPW.
WWE appearances (2018–2019)
Gunn and numerous other WWE legends appeared on the January 22, 2018 episode of Raw 25 Years as part of the D-Generation X reunion. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2019 as a member of D-Generation X.
All Elite Wrestling (2019–present)
In January 2019, Gunn was hired by All Elite Wrestling as a coach. At May 25 at the AEW Double or Nothing event he competed in the pre-show battle royal. Gunn made his first televised appearance for AEW on the November 20, 2019 episode of AEW Dynamite, competing in a battle royal. He also appeared during the January 1, 2020 episode of Dynamite, wrestling in a dark match with his son Austin that aired on January 7, 2020. They wrestled again together on another dark match during the January 8, 2020 episode of Dynamite, airing on January 17, 2020, with the tag team name "The Gunn Club", defeating the team of Peter Avalon and Shawn Spears. Gunn has also appeared in the crowd (made up of AEW wrestlers and other employees) on numerous episodes of Dynamite during the COVID-19 pandemic. On the May 27, 2020 episode of Dynamite, Gunn now under the shortened ring name of Billy participated in a battle royal match to determine the number one contender for the TNT Championship. He also would wrestle MJF in a singles match on the June 17, 2020 episode of Dynamite as well. The Gunn Club would wrestle in more tag team matches on more episodes of AEW Dark.
On the November 4, 2020 episode of Dynamite, The Gunn Club teamed with Cody Rhodes to successfully defeat The Dark Order (John Silver, 10 and Colt Cabana). On the November 17, 2020 episode of Dark, The Gunn Club, which now added Austin's brother and Gunn's other son Colten to the stable, defeated Bshp King, Joey O'Riley and Sean Maluta by pinfall in a six-man tag team match. On the same day the AEW website's roster page got updated and his name was once again changed to its long form, Billy Gunn. The three man Gunn Club would then defeat Cezar Bononi, KTB, and Seth Gargis in another six man tag team match on the November 24, 2020 episode of Dark. On the December 8, 2020 episode of Dark The three man Gunn Club-which entered the ring on a golf cart with the words "Taz Taxi" on the side, defeated Shawn Dean, Sean Maluta & RYZIN. On the December 1, 2021 episode of Dynamite, The Gunn Club stable's undefeated streak in AEW ended when Billy and Colten Gunn lost to the team of Sting and Darby Allin.
Professional wrestling style, persona and reception
Gunn has had several gimmicks throughout his career, ranging from his cowboy-themed gimmick with the Smoking Gunns to his The Ambiguously Gay Duo-esque tag team with Chuck Palumbo. Gunn has stated on multiple shoot interviews that he has no regrets with his gimmicks as he was performing a job and doing what was asked of him to do.
By far, Gunn's most infamous gimmick was his "Mr. Ass" persona based around his ass. The gimmick started during his New Age Outlaws days when Road Dogg would refer to themselves as "Mr. Dogg" and "Mr. Ass" in promos, though the "Bad Ass" name wasn't referring to his backside at that time. What was originally a throwaway joke turned into Gunn mooning his opponents and the live crowd, though as the original incarnation of DX also did this, it could originally be argued that it was an extension of the Outlaws joining DX.
Upon leaving DX, Gunn fully embraced the "Mr. Ass" gimmick by placing emphasis on his "moneymaker". While Road Dogg kept the New Age Outlaws entrance music for his own, Gunn adopted the song "Ass Man" as part of the gimmick, and for a time even changed his ring tights to be see-through, wearing only a thong underneath his tights, although he would eventually revert back to the DX-era tights.
The "Mr. Ass" gimmick has mixed reviews. One web site ranked it near the middle of Gunn's various gimmicks, while a writer for Bleacher Report thought it was the worst gimmick ever even though Gunn was at his peak popularity with the persona. Gunn himself told Chris Van Vliet in 2021 that he never paid attention to the "Ass Man" lyrics until a college professor broke down each expression.
Due to the enduring legacy of the "Mr. Ass" gimmick, in November 2021 Ring of Honor wrestler Danhausen began a Twitter feud with the Gunn Club, referring to Billy as "Billy Ass," and Colten and Austin as The "Ass Boys," in reference to Gunn's infamous "Mr. Ass" gimmick in the Attitude Era. While Gunn himself initially had no comment, the rest of Gunn Club despised the nickname after fans began chanting "Ass Boys" during their matches, notably during an AEW event at Chartway Arena in Norfolk, Virginia. Gunn finally commented when he surprised his sons by wearing an "Ass Boys" shirt, encouraging them to "embrace the assness" and even started teasing mooning the crowd again. Gunn also thanked Danhausen publicly for getting his sons over in a way that he couldn't.
Other media
Filmography
Video Games
WWF Attitude
WWF WrestleMania 2000
WWF SmackDown!
WWF No Mercy
WWF SmackDown! 2: Know Your Role
WWF Road To WrestleMania
WWF SmackDown! Just Bring It
WWF Raw
WWE SmackDown! Shut Your Mouth
WWE Raw 2
WWE '13
WWE 2K16
WWE 2K17
Personal life
Sopp was born on November 1, 1963 in Orlando, Florida and claims Austin, Texas as his hometown. In November 1990, Sopp was arrested in Florida for disorderly conduct. Sopp married his first wife Tina Tinnell on March 3, 1990. Together, they have two sons: Colten (born May 18, 1991) and Austin (born August 26, 1994) who are also professional wrestlers. The couple separated in January 2000 and their divorce was finalized on December 11, 2002. Sopp has since married his long-time girlfriend Paula on January 24, 2009.
Sopp's sons Austin and Colten, better known by the ring names Austin Gunn and Colten Gunn, are currently signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW) where alongside their father they form a stable known as "Gunn Club".
Sopp attended Sam Houston State University.
Championships and accomplishments
American Pro Wrestling Alliance
APWA American Championship (1 time)
Bad Boys of Wrestling Federation
BBFW Aruba Championship (1 time)
BBFW Aruba Championship Tournament (2012)
International Wrestling Federation
IWF Tag Team Championship (2 times) – with Brett Colt
Freedom Pro Wrestling
FPW Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Road Dogg
Maryland Championship Wrestling
MCW Rage Television Championship (1 time)
MCW Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with B.G. James
Pro Wrestling Illustrated
Tag Team of the Year (1998) with Road Dogg
Tag Team of the Year (2002) with Chuck
Ranked #39 of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 1999
Ranked #231 of the top 500 singles wrestlers of the "PWI Years" in 2003
Ranked #43 of the top 100 tag teams of the "PWI Years" with Road Dogg in 2003
SmashMouth Pro Wrestling
SPW World Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
TWA Powerhouse
TWA Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with B.G. James
Vanguard Championship Wrestling
VCW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
World Pro Wrestling
WPW World Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
Worst Worked Match of the Year (2006) TNA Reverse Battle Royal on TNA Impact!
WWE/World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment
WWF Hardcore Championship (2 times)
WWF Intercontinental Championship (1 time)
WWE Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Road Dogg
WWF World Tag Team Championship (10 times) – with Bart Gunn (3), Road Dogg (5) and Chuck (2)
King of the Ring (1999)
Raw Bowl – with Bart Gunn
WWE Hall of Fame (Class of 2019) - as a member of D-Generation X
References
External links
1963 births
All Elite Wrestling personnel
American male professional wrestlers
American powerlifters
Bull riders
D-Generation X members
Expatriate professional wrestlers in Japan
LGBT characters in professional wrestling
Living people
Professional wrestlers from Florida
Professional wrestling trainers
Sam Houston State University alumni
Sportspeople from Orlando, Florida
The Authority (professional wrestling) members
WWE Hall of Fame inductees
WWF/WWE Hardcore Champions
WWF/WWE Intercontinental Champions
WWF/WWE King Crown's Champions/King of the Ring winners
American expatriate sportspeople in Japan | false | [
"The Second Battle of Clusium took place during Sulla's Second Civil War. Forces under the future triumvir Pompey defeated a 30,000 strong force under Carrinas, Brutus Damasippus and Marcius Censorinus, killing 20,000 of them. After the battle the defeated army largely dissolved, with many soldiers going home. All three defeated commanders escaped and took their remaining forces to the Samnites, who had declared for them.\n\nReferences \n\nPompey\nClusium",
"The 2009 All-Ireland Minor Camogie Championship is a competition for age graded development squad county teams in the women's team field sport of camogie was won by Kilkenny, who defeated Clare by eight points in the final, played at Semple Stadium Thurles. 2009 Kilkenny 5-10 Clare 3-8.\n\nB Division\nThe Minor B final was won by Limerick who defeated Waterford by one point in a dramatic final at Mallow. Waterford defeated Derry 1–9 to 0–9 at Ashbourne and Limerick defeated Wexford 3–16 to 3–9 in the semi-finals. Naomi Carroll and Chloe Morey scored three points each. The Minor C final was won by Laois. Sarah Ann Fitzgerald scored 2–2 to help Laois defeat Carlow in the final by five points. Laois defeated Roscommon in the minor C semi-final by 8–12 to 1–1 and Carlow defeated Cavan.\n\nArrangements\nClare defeated Cork 1–9 to 0–11 in the semi-final at Kilmallock, while ’s Denise Gaule scored 3–7 and Aoife Murphy 2–3 as Kilkenny defeated Tipperary by 5–15 to 3–4.\n\nThe Final\nFive goals before half-time, two of them from Denise Gaule, enabled Kilkenny win the final. They lead 5.05 to 1.04 at the break\n\nFinal stages\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Camogie Association\n\nMinor\nAll-Ireland Minor Camogie Championship"
] |
[
"Billy Gunn",
"Billy and Chuck (2001-2002)",
"What happened between Billy and Gunn",
"Chuck proposed to Billy, asking him to be his \"partner for life\" and gave him a wedding ring.",
"Were they ever defeated?",
"just before they tied the knot, they revealed that the entire ordeal was a publicity stunt",
"Who defeated them?",
"Three Minute Warning defeated Billy Gunn and Chuck Palumbo."
] | C_acab549694dc4ed9946ffa652de2d406_0 | When were they defeated? | 4 | When were Billy and Chuck defeated by Three Minute Warning? | Billy Gunn | In a 2001 match on Sunday Night Heat, Gunn was defeated by Chuck Palumbo, who recently left The Alliance to join the WWF. After the match, Gunn suggested that they form a tag team. Palumbo agreed, and Billy and Chuck quickly rose to the top of the tag team division. Initially they were a generic face tandem, but soon turned heel when they were given a gimmick where they grew increasingly affectionate toward each other, showing evidence of a storyline homosexual relationship. In February 2002, Billy and Chuck defeated Spike Dudley and Tazz to win the Tag Team Championship for the first time as a team. After winning the titles, Billy and Chuck found a "Personal Stylist" in the ambiguously flamboyant Rico. After retaining the title against the Acolytes Protection Agency, the Dudley Boyz, and the Hardy Boyz in a Four Corners Elimination Match at WrestleMania X8 and against Al Snow and Maven at Backlash, Billy and Chuck began a feud with Rikishi. At Judgment Day, Rikishi and Rico (Rikishi's mystery partner of Mr. McMahon's choosing) defeated Billy and Chuck for the Tag Team Title after Rico accidentally hit Chuck with a roundhouse kick. Billy and Chuck quickly won the title back two weeks later on SmackDown! with Rico's help. They held the championship for almost a month before losing it to the team of Edge and Hulk Hogan. On the September 5 edition of Smackdown!, after Gunn lost a match to Rey Mysterio, Chuck proposed to Billy, asking him to be his "partner for life" and gave him a wedding ring. Gunn agreed, and one week later, on the September 12 episode of SmackDown!, Billy and Chuck had their wedding ceremony. However, just before they tied the knot, they revealed that the entire ordeal was a publicity stunt and disavowed their on-screen homosexuality, admitting that they were just friends. The "preacher" revealed himself to be Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff (who was wearing a skin mask), who then summoned 3-Minute Warning to beat up Billy and Chuck. Rico, furious that Billy and Chuck gave up their gimmick, became the manager of Three Minute Warning and defected to Raw, effectively turning Billy and Chuck face in the process. At Unforgiven, Three Minute Warning defeated Billy Gunn and Chuck Palumbo. Their final match together occurred on SmackDown! in the first round of a tournament for the newly created WWE Tag Team Championship. They lost the match to the team of Ron Simmons and Reverend D-Von. Afterwards, Sopp took a few months off because of a shoulder injury and the team of Billy and Chuck quietly disbanded. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Monty "Kip" Sopp (born November 1, 1963), better known by his ring name Billy Gunn, is an American professional wrestler. He is currently signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW) as a wrestler and coach. Gunn is best known for his appearances in the World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment (WWF/E) from 1993 to 2004 and from 2012 to 2015. He also served as a coach on WWE's Tough Enough and was a trainer in NXT. He is also known for his appearances with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) from 2005 to 2009.
Primarily a tag team wrestler, Gunn is an overall 13-time tag team champion in WWE with three different partners (with Bart Gunn as The Smoking Gunns, with Road Dogg as The New Age Outlaws, and with Chuck Palumbo as Billy and Chuck). He is also a one time WWF Intercontinental Champion and a two time WWF Hardcore Champion, giving him 14 total championships in WWE. He is the 1999 King of the Ring tournament winner, and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2019 as a member of D-Generation X.
Professional wrestling career
Early career (1985–1993)
After a stint as a professional bull rider in Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, Sopp left the profession in his early-20s in order to pursue a career as a professional wrestler. Trained by Jerry Grey, Sopp wrestled on the independent circuit for eight years (including a brief stint as enhancement talent for World Championship Wrestling (WCW) before signing a contract with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in 1993.
World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment (1993–2004)
The Smoking Gunns (1993–1996)
After weeks of vignettes, Sopp, under the name Billy Gunn, made his WWF debut on the May 17, 1993 episode of Raw, teaming with his on-screen brother, Bart Gunn to defeat Tony Vadja and Glenn Ruth. The duo, now known as The Smoking Gunns, made their pay-per-view debut at King of the Ring, teaming with The Steiner Brothers to defeat Money Inc. and The Headshrinkers in an eight-man tag team match. At SummerSlam, the duo teamed with Tatanka to pick up a win against Bam Bam Bigelow and the Headshrinkers. On January 22, 1994, Gunn entered his first Royal Rumble match at the namesake event, but was eliminated by Diesel. In early 1995, the Gunns won their first Tag Team Championship by defeating the makeshift team of Bob Holly and 1-2-3 Kid. They held the title until WrestleMania XI, where they were defeated by the team of Owen Hart and Yokozuna. They won the titles again in September 1995.
On February 15, 1996, the Gunns vacated the title because Billy was in need of neck surgery. After Billy returned from hiatus, The Smoking Gunns won the Tag Team Title for the third time by defeating The Godwinns in May. After the match, The Godwinns' manager Sunny turned on her team in favor of the Gunns. On September 22 at In Your House: Mind Games, the Gunns lost the Tag Team Title to Owen Hart and The British Bulldog. After the match, Sunny abandoned The Gunns, saying that she would only manage title holders. Billy, frustrated with losing both the championship and Sunny, walked out on Bart, breaking up The Smoking Gunns.
Rockabilly, The New Age Outlaws and D-Generation X (1997–1998)
After The Smoking Gunns disbanded, Gunn took some time off to nurse an injury. At WrestleMania 13, he defeated Flash Funk catching the attention of The Honky Tonk Man, who made Gunn his protégé. During this time, he adopted a new gimmick, Rockabilly, He would use this gimmick throughout much of 1997 and eventually had a short-lived feud with "The Real Double J" Jesse James. On the October 4, 1997 episode of Shotgun Saturday Night, James realized both of their careers were going nowhere and suggested that they become a tag team. Gunn agreed and smashed a guitar over the Honky Tonk Man's head to solidify their new alliance.
James and Rockabilly were quickly rebranded as "Road Dogg" Jesse James and "Badd Ass" Billy Gunn, respectively, and their tag team was dubbed the New Age Outlaws. They quickly rose to the top of the tag team ranks and won the Tag Team Championship from the Legion of Doom on November 24. They also defeated the LOD in a rematch at In Your House: D-Generation X.
The Outlaws slowly began to align themselves with D-Generation X. At the Royal Rumble, the New Age Outlaws interfered in a Casket match to help Shawn Michaels defeat The Undertaker. At No Way Out Of Texas, the Outlaws teamed up with Triple H and Savio Vega (who replaced the injured Shawn Michaels) to face Chainsaw Charlie, Cactus Jack, Owen Hart, and Steve Austin. They were, however, defeated. On February 2, The Outlaws locked Cactus and Chainsaw in a dumpster and pushed it off the stage. This led to a Dumpster match at WrestleMania XIV where Cactus and Chainsaw defeated the Outlaws for the Tag Titles. The next night on Raw, the New Age Outlaws won the Tag Team Championship for a second time by defeating Chainsaw and Cactus in a Steel cage match, but only after interference from Triple H, Chyna, and X-Pac. After the match, the Outlaws officially became members of D-Generation X (DX).
After joining DX, the Outlaws successfully defended their Tag Team Title against the Legion of Doom 2000 at Unforgiven. DX began to feud with Owen Hart and his new stablemates, The Nation. At Over The Edge, the Outlaws and Triple H were defeated by Nation members Owen, Kama Mustafa, and D'Lo Brown in a Six Man Tag Match.
During this time, the Outlaws began a feud with Kane and Mankind. At SummerSlam, Mankind faced the Outlaws in a Handicap match after Kane no-showed the title defense. The Outlaws defeated Mankind to win the titles for the third time. In December, the Outlaws lost the title to The Big Boss Man and Ken Shamrock from The Corporation.
Mr. Ass and reformation of the Outlaws and DX (1999–2000)
The Outlaws then began to focus more on singles competition. The Road Dogg won the Hardcore Championship in December 1998, and Gunn set his sights on the Intercontinental Championship. At the 1999 Royal Rumble, Gunn unsuccessfully challenged Ken Shamrock for the Intercontinental Title. The next month at St. Valentine's Day Massacre, Gunn was the special guest referee for the Intercontinental Championship match between Val Venis and champion Ken Shamrock, where Gunn made a fast count and declared Venis the new champion before attacking both men.
In March, Gunn won the Hardcore Championship from Hardcore Holly. At WrestleMania XV, Gunn lost the title to Holly in a Triple Threat match which also included Al Snow. The New Age Outlaws then reunited to defeat Jeff Jarrett and Owen Hart at Backlash. After Backlash, Gunn left D-Generation X and aligned himself with Triple H and Chyna. Gunn defeated his former partner, Road Dogg, in a match at Over the Edge. Gunn then won the King of the Ring tournament by defeating Ken Shamrock, Kane, and his former ally, X-Pac. After King of the Ring, Gunn, Triple H, and Chyna went on to feud with X-Pac and Road Dogg over the rights to the D-Generation X name. This feud culminated at Fully Loaded when X-Pac and Road Dogg defeated Gunn and Chyna.
Gunn then began a brief feud with The Rock. At SummerSlam, The Rock defeated Gunn in a Kiss My Ass Match. Following this, Gunn then briefly feuded with Jeff Jarrett for the Intercontinental Title before reuniting with Road Dogg to reform The New Age Outlaws. The Outlaws won their fourth tag team championship by defeating The Rock 'n' Sock Connection in September 1999. The Outlaws later reunited with X-Pac and Triple H to reform D-Generation X. During this time, The Outlaws won their fifth Tag Team Championship after defeating Mankind and Al Snow. At the 2000 Royal Rumble, The New Age Outlaws retained their title against The Acolytes after interference from X-Pac. The Outlaws then had a feud with The Dudley Boyz, who won the Tag Team Championship from The Outlaws at No Way Out. After suffering a torn rotator cuff in the match with The Dudley Boyz, Gunn was kicked out of D-Generation X for "losing his cool" to explain his impending absence to recover from his injury.
The One (2000–2001)
Gunn made his return in October and immediately teamed with Chyna to feud with Right to Censor, who wanted to "censor" his Mr. Ass gimmick. At No Mercy, Right to Censor members Steven Richards and Val Venis defeated Chyna and Gunn. Due to a stipulation, Gunn could no longer use the Mr. Ass gimmick, so he renamed himself Billy G. for a few weeks before settling on "The One" Billy Gunn. Gunn then feuded with Eddie Guerrero and the rest of The Radicalz. At Survivor Series, Gunn teamed with Road Dogg, Chyna, and K-Kwik in a losing effort against The Radicalz. A few weeks later on SmackDown!, Gunn won the Intercontinental Championship from Guerrero. However, the title reign was short-lived, as Chris Benoit defeated him for the title two weeks later at Armageddon. After feuding with Benoit, Gunn participated in the 2001 Royal Rumble where he made it to the final four, Gunn interfered in the Hardcore Championship Match at No Way Out, and taking advantage of the 24/7 Rule, pinning Raven for the title. The reign was short-lived, as Raven won it back a few minutes later.
Billy and Chuck (2001–2002)
In a 2001 match on Sunday Night Heat, Gunn was defeated by Chuck Palumbo, who recently left The Alliance to join the WWF. After the match, Gunn suggested that they form a tag team. Palumbo agreed, and Billy and Chuck quickly rose to the top of the tag team division. Initially they were a generic tandem, but they were given a gimmick where they grew increasingly affectionate toward each other, showing evidence of a storyline homosexual relationship.
In February 2002, Billy and Chuck defeated Spike Dudley and Tazz to win the WWF Tag Team Championship for the first time as a team. After winning the titles, Billy and Chuck found a "Personal Stylist" in the ambiguously flamboyant Rico. After retaining the title against the Acolytes Protection Agency, the Dudley Boyz, and the Hardy Boyz in a Four Corners Elimination Match at WrestleMania X8 and against Al Snow and Maven at Backlash, Billy and Chuck began a feud with Rikishi. At Judgment Day, Rikishi and Rico (Rikishi's mystery partner of Mr. McMahon's choosing) defeated Billy and Chuck for the WWE Tag Team Championship after Rico accidentally hit Chuck with a roundhouse kick. Billy and Chuck quickly won the title back two weeks later on SmackDown! with Rico's help. They held the championship for almost a month before losing it to the team of Edge and Hollywood Hulk Hogan on the July 4 episode of SmackDown!.
On the September 5 edition of SmackDown!, after Billy lost a match to Rey Mysterio, Chuck proposed to Billy, asking him to be his "partner for life" and gave him a wedding ring. Billy agreed, and one week later, on the September 12 episode of SmackDown!, Billy and Chuck had their wedding ceremony. However, just before they tied the knot, they revealed that the entire ordeal was a publicity stunt and disavowed their on-screen homosexuality, admitting that they were just friends. The "preacher" revealed himself to be Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff (who was wearing a skin mask), who then summoned 3-Minute Warning to beat up Billy and Chuck. Rico, furious that Billy and Chuck gave up their gimmick, became the manager of Three Minute Warning and defected to Raw. At Unforgiven, Three Minute Warning defeated Billy and Chuck. Their final match together occurred on the October 3 episode of SmackDown! in the first round of a tournament for the newly created WWE Tag Team Championship. They lost the match to the team of Ron Simmons and Reverend D-Von. Afterwards, Gunn took a few months off because of a shoulder injury and the team of Billy and Chuck quietly disbanded.
SmackDown! and return to singles competition (2003–2004)
After returning in the summer of 2003, Gunn reverted to the "Mr. Ass" gimmick, defeating A-Train, and Torrie Wilson became his new manager. He started a feud with Jamie Noble, which led to an "Indecent Proposal" Match at Vengeance, which Noble won and due to the match's stipulation, won a night with Torrie. After taking time off again due to a shoulder injury, Gunn returned to action at the 2004 Royal Rumble, but was eliminated by Goldberg. Afterward, he wrestled mainly on Velocity, forming an occasional tag team with Hardcore Holly. At Judgment Day, Gunn and Holly challenged Charlie Haas and Rico for the WWE Tag Team Championship, but were unsuccessful. At The Great American Bash, Gunn lost to Kenzo Suzuki.
On November 1, 2004, Sopp was released from his WWE contract. In June 2005, Sopp gave an interview in which he was heavily critical of WWE and the events that led to his release. Many of the negative comments were directed towards Triple H, who Sopp claimed "runs the show up there".
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (2005–2009)
Planet Jarrett (2005)
On February 13, 2005, Sopp debuted in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) without a name (as Billy Gunn is a WWE trademark, although announcers recognized him as such) at Against All Odds with the same gimmick, helping Jeff Jarrett retain the NWA World Heavyweight Championship in a match with Kevin Nash. Sopp, using the name The New Age Outlaw, then formed a stable with Jarrett and Monty Brown known as Planet Jarrett. However, WWE threatened TNA with legal action if Sopp continued the use of the name "The New Age Outlaw", so he shortened his name to The Outlaw. Due to the legal issues with WWE, all TNA -DVD releases featuring footage with Sopp as "The Outlaw" (and presumably also as "The New Age Outlaw") have had the name on on-screen graphics blurred, the name silenced out of the audio, and match commentary completely replaced to reflect a retroactive name change to "Kip James". One such DVD is the pay-per-view Lockdown, included in the "TNA Anthology: The Epic Set" box set, in which the silencing of the name during a segment where Dusty Rhodes picks his name from a lottery leaves DVD viewers in the dark as to who just got picked.
The Outlaw began a campaign to make former ally B.G. James leave the 3Live Kru and defect to Planet Jarrett, reforming the old tag team with Outlaw. At No Surrender, he renamed himself Kip James and was announced as "wrestling out of Marietta, Georgia" (the family seat of the Armstrong family) as a psychological ploy. As a result of his campaign, Kip attracted the ire of 3Live Kru members Ron Killings and Konnan, leading to a series of tag team matches pitting Kip and Monty Brown against Killings and Konnan, with a conflicted James unwilling to take sides. Kip's efforts ultimately proved futile; James, the guest referee in a final match between Brown and Kip versus Konnan and Killings at Sacrifice, attacked Kip enabling a 3Live Kru victory.
In September at Unbreakable, Kip teamed with Brown to defeat the team of Apolo and Lance Hoyt. There was clear tension between the partners because Brown was unhappy at the series of losses at the hands of the 3Live Kru, and Kip was irked by Brown's decision to leave Planet Jarrett. Despite the victory, the partners argued after the match. On the October 8, 2005 episode of Impact!, Kip rekindled his feud with the 3Live Kru, running to the ring after a bout between the 3LK and Team Canada in order to prevent Team Canada captain Petey Williams from beating down B.G. James. He saved James, and then engaged in a staredown with Konnan and Killings. Kip saved James from Team Canada once again at Bound for Glory. Though Killings showed signs of gratitude, Konnan remained skeptical as to his true intentions. Later that night, Kip took part in an over-the-top-rope gauntlet match for the number one contendership to the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. After he was eliminated, he tried in vain to prevent Killings from being eliminated as well, before being sent away from ringside by the referees.
The James Gang/Voodoo Kin Mafia (2005–2008)
On the November 26 episode of Impact!, B.G. brought Kip and the 3Live Kru to ringside and asked Killings and Konnan whether Kip could join the stable. Following a heated argument between Konnan and B.G., both Killings and Konnan gave their approval, and the 4Live Kru was born. However, at Turning Point, Konnan attacked both B.G. and Kip, costing them their match against Team Canada and initiating a feud between himself and the remainder of the Kru. Shortly thereafter, B.G. James's father, Bob Armstrong, attempted to reconcile the group, but was instead attacked by Konnan and his new stablemates, Apolo and Homicide. Killings later stated that he had severed his ties with the Kru. With Konnan and Killings no longer members of the Kru, Kip and B.G. began referring to themselves as The James Gang and continued to feud with the Konnan-managed Latin American Exchange, whose third man position as Homicide's partner would switch from Apolo to Machete, and then from him to Hernandez, who finally stuck, during the course of this feud. At Final Resolution, The James Gang defeated The Diamonds in the Rough (David Young and Elix Skipper). At Against All Odds, The James Gang defeated LAX (Homicide and Machete). At Destination X, The James Gang and Bob Armstrong defeated Latin American Exchange in a six-man tag team match. At Sacrifice, The James Gang defeated Team 3D which led to a rematch at Slammiversary where Team 3D defeated The James Gang in a Bingo Hall Brawl. At Victory Road, The James Gang and Abyss defeated Team 3D and their newest member Brother Runt. At No Surrender, The James Gang competed in a Triple Chance tag team battle royal but failed to win the match. At Bound for Glory, The James Gang competed in a Four-way tag team match which was won by Team 3D.
By November 2006, Kip and B.G. began to show displeasure in TNA and threatened to go find work elsewhere if they did not receive gold soon. They began performing the crotch chop, a reference to the WWE's DX. On the November 2 edition of Impact!, Kip and B.G. threatened to quit. Kip grabbed the mic and tried to say something to the TNA administration and Spike TV, but each time his mic was cut off. Kip then tried to use the announcer's headset, but it was cut off as well. Frustrated, he started yelling loudly to the crowd, but he was cut off again as the show went to a commercial break. When the show returned, the announcers speculated that they may have been frustrated due to the influx of new talent entering TNA. It was reported that the segment was a worked shoot that Vince Russo had written in order to renew interest upon their eventual return. Kip and BG appeared in an internet video on TNA's website where they addressed the owner of WWE Vince McMahon.
A few weeks later on Impact!, The James Gang re-emerged under a new name Voodoo Kin Mafia (VKM for short, a play on Vincent Kennedy McMahon's initials). They mentioned their new right of 'creative control', meaning they could do whatever they wanted. They also declared 'war' on Paul Levesque, Michael Hickenbottom, and Vincent K. McMahon (Triple H, Shawn Michaels, and Vince McMahon, respectively). Kip then declared that 'Triple Hollywood' and 'Shawn Kiss-my-bottom' were failing as the group they (Kip and BG) used to be a part of: D-Generation X. After the initial shock value of this incident wore off, at Genesis, The Voodoo Kin Mafia defeated Kazarian, Maverick Matt and Johnny Devine in a handicap match. VKM began a feud with the villainous Christy Hemme. Hemme then searched for a tag team to square-off against VKM. At Destination X, The Voodoo Kin Mafia defeated Hemme's handpicked team of The Heartbreakers (Antonio Thomas & Romeo Roselli). On the Lockdown preshow The Voodoo Kin Mafia defeated another one of Hemme's handpicked team Serotonin (Kaz & Havok) in a Six Sides of Steel match. The final tag team was Damaja and Basham, who appeared on an episode of Impact! and beat down VKM. They also held up Kip James so Hemme could slap him. B.G James was taken out by Basham and Damaja which led to Kip James competed against Basham and Damaja in a handicap match at Sacrifice where he lost. However, they beat Hemme's team at Slammiversary. After the match, VKM were betrayed by their associate Lance Hoyt. At Victory Road, they introduced their new manager, the Voodoo Queen, Roxxi Laveaux, to embarrass Christy Hemme. At Hard Justice, The Voodoo Kin Mafia lost to The Latin American Exchange. At No Surrender, The Voodoo Kin Mafia competed in a Ten-team tag team gauntlet match which was won by A.J. Styles and Tomko. At Bound for Glory, Kip James competed in the Fight for the Right Reverse Battle Royal which was won by Eric Young. On the October 25 edition of Impact!, VKM teamed with A.J. Styles and Tomko in a losing effort to the Latin American Xchange and the Steiner Brothers. At Genesis, B.G. was present along with Kip in the corner of Roxxi Laveaux at ringside for the Fatal Four Way knockout match for the TNA Women's Championship in which Gail Kim retained the title. At Turning Point, James competed in the Feast or Fired where he grabbed a case but threw it to BG James. It was revealed that the case was for a shot at the TNA World Tag Team Championship and BG James picked his dad to be his partner at Against All Odds, James and Bob Armstrong failed to win the titles and on February 21, 2008 episode of Impact! he turned on B.G. and B.G's father "Bullet" Bob Armstrong by hitting them both with a crutch.
The Beautiful People (2008–2009)
On April 13, 2008, he faced former partner B.G. James at Lockdown and lost. After the match, he appeared to want to make amends as he raised B.G.'s hand after the match, only to clothesline him down to the mat and taunt him with a DX crotch chop. Kip went on to declare himself "The Megastar", an arrogant gimmick similar to "The One" gimmick from his WWF tenure. Kip later stopped making appearances on Impact! until April 24 when he was attacked backstage by Matt Morgan for no reason. The next week on Impact!, Kip got back at Morgan by attacking him backstage in Jim Cornette's office. On May 8, 2008, Cornette forced Morgan into being Kip's tag team partner for the Deuces Wild tournament at Sacrifice, though both were unable to win. Kip went on another brief disappearance from television until the June 5 edition of Impact!, where he partnered with Lance Hoyt and James Storm in a losing effort against Morgan and The Latin American Xchange.
On the August 14 episode of Impact!, Kip was revealed to be the new image consultant and member of The Beautiful People, dubbed Cute Kip and was using his Mr.Ass Attire, after they brought him out during their interview on Karen Angle's show Karen's Angle. at Bound for Glory IV, Kip, Love and Sky lost to Rhino, ODB and Rhaka Khan in a Bimbo Brawl. at Final Resolution (December 2008), Kip competed in the Feast or Fired match but failed to get a case. At Genesis 2009, Kip became the one-night-only replacement for the injured Kevin Nash in the Main Event Mafia.
As of March 19, 2009, Sopp was taken off of TNA Impact! along with Jacqueline Moore to become road agents. Sopp returned as Cute Kip and lost to Awesome Kong in an intergender stretcher match on May 14, 2009. On the May 28 edition of Impact!, Kip was fired by The Beautiful People. On the June 18 edition of Impact!, Mick Foley hired him as his handyman, turning Kip into a face. he made another appearance on the August 6 edition of Impact where Kip had to clean up the IMPACT Zone after a chaotic fifteen minute "riot". On October 9 edition of Xplosion, Kip was defeated by Rhino. On October 30 edition of Xplosion, Kip defeated Sheik Abdul Bashir. on the November 13 edition of Xplosion, Kip lost to Rob Terry and on December 3, 2009 edition of Xplosion, Kip competed in his final TNA match where he lost to Kiyoshi.
Sopp's profile was removed from the TNA website on December 29, 2009, confirming his departure from the promotion.
Independent circuit (2009–2012)
After leaving TNA, Sopp reunited with B.G. James to reform The New Age Outlaws, with both men resuming their Billy Gunn and Road Dogg ring names. After joining TWA Powerhouse in 2010, the Outlaws defeated Canadian Extreme to win the promotion's Tag Team Championship on July 25. They re-lost the title to Canadian Extreme on June 5, 2011.
On July 30, 2011, Sopp, working under the ring name Kip Gunn, made his debut for Lucha Libre USA as a member of the heel stable The Right. Later that night, Gunn lost in his debut match against Marco Corleone. On June 26, 2012, Sopp won the American Pro Wrestling Alliance American Championship. However, he lost the title due to travel issues. On September 8 and 9, 2012, he wrestled in a Bad Boys of Wrestling Federation tournament. He defeated Rhino in the semi-finals and Scott Steiner in the final, winning the BBWF Aruba Championship.
Return to WWE (2012–2015)
On July 23, Sopp, under his Billy Gunn name, made his first WWE appearance in nearly eight years as he reunited with Road Dogg, X-Pac, Shawn Michaels and Triple H to reform D-Generation X for one night only on the 1000th episode of Raw. In December 2012, he was hired by WWE as a trainer for the NXT Wrestling territory in Tampa, Florida. On March 4, 2013, Gunn and Road Dogg made a return at Old School Raw, defeating Primo and Epico. On March 11, 2013, they accepted a challenge from Team Rhodes Scholars and faced them in a match, which was interrupted by Brock Lesnar, who hit both Outlaws with an F-5 as part of his ongoing feud with Triple H.
He then appeared alongside Road Dogg to help CM Punk clear out The Shield in aid of Roddy Piper on Old School Raw on January 6, 2014. On the January 10 episode of SmackDown, the Outlaws teamed with CM Punk in a six-man tag match against The Shield in a losing effort. On the January 13 episode of Raw, the Outlaws again teamed with Punk in a rematch against The Shield, only to abandon Punk and lose the match. On January 26 during the Royal Rumble Kickoff Show, Gunn and Road Dogg beat Cody Rhodes and Goldust to win the WWE Tag Team Championship. The next night on Raw the New Age Outlaws retained the championship against Rhodes and Goldust via disqualification when Brock Lesnar attacked the brothers. The next week on Raw the New Age Outlaws retained the championship against Rhodes and Goldust in a steel cage match. On March 3, the Outlaws lost the Tag Team Championship to The Usos. Gunn sustained hemoptysis after he and his New Age Outlaws partner, Road Dogg, suffered a double-Triple Powerbomb by The Shield at WrestleMania XXX.
Gunn returned to Raw with Road Dogg in January 2015, attacking The Ascension along with the nWo and the APA. At the Royal Rumble, the Outlaws faced The Ascension in a losing effort. At WrestleMania 31, Gunn, with Road Dogg, X-Pac and Shawn Michaels, reunited as D-Generation X to help Triple H in his match against Sting. In May, Gunn was announced as a coach along with WWE Hall of Famers Booker T and Lita for the sixth season of Tough Enough.
On November 13, 2015, WWE officially announced that Sopp was released from his WWE contract after failing a test for performance-enhancing drugs. He had tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone at a powerlifting event on July 25, 2015, and was suspended from powerlifting for four years.
Independent circuit (2015–2020)
On December 26, 2015, Gunn teamed up with Kevin Thorn to defeat Brian Klass and Rob Street. One month later, Gunn defeated Ken Dixon for the MCW Pro Wrestling MCW Rage Television Championship. On February 5, 2016, Gunn defeated Joey Hayes in the Preston City Wrestling PCW Road to Glory tournament, on February 6 he lost to T-Bone in the quarter-finals that same night Gunn teamed up with Mr. Anderson and Tajiri to defeat Dave Raynes, Joey Hayes, and Martin Kirby. On February 7, 2016 Gunn challenged for the Pro Wrestling Pride Heavyweight championship losing to Steve Griffiths. On March 19, 2016, Gunn lost the title to Ken Dixon. On June 12, 2016, Gunn won the Smashmouth Pro Wrestling championship from KC Huber but lost it on the same night, Gunn teamed again with Anderson in a losing effort against the UK Hooligans at PCW Tribute to the Troops on June 25, 2016. He defeated Hardcore Holly in a singles match at PCW Top Gunn on July 2, 2016.
On September 4, 2016, Gunn made his debut for Chikara, representing DX alongside X-Pac in a tag team gauntlet match. The two entered the match as the final team and scored the win over Prakash Sabar and The Proletariat Boar of Moldova.
New Japan Pro-Wrestling (2016–2017)
On November 5, 2016, at the New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) event Power Struggle, Yoshitatsu announced Gunn as the newest member of his Hunter Club stable and his partner for the upcoming 2016 World Tag League. Gunn and Yoshitatsu finished the tournament on December 8 with a record of three wins and four losses, failing to advance from their block. Gunn returned to NJPW on January 4, 2017, taking part in the pre-show New Japan Rumble at Wrestle Kingdom 11 in Tokyo Dome, from which he was eliminated by the eventual winner Michael Elgin. While Gunn did not appear for NJPW for the next six months, he was brought up in May by Yoshitatsu, who told Hiroshi Tanahashi that Gunn had requested a match against him. When Tanahashi captured the IWGP Intercontinental Championship the following month, he immediately nominated Gunn as his first challenger. Gunn was defeated in the title match on July 2 at G1 Special in USA, and it was his final match in NJPW.
WWE appearances (2018–2019)
Gunn and numerous other WWE legends appeared on the January 22, 2018 episode of Raw 25 Years as part of the D-Generation X reunion. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2019 as a member of D-Generation X.
All Elite Wrestling (2019–present)
In January 2019, Gunn was hired by All Elite Wrestling as a coach. At May 25 at the AEW Double or Nothing event he competed in the pre-show battle royal. Gunn made his first televised appearance for AEW on the November 20, 2019 episode of AEW Dynamite, competing in a battle royal. He also appeared during the January 1, 2020 episode of Dynamite, wrestling in a dark match with his son Austin that aired on January 7, 2020. They wrestled again together on another dark match during the January 8, 2020 episode of Dynamite, airing on January 17, 2020, with the tag team name "The Gunn Club", defeating the team of Peter Avalon and Shawn Spears. Gunn has also appeared in the crowd (made up of AEW wrestlers and other employees) on numerous episodes of Dynamite during the COVID-19 pandemic. On the May 27, 2020 episode of Dynamite, Gunn now under the shortened ring name of Billy participated in a battle royal match to determine the number one contender for the TNT Championship. He also would wrestle MJF in a singles match on the June 17, 2020 episode of Dynamite as well. The Gunn Club would wrestle in more tag team matches on more episodes of AEW Dark.
On the November 4, 2020 episode of Dynamite, The Gunn Club teamed with Cody Rhodes to successfully defeat The Dark Order (John Silver, 10 and Colt Cabana). On the November 17, 2020 episode of Dark, The Gunn Club, which now added Austin's brother and Gunn's other son Colten to the stable, defeated Bshp King, Joey O'Riley and Sean Maluta by pinfall in a six-man tag team match. On the same day the AEW website's roster page got updated and his name was once again changed to its long form, Billy Gunn. The three man Gunn Club would then defeat Cezar Bononi, KTB, and Seth Gargis in another six man tag team match on the November 24, 2020 episode of Dark. On the December 8, 2020 episode of Dark The three man Gunn Club-which entered the ring on a golf cart with the words "Taz Taxi" on the side, defeated Shawn Dean, Sean Maluta & RYZIN. On the December 1, 2021 episode of Dynamite, The Gunn Club stable's undefeated streak in AEW ended when Billy and Colten Gunn lost to the team of Sting and Darby Allin.
Professional wrestling style, persona and reception
Gunn has had several gimmicks throughout his career, ranging from his cowboy-themed gimmick with the Smoking Gunns to his The Ambiguously Gay Duo-esque tag team with Chuck Palumbo. Gunn has stated on multiple shoot interviews that he has no regrets with his gimmicks as he was performing a job and doing what was asked of him to do.
By far, Gunn's most infamous gimmick was his "Mr. Ass" persona based around his ass. The gimmick started during his New Age Outlaws days when Road Dogg would refer to themselves as "Mr. Dogg" and "Mr. Ass" in promos, though the "Bad Ass" name wasn't referring to his backside at that time. What was originally a throwaway joke turned into Gunn mooning his opponents and the live crowd, though as the original incarnation of DX also did this, it could originally be argued that it was an extension of the Outlaws joining DX.
Upon leaving DX, Gunn fully embraced the "Mr. Ass" gimmick by placing emphasis on his "moneymaker". While Road Dogg kept the New Age Outlaws entrance music for his own, Gunn adopted the song "Ass Man" as part of the gimmick, and for a time even changed his ring tights to be see-through, wearing only a thong underneath his tights, although he would eventually revert back to the DX-era tights.
The "Mr. Ass" gimmick has mixed reviews. One web site ranked it near the middle of Gunn's various gimmicks, while a writer for Bleacher Report thought it was the worst gimmick ever even though Gunn was at his peak popularity with the persona. Gunn himself told Chris Van Vliet in 2021 that he never paid attention to the "Ass Man" lyrics until a college professor broke down each expression.
Due to the enduring legacy of the "Mr. Ass" gimmick, in November 2021 Ring of Honor wrestler Danhausen began a Twitter feud with the Gunn Club, referring to Billy as "Billy Ass," and Colten and Austin as The "Ass Boys," in reference to Gunn's infamous "Mr. Ass" gimmick in the Attitude Era. While Gunn himself initially had no comment, the rest of Gunn Club despised the nickname after fans began chanting "Ass Boys" during their matches, notably during an AEW event at Chartway Arena in Norfolk, Virginia. Gunn finally commented when he surprised his sons by wearing an "Ass Boys" shirt, encouraging them to "embrace the assness" and even started teasing mooning the crowd again. Gunn also thanked Danhausen publicly for getting his sons over in a way that he couldn't.
Other media
Filmography
Video Games
WWF Attitude
WWF WrestleMania 2000
WWF SmackDown!
WWF No Mercy
WWF SmackDown! 2: Know Your Role
WWF Road To WrestleMania
WWF SmackDown! Just Bring It
WWF Raw
WWE SmackDown! Shut Your Mouth
WWE Raw 2
WWE '13
WWE 2K16
WWE 2K17
Personal life
Sopp was born on November 1, 1963 in Orlando, Florida and claims Austin, Texas as his hometown. In November 1990, Sopp was arrested in Florida for disorderly conduct. Sopp married his first wife Tina Tinnell on March 3, 1990. Together, they have two sons: Colten (born May 18, 1991) and Austin (born August 26, 1994) who are also professional wrestlers. The couple separated in January 2000 and their divorce was finalized on December 11, 2002. Sopp has since married his long-time girlfriend Paula on January 24, 2009.
Sopp's sons Austin and Colten, better known by the ring names Austin Gunn and Colten Gunn, are currently signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW) where alongside their father they form a stable known as "Gunn Club".
Sopp attended Sam Houston State University.
Championships and accomplishments
American Pro Wrestling Alliance
APWA American Championship (1 time)
Bad Boys of Wrestling Federation
BBFW Aruba Championship (1 time)
BBFW Aruba Championship Tournament (2012)
International Wrestling Federation
IWF Tag Team Championship (2 times) – with Brett Colt
Freedom Pro Wrestling
FPW Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Road Dogg
Maryland Championship Wrestling
MCW Rage Television Championship (1 time)
MCW Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with B.G. James
Pro Wrestling Illustrated
Tag Team of the Year (1998) with Road Dogg
Tag Team of the Year (2002) with Chuck
Ranked #39 of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 1999
Ranked #231 of the top 500 singles wrestlers of the "PWI Years" in 2003
Ranked #43 of the top 100 tag teams of the "PWI Years" with Road Dogg in 2003
SmashMouth Pro Wrestling
SPW World Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
TWA Powerhouse
TWA Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with B.G. James
Vanguard Championship Wrestling
VCW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
World Pro Wrestling
WPW World Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
Worst Worked Match of the Year (2006) TNA Reverse Battle Royal on TNA Impact!
WWE/World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment
WWF Hardcore Championship (2 times)
WWF Intercontinental Championship (1 time)
WWE Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Road Dogg
WWF World Tag Team Championship (10 times) – with Bart Gunn (3), Road Dogg (5) and Chuck (2)
King of the Ring (1999)
Raw Bowl – with Bart Gunn
WWE Hall of Fame (Class of 2019) - as a member of D-Generation X
References
External links
1963 births
All Elite Wrestling personnel
American male professional wrestlers
American powerlifters
Bull riders
D-Generation X members
Expatriate professional wrestlers in Japan
LGBT characters in professional wrestling
Living people
Professional wrestlers from Florida
Professional wrestling trainers
Sam Houston State University alumni
Sportspeople from Orlando, Florida
The Authority (professional wrestling) members
WWE Hall of Fame inductees
WWF/WWE Hardcore Champions
WWF/WWE Intercontinental Champions
WWF/WWE King Crown's Champions/King of the Ring winners
American expatriate sportspeople in Japan | false | [
"Lucius Junius Brutus Damasippus was a Roman commander during Sulla's civil wars. When Pompey rebelled, Brutus was one of the three commanders sent against him. In an unnamed battle, the first of Pompey's career, Brutus was defeated. When Sullan forces defeated their opponents, Brutus massacred many neutral senators to prevent them from welcoming Sulla. In the Second battle of Clusium, Brutus and one of the last remaining Marian forces were heavily defeated. The defeated Marian commanders went to the Samnites, with whom they marched on Rome, but were defeated outside its gates by forces led by Sulla and Crassus.\n\nReferences\n\nAncient Roman generals\n1st-century BC Romans\nJunii Bruti",
"Defeated is an unincorporated community in Smith County, Tennessee, United States. It is located northeast of Carthage along Defeated Creek, a tributary of the Cumberland River (the lower part of the creek and the adjacent section of the river are both part of Cordell Hull Lake). State Route 85 passes through the community.\n\nDefeated is named for the events that took place in the late 18th century along the banks of Defeated Creek. John Peyton, one of the earliest settlers and explorers of Smith County, and his surveying party were camped along the creek when they were attacked by a band of Cherokees led by Hanging Maw and driven out of the area.\n\nDefeated was the site of a post office from 1824 until 1929. The post office had the name Montrose from 1824 through 1880, when the name was changed to Defeated.\n\nDefeated is home to the Defeated Creek Marina, which lies along the Defeated Creek section of Cordell Hull Lake. The marina is home to a boat dock and ramp, rental cabins, and numerous recreational facilities.\n\nReferences\n\nUnincorporated communities in Smith County, Tennessee\nUnincorporated communities in Tennessee"
] |
[
"Dreamgirls (film)",
"Premieres, road show engagements, and general releases"
] | C_867af2e657024cc0910e36deae8d265f_0 | What was the premier date? | 1 | What was the premier date for Dreamgirls? | Dreamgirls (film) | Dreamgirls premiered on December 4, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, where it received a standing ovation. The film's Los Angeles premiere was held on December 11 at the Wilshire Theater in Beverly Hills. Similar to the releases of older Hollywood musicals such as The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, and West Side Story, Dreamgirls debuted with three special ten-day roadshow engagements beginning on December 15, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, the Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles, and the AMC Metreon 15 in San Francisco. Tickets for the reserved seats were $25 each; the premium price included a forty-eight page full-color program and a limited-print lithograph. This release made Dreamgirls the first American feature film to have a roadshow release since Man of La Mancha in 1972. Dreamgirls earned a total of $851,664 from the roadshow engagements, playing to sold-out houses on the weekends. The film's national release, at regular prices, began on December 25. Outside of the U.S., Dreamgirls opened in Australia on January 18, and in the United Kingdom on February 2. Releases in other countries began on various dates between January and early March. Dreamgirls eventually grossed $103 million in North America, and almost $155 million worldwide. DreamWorks Home Entertainment released Dreamgirls to home video on May 1, 2007 in DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray formats. The DVD version was issued in two editions: a one-disc standard version and a two-disc "Showstopper Edition". The two-disc version also included a feature-length production documentary, production featurettes, screen tests, animatics, and other previsualization materials and artwork. Both DVD versions featured alternate and extended versions of the musical numbers from the film as extras, including the "Effie, Sing My Song" scene deleted during previews. Both the Blu-ray and HD DVD versions were issued in two-disc formats. Dreamgirls was the first DreamWorks film to be issued in a high definition home entertainment format. As of 2017, total domestic video sales to date are at $95.1 million. A "Director's Extended Edition" of Dreamgirls was released on Blu-Ray and Digital HD on October 10, 2017 by Paramount Home Media Distribution. This version, based on edits done for preview screenings before the film's release, runs ten minutes longer than the theatrical version and features longer musical numbers (including songs and verses cut during previews) and additional scenes. CANNOTANSWER | Dreamgirls premiered on December 4, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, | Dreamgirls is a 2006 American musical drama film written and directed by Bill Condon and jointly produced and released by DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures. Adapted from the 1981 Broadway musical of the same name, Dreamgirls is a film à clef, a work of fiction taking strong inspiration from the history of the Motown record label and one of its acts, The Supremes. The story follows the history and evolution of American R&B music during the 1960s and 1970s through the eyes of a Detroit girl group known as "The Dreams" and their manipulative record executive.
The film adaptation stars Jamie Foxx, Beyoncé Knowles and Eddie Murphy, and also features Jennifer Hudson, Danny Glover, Anika Noni Rose and Keith Robinson. In addition to the original compositions by composer Henry Krieger and lyricist/librettist Tom Eyen, four new songs, composed by Krieger with various lyricists, were added for the film. The film marks the acting debut of Hudson, a former American Idol contestant.
Dreamgirls debuted in four special road show engagements starting on December 15, 2006, before its nationwide release on December 25, 2006. With a production budget of $80 million, Dreamgirls is one of the most expensive films to feature a predominant African-American starring cast in American film history. Upon its release, the film garnered positive reviews from critics, who particularly praised Condon's direction, the soundtrack, costume design, production design, and performances of the cast (in particular of Hudson, which many deemed a standout performance). The film was a commercial success, grossing over $155 million at the international box office. At the 79th Academy Awards, the film received a leading eight nominations, winning Best Supporting Actress (for Hudson), and Best Sound Mixing. At the 64th Golden Globe Awards, it won three awards, including for the Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.
Plot
In 1962 Detroit, Michigan, young car salesman Curtis Taylor Jr. meets a Black girl group known as "The Dreamettes", which consists of lead singer Effie White and backup singers Deena Jones and Lorrell Robinson, at an R&B amateur talent show at the Detroit Theatre. Presenting himself as their new manager, he hires the girls as backup singers for Chitlin' Circuit R&B star Jimmy "Thunder" Early.
Curtis soon starts his own record label, Rainbow Records, out of his Detroit car dealership, and appoints Effie's brother, C.C., as his head songwriter. When their first single "Cadillac Car" fails after a white pop group named Dave and the Sweethearts releases a cover version, Curtis, C.C., and their producer Wayne turn to payola to make "Jimmy Early & The Dreamettes" mainstream pop stars. Offstage, Effie falls in love with Curtis while the married Jimmy does likewise with Lorrell.
Jimmy's manager, Marty Madison, grows weary of Curtis' plans to make his client more pop-friendly and walks out. When Jimmy bombs in front of an all-white Miami Beach supper club audience, Curtis sends Jimmy out on the road alone, keeping The Dreamettes behind to headline in his place. Feeling that Effie's figure and distinctive, soulful voice will not attract white audiences, Curtis appoints the slimmer, more conventionally attractive Deena (who has a more basic, generic, and marketable voice) as the new lead singer, renaming the group "The Dreams".
Aided by new songs and a new image, Curtis and C.C. transform The Dreams into a top-selling mainstream pop group. By 1965, however, Effie begins acting out, particularly when Curtis' affections also turn towards Deena. Curtis eventually drops Effie, hiring his secretary Michelle Morris to replace her beginning with their 1966 New Year's Eve debut in Las Vegas as "Deena Jones & the Dreams." Though Effie defiantly and desperately appeals to Curtis, he, C.C., and The Dreams abandon her, forging ahead to stardom.
By 1973, Effie has become an impoverished welfare mother living in Detroit with her daughter Magic. To restart her music career, she hires Marty as her manager and begins performing at a local club. Meanwhile, with The Dreams superstars and Rainbow, having moved to Los Angeles, now the biggest pop business in the country, Curtis attempts to produce a film about Cleopatra starring an unwilling Deena, now his wife.
The following year, Jimmy, who has descended into drug addiction due to Curtis' preoccupation with Deena, along with the rejection of the charity single he recorded, does an improvised rap and drops his pants during Rainbow Records' tenth-anniversary television special. Curtis promptly drops him from the label and Lorrell ends their affair. Sometime later, C.C., who feels Curtis is undermining the artistic merit of his songs by making them into disco music, quits the label, only for everyone to then learn of Jimmy's unexpected death from a heroin overdose, which greatly upsets Lorrell.
Disillusioned by Jimmy's death and Curtis' cold reaction to the news, C.C. travels to Detroit and reconciles with Effie, for whom he writes and produces a comeback single, "One Night Only". Just as it begins gaining local radio play, Curtis uses payola to force radio stations to play The Dreams' disco cover of the song. The plan falls apart, however, when Deena, angry over how Curtis controls her career, discovers his schemes and contacts Effie, who arrives in Los Angeles with C.C., Marty, and a lawyer.
Deena and Effie reconcile, with Effie telling Deena that Curtis is Magic's father, while Curtis agrees to nationally distribute Effie's record to avoid being reported to the FBI. Inspired by Effie's victory and realizing Curtis' true character, Deena leaves him.
By 1975, The Dreams give a farewell performance at the Detroit Theater, inviting Effie for the final song. Towards the end, Curtis notices Magic in the front row, realizing she is his daughter.
Cast
Jennifer Hudson as Effie White; inspired by Supremes member Florence Ballard, Effie is a talented yet temperamental singer who suffers when Curtis, the man she loves, replaces her as lead singer of the Dreams and his love interest, and later drops her altogether. With the help of Jimmy's old manager Marty, Effie begins to resurrect her career a decade later, while raising her daughter Magic, the offspring of her union with Curtis.
Jamie Foxx as Curtis Taylor, Jr.; based upon Motown founder Berry Gordy, Jr., Curtis is a slick Cadillac dealer-turned-record executive who founds the Rainbow Records label and shows ruthless ambition in his quest to make his black artists household names with white audiences. At first romantically involved with Effie, Curtis takes a professional and personal interest in Deena after appointing her lead singer of the Dreams in Effie's place.
Beyoncé Knowles-Carter as Deena Jones; based upon Motown star and lead Supremes member Diana Ross and two former Supremes members Jean Terrell and Scherrie Payne, Deena is a very shy young woman who becomes a star after Curtis makes her lead singer of the Dreams. This, as well as her romantic involvement and later marriage to Curtis, draw Effie's ire, though Deena realizes over time she is a puppet for her controlling husband.
Anika Noni Rose as Lorrell Robinson; inspired by Supremes member Mary Wilson, is a good-natured background singer with the Dreams who falls deeply in love with the married Jimmy Early and becomes his mistress.
Keith Robinson as Clarence Conrad (C.C.) White; inspired by Motown vice president, artist, producer, and songwriter Smokey Robinson, Effie's soft-spoken younger brother serves as the main songwriter for first the Dreams and later the entire Rainbow roster.
Eddie Murphy as James (Jimmy) "Thunder" Early; inspired by R&B/soul singers such as James Brown, Jackie Wilson and Marvin Gaye, is a raucous performer on the Rainbow label engaged in an adulterous affair with Dreams member Lorrell. Curtis attempts to repackage Early as a pop-friendly balladeer. Jimmy's stardom fades as the Dreams' stardom rises, and as a result – he falls into depression (which he copes with through drug abuse).
Danny Glover as Marty Madison, Jimmy's original manager before Curtis steps into the picture; Marty serves as both counsel and confidant to Jimmy, and later to Effie as well.
Sharon Leal as Michelle Morris; based upon Supremes members Cindy Birdsong and Susaye Greene, Curtis' secretary who replaces Effie in the Dreams and begins dating C.C.
Hinton Battle as Wayne, a salesman at Curtis' Cadillac dealership who becomes Rainbow's first record producer and Curtis' henchman.
Yvette Cason as May, Deena's mother
Loretta Devine as Jazz Singer. Devine originated the role of Lorrell in the 1981 stage production.
Dawnn Lewis as Melba Early, James' wife
John Lithgow as Jerry Harris, a film producer looking to cast Deena
John Krasinski as Sam Walsh, Jerry Harris' screenwriter/film director
Jaleel White as Talent Booker at the Detroit Theatre talent show
Cleo King as Janice
Robert Cicchini as Nicky Cassaro
Yvette Nicole Brown as Curtis' Secretary
Mariah I. Wilson as Magic White, Effie's daughter
Paul Kirby as Promo Film Narrator (voice)
Musical numbers
Production
Pre-production
In the 1980s and 1990s, several attempts were made to produce a film adaptation of Dreamgirls, a Broadway musical loosely based upon the story of The Supremes and Motown Records, which won six Tony Awards in 1982. David Geffen, the stage musical's co-financier, retained the film rights to Dreamgirls and turned down many offers to adapt the story for the screen. He cited a need to preserve the integrity of Dreamgirls stage director Michael Bennett's work after his death in 1987. That same year, Geffen, who ran his Warner Bros.-associated Geffen Pictures film production company at the time, began talks with Broadway lyricist and producer Howard Ashman to adapt it as a star vehicle for Whitney Houston, who was to portray Deena. The production ran into problems when Houston wanted to sing both Deena and Effie's songs (particularly "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going"), and the film was eventually abandoned.
When Geffen co-founded DreamWorks in 1994 and dissolved Geffen Pictures, the rights to Dreamgirls remained with Warner Bros. Warner planned to go ahead with the film with director Joel Schumacher and screenwriter Tina Andrews in the late 1990s, following the success of Touchstone Pictures's Tina Turner biopic What's Love Got to Do with It. Schumacher planned to have Lauryn Hill portray Deena and Kelly Price play Effie. After Warner's Frankie Lymon biopic Why Do Fools Fall in Love failed at the box office, the studio shut down development on Dreamgirls.
DreamWorks' Dreamgirls adaptation came about after the film version of the Broadway musical Chicago was a success at both the box office and the Academy Awards. Screenwriter and director Bill Condon, who wrote Chicagos screenplay, met producer Laurence Mark at a Hollywood holiday party in late 2002, where the two discussed a long-held "dream project" of Condon's – adapting Dreamgirls for the screen. The two had dinner with Geffen and successfully convinced him to allow Condon to write a screenplay for Dreamgirls. Condon did not start work on the Dreamgirls script until after making the Alfred Kinsey biographical film Kinsey (2004). After sending Geffen the first draft of his screenplay in January 2005, Condon's adaptation of Dreamgirls was greenlit.
Stage to script changes
While much of the stage musical's story remains intact, a number of significant changes were made. The Dreams' hometown—the setting for much of the action—was moved from Chicago to Detroit, the real-life hometown of The Supremes and Motown Records. The roles of many of the characters were related more closely to their real-life inspirations, following a suggestion by Geffen.
Warner Bros. had retained the film rights to Dreamgirls, and agreed to co-produce with DreamWorks. However, after casting was completed, the film was budgeted at $73 million and Warner backed out of the production. Geffen, taking the role of co-producer, brought Paramount Pictures in to co-finance and release Dreamgirls. During the course of production, Paramount's parent company, Viacom, would purchase DreamWorks, aligning the two studios under one umbrella (and giving the senior studio US distribution rights on behalf of DreamWorks). The completed film had a production budget of $75 million, making Dreamgirls the most expensive film with an all-black starring cast in cinema history.
Casting and rehearsal
Mark and Condon began pre-production with the intentions of casting Jamie Foxx and Eddie Murphy, both actors with record industry experience, as Curtis Taylor, Jr. and James "Thunder" Early, respectively. When offered the part of Curtis, Foxx initially declined because DreamWorks could not meet his salary demands. Denzel Washington, Will Smith, and Terrence Howard were among the other actors also approached to play Curtis. Murphy, on the other hand, accepted the role of Jimmy Early after being convinced to do so by DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg.
While Condon had intended to cast relatively unknown actresses as all three Dreams, R&B singer Beyoncé Knowles lobbied for the part of Deena Jones, and was cast after a successful screen test. Upon learning that Knowles and Murphy had signed on, Foxx rethought his original decision and accepted the Curtis role at DreamWorks' lower salary.
R&B star Usher was to have been cast as C.C. White, but contract negotiations failed; Usher was unable to dedicate half a year to the project. André 3000 of Outkast was also offered the role, but declined. After briefly considering R&B singer Omarion, singer/actor Keith Robinson was eventually cast in the role.
Anika Noni Rose, a Broadway veteran and a Tony Award winner, won the part of Lorrell Robinson after an extensive auditioning process. Rose, significantly shorter than most of her co-stars at five feet and two inches (157 cm), was required to wear (and dance in) four and five-inch (127 mm) heels for much of the picture, which she later stated caused her discomfort.
The most crucial casting decision involved the role of Effie White, the emotional center of the story. The filmmakers insisted on casting a relative unknown in the role, paralleling the casting of then-21-year-old Jennifer Holliday in that role for the original Broadway production. A total of 783 singing actresses auditioned for the role of Effie White, among them American Idol alumnae Fantasia Barrino and Jennifer Hudson, former Disney star Raven-Symoné, and Broadway stars Capathia Jenkins and Patina Miller. Though Barrino emerged as an early frontrunner for the part, Hudson was eventually selected to play Effie, leading Barrino to telephone Hudson and jokingly complain that Hudson "stole [Barrino's] part."
Hudson was required to gain twenty pounds for the role, which marked her debut film performance. In casting Hudson, Condon recalled that he initially was not confident he'd made the right decision, but instinctively cast Hudson after she'd auditioned several times because he "just didn't believe any of the others."
After Hudson was cast in November 2005, the Dreamgirls cast began extensive rehearsals with Condon and choreographers Fatima Robinson and Aakomon "AJ" Jones, veterans of the music video industry. Meanwhile, the music production crew began work with the actors and studio musicians recording the songs for the film. Although rehearsals ended just before Christmas 2005, Condon called Hudson back for a week of one-on-one rehearsals, to help her more fully become the "diva" character of Effie. Hudson was required to be rude and come in late both on set and off, and she and Condon went over Effie's lines and scenes throughout the week.
Loretta Devine, who played Lorrell in the original Broadway production, has a cameo as a jazz singer who performs the song "I Miss You Old Friend." Another Dreamgirls veteran present in the film is Hinton Battle, who was a summer replacement for James "Thunder" Early onstage and here portrays Curtis' aide-de-camp Wayne.
Principal photography
Principal photography began January 6, 2006 with the filming of dance footage for the first half of "Steppin' to the Bad Side," footage later deleted from the film. The film was primarily shot on soundstages at the Los Angeles Center Studios and on location in the Los Angeles area, with some second unit footage shot in Detroit, Miami, and New York City. The award-winning Broadway lighting team of Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer were brought in to create theatrical lighting techniques for the film's musical numbers.
Beyoncé Knowles elected to lose weight to give the mature Deena Jones of the 1970s a different look than the younger version of the character. By sticking to a highly publicized diet of water, lemons, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper (also known as the Master Cleanse), Knowles rapidly lost twenty pounds, which she gained back once production ended.
Shooting was completed in the early-morning hours of April 8, 2006, after four days were spent shooting Jennifer Hudson's musical number "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going", which had purposefully been saved until the end of the shoot. Originally scheduled to be shot in one day, Condon was forced to ask for extra time and money to finish shooting the "And I Am Telling You" scene, as Hudson's voice would give out after four hours of shooting the musical number, and she was unable to plausibly lip-sync while hoarse. The scene was felt by everyone involved to be pivotal to the film, as "And I Am Telling You" was Jennifer Holliday's show-stopping number in the original Broadway musical.
Music
Dreamgirls musical supervisors Randy Spendlove and Matt Sullivan hired R&B production team The Underdogs — Harvey Mason, Jr. and Damon Thomas — to restructure and rearrange the Henry Krieger/Tom Eyen Dreamgirls score so that it better reflected its proper time period, yet also reflected then-modern R&B/pop sensibilities. During post-production, composer Stephen Trask was contracted to provide additional score material for the film. Several musical numbers from the Broadway score were not included in the film version, in particular Lorrell's solo "Ain't No Party".
Four new songs were added for the film: "Love You I Do", "Patience", "Perfect World," and "Listen." All of the new songs feature music composed by original Dreamgirls stage composer Henry Krieger. With Tom Eyen having died in 1991, various lyricists were brought in by Krieger to co-author the new songs. "Love You I Do," with lyrics by Siedah Garrett, is performed in the film by Effie during a rehearsal at the Rainbow Records studio. Willie Reale wrote the lyrics for "Patience," a song performed in the film by Jimmy, Lorrell, C.C., and a gospel choir, as the characters attempt to record a message song for Jimmy. "Perfect World," also featuring lyrics by Garrett, is performed during the Rainbow 10th anniversary special sequence by Jackson 5 doppelgängers The Campbell Connection. "Listen", with additional music by Scott Cutler and Beyoncé, and lyrics by Anne Preven, is presented as a defining moment for Deena's character late in the film.
After preview screenings during the summer of 2006, several minutes worth of musical footage were deleted from the film due to negative audience reactions to the amount of music. Among this footage was one whole musical number, C.C. and Effie's sung reunion "Effie, Sing My Song", which was replaced with an alternative spoken version.
The Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture soundtrack album was released on December 5 by Music World Entertainment/Columbia Records, in both a single-disc version containing highlights and a double-disc "Deluxe Version" containing all of the film's songs. The single-disc version of the soundtrack peaked at number-one on the Billboard 200 during a slow sales week in early January 2007. "Listen" was the first official single from the soundtrack, supported by a music video featuring Beyoncé. "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" was the Dreamgirls soundtrack's second single. Though a music video with all-original footage was once planned, the video eventually released for "And I Am Telling You" comprised the entire corresponding scene in the actual film.
Release
Dreamgirls premiered on December 4, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, where it received a standing ovation. The film's Los Angeles premiere was held on December 11 at the Wilshire Theater in Beverly Hills.
Similar to the releases of older Hollywood musicals such as The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, and West Side Story, Dreamgirls debuted with three special ten-day roadshow engagements beginning on December 15, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, the Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles, and the AMC Metreon 15 in San Francisco. Tickets for the reserved seats were $25 each; the premium price included a forty-eight page full-color program and a limited-print lithograph. This release made Dreamgirls the first American feature film to have a roadshow release since Man of La Mancha in 1972. Dreamgirls earned a total of $851,664 from the roadshow engagements, playing to sold-out houses on the weekends. The film's national release, at regular prices, began on December 25. Outside of the U.S., Dreamgirls opened in Australia on January 18, and in the United Kingdom on February 2. Releases in other countries began on various dates between January and early March. Dreamgirls eventually grossed $103 million in North America, and almost $155 million worldwide.
DreamWorks Home Entertainment released Dreamgirls to home video on May 1, 2007 in DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray formats. The DVD version was issued in two editions: a one-disc standard version and a two-disc "Showstopper Edition". The two-disc version also included a feature-length production documentary, production featurettes, screen tests, animatics, and other previsualization materials and artwork. Both DVD versions featured alternative and extended versions of the musical numbers from the film as extras, including the "Effie, Sing My Song" scene deleted during previews. Both the Blu-ray and HD DVD versions were issued in two-disc formats. Dreamgirls was the first DreamWorks film to be issued in a high definition home entertainment format. , total domestic video sales to date are at $95.1 million.
A "Director's Extended Edition" of Dreamgirls was released on Blu-ray and Digital HD on October 10, 2017 by Paramount Home Media Distribution. This version, based on edits done for preview screenings before the film's release, runs ten minutes longer than the theatrical version and features longer musical numbers (including songs and verses cut during previews) and additional scenes.
Reception
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 78% based on 208 reviews, with an average rating of 7.24/10. The site's critics consensus states: "Dreamgirls simple characters and plot hardly detract from the movie's real feats: the electrifying performances and the dazzling musical numbers." Metacritic reports a weighted average score of 76 out of 100 rating, based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.
Rolling Stone's Peter Travers gave the film three and a half stars (out of four) and the number-two position on his "best of 2006" list, stating that "despite transitional bumps, Condon does Dreamgirls proud". David Rooney of Variety reported that the film featured "tremendously exciting musical sequences" and that "after The Phantom of the Opera, Rent and The Producers botched the transfer from stage to screen, Dreamgirls gets it right."
On the December 10, 2006 episode of the television show Ebert & Roeper, Richard Roeper and guest critic Aisha Tyler (filling in for Roger Ebert, who was recovering from cancer-related surgery) gave the film "two thumbs up", with Roeper's reservations that it was "a little short on heart and soul" and "deeply conventional". Roeper still enjoyed the film, noting that Jennifer Hudson's rendition of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" as the "show-stopping moment of any film of 2006" and very much enjoyed Murphy's performance as well, remarking that "people are going to love this film." Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter was less enthusiastic, stating that while the film was "a damn good commercial movie, it is not the film that will revive the musical or win over the world". Ed Gonzales of Slant magazine found the entire picture too glossy, and declared that "the film doesn't care to articulate the emotions that haunt its characters". University of Sydney academic Timothy Laurie was critical of the film's social message, noting that "the worthy receive just deserts by working even
harder for the industries that marginalise them".
Many reviews, regardless of their overall opinion of the film, cited Hudson's and Murphy's performances as standouts, with Travers proclaiming Murphy's performance of "Jimmy's Rap" as "his finest screen moment." Television host Oprah Winfrey saw the film during a November 15 press screening, and telephoned Hudson on the Oprah episode airing the next day, praising her performance as "a religious experience" and "a transcendent performance". A review for The Celebrity Cafe echoes that Hudson's voice "is like nothing we’ve heard in a long time, and her acting is a great match for that power-house sound."
Jennifer Holliday, who originated the role of Effie onstage, expressed her disappointment at not being involved in the film project in several TV, radio, and print interviews. Holliday in particular objected to the fact that her 1982 recording of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" was used in an early Dreamgirls film teaser trailer created before production began. Many of the other original Dreamgirls Broadway cast members, among them Obba Babatundé, Vondie Curtis-Hall, and Cleavant Derricks, were interviewed for a Jet magazine article in which they discussed their varying opinions of both the Dreamgirls film's script and production.
Awards and nominations
DreamWorks and Paramount began a significant awards campaign for Dreamgirls while the film was still in production. In February 2006, the press was invited on set to a special live event showcasing the making of the film, including a live performance of "Steppin' to the Bad Side" by the cast. Three months later, twenty minutes of the film — specifically, the musical sequences "Fake Your Way to the Top", "Family", "When I First Saw You", and "Dreamgirls" – were screened at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, with most of the cast and crew in attendance. The resulting positive buzz earned Dreamgirls the status of "front-runner" for the 2006 Academy Award for Best Picture and several of the other Oscars as well.
Following the success of the Cannes screening, DreamWorks and Paramount began a widespread "For Your Consideration" advertisement campaign, raising several eyebrows by demoting Jennifer Hudson to consideration for Best Supporting Actress and presenting Beyoncé Knowles as the sole Best Actress candidate, as opposed to having both compete for Best Actress awards. By contrast, the actresses who originated Hudson's and Knowles' roles on Broadway, Jennifer Holliday and Sheryl Lee Ralph, respectively, were both nominated for the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress, with Holliday winning the award. The presentation of Knowles over Hudson as the sole Best Actress candidate had interesting parallels with the film itself.
Dreamgirls received eight 2007 Academy Award nominations covering six categories, the most of any film for the year, although it was not nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, or either of the lead acting categories. The film's nominations included Best Supporting Actor (Eddie Murphy), Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson), Best Achievement in Costume Design, Best Achievement in Art Direction, Best Achievement in Sound Mixing, and three nominations for Best Song ("Listen", "Love You I Do", and "Patience"). Dreamgirls is the first live-action film to receive three nominations for Best Song; previously the Disney animated features Beauty and the Beast (1991) and The Lion King (1994) had each received three Academy Award nominations for Best Song; Enchanted (2007) has since repeated the feat.
In addition, Dreamgirls was the first film in Academy Award history to receive the highest number of nominations for the year, yet not be nominated for Best Picture. The film's failure to gain a Best Picture or Best Director nod was widely viewed by the entertainment press as a "snub" by the Academy. Some journalists registered shock, while others cited a "backlash".<ref>Felton, Robert (Feb. 28, 2007). "[http://austinweeklynews.1upsoftware.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=1101&TM=82934.76 Dreamgirls' Best Picture snub and Oscar night thud] ". Austin Weekly News. Retrieved March 11, 2007.</ref> On the other hand, director Bill Condon stated that "I think academy members just liked the other movies better" and that he believed that "we were never going to win even if we were nominated." Reports emerged of significant behind-the-scenes in-fighting between the DreamWorks and Paramount camps, in particular between DreamWorks' David Geffen and Paramount CEO Brad Grey, over decision making and credit-claiming during the Dreamgirls awards campaign.
At the Academy Awards ceremony on February 25, 2007, Dreamgirls won Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and Best Sound Mixing. As such, Hudson became one of the few actresses ever to win an Oscar for a film debut performance. In what was considered an upset, Murphy lost the Best Supporting Actor award to Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine. Knowles, Hudson, Rose, and Robinson performed a medley of the three Dreamgirls songs nominated for Best Original Song, although all three songs lost the award to "I Need to Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth.
For the 2007 Golden Globe Awards, Dreamgirls was nominated in five categories: Best Picture – Comedy or Musical, Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical (Beyoncé Knowles), Best Supporting Actor (Eddie Murphy), Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson), and Best Original Song ("Listen"). The film won the awards for Best Picture — Comedy or Musical, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress. Dreamgirls received eight NAACP Image Award nominations, winning for Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson) and Outstanding Album (the soundtrack LP). It was also named as one of the American Film Institute's top ten films of 2006.Dreamgirls also garnered Screen Actors Guild Awards for Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson) and Supporting Actor (Eddie Murphy), as well as a nomination for its ensemble cast. The film was also nominated by the Producers Guild of America for Best Picture and the Directors Guild of America for Bill Condon's directing. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts gave the film awards for Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson) and Music (Henry Krieger).
Furthermore, Dreamgirls was nominated for eleven 2007 International Press Academy Satellite Awards, and won four of the awards: Best Picture — Comedy or Musical, Best Director (Bill Condon), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Jennifer Hudson), and Best Sound (Mixing & Editing). Dreamgirls also received a record eleven Black Reel Award nominations, and won six of the awards, among them Best Film. At the 50th Grammy Awards ceremony, "Love You I Do" won the award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media. The Dreamgirls soundtrack was also nominated for the Grammy for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album.
For the opening performance at the 2007 BET Awards on June 26 of that year, Hudson performed a duet of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" with her predecessor, Jennifer Holliday. Later that night, Hudson won the BET Award for Best Actress.
In February 2022, Hudson's rendition of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" was named one of the five finalists for Oscars Cheer Moment as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' "Oscars Fan Favorite" contest.
Accolades
Related promotions and products
To give the story more exposure for the upcoming film release, DreamWorks and the licenser of the original play, The Tams-Witmark Music Library, announced that they would pay the licensing fees for all non-professional stage performances of Dreamgirls for the calendar year of 2006. DreamWorks hoped to encourage amateur productions of Dreamgirls, and familiarize a wider audience with the play. As a result, more than fifty high schools, colleges, community theaters, and other non-commercial theater entities staged productions of Dreamgirls in 2006, and DreamWorks spent up to $250,000 subsidizing the licensing.
The Dreamgirls novelization was written by African-American novelist Denene Millner, and adapts the film's official script in chapter form, along with fourteen pages of photographs from the film. The book was released on October 31, 2006. A scrapbook, entitled Dreamgirls: The Movie Musical, was released on March 27, 2007. The limited edition program guide accompanying the Dreamgirls road show release was made available for retail purchase in February. In addition, the Tonnor Doll Company released "The Dreamettes" collection, featuring dolls of the characters Deena, Lorrell, and Effie, to coincide with the release of the film.
Allusions to actual events
Aside from the overall plot of the film and elements already present in the stage musical, many direct references to The Supremes, Motown, or R&B/soul history in general are included in the film. In one scene, Effie saunters into Curtis' office and discusses Rainbow Records' latest LP, The Great March to Freedom, a spoken word album featuring speeches by Martin Luther King Jr. This LP is an authentic Motown release, issued as Gordy 906 in June 1963.Edwards, David and Callahan, Mike (1999). "Gordy Album Discography, Part 1 (1962–1981)". Retrieved Feb. 3, 2007. A later scene features Curtis and the Dreams recording in the studio, while a riot rages outside. By comparison, Motown's Hitsville U.S.A. studio remained open and active during Detroit's 12th Street Riot in July 1967.Posner, Gerald (2002). Motown: Music, Money, Sex, and Power. New York: Random House. . Pg. 173. The photo shoot montage which accompanies "When I First Saw You", as well as the subplot of Deena being forced to star in Curtis' Cleopatra film against her will, reflect both scenes from and the production of Mahogany, a 1975 Motown film starring Diana Ross and directed by Motown CEO Berry Gordy. In a snapshot, Ed Sullivan appears presenting the real Supremes on his show.
Among the more direct references are the uses of adapted Supremes album cover designs for albums recorded in the film by the Dreams. Three Supremes albums – Let the Sunshine In, Cream of the Crop, and Touch – were reworked into Deena Jones & The Dreams album designs, with the only differences in the designs being the substitution of the names and images of the Supremes with those of Deena Jones & the Dreams. Another Dreams LP seen in the film, Meet the Dreams, is represented by an album cover derived from the designs for the Supremes LPs Meet The Supremes, More Hits by The Supremes and The Supremes A' Go-Go. There is also a solo album, Just In Time, recorded by Deena Jones shown in the film, the album cover for which is based on Dionne Warwick's 1970 album, Very Dionne.
Diana Ross, long a critic of the Broadway version of Dreamgirls for what she saw as an appropriation of her life story, denied having seen the film version. On the other hand, Mary Wilson attended the film's Los Angeles premiere, later stating that Dreamgirls moved her to tears and that it was "closer to the truth than they even know".
However, Smokey Robinson was less than pleased about the film's allusions to Motown history. In a January 25, 2007 interview with NPR, Robinson expressed offense at the film's portrayal of its Berry Gordy analogue, Curtis Taylor Jr., as a "villainous character" who deals in payola and other illegal activities. He repeated these concerns in a later interview with Access Hollywood'', adding that he felt DreamWorks and Paramount owed Gordy an apology. On February 23, a week before the Oscars ceremony, DreamWorks and Paramount issued an apology to Gordy and the other Motown alumni. Gordy issued a statement shortly afterwards expressing his acceptance of the apology.
The payola scheme used in the film's script, to which Robinson took offense, is identical to the payola scheme allegedly used by Gordy and the other Motown executives, according to sworn court depositions from Motown executive Michael Lushka, offered during the litigation between the label and its chief creative team, Holland–Dozier–Holland. Several references are also made to Mafia-backed loans Curtis uses to fund Rainbow Records. Gordy was highly suspected, though never proven, to have used Mafia-backed loans to finance Motown during its later years.
References
External links
Dreamgirls Blu-ray Disc review
Dreamgirls
2000s historical romance films
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2006 drama films | true | [
"The 2020 President's Cup was to be the seventh President's Cup contested for. The match was to be played between the champions of 2019 League of Ireland Premier Division and 2019 FAI Cup, Dundalk, and Shamrock Rovers. It was due to take place on 9 February 2020, at Oriel Park but was postponed due to Storm Ciara. A new date for the match was to be announced but that did not happen due to the COVID-19 pandemic.\n\nSee also\n 2019 FAI Cup\n 2019 League of Ireland Premier Division\n\nReferences\n\nPresident of Ireland's Cup\n2\nDundalk F.C. matches\nShamrock Rovers F.C. matches\nPresident's Cup",
"The 1999 Nunavut general election was the first general election in the territory and was held on 15 February 1999, to elect the members of the 1st Legislative Assembly of Nunavut.\n\nAlthough Nunavut did not become a territory until 1 April 1999 the election was held early to enable the members to assume their duties on that date.\n\nThe territory operates on a consensus government system with no political parties; the premier is subsequently chosen by and from the MLAs.\n\nPaul Okalik was chosen to be Premier of Nunavut.\n\nElected\n\nSee also\n 1st Legislative Assembly of Nunavut\n\nReferences\n\n1999\nNunavut general\n1999 in Nunavut\nFebruary 1999 events in Canada"
] |
[
"Dreamgirls (film)",
"Premieres, road show engagements, and general releases",
"What was the premier date?",
"Dreamgirls premiered on December 4, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City,"
] | C_867af2e657024cc0910e36deae8d265f_0 | Did all of the stars attend? | 2 | Did all of the stars attend the premiere of Dreamgirls? | Dreamgirls (film) | Dreamgirls premiered on December 4, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, where it received a standing ovation. The film's Los Angeles premiere was held on December 11 at the Wilshire Theater in Beverly Hills. Similar to the releases of older Hollywood musicals such as The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, and West Side Story, Dreamgirls debuted with three special ten-day roadshow engagements beginning on December 15, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, the Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles, and the AMC Metreon 15 in San Francisco. Tickets for the reserved seats were $25 each; the premium price included a forty-eight page full-color program and a limited-print lithograph. This release made Dreamgirls the first American feature film to have a roadshow release since Man of La Mancha in 1972. Dreamgirls earned a total of $851,664 from the roadshow engagements, playing to sold-out houses on the weekends. The film's national release, at regular prices, began on December 25. Outside of the U.S., Dreamgirls opened in Australia on January 18, and in the United Kingdom on February 2. Releases in other countries began on various dates between January and early March. Dreamgirls eventually grossed $103 million in North America, and almost $155 million worldwide. DreamWorks Home Entertainment released Dreamgirls to home video on May 1, 2007 in DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray formats. The DVD version was issued in two editions: a one-disc standard version and a two-disc "Showstopper Edition". The two-disc version also included a feature-length production documentary, production featurettes, screen tests, animatics, and other previsualization materials and artwork. Both DVD versions featured alternate and extended versions of the musical numbers from the film as extras, including the "Effie, Sing My Song" scene deleted during previews. Both the Blu-ray and HD DVD versions were issued in two-disc formats. Dreamgirls was the first DreamWorks film to be issued in a high definition home entertainment format. As of 2017, total domestic video sales to date are at $95.1 million. A "Director's Extended Edition" of Dreamgirls was released on Blu-Ray and Digital HD on October 10, 2017 by Paramount Home Media Distribution. This version, based on edits done for preview screenings before the film's release, runs ten minutes longer than the theatrical version and features longer musical numbers (including songs and verses cut during previews) and additional scenes. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Dreamgirls is a 2006 American musical drama film written and directed by Bill Condon and jointly produced and released by DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures. Adapted from the 1981 Broadway musical of the same name, Dreamgirls is a film à clef, a work of fiction taking strong inspiration from the history of the Motown record label and one of its acts, The Supremes. The story follows the history and evolution of American R&B music during the 1960s and 1970s through the eyes of a Detroit girl group known as "The Dreams" and their manipulative record executive.
The film adaptation stars Jamie Foxx, Beyoncé Knowles and Eddie Murphy, and also features Jennifer Hudson, Danny Glover, Anika Noni Rose and Keith Robinson. In addition to the original compositions by composer Henry Krieger and lyricist/librettist Tom Eyen, four new songs, composed by Krieger with various lyricists, were added for the film. The film marks the acting debut of Hudson, a former American Idol contestant.
Dreamgirls debuted in four special road show engagements starting on December 15, 2006, before its nationwide release on December 25, 2006. With a production budget of $80 million, Dreamgirls is one of the most expensive films to feature a predominant African-American starring cast in American film history. Upon its release, the film garnered positive reviews from critics, who particularly praised Condon's direction, the soundtrack, costume design, production design, and performances of the cast (in particular of Hudson, which many deemed a standout performance). The film was a commercial success, grossing over $155 million at the international box office. At the 79th Academy Awards, the film received a leading eight nominations, winning Best Supporting Actress (for Hudson), and Best Sound Mixing. At the 64th Golden Globe Awards, it won three awards, including for the Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.
Plot
In 1962 Detroit, Michigan, young car salesman Curtis Taylor Jr. meets a Black girl group known as "The Dreamettes", which consists of lead singer Effie White and backup singers Deena Jones and Lorrell Robinson, at an R&B amateur talent show at the Detroit Theatre. Presenting himself as their new manager, he hires the girls as backup singers for Chitlin' Circuit R&B star Jimmy "Thunder" Early.
Curtis soon starts his own record label, Rainbow Records, out of his Detroit car dealership, and appoints Effie's brother, C.C., as his head songwriter. When their first single "Cadillac Car" fails after a white pop group named Dave and the Sweethearts releases a cover version, Curtis, C.C., and their producer Wayne turn to payola to make "Jimmy Early & The Dreamettes" mainstream pop stars. Offstage, Effie falls in love with Curtis while the married Jimmy does likewise with Lorrell.
Jimmy's manager, Marty Madison, grows weary of Curtis' plans to make his client more pop-friendly and walks out. When Jimmy bombs in front of an all-white Miami Beach supper club audience, Curtis sends Jimmy out on the road alone, keeping The Dreamettes behind to headline in his place. Feeling that Effie's figure and distinctive, soulful voice will not attract white audiences, Curtis appoints the slimmer, more conventionally attractive Deena (who has a more basic, generic, and marketable voice) as the new lead singer, renaming the group "The Dreams".
Aided by new songs and a new image, Curtis and C.C. transform The Dreams into a top-selling mainstream pop group. By 1965, however, Effie begins acting out, particularly when Curtis' affections also turn towards Deena. Curtis eventually drops Effie, hiring his secretary Michelle Morris to replace her beginning with their 1966 New Year's Eve debut in Las Vegas as "Deena Jones & the Dreams." Though Effie defiantly and desperately appeals to Curtis, he, C.C., and The Dreams abandon her, forging ahead to stardom.
By 1973, Effie has become an impoverished welfare mother living in Detroit with her daughter Magic. To restart her music career, she hires Marty as her manager and begins performing at a local club. Meanwhile, with The Dreams superstars and Rainbow, having moved to Los Angeles, now the biggest pop business in the country, Curtis attempts to produce a film about Cleopatra starring an unwilling Deena, now his wife.
The following year, Jimmy, who has descended into drug addiction due to Curtis' preoccupation with Deena, along with the rejection of the charity single he recorded, does an improvised rap and drops his pants during Rainbow Records' tenth-anniversary television special. Curtis promptly drops him from the label and Lorrell ends their affair. Sometime later, C.C., who feels Curtis is undermining the artistic merit of his songs by making them into disco music, quits the label, only for everyone to then learn of Jimmy's unexpected death from a heroin overdose, which greatly upsets Lorrell.
Disillusioned by Jimmy's death and Curtis' cold reaction to the news, C.C. travels to Detroit and reconciles with Effie, for whom he writes and produces a comeback single, "One Night Only". Just as it begins gaining local radio play, Curtis uses payola to force radio stations to play The Dreams' disco cover of the song. The plan falls apart, however, when Deena, angry over how Curtis controls her career, discovers his schemes and contacts Effie, who arrives in Los Angeles with C.C., Marty, and a lawyer.
Deena and Effie reconcile, with Effie telling Deena that Curtis is Magic's father, while Curtis agrees to nationally distribute Effie's record to avoid being reported to the FBI. Inspired by Effie's victory and realizing Curtis' true character, Deena leaves him.
By 1975, The Dreams give a farewell performance at the Detroit Theater, inviting Effie for the final song. Towards the end, Curtis notices Magic in the front row, realizing she is his daughter.
Cast
Jennifer Hudson as Effie White; inspired by Supremes member Florence Ballard, Effie is a talented yet temperamental singer who suffers when Curtis, the man she loves, replaces her as lead singer of the Dreams and his love interest, and later drops her altogether. With the help of Jimmy's old manager Marty, Effie begins to resurrect her career a decade later, while raising her daughter Magic, the offspring of her union with Curtis.
Jamie Foxx as Curtis Taylor, Jr.; based upon Motown founder Berry Gordy, Jr., Curtis is a slick Cadillac dealer-turned-record executive who founds the Rainbow Records label and shows ruthless ambition in his quest to make his black artists household names with white audiences. At first romantically involved with Effie, Curtis takes a professional and personal interest in Deena after appointing her lead singer of the Dreams in Effie's place.
Beyoncé Knowles-Carter as Deena Jones; based upon Motown star and lead Supremes member Diana Ross and two former Supremes members Jean Terrell and Scherrie Payne, Deena is a very shy young woman who becomes a star after Curtis makes her lead singer of the Dreams. This, as well as her romantic involvement and later marriage to Curtis, draw Effie's ire, though Deena realizes over time she is a puppet for her controlling husband.
Anika Noni Rose as Lorrell Robinson; inspired by Supremes member Mary Wilson, is a good-natured background singer with the Dreams who falls deeply in love with the married Jimmy Early and becomes his mistress.
Keith Robinson as Clarence Conrad (C.C.) White; inspired by Motown vice president, artist, producer, and songwriter Smokey Robinson, Effie's soft-spoken younger brother serves as the main songwriter for first the Dreams and later the entire Rainbow roster.
Eddie Murphy as James (Jimmy) "Thunder" Early; inspired by R&B/soul singers such as James Brown, Jackie Wilson and Marvin Gaye, is a raucous performer on the Rainbow label engaged in an adulterous affair with Dreams member Lorrell. Curtis attempts to repackage Early as a pop-friendly balladeer. Jimmy's stardom fades as the Dreams' stardom rises, and as a result – he falls into depression (which he copes with through drug abuse).
Danny Glover as Marty Madison, Jimmy's original manager before Curtis steps into the picture; Marty serves as both counsel and confidant to Jimmy, and later to Effie as well.
Sharon Leal as Michelle Morris; based upon Supremes members Cindy Birdsong and Susaye Greene, Curtis' secretary who replaces Effie in the Dreams and begins dating C.C.
Hinton Battle as Wayne, a salesman at Curtis' Cadillac dealership who becomes Rainbow's first record producer and Curtis' henchman.
Yvette Cason as May, Deena's mother
Loretta Devine as Jazz Singer. Devine originated the role of Lorrell in the 1981 stage production.
Dawnn Lewis as Melba Early, James' wife
John Lithgow as Jerry Harris, a film producer looking to cast Deena
John Krasinski as Sam Walsh, Jerry Harris' screenwriter/film director
Jaleel White as Talent Booker at the Detroit Theatre talent show
Cleo King as Janice
Robert Cicchini as Nicky Cassaro
Yvette Nicole Brown as Curtis' Secretary
Mariah I. Wilson as Magic White, Effie's daughter
Paul Kirby as Promo Film Narrator (voice)
Musical numbers
Production
Pre-production
In the 1980s and 1990s, several attempts were made to produce a film adaptation of Dreamgirls, a Broadway musical loosely based upon the story of The Supremes and Motown Records, which won six Tony Awards in 1982. David Geffen, the stage musical's co-financier, retained the film rights to Dreamgirls and turned down many offers to adapt the story for the screen. He cited a need to preserve the integrity of Dreamgirls stage director Michael Bennett's work after his death in 1987. That same year, Geffen, who ran his Warner Bros.-associated Geffen Pictures film production company at the time, began talks with Broadway lyricist and producer Howard Ashman to adapt it as a star vehicle for Whitney Houston, who was to portray Deena. The production ran into problems when Houston wanted to sing both Deena and Effie's songs (particularly "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going"), and the film was eventually abandoned.
When Geffen co-founded DreamWorks in 1994 and dissolved Geffen Pictures, the rights to Dreamgirls remained with Warner Bros. Warner planned to go ahead with the film with director Joel Schumacher and screenwriter Tina Andrews in the late 1990s, following the success of Touchstone Pictures's Tina Turner biopic What's Love Got to Do with It. Schumacher planned to have Lauryn Hill portray Deena and Kelly Price play Effie. After Warner's Frankie Lymon biopic Why Do Fools Fall in Love failed at the box office, the studio shut down development on Dreamgirls.
DreamWorks' Dreamgirls adaptation came about after the film version of the Broadway musical Chicago was a success at both the box office and the Academy Awards. Screenwriter and director Bill Condon, who wrote Chicagos screenplay, met producer Laurence Mark at a Hollywood holiday party in late 2002, where the two discussed a long-held "dream project" of Condon's – adapting Dreamgirls for the screen. The two had dinner with Geffen and successfully convinced him to allow Condon to write a screenplay for Dreamgirls. Condon did not start work on the Dreamgirls script until after making the Alfred Kinsey biographical film Kinsey (2004). After sending Geffen the first draft of his screenplay in January 2005, Condon's adaptation of Dreamgirls was greenlit.
Stage to script changes
While much of the stage musical's story remains intact, a number of significant changes were made. The Dreams' hometown—the setting for much of the action—was moved from Chicago to Detroit, the real-life hometown of The Supremes and Motown Records. The roles of many of the characters were related more closely to their real-life inspirations, following a suggestion by Geffen.
Warner Bros. had retained the film rights to Dreamgirls, and agreed to co-produce with DreamWorks. However, after casting was completed, the film was budgeted at $73 million and Warner backed out of the production. Geffen, taking the role of co-producer, brought Paramount Pictures in to co-finance and release Dreamgirls. During the course of production, Paramount's parent company, Viacom, would purchase DreamWorks, aligning the two studios under one umbrella (and giving the senior studio US distribution rights on behalf of DreamWorks). The completed film had a production budget of $75 million, making Dreamgirls the most expensive film with an all-black starring cast in cinema history.
Casting and rehearsal
Mark and Condon began pre-production with the intentions of casting Jamie Foxx and Eddie Murphy, both actors with record industry experience, as Curtis Taylor, Jr. and James "Thunder" Early, respectively. When offered the part of Curtis, Foxx initially declined because DreamWorks could not meet his salary demands. Denzel Washington, Will Smith, and Terrence Howard were among the other actors also approached to play Curtis. Murphy, on the other hand, accepted the role of Jimmy Early after being convinced to do so by DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg.
While Condon had intended to cast relatively unknown actresses as all three Dreams, R&B singer Beyoncé Knowles lobbied for the part of Deena Jones, and was cast after a successful screen test. Upon learning that Knowles and Murphy had signed on, Foxx rethought his original decision and accepted the Curtis role at DreamWorks' lower salary.
R&B star Usher was to have been cast as C.C. White, but contract negotiations failed; Usher was unable to dedicate half a year to the project. André 3000 of Outkast was also offered the role, but declined. After briefly considering R&B singer Omarion, singer/actor Keith Robinson was eventually cast in the role.
Anika Noni Rose, a Broadway veteran and a Tony Award winner, won the part of Lorrell Robinson after an extensive auditioning process. Rose, significantly shorter than most of her co-stars at five feet and two inches (157 cm), was required to wear (and dance in) four and five-inch (127 mm) heels for much of the picture, which she later stated caused her discomfort.
The most crucial casting decision involved the role of Effie White, the emotional center of the story. The filmmakers insisted on casting a relative unknown in the role, paralleling the casting of then-21-year-old Jennifer Holliday in that role for the original Broadway production. A total of 783 singing actresses auditioned for the role of Effie White, among them American Idol alumnae Fantasia Barrino and Jennifer Hudson, former Disney star Raven-Symoné, and Broadway stars Capathia Jenkins and Patina Miller. Though Barrino emerged as an early frontrunner for the part, Hudson was eventually selected to play Effie, leading Barrino to telephone Hudson and jokingly complain that Hudson "stole [Barrino's] part."
Hudson was required to gain twenty pounds for the role, which marked her debut film performance. In casting Hudson, Condon recalled that he initially was not confident he'd made the right decision, but instinctively cast Hudson after she'd auditioned several times because he "just didn't believe any of the others."
After Hudson was cast in November 2005, the Dreamgirls cast began extensive rehearsals with Condon and choreographers Fatima Robinson and Aakomon "AJ" Jones, veterans of the music video industry. Meanwhile, the music production crew began work with the actors and studio musicians recording the songs for the film. Although rehearsals ended just before Christmas 2005, Condon called Hudson back for a week of one-on-one rehearsals, to help her more fully become the "diva" character of Effie. Hudson was required to be rude and come in late both on set and off, and she and Condon went over Effie's lines and scenes throughout the week.
Loretta Devine, who played Lorrell in the original Broadway production, has a cameo as a jazz singer who performs the song "I Miss You Old Friend." Another Dreamgirls veteran present in the film is Hinton Battle, who was a summer replacement for James "Thunder" Early onstage and here portrays Curtis' aide-de-camp Wayne.
Principal photography
Principal photography began January 6, 2006 with the filming of dance footage for the first half of "Steppin' to the Bad Side," footage later deleted from the film. The film was primarily shot on soundstages at the Los Angeles Center Studios and on location in the Los Angeles area, with some second unit footage shot in Detroit, Miami, and New York City. The award-winning Broadway lighting team of Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer were brought in to create theatrical lighting techniques for the film's musical numbers.
Beyoncé Knowles elected to lose weight to give the mature Deena Jones of the 1970s a different look than the younger version of the character. By sticking to a highly publicized diet of water, lemons, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper (also known as the Master Cleanse), Knowles rapidly lost twenty pounds, which she gained back once production ended.
Shooting was completed in the early-morning hours of April 8, 2006, after four days were spent shooting Jennifer Hudson's musical number "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going", which had purposefully been saved until the end of the shoot. Originally scheduled to be shot in one day, Condon was forced to ask for extra time and money to finish shooting the "And I Am Telling You" scene, as Hudson's voice would give out after four hours of shooting the musical number, and she was unable to plausibly lip-sync while hoarse. The scene was felt by everyone involved to be pivotal to the film, as "And I Am Telling You" was Jennifer Holliday's show-stopping number in the original Broadway musical.
Music
Dreamgirls musical supervisors Randy Spendlove and Matt Sullivan hired R&B production team The Underdogs — Harvey Mason, Jr. and Damon Thomas — to restructure and rearrange the Henry Krieger/Tom Eyen Dreamgirls score so that it better reflected its proper time period, yet also reflected then-modern R&B/pop sensibilities. During post-production, composer Stephen Trask was contracted to provide additional score material for the film. Several musical numbers from the Broadway score were not included in the film version, in particular Lorrell's solo "Ain't No Party".
Four new songs were added for the film: "Love You I Do", "Patience", "Perfect World," and "Listen." All of the new songs feature music composed by original Dreamgirls stage composer Henry Krieger. With Tom Eyen having died in 1991, various lyricists were brought in by Krieger to co-author the new songs. "Love You I Do," with lyrics by Siedah Garrett, is performed in the film by Effie during a rehearsal at the Rainbow Records studio. Willie Reale wrote the lyrics for "Patience," a song performed in the film by Jimmy, Lorrell, C.C., and a gospel choir, as the characters attempt to record a message song for Jimmy. "Perfect World," also featuring lyrics by Garrett, is performed during the Rainbow 10th anniversary special sequence by Jackson 5 doppelgängers The Campbell Connection. "Listen", with additional music by Scott Cutler and Beyoncé, and lyrics by Anne Preven, is presented as a defining moment for Deena's character late in the film.
After preview screenings during the summer of 2006, several minutes worth of musical footage were deleted from the film due to negative audience reactions to the amount of music. Among this footage was one whole musical number, C.C. and Effie's sung reunion "Effie, Sing My Song", which was replaced with an alternative spoken version.
The Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture soundtrack album was released on December 5 by Music World Entertainment/Columbia Records, in both a single-disc version containing highlights and a double-disc "Deluxe Version" containing all of the film's songs. The single-disc version of the soundtrack peaked at number-one on the Billboard 200 during a slow sales week in early January 2007. "Listen" was the first official single from the soundtrack, supported by a music video featuring Beyoncé. "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" was the Dreamgirls soundtrack's second single. Though a music video with all-original footage was once planned, the video eventually released for "And I Am Telling You" comprised the entire corresponding scene in the actual film.
Release
Dreamgirls premiered on December 4, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, where it received a standing ovation. The film's Los Angeles premiere was held on December 11 at the Wilshire Theater in Beverly Hills.
Similar to the releases of older Hollywood musicals such as The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, and West Side Story, Dreamgirls debuted with three special ten-day roadshow engagements beginning on December 15, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, the Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles, and the AMC Metreon 15 in San Francisco. Tickets for the reserved seats were $25 each; the premium price included a forty-eight page full-color program and a limited-print lithograph. This release made Dreamgirls the first American feature film to have a roadshow release since Man of La Mancha in 1972. Dreamgirls earned a total of $851,664 from the roadshow engagements, playing to sold-out houses on the weekends. The film's national release, at regular prices, began on December 25. Outside of the U.S., Dreamgirls opened in Australia on January 18, and in the United Kingdom on February 2. Releases in other countries began on various dates between January and early March. Dreamgirls eventually grossed $103 million in North America, and almost $155 million worldwide.
DreamWorks Home Entertainment released Dreamgirls to home video on May 1, 2007 in DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray formats. The DVD version was issued in two editions: a one-disc standard version and a two-disc "Showstopper Edition". The two-disc version also included a feature-length production documentary, production featurettes, screen tests, animatics, and other previsualization materials and artwork. Both DVD versions featured alternative and extended versions of the musical numbers from the film as extras, including the "Effie, Sing My Song" scene deleted during previews. Both the Blu-ray and HD DVD versions were issued in two-disc formats. Dreamgirls was the first DreamWorks film to be issued in a high definition home entertainment format. , total domestic video sales to date are at $95.1 million.
A "Director's Extended Edition" of Dreamgirls was released on Blu-ray and Digital HD on October 10, 2017 by Paramount Home Media Distribution. This version, based on edits done for preview screenings before the film's release, runs ten minutes longer than the theatrical version and features longer musical numbers (including songs and verses cut during previews) and additional scenes.
Reception
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 78% based on 208 reviews, with an average rating of 7.24/10. The site's critics consensus states: "Dreamgirls simple characters and plot hardly detract from the movie's real feats: the electrifying performances and the dazzling musical numbers." Metacritic reports a weighted average score of 76 out of 100 rating, based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.
Rolling Stone's Peter Travers gave the film three and a half stars (out of four) and the number-two position on his "best of 2006" list, stating that "despite transitional bumps, Condon does Dreamgirls proud". David Rooney of Variety reported that the film featured "tremendously exciting musical sequences" and that "after The Phantom of the Opera, Rent and The Producers botched the transfer from stage to screen, Dreamgirls gets it right."
On the December 10, 2006 episode of the television show Ebert & Roeper, Richard Roeper and guest critic Aisha Tyler (filling in for Roger Ebert, who was recovering from cancer-related surgery) gave the film "two thumbs up", with Roeper's reservations that it was "a little short on heart and soul" and "deeply conventional". Roeper still enjoyed the film, noting that Jennifer Hudson's rendition of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" as the "show-stopping moment of any film of 2006" and very much enjoyed Murphy's performance as well, remarking that "people are going to love this film." Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter was less enthusiastic, stating that while the film was "a damn good commercial movie, it is not the film that will revive the musical or win over the world". Ed Gonzales of Slant magazine found the entire picture too glossy, and declared that "the film doesn't care to articulate the emotions that haunt its characters". University of Sydney academic Timothy Laurie was critical of the film's social message, noting that "the worthy receive just deserts by working even
harder for the industries that marginalise them".
Many reviews, regardless of their overall opinion of the film, cited Hudson's and Murphy's performances as standouts, with Travers proclaiming Murphy's performance of "Jimmy's Rap" as "his finest screen moment." Television host Oprah Winfrey saw the film during a November 15 press screening, and telephoned Hudson on the Oprah episode airing the next day, praising her performance as "a religious experience" and "a transcendent performance". A review for The Celebrity Cafe echoes that Hudson's voice "is like nothing we’ve heard in a long time, and her acting is a great match for that power-house sound."
Jennifer Holliday, who originated the role of Effie onstage, expressed her disappointment at not being involved in the film project in several TV, radio, and print interviews. Holliday in particular objected to the fact that her 1982 recording of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" was used in an early Dreamgirls film teaser trailer created before production began. Many of the other original Dreamgirls Broadway cast members, among them Obba Babatundé, Vondie Curtis-Hall, and Cleavant Derricks, were interviewed for a Jet magazine article in which they discussed their varying opinions of both the Dreamgirls film's script and production.
Awards and nominations
DreamWorks and Paramount began a significant awards campaign for Dreamgirls while the film was still in production. In February 2006, the press was invited on set to a special live event showcasing the making of the film, including a live performance of "Steppin' to the Bad Side" by the cast. Three months later, twenty minutes of the film — specifically, the musical sequences "Fake Your Way to the Top", "Family", "When I First Saw You", and "Dreamgirls" – were screened at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, with most of the cast and crew in attendance. The resulting positive buzz earned Dreamgirls the status of "front-runner" for the 2006 Academy Award for Best Picture and several of the other Oscars as well.
Following the success of the Cannes screening, DreamWorks and Paramount began a widespread "For Your Consideration" advertisement campaign, raising several eyebrows by demoting Jennifer Hudson to consideration for Best Supporting Actress and presenting Beyoncé Knowles as the sole Best Actress candidate, as opposed to having both compete for Best Actress awards. By contrast, the actresses who originated Hudson's and Knowles' roles on Broadway, Jennifer Holliday and Sheryl Lee Ralph, respectively, were both nominated for the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress, with Holliday winning the award. The presentation of Knowles over Hudson as the sole Best Actress candidate had interesting parallels with the film itself.
Dreamgirls received eight 2007 Academy Award nominations covering six categories, the most of any film for the year, although it was not nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, or either of the lead acting categories. The film's nominations included Best Supporting Actor (Eddie Murphy), Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson), Best Achievement in Costume Design, Best Achievement in Art Direction, Best Achievement in Sound Mixing, and three nominations for Best Song ("Listen", "Love You I Do", and "Patience"). Dreamgirls is the first live-action film to receive three nominations for Best Song; previously the Disney animated features Beauty and the Beast (1991) and The Lion King (1994) had each received three Academy Award nominations for Best Song; Enchanted (2007) has since repeated the feat.
In addition, Dreamgirls was the first film in Academy Award history to receive the highest number of nominations for the year, yet not be nominated for Best Picture. The film's failure to gain a Best Picture or Best Director nod was widely viewed by the entertainment press as a "snub" by the Academy. Some journalists registered shock, while others cited a "backlash".<ref>Felton, Robert (Feb. 28, 2007). "[http://austinweeklynews.1upsoftware.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=1101&TM=82934.76 Dreamgirls' Best Picture snub and Oscar night thud] ". Austin Weekly News. Retrieved March 11, 2007.</ref> On the other hand, director Bill Condon stated that "I think academy members just liked the other movies better" and that he believed that "we were never going to win even if we were nominated." Reports emerged of significant behind-the-scenes in-fighting between the DreamWorks and Paramount camps, in particular between DreamWorks' David Geffen and Paramount CEO Brad Grey, over decision making and credit-claiming during the Dreamgirls awards campaign.
At the Academy Awards ceremony on February 25, 2007, Dreamgirls won Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and Best Sound Mixing. As such, Hudson became one of the few actresses ever to win an Oscar for a film debut performance. In what was considered an upset, Murphy lost the Best Supporting Actor award to Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine. Knowles, Hudson, Rose, and Robinson performed a medley of the three Dreamgirls songs nominated for Best Original Song, although all three songs lost the award to "I Need to Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth.
For the 2007 Golden Globe Awards, Dreamgirls was nominated in five categories: Best Picture – Comedy or Musical, Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical (Beyoncé Knowles), Best Supporting Actor (Eddie Murphy), Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson), and Best Original Song ("Listen"). The film won the awards for Best Picture — Comedy or Musical, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress. Dreamgirls received eight NAACP Image Award nominations, winning for Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson) and Outstanding Album (the soundtrack LP). It was also named as one of the American Film Institute's top ten films of 2006.Dreamgirls also garnered Screen Actors Guild Awards for Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson) and Supporting Actor (Eddie Murphy), as well as a nomination for its ensemble cast. The film was also nominated by the Producers Guild of America for Best Picture and the Directors Guild of America for Bill Condon's directing. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts gave the film awards for Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson) and Music (Henry Krieger).
Furthermore, Dreamgirls was nominated for eleven 2007 International Press Academy Satellite Awards, and won four of the awards: Best Picture — Comedy or Musical, Best Director (Bill Condon), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Jennifer Hudson), and Best Sound (Mixing & Editing). Dreamgirls also received a record eleven Black Reel Award nominations, and won six of the awards, among them Best Film. At the 50th Grammy Awards ceremony, "Love You I Do" won the award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media. The Dreamgirls soundtrack was also nominated for the Grammy for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album.
For the opening performance at the 2007 BET Awards on June 26 of that year, Hudson performed a duet of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" with her predecessor, Jennifer Holliday. Later that night, Hudson won the BET Award for Best Actress.
In February 2022, Hudson's rendition of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" was named one of the five finalists for Oscars Cheer Moment as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' "Oscars Fan Favorite" contest.
Accolades
Related promotions and products
To give the story more exposure for the upcoming film release, DreamWorks and the licenser of the original play, The Tams-Witmark Music Library, announced that they would pay the licensing fees for all non-professional stage performances of Dreamgirls for the calendar year of 2006. DreamWorks hoped to encourage amateur productions of Dreamgirls, and familiarize a wider audience with the play. As a result, more than fifty high schools, colleges, community theaters, and other non-commercial theater entities staged productions of Dreamgirls in 2006, and DreamWorks spent up to $250,000 subsidizing the licensing.
The Dreamgirls novelization was written by African-American novelist Denene Millner, and adapts the film's official script in chapter form, along with fourteen pages of photographs from the film. The book was released on October 31, 2006. A scrapbook, entitled Dreamgirls: The Movie Musical, was released on March 27, 2007. The limited edition program guide accompanying the Dreamgirls road show release was made available for retail purchase in February. In addition, the Tonnor Doll Company released "The Dreamettes" collection, featuring dolls of the characters Deena, Lorrell, and Effie, to coincide with the release of the film.
Allusions to actual events
Aside from the overall plot of the film and elements already present in the stage musical, many direct references to The Supremes, Motown, or R&B/soul history in general are included in the film. In one scene, Effie saunters into Curtis' office and discusses Rainbow Records' latest LP, The Great March to Freedom, a spoken word album featuring speeches by Martin Luther King Jr. This LP is an authentic Motown release, issued as Gordy 906 in June 1963.Edwards, David and Callahan, Mike (1999). "Gordy Album Discography, Part 1 (1962–1981)". Retrieved Feb. 3, 2007. A later scene features Curtis and the Dreams recording in the studio, while a riot rages outside. By comparison, Motown's Hitsville U.S.A. studio remained open and active during Detroit's 12th Street Riot in July 1967.Posner, Gerald (2002). Motown: Music, Money, Sex, and Power. New York: Random House. . Pg. 173. The photo shoot montage which accompanies "When I First Saw You", as well as the subplot of Deena being forced to star in Curtis' Cleopatra film against her will, reflect both scenes from and the production of Mahogany, a 1975 Motown film starring Diana Ross and directed by Motown CEO Berry Gordy. In a snapshot, Ed Sullivan appears presenting the real Supremes on his show.
Among the more direct references are the uses of adapted Supremes album cover designs for albums recorded in the film by the Dreams. Three Supremes albums – Let the Sunshine In, Cream of the Crop, and Touch – were reworked into Deena Jones & The Dreams album designs, with the only differences in the designs being the substitution of the names and images of the Supremes with those of Deena Jones & the Dreams. Another Dreams LP seen in the film, Meet the Dreams, is represented by an album cover derived from the designs for the Supremes LPs Meet The Supremes, More Hits by The Supremes and The Supremes A' Go-Go. There is also a solo album, Just In Time, recorded by Deena Jones shown in the film, the album cover for which is based on Dionne Warwick's 1970 album, Very Dionne.
Diana Ross, long a critic of the Broadway version of Dreamgirls for what she saw as an appropriation of her life story, denied having seen the film version. On the other hand, Mary Wilson attended the film's Los Angeles premiere, later stating that Dreamgirls moved her to tears and that it was "closer to the truth than they even know".
However, Smokey Robinson was less than pleased about the film's allusions to Motown history. In a January 25, 2007 interview with NPR, Robinson expressed offense at the film's portrayal of its Berry Gordy analogue, Curtis Taylor Jr., as a "villainous character" who deals in payola and other illegal activities. He repeated these concerns in a later interview with Access Hollywood'', adding that he felt DreamWorks and Paramount owed Gordy an apology. On February 23, a week before the Oscars ceremony, DreamWorks and Paramount issued an apology to Gordy and the other Motown alumni. Gordy issued a statement shortly afterwards expressing his acceptance of the apology.
The payola scheme used in the film's script, to which Robinson took offense, is identical to the payola scheme allegedly used by Gordy and the other Motown executives, according to sworn court depositions from Motown executive Michael Lushka, offered during the litigation between the label and its chief creative team, Holland–Dozier–Holland. Several references are also made to Mafia-backed loans Curtis uses to fund Rainbow Records. Gordy was highly suspected, though never proven, to have used Mafia-backed loans to finance Motown during its later years.
References
External links
Dreamgirls Blu-ray Disc review
Dreamgirls
2000s historical romance films
2000s musical drama films
2000s romantic drama films
2000s romantic musical films
2006 films
Adultery in films
African-American drama films
African-American musical films
American films
American films based on plays
American historical romance films
American musical drama films
American romantic drama films
American romantic musical films
BAFTA winners (films)
Best Musical or Comedy Picture Golden Globe winners
DreamWorks Pictures films
2000s English-language films
Films à clef
Films about musical groups
Films about race and ethnicity
Films based on musicals
Films directed by Bill Condon
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe winning performance
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award-winning performance
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe-winning performance
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Films set in the 1960s
Films set in the 1970s
Films set in Detroit
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2006 drama films | false | [
"Samantha Logic (born October 22, 1992) is an American basketball player. She also played for the San Antonio Stars of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). She played college basketball at the University of Iowa. A 5'9\" point guard from Racine, Wisconsin, Logic played for the Hawkeyes from 2011 to 2015, earning All-American honors in her senior season. Logic was named a third-team All-American by the Associated Press and a first-team All-American by the United States Basketball Writers Association after averaging 13.4 points, 7.0 rebounds and 8.1 assists per game. Logic also received the Senior CLASS Award for the 2014–15 season.\n\nIowa statistics\n\nSource\n\nWNBA Draft 2015 \nLogic was one of 12 players selected by the WNBA to attend the 2015 draft. She is the first player from the University of Iowa to be invited to attend the event. Logic was chosen by the Atlanta dream as the 10th choice in the 2015 WNBA Draft. She was subsequently traded to the San Antonio Stars for a 2016 second round draft pick.\n\nSee also\n List of NCAA Division I basketball players with 5 or more career triple-doubles\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nIowa Hawkeyes bio\n\n1992 births\nLiving people\nAll-American college women's basketball players\nAmerican women's basketball players\nAtlanta Dream draft picks\nAtlanta Dream players\nBasketball players from Wisconsin\nIowa Hawkeyes women's basketball players\nMcDonald's High School All-Americans\nParade High School All-Americans (girls' basketball)\nPoint guards\nSan Antonio Stars players\nSportspeople from Racine, Wisconsin",
"This is a list of dignitaries at the state memorial service of Nelson Mandela, the former President of South Africa. Mr Mandela died on 5 December 2013. Many heads of state and government attended the state memorial service on Tuesday, 10 December 2013 at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg. The memorial service was one of the largest gatherings of world leaders. It was also the largest funeral in the history of South Africa, and the African continent itself.\n\nTwo UN Secretary Generals, both presidents of EU (Council and Commission), two French presidents, four United States Presidents and four UK Prime Ministers attended the funeral service. In total, more than 500 VIP dignitaries from 19 supranational organizations and approximately 190 countries had arrived for this event. Some of the dignitaries later attend the Burial ceremony on 15 December 2013 at Mandela's hometown, Qunu.\n\nThis memorial event is the largest in the world in terms of foreign leaders, surpassing the funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005.\n\nDignitaries\n\nHeads of state and government\n\nOther royalty\n\nGovernment representatives\n\nInternational organisations\n\nFormer heads of state\n\nOther guests\n\nThis section is a partial list of notable guests who attended the memorial service.\nBono, Irish U2 vocalist and activist\nRichard Branson, British businessman, founder of Virgin Group\nLaura Bush, Former First Lady, spouse of former US President George W. Bush\nNaomi Campbell, British model\nChelsea Clinton, daughter of former US President Bill Clinton\nHillary Clinton, former US Secretary of State (Governmental representatives).\nPeter Gabriel, British singer\nBill Gates, American businessman, founder and president of Microsoft\nJesse Jackson, American civil rights activist, minister, and politician\nHenry Kissinger, former US Secretary of State (Governmental representatives).\nAnnie Lennox, British singer-songwriter\nFrancois Pienaar, South African rugby player\nCharlize Theron, South African-American actress\nDesmond Tutu, South African Anglican Archbishop\nOprah Winfrey, American television personality and actress\n\nNon-attendance\n: Former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who frequently attended funerals of world leaders during his term of office, did not attend. Germany's former leaders did not usually attend world leaders's funeral.\n: Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was expected to attend the service but had to cancel his visit due to the visit of his Russian counterpart in Tehran. \n: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu did not attend the memorial service citing financial and security reasons.\n: The ROC Ministry of Foreign Affairs decided to not send a delegation because of the time constraint. Instead, Foreign Minister David Lin personally visited the Liaison Office of South Africa to convey condolences over the death of Mandela. In addition, the Representative of the ROC to South Africa visited the Union Buildings in Pretoria to view the remains of Mandela and pay respects on behalf of the ROC government.\n: Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra was expected to attend but declined due to ongoing protests against her government.\n: The 14th Dalai Lama was expected to attend the service but was denied a visa by the South African government.\n: Pope Francis was sent an invitation to attend either the memorial or state funeral. He did not attend either because it was against the tradition that Popes do not usually attend funerals of world leaders.\n: President Trương Tấn Sang did not attend the service due to the time constraint. The country was represented by Mr Đào Việt Trung, Chairman of the Presidential Office.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n \n \n\nNelson Mandela"
] |
[
"Dreamgirls (film)",
"Premieres, road show engagements, and general releases",
"What was the premier date?",
"Dreamgirls premiered on December 4, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City,",
"Did all of the stars attend?",
"I don't know."
] | C_867af2e657024cc0910e36deae8d265f_0 | Did anything of interest happen at the premier? | 3 | Did anything of interest happen at the premier of Dreamgirls? | Dreamgirls (film) | Dreamgirls premiered on December 4, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, where it received a standing ovation. The film's Los Angeles premiere was held on December 11 at the Wilshire Theater in Beverly Hills. Similar to the releases of older Hollywood musicals such as The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, and West Side Story, Dreamgirls debuted with three special ten-day roadshow engagements beginning on December 15, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, the Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles, and the AMC Metreon 15 in San Francisco. Tickets for the reserved seats were $25 each; the premium price included a forty-eight page full-color program and a limited-print lithograph. This release made Dreamgirls the first American feature film to have a roadshow release since Man of La Mancha in 1972. Dreamgirls earned a total of $851,664 from the roadshow engagements, playing to sold-out houses on the weekends. The film's national release, at regular prices, began on December 25. Outside of the U.S., Dreamgirls opened in Australia on January 18, and in the United Kingdom on February 2. Releases in other countries began on various dates between January and early March. Dreamgirls eventually grossed $103 million in North America, and almost $155 million worldwide. DreamWorks Home Entertainment released Dreamgirls to home video on May 1, 2007 in DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray formats. The DVD version was issued in two editions: a one-disc standard version and a two-disc "Showstopper Edition". The two-disc version also included a feature-length production documentary, production featurettes, screen tests, animatics, and other previsualization materials and artwork. Both DVD versions featured alternate and extended versions of the musical numbers from the film as extras, including the "Effie, Sing My Song" scene deleted during previews. Both the Blu-ray and HD DVD versions were issued in two-disc formats. Dreamgirls was the first DreamWorks film to be issued in a high definition home entertainment format. As of 2017, total domestic video sales to date are at $95.1 million. A "Director's Extended Edition" of Dreamgirls was released on Blu-Ray and Digital HD on October 10, 2017 by Paramount Home Media Distribution. This version, based on edits done for preview screenings before the film's release, runs ten minutes longer than the theatrical version and features longer musical numbers (including songs and verses cut during previews) and additional scenes. CANNOTANSWER | The film's Los Angeles premiere was held on December 11 at the Wilshire Theater in Beverly Hills. | Dreamgirls is a 2006 American musical drama film written and directed by Bill Condon and jointly produced and released by DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures. Adapted from the 1981 Broadway musical of the same name, Dreamgirls is a film à clef, a work of fiction taking strong inspiration from the history of the Motown record label and one of its acts, The Supremes. The story follows the history and evolution of American R&B music during the 1960s and 1970s through the eyes of a Detroit girl group known as "The Dreams" and their manipulative record executive.
The film adaptation stars Jamie Foxx, Beyoncé Knowles and Eddie Murphy, and also features Jennifer Hudson, Danny Glover, Anika Noni Rose and Keith Robinson. In addition to the original compositions by composer Henry Krieger and lyricist/librettist Tom Eyen, four new songs, composed by Krieger with various lyricists, were added for the film. The film marks the acting debut of Hudson, a former American Idol contestant.
Dreamgirls debuted in four special road show engagements starting on December 15, 2006, before its nationwide release on December 25, 2006. With a production budget of $80 million, Dreamgirls is one of the most expensive films to feature a predominant African-American starring cast in American film history. Upon its release, the film garnered positive reviews from critics, who particularly praised Condon's direction, the soundtrack, costume design, production design, and performances of the cast (in particular of Hudson, which many deemed a standout performance). The film was a commercial success, grossing over $155 million at the international box office. At the 79th Academy Awards, the film received a leading eight nominations, winning Best Supporting Actress (for Hudson), and Best Sound Mixing. At the 64th Golden Globe Awards, it won three awards, including for the Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.
Plot
In 1962 Detroit, Michigan, young car salesman Curtis Taylor Jr. meets a Black girl group known as "The Dreamettes", which consists of lead singer Effie White and backup singers Deena Jones and Lorrell Robinson, at an R&B amateur talent show at the Detroit Theatre. Presenting himself as their new manager, he hires the girls as backup singers for Chitlin' Circuit R&B star Jimmy "Thunder" Early.
Curtis soon starts his own record label, Rainbow Records, out of his Detroit car dealership, and appoints Effie's brother, C.C., as his head songwriter. When their first single "Cadillac Car" fails after a white pop group named Dave and the Sweethearts releases a cover version, Curtis, C.C., and their producer Wayne turn to payola to make "Jimmy Early & The Dreamettes" mainstream pop stars. Offstage, Effie falls in love with Curtis while the married Jimmy does likewise with Lorrell.
Jimmy's manager, Marty Madison, grows weary of Curtis' plans to make his client more pop-friendly and walks out. When Jimmy bombs in front of an all-white Miami Beach supper club audience, Curtis sends Jimmy out on the road alone, keeping The Dreamettes behind to headline in his place. Feeling that Effie's figure and distinctive, soulful voice will not attract white audiences, Curtis appoints the slimmer, more conventionally attractive Deena (who has a more basic, generic, and marketable voice) as the new lead singer, renaming the group "The Dreams".
Aided by new songs and a new image, Curtis and C.C. transform The Dreams into a top-selling mainstream pop group. By 1965, however, Effie begins acting out, particularly when Curtis' affections also turn towards Deena. Curtis eventually drops Effie, hiring his secretary Michelle Morris to replace her beginning with their 1966 New Year's Eve debut in Las Vegas as "Deena Jones & the Dreams." Though Effie defiantly and desperately appeals to Curtis, he, C.C., and The Dreams abandon her, forging ahead to stardom.
By 1973, Effie has become an impoverished welfare mother living in Detroit with her daughter Magic. To restart her music career, she hires Marty as her manager and begins performing at a local club. Meanwhile, with The Dreams superstars and Rainbow, having moved to Los Angeles, now the biggest pop business in the country, Curtis attempts to produce a film about Cleopatra starring an unwilling Deena, now his wife.
The following year, Jimmy, who has descended into drug addiction due to Curtis' preoccupation with Deena, along with the rejection of the charity single he recorded, does an improvised rap and drops his pants during Rainbow Records' tenth-anniversary television special. Curtis promptly drops him from the label and Lorrell ends their affair. Sometime later, C.C., who feels Curtis is undermining the artistic merit of his songs by making them into disco music, quits the label, only for everyone to then learn of Jimmy's unexpected death from a heroin overdose, which greatly upsets Lorrell.
Disillusioned by Jimmy's death and Curtis' cold reaction to the news, C.C. travels to Detroit and reconciles with Effie, for whom he writes and produces a comeback single, "One Night Only". Just as it begins gaining local radio play, Curtis uses payola to force radio stations to play The Dreams' disco cover of the song. The plan falls apart, however, when Deena, angry over how Curtis controls her career, discovers his schemes and contacts Effie, who arrives in Los Angeles with C.C., Marty, and a lawyer.
Deena and Effie reconcile, with Effie telling Deena that Curtis is Magic's father, while Curtis agrees to nationally distribute Effie's record to avoid being reported to the FBI. Inspired by Effie's victory and realizing Curtis' true character, Deena leaves him.
By 1975, The Dreams give a farewell performance at the Detroit Theater, inviting Effie for the final song. Towards the end, Curtis notices Magic in the front row, realizing she is his daughter.
Cast
Jennifer Hudson as Effie White; inspired by Supremes member Florence Ballard, Effie is a talented yet temperamental singer who suffers when Curtis, the man she loves, replaces her as lead singer of the Dreams and his love interest, and later drops her altogether. With the help of Jimmy's old manager Marty, Effie begins to resurrect her career a decade later, while raising her daughter Magic, the offspring of her union with Curtis.
Jamie Foxx as Curtis Taylor, Jr.; based upon Motown founder Berry Gordy, Jr., Curtis is a slick Cadillac dealer-turned-record executive who founds the Rainbow Records label and shows ruthless ambition in his quest to make his black artists household names with white audiences. At first romantically involved with Effie, Curtis takes a professional and personal interest in Deena after appointing her lead singer of the Dreams in Effie's place.
Beyoncé Knowles-Carter as Deena Jones; based upon Motown star and lead Supremes member Diana Ross and two former Supremes members Jean Terrell and Scherrie Payne, Deena is a very shy young woman who becomes a star after Curtis makes her lead singer of the Dreams. This, as well as her romantic involvement and later marriage to Curtis, draw Effie's ire, though Deena realizes over time she is a puppet for her controlling husband.
Anika Noni Rose as Lorrell Robinson; inspired by Supremes member Mary Wilson, is a good-natured background singer with the Dreams who falls deeply in love with the married Jimmy Early and becomes his mistress.
Keith Robinson as Clarence Conrad (C.C.) White; inspired by Motown vice president, artist, producer, and songwriter Smokey Robinson, Effie's soft-spoken younger brother serves as the main songwriter for first the Dreams and later the entire Rainbow roster.
Eddie Murphy as James (Jimmy) "Thunder" Early; inspired by R&B/soul singers such as James Brown, Jackie Wilson and Marvin Gaye, is a raucous performer on the Rainbow label engaged in an adulterous affair with Dreams member Lorrell. Curtis attempts to repackage Early as a pop-friendly balladeer. Jimmy's stardom fades as the Dreams' stardom rises, and as a result – he falls into depression (which he copes with through drug abuse).
Danny Glover as Marty Madison, Jimmy's original manager before Curtis steps into the picture; Marty serves as both counsel and confidant to Jimmy, and later to Effie as well.
Sharon Leal as Michelle Morris; based upon Supremes members Cindy Birdsong and Susaye Greene, Curtis' secretary who replaces Effie in the Dreams and begins dating C.C.
Hinton Battle as Wayne, a salesman at Curtis' Cadillac dealership who becomes Rainbow's first record producer and Curtis' henchman.
Yvette Cason as May, Deena's mother
Loretta Devine as Jazz Singer. Devine originated the role of Lorrell in the 1981 stage production.
Dawnn Lewis as Melba Early, James' wife
John Lithgow as Jerry Harris, a film producer looking to cast Deena
John Krasinski as Sam Walsh, Jerry Harris' screenwriter/film director
Jaleel White as Talent Booker at the Detroit Theatre talent show
Cleo King as Janice
Robert Cicchini as Nicky Cassaro
Yvette Nicole Brown as Curtis' Secretary
Mariah I. Wilson as Magic White, Effie's daughter
Paul Kirby as Promo Film Narrator (voice)
Musical numbers
Production
Pre-production
In the 1980s and 1990s, several attempts were made to produce a film adaptation of Dreamgirls, a Broadway musical loosely based upon the story of The Supremes and Motown Records, which won six Tony Awards in 1982. David Geffen, the stage musical's co-financier, retained the film rights to Dreamgirls and turned down many offers to adapt the story for the screen. He cited a need to preserve the integrity of Dreamgirls stage director Michael Bennett's work after his death in 1987. That same year, Geffen, who ran his Warner Bros.-associated Geffen Pictures film production company at the time, began talks with Broadway lyricist and producer Howard Ashman to adapt it as a star vehicle for Whitney Houston, who was to portray Deena. The production ran into problems when Houston wanted to sing both Deena and Effie's songs (particularly "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going"), and the film was eventually abandoned.
When Geffen co-founded DreamWorks in 1994 and dissolved Geffen Pictures, the rights to Dreamgirls remained with Warner Bros. Warner planned to go ahead with the film with director Joel Schumacher and screenwriter Tina Andrews in the late 1990s, following the success of Touchstone Pictures's Tina Turner biopic What's Love Got to Do with It. Schumacher planned to have Lauryn Hill portray Deena and Kelly Price play Effie. After Warner's Frankie Lymon biopic Why Do Fools Fall in Love failed at the box office, the studio shut down development on Dreamgirls.
DreamWorks' Dreamgirls adaptation came about after the film version of the Broadway musical Chicago was a success at both the box office and the Academy Awards. Screenwriter and director Bill Condon, who wrote Chicagos screenplay, met producer Laurence Mark at a Hollywood holiday party in late 2002, where the two discussed a long-held "dream project" of Condon's – adapting Dreamgirls for the screen. The two had dinner with Geffen and successfully convinced him to allow Condon to write a screenplay for Dreamgirls. Condon did not start work on the Dreamgirls script until after making the Alfred Kinsey biographical film Kinsey (2004). After sending Geffen the first draft of his screenplay in January 2005, Condon's adaptation of Dreamgirls was greenlit.
Stage to script changes
While much of the stage musical's story remains intact, a number of significant changes were made. The Dreams' hometown—the setting for much of the action—was moved from Chicago to Detroit, the real-life hometown of The Supremes and Motown Records. The roles of many of the characters were related more closely to their real-life inspirations, following a suggestion by Geffen.
Warner Bros. had retained the film rights to Dreamgirls, and agreed to co-produce with DreamWorks. However, after casting was completed, the film was budgeted at $73 million and Warner backed out of the production. Geffen, taking the role of co-producer, brought Paramount Pictures in to co-finance and release Dreamgirls. During the course of production, Paramount's parent company, Viacom, would purchase DreamWorks, aligning the two studios under one umbrella (and giving the senior studio US distribution rights on behalf of DreamWorks). The completed film had a production budget of $75 million, making Dreamgirls the most expensive film with an all-black starring cast in cinema history.
Casting and rehearsal
Mark and Condon began pre-production with the intentions of casting Jamie Foxx and Eddie Murphy, both actors with record industry experience, as Curtis Taylor, Jr. and James "Thunder" Early, respectively. When offered the part of Curtis, Foxx initially declined because DreamWorks could not meet his salary demands. Denzel Washington, Will Smith, and Terrence Howard were among the other actors also approached to play Curtis. Murphy, on the other hand, accepted the role of Jimmy Early after being convinced to do so by DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg.
While Condon had intended to cast relatively unknown actresses as all three Dreams, R&B singer Beyoncé Knowles lobbied for the part of Deena Jones, and was cast after a successful screen test. Upon learning that Knowles and Murphy had signed on, Foxx rethought his original decision and accepted the Curtis role at DreamWorks' lower salary.
R&B star Usher was to have been cast as C.C. White, but contract negotiations failed; Usher was unable to dedicate half a year to the project. André 3000 of Outkast was also offered the role, but declined. After briefly considering R&B singer Omarion, singer/actor Keith Robinson was eventually cast in the role.
Anika Noni Rose, a Broadway veteran and a Tony Award winner, won the part of Lorrell Robinson after an extensive auditioning process. Rose, significantly shorter than most of her co-stars at five feet and two inches (157 cm), was required to wear (and dance in) four and five-inch (127 mm) heels for much of the picture, which she later stated caused her discomfort.
The most crucial casting decision involved the role of Effie White, the emotional center of the story. The filmmakers insisted on casting a relative unknown in the role, paralleling the casting of then-21-year-old Jennifer Holliday in that role for the original Broadway production. A total of 783 singing actresses auditioned for the role of Effie White, among them American Idol alumnae Fantasia Barrino and Jennifer Hudson, former Disney star Raven-Symoné, and Broadway stars Capathia Jenkins and Patina Miller. Though Barrino emerged as an early frontrunner for the part, Hudson was eventually selected to play Effie, leading Barrino to telephone Hudson and jokingly complain that Hudson "stole [Barrino's] part."
Hudson was required to gain twenty pounds for the role, which marked her debut film performance. In casting Hudson, Condon recalled that he initially was not confident he'd made the right decision, but instinctively cast Hudson after she'd auditioned several times because he "just didn't believe any of the others."
After Hudson was cast in November 2005, the Dreamgirls cast began extensive rehearsals with Condon and choreographers Fatima Robinson and Aakomon "AJ" Jones, veterans of the music video industry. Meanwhile, the music production crew began work with the actors and studio musicians recording the songs for the film. Although rehearsals ended just before Christmas 2005, Condon called Hudson back for a week of one-on-one rehearsals, to help her more fully become the "diva" character of Effie. Hudson was required to be rude and come in late both on set and off, and she and Condon went over Effie's lines and scenes throughout the week.
Loretta Devine, who played Lorrell in the original Broadway production, has a cameo as a jazz singer who performs the song "I Miss You Old Friend." Another Dreamgirls veteran present in the film is Hinton Battle, who was a summer replacement for James "Thunder" Early onstage and here portrays Curtis' aide-de-camp Wayne.
Principal photography
Principal photography began January 6, 2006 with the filming of dance footage for the first half of "Steppin' to the Bad Side," footage later deleted from the film. The film was primarily shot on soundstages at the Los Angeles Center Studios and on location in the Los Angeles area, with some second unit footage shot in Detroit, Miami, and New York City. The award-winning Broadway lighting team of Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer were brought in to create theatrical lighting techniques for the film's musical numbers.
Beyoncé Knowles elected to lose weight to give the mature Deena Jones of the 1970s a different look than the younger version of the character. By sticking to a highly publicized diet of water, lemons, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper (also known as the Master Cleanse), Knowles rapidly lost twenty pounds, which she gained back once production ended.
Shooting was completed in the early-morning hours of April 8, 2006, after four days were spent shooting Jennifer Hudson's musical number "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going", which had purposefully been saved until the end of the shoot. Originally scheduled to be shot in one day, Condon was forced to ask for extra time and money to finish shooting the "And I Am Telling You" scene, as Hudson's voice would give out after four hours of shooting the musical number, and she was unable to plausibly lip-sync while hoarse. The scene was felt by everyone involved to be pivotal to the film, as "And I Am Telling You" was Jennifer Holliday's show-stopping number in the original Broadway musical.
Music
Dreamgirls musical supervisors Randy Spendlove and Matt Sullivan hired R&B production team The Underdogs — Harvey Mason, Jr. and Damon Thomas — to restructure and rearrange the Henry Krieger/Tom Eyen Dreamgirls score so that it better reflected its proper time period, yet also reflected then-modern R&B/pop sensibilities. During post-production, composer Stephen Trask was contracted to provide additional score material for the film. Several musical numbers from the Broadway score were not included in the film version, in particular Lorrell's solo "Ain't No Party".
Four new songs were added for the film: "Love You I Do", "Patience", "Perfect World," and "Listen." All of the new songs feature music composed by original Dreamgirls stage composer Henry Krieger. With Tom Eyen having died in 1991, various lyricists were brought in by Krieger to co-author the new songs. "Love You I Do," with lyrics by Siedah Garrett, is performed in the film by Effie during a rehearsal at the Rainbow Records studio. Willie Reale wrote the lyrics for "Patience," a song performed in the film by Jimmy, Lorrell, C.C., and a gospel choir, as the characters attempt to record a message song for Jimmy. "Perfect World," also featuring lyrics by Garrett, is performed during the Rainbow 10th anniversary special sequence by Jackson 5 doppelgängers The Campbell Connection. "Listen", with additional music by Scott Cutler and Beyoncé, and lyrics by Anne Preven, is presented as a defining moment for Deena's character late in the film.
After preview screenings during the summer of 2006, several minutes worth of musical footage were deleted from the film due to negative audience reactions to the amount of music. Among this footage was one whole musical number, C.C. and Effie's sung reunion "Effie, Sing My Song", which was replaced with an alternative spoken version.
The Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture soundtrack album was released on December 5 by Music World Entertainment/Columbia Records, in both a single-disc version containing highlights and a double-disc "Deluxe Version" containing all of the film's songs. The single-disc version of the soundtrack peaked at number-one on the Billboard 200 during a slow sales week in early January 2007. "Listen" was the first official single from the soundtrack, supported by a music video featuring Beyoncé. "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" was the Dreamgirls soundtrack's second single. Though a music video with all-original footage was once planned, the video eventually released for "And I Am Telling You" comprised the entire corresponding scene in the actual film.
Release
Dreamgirls premiered on December 4, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, where it received a standing ovation. The film's Los Angeles premiere was held on December 11 at the Wilshire Theater in Beverly Hills.
Similar to the releases of older Hollywood musicals such as The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, and West Side Story, Dreamgirls debuted with three special ten-day roadshow engagements beginning on December 15, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, the Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles, and the AMC Metreon 15 in San Francisco. Tickets for the reserved seats were $25 each; the premium price included a forty-eight page full-color program and a limited-print lithograph. This release made Dreamgirls the first American feature film to have a roadshow release since Man of La Mancha in 1972. Dreamgirls earned a total of $851,664 from the roadshow engagements, playing to sold-out houses on the weekends. The film's national release, at regular prices, began on December 25. Outside of the U.S., Dreamgirls opened in Australia on January 18, and in the United Kingdom on February 2. Releases in other countries began on various dates between January and early March. Dreamgirls eventually grossed $103 million in North America, and almost $155 million worldwide.
DreamWorks Home Entertainment released Dreamgirls to home video on May 1, 2007 in DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray formats. The DVD version was issued in two editions: a one-disc standard version and a two-disc "Showstopper Edition". The two-disc version also included a feature-length production documentary, production featurettes, screen tests, animatics, and other previsualization materials and artwork. Both DVD versions featured alternative and extended versions of the musical numbers from the film as extras, including the "Effie, Sing My Song" scene deleted during previews. Both the Blu-ray and HD DVD versions were issued in two-disc formats. Dreamgirls was the first DreamWorks film to be issued in a high definition home entertainment format. , total domestic video sales to date are at $95.1 million.
A "Director's Extended Edition" of Dreamgirls was released on Blu-ray and Digital HD on October 10, 2017 by Paramount Home Media Distribution. This version, based on edits done for preview screenings before the film's release, runs ten minutes longer than the theatrical version and features longer musical numbers (including songs and verses cut during previews) and additional scenes.
Reception
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 78% based on 208 reviews, with an average rating of 7.24/10. The site's critics consensus states: "Dreamgirls simple characters and plot hardly detract from the movie's real feats: the electrifying performances and the dazzling musical numbers." Metacritic reports a weighted average score of 76 out of 100 rating, based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.
Rolling Stone's Peter Travers gave the film three and a half stars (out of four) and the number-two position on his "best of 2006" list, stating that "despite transitional bumps, Condon does Dreamgirls proud". David Rooney of Variety reported that the film featured "tremendously exciting musical sequences" and that "after The Phantom of the Opera, Rent and The Producers botched the transfer from stage to screen, Dreamgirls gets it right."
On the December 10, 2006 episode of the television show Ebert & Roeper, Richard Roeper and guest critic Aisha Tyler (filling in for Roger Ebert, who was recovering from cancer-related surgery) gave the film "two thumbs up", with Roeper's reservations that it was "a little short on heart and soul" and "deeply conventional". Roeper still enjoyed the film, noting that Jennifer Hudson's rendition of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" as the "show-stopping moment of any film of 2006" and very much enjoyed Murphy's performance as well, remarking that "people are going to love this film." Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter was less enthusiastic, stating that while the film was "a damn good commercial movie, it is not the film that will revive the musical or win over the world". Ed Gonzales of Slant magazine found the entire picture too glossy, and declared that "the film doesn't care to articulate the emotions that haunt its characters". University of Sydney academic Timothy Laurie was critical of the film's social message, noting that "the worthy receive just deserts by working even
harder for the industries that marginalise them".
Many reviews, regardless of their overall opinion of the film, cited Hudson's and Murphy's performances as standouts, with Travers proclaiming Murphy's performance of "Jimmy's Rap" as "his finest screen moment." Television host Oprah Winfrey saw the film during a November 15 press screening, and telephoned Hudson on the Oprah episode airing the next day, praising her performance as "a religious experience" and "a transcendent performance". A review for The Celebrity Cafe echoes that Hudson's voice "is like nothing we’ve heard in a long time, and her acting is a great match for that power-house sound."
Jennifer Holliday, who originated the role of Effie onstage, expressed her disappointment at not being involved in the film project in several TV, radio, and print interviews. Holliday in particular objected to the fact that her 1982 recording of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" was used in an early Dreamgirls film teaser trailer created before production began. Many of the other original Dreamgirls Broadway cast members, among them Obba Babatundé, Vondie Curtis-Hall, and Cleavant Derricks, were interviewed for a Jet magazine article in which they discussed their varying opinions of both the Dreamgirls film's script and production.
Awards and nominations
DreamWorks and Paramount began a significant awards campaign for Dreamgirls while the film was still in production. In February 2006, the press was invited on set to a special live event showcasing the making of the film, including a live performance of "Steppin' to the Bad Side" by the cast. Three months later, twenty minutes of the film — specifically, the musical sequences "Fake Your Way to the Top", "Family", "When I First Saw You", and "Dreamgirls" – were screened at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, with most of the cast and crew in attendance. The resulting positive buzz earned Dreamgirls the status of "front-runner" for the 2006 Academy Award for Best Picture and several of the other Oscars as well.
Following the success of the Cannes screening, DreamWorks and Paramount began a widespread "For Your Consideration" advertisement campaign, raising several eyebrows by demoting Jennifer Hudson to consideration for Best Supporting Actress and presenting Beyoncé Knowles as the sole Best Actress candidate, as opposed to having both compete for Best Actress awards. By contrast, the actresses who originated Hudson's and Knowles' roles on Broadway, Jennifer Holliday and Sheryl Lee Ralph, respectively, were both nominated for the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress, with Holliday winning the award. The presentation of Knowles over Hudson as the sole Best Actress candidate had interesting parallels with the film itself.
Dreamgirls received eight 2007 Academy Award nominations covering six categories, the most of any film for the year, although it was not nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, or either of the lead acting categories. The film's nominations included Best Supporting Actor (Eddie Murphy), Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson), Best Achievement in Costume Design, Best Achievement in Art Direction, Best Achievement in Sound Mixing, and three nominations for Best Song ("Listen", "Love You I Do", and "Patience"). Dreamgirls is the first live-action film to receive three nominations for Best Song; previously the Disney animated features Beauty and the Beast (1991) and The Lion King (1994) had each received three Academy Award nominations for Best Song; Enchanted (2007) has since repeated the feat.
In addition, Dreamgirls was the first film in Academy Award history to receive the highest number of nominations for the year, yet not be nominated for Best Picture. The film's failure to gain a Best Picture or Best Director nod was widely viewed by the entertainment press as a "snub" by the Academy. Some journalists registered shock, while others cited a "backlash".<ref>Felton, Robert (Feb. 28, 2007). "[http://austinweeklynews.1upsoftware.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=1101&TM=82934.76 Dreamgirls' Best Picture snub and Oscar night thud] ". Austin Weekly News. Retrieved March 11, 2007.</ref> On the other hand, director Bill Condon stated that "I think academy members just liked the other movies better" and that he believed that "we were never going to win even if we were nominated." Reports emerged of significant behind-the-scenes in-fighting between the DreamWorks and Paramount camps, in particular between DreamWorks' David Geffen and Paramount CEO Brad Grey, over decision making and credit-claiming during the Dreamgirls awards campaign.
At the Academy Awards ceremony on February 25, 2007, Dreamgirls won Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and Best Sound Mixing. As such, Hudson became one of the few actresses ever to win an Oscar for a film debut performance. In what was considered an upset, Murphy lost the Best Supporting Actor award to Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine. Knowles, Hudson, Rose, and Robinson performed a medley of the three Dreamgirls songs nominated for Best Original Song, although all three songs lost the award to "I Need to Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth.
For the 2007 Golden Globe Awards, Dreamgirls was nominated in five categories: Best Picture – Comedy or Musical, Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical (Beyoncé Knowles), Best Supporting Actor (Eddie Murphy), Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson), and Best Original Song ("Listen"). The film won the awards for Best Picture — Comedy or Musical, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress. Dreamgirls received eight NAACP Image Award nominations, winning for Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson) and Outstanding Album (the soundtrack LP). It was also named as one of the American Film Institute's top ten films of 2006.Dreamgirls also garnered Screen Actors Guild Awards for Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson) and Supporting Actor (Eddie Murphy), as well as a nomination for its ensemble cast. The film was also nominated by the Producers Guild of America for Best Picture and the Directors Guild of America for Bill Condon's directing. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts gave the film awards for Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson) and Music (Henry Krieger).
Furthermore, Dreamgirls was nominated for eleven 2007 International Press Academy Satellite Awards, and won four of the awards: Best Picture — Comedy or Musical, Best Director (Bill Condon), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Jennifer Hudson), and Best Sound (Mixing & Editing). Dreamgirls also received a record eleven Black Reel Award nominations, and won six of the awards, among them Best Film. At the 50th Grammy Awards ceremony, "Love You I Do" won the award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media. The Dreamgirls soundtrack was also nominated for the Grammy for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album.
For the opening performance at the 2007 BET Awards on June 26 of that year, Hudson performed a duet of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" with her predecessor, Jennifer Holliday. Later that night, Hudson won the BET Award for Best Actress.
In February 2022, Hudson's rendition of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" was named one of the five finalists for Oscars Cheer Moment as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' "Oscars Fan Favorite" contest.
Accolades
Related promotions and products
To give the story more exposure for the upcoming film release, DreamWorks and the licenser of the original play, The Tams-Witmark Music Library, announced that they would pay the licensing fees for all non-professional stage performances of Dreamgirls for the calendar year of 2006. DreamWorks hoped to encourage amateur productions of Dreamgirls, and familiarize a wider audience with the play. As a result, more than fifty high schools, colleges, community theaters, and other non-commercial theater entities staged productions of Dreamgirls in 2006, and DreamWorks spent up to $250,000 subsidizing the licensing.
The Dreamgirls novelization was written by African-American novelist Denene Millner, and adapts the film's official script in chapter form, along with fourteen pages of photographs from the film. The book was released on October 31, 2006. A scrapbook, entitled Dreamgirls: The Movie Musical, was released on March 27, 2007. The limited edition program guide accompanying the Dreamgirls road show release was made available for retail purchase in February. In addition, the Tonnor Doll Company released "The Dreamettes" collection, featuring dolls of the characters Deena, Lorrell, and Effie, to coincide with the release of the film.
Allusions to actual events
Aside from the overall plot of the film and elements already present in the stage musical, many direct references to The Supremes, Motown, or R&B/soul history in general are included in the film. In one scene, Effie saunters into Curtis' office and discusses Rainbow Records' latest LP, The Great March to Freedom, a spoken word album featuring speeches by Martin Luther King Jr. This LP is an authentic Motown release, issued as Gordy 906 in June 1963.Edwards, David and Callahan, Mike (1999). "Gordy Album Discography, Part 1 (1962–1981)". Retrieved Feb. 3, 2007. A later scene features Curtis and the Dreams recording in the studio, while a riot rages outside. By comparison, Motown's Hitsville U.S.A. studio remained open and active during Detroit's 12th Street Riot in July 1967.Posner, Gerald (2002). Motown: Music, Money, Sex, and Power. New York: Random House. . Pg. 173. The photo shoot montage which accompanies "When I First Saw You", as well as the subplot of Deena being forced to star in Curtis' Cleopatra film against her will, reflect both scenes from and the production of Mahogany, a 1975 Motown film starring Diana Ross and directed by Motown CEO Berry Gordy. In a snapshot, Ed Sullivan appears presenting the real Supremes on his show.
Among the more direct references are the uses of adapted Supremes album cover designs for albums recorded in the film by the Dreams. Three Supremes albums – Let the Sunshine In, Cream of the Crop, and Touch – were reworked into Deena Jones & The Dreams album designs, with the only differences in the designs being the substitution of the names and images of the Supremes with those of Deena Jones & the Dreams. Another Dreams LP seen in the film, Meet the Dreams, is represented by an album cover derived from the designs for the Supremes LPs Meet The Supremes, More Hits by The Supremes and The Supremes A' Go-Go. There is also a solo album, Just In Time, recorded by Deena Jones shown in the film, the album cover for which is based on Dionne Warwick's 1970 album, Very Dionne.
Diana Ross, long a critic of the Broadway version of Dreamgirls for what she saw as an appropriation of her life story, denied having seen the film version. On the other hand, Mary Wilson attended the film's Los Angeles premiere, later stating that Dreamgirls moved her to tears and that it was "closer to the truth than they even know".
However, Smokey Robinson was less than pleased about the film's allusions to Motown history. In a January 25, 2007 interview with NPR, Robinson expressed offense at the film's portrayal of its Berry Gordy analogue, Curtis Taylor Jr., as a "villainous character" who deals in payola and other illegal activities. He repeated these concerns in a later interview with Access Hollywood'', adding that he felt DreamWorks and Paramount owed Gordy an apology. On February 23, a week before the Oscars ceremony, DreamWorks and Paramount issued an apology to Gordy and the other Motown alumni. Gordy issued a statement shortly afterwards expressing his acceptance of the apology.
The payola scheme used in the film's script, to which Robinson took offense, is identical to the payola scheme allegedly used by Gordy and the other Motown executives, according to sworn court depositions from Motown executive Michael Lushka, offered during the litigation between the label and its chief creative team, Holland–Dozier–Holland. Several references are also made to Mafia-backed loans Curtis uses to fund Rainbow Records. Gordy was highly suspected, though never proven, to have used Mafia-backed loans to finance Motown during its later years.
References
External links
Dreamgirls Blu-ray Disc review
Dreamgirls
2000s historical romance films
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2000s romantic drama films
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2006 films
Adultery in films
African-American drama films
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American musical drama films
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2000s English-language films
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Films about race and ethnicity
Films based on musicals
Films directed by Bill Condon
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe winning performance
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2006 drama films | true | [
"\"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",
"\"Anything Could Happen\" is a song by English singer and songwriter Ellie Goulding from her second studio album, Halcyon (2012). It was released on 17 August 2012 as the album's lead single. Written and produced by Goulding and Jim Eliot of English electropop duo Kish Mauve, the song received positive reviews from music critics. \"Anything Could Happen\" peaked at number five on the UK Singles Chart. Outside the United Kingdom, \"Anything Could Happen\" peaked within the top ten of the charts in Poland, the top 20 of the charts in Australia, the Czech Republic Ireland and New Zealand and the top 50 of the charts in the United States.\n\nThe accompanying music video was directed by Floria Sigismondi and filmed in Malibu, California. The video depicts Goulding and her on-screen boyfriend getting into a car accident. \"Anything Could Happen\" was used in the Beats by Dre's #ShowYourColor campaign commercial and in the trailer for the second season of the HBO series Girls. The song has been covered by The Script, Fun and Fifth Harmony.\n\nBackground and composition\nGoulding appeared on Fearne Cotton's BBC Radio 1 show on 9 August 2012 for the premiere of the song. She told Cotton, \"I've been with this song a long time and I've had to listen to it a lot to get it just how I wanted it.\"\n\nDuring a behind-the-scenes featurette for the \"Anything Could Happen\" music video, Goulding told MTV News, \"I suppose it's one of those songs where I sort of talk about bits of my childhood, but also about my friendship with this person, and, um, I suppose it's a song of realization [...] And it's called 'Anything Could Happen,' [so] I'm hoping it will make people go out and propose to their girlfriends or go on that holiday they never ended up doing. I hope it will provoke positivity, as opposed to make people really sad.\"\n\nAccording to the sheet music published at Musicnotes.com by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, \"Anything Could Happen\" is written in the key of C major and has a moderate tempo of 103 beats per minute. Goulding's vocals span from G3 to E5 in the song.\n\nCritical reception\n\"Anything Could Happen\" received positive reviews from critics, with most praising the lyrical content and Goulding's vocals. Lewis Corner of Digital Spy gave \"Anything Could Happen\" four out of five stars, stating, \"'After the war we said we'd fight together/ I guess we thought that's what humans do,' the electro-folk starlet serenades over a booming bass synth and choppy piano, before bursting into a sky-soaring chorus that manages to keep up with her haunting, high-pitched \"ooohs\". The result is a gothic love anthem that, truth be told, we'd happily see replace 'Puppy Love' at wedding receptions for years to come.\" Entertainment Weekly commented that with \"Anything Could Happen\", Goulding \"strikes shimmery synth-pop gold again.\" Erin Thompson of the Seattle Weekly called the song \"lovely\" and \"impactful\", while commending Goulding for \"writing songs that unfold like stories\". \"Anything Could Happen\" was ranked number 84 by the Village Voices annual Pazz & Jop critics' poll.\n\nCommercial performance\n\"Anything Could Happen\" debuted at number five on the UK Singles Chart, selling 49,680 copies in its first week. The single stayed at number five the following week, selling 37,895 copies. As of August 2013, it had sold 326,836 copies in the UK.\n\nIn the United States, \"Anything Could Happen\" debuted at number 17 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart on the issue dated 8 September 2012, before rising to number three on 20 October upon its release to radio. The song entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number 75 for the week of 27 October 2012, peaking at number 47 in its tenth week on the chart. It also topped the Hot Dance Club Songs chart during the final week of 2012. The single was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on 17 January 2013, and platinum on 24 July 2013. As of January 2014, the song had sold 1,166,000 copies in the US.\n\nThe song performed moderately elsewhere, reaching number two in Poland, number 16 in the Czech Republic, Ireland and New Zealand, number 20 in Australia, number 37 in Canada and number 66 in Germany.\n\nMusic video\nThe music video for \"Anything Could Happen\" was directed by Floria Sigismondi. In an interview with Carson Daly on his 97.1 AMP Radio show on 6 August 2012, Goulding stated that the video would be filmed the following day in Malibu, California. The video revolves around a couple's car crash near a Malibu beach. \"I find myself on a rock, with no idea how I've been there\", she told Fuse. \"I've been in a car crash. I end up being a mermaid-type thing.\" She added, \"I wanted to do a big video with big effects by the ocean [...] I wanted to do something really epic.\" Goulding declined offers of a stuntwoman to help her shoot the video, and instead performed her own stunts, such as being dropped onto a roof.\n\nOn 5 September, the \"Anything Could Happen\" video debuted via Goulding's YouTube channel. The video shows Goulding in a car with her on-screen boyfriend as they observe waves crashing on a beach. Goulding is then seen waking up on the beach, singing to the song, and walking around the beach finding silver floating spheres and triangled shaped mirrors. Goulding is also seen close up crying while singing and then bleeding out of her nose. The video continues to show Goulding and the on-screen boyfriend in a car crash, meeting up again in their \"after life\" on the beach. Later, Goulding is shown looking on to the car crash from above, while observing her blood-covered boyfriend, with a big fluffy pink ball holding her up by ropes. The video ends as Goulding floats away from the crash scene.\n\nLyric video\nIn late July 2012, Goulding invited fans via Facebook to contribute to a lyric video for \"Anything Could Happen\" by submitting photos related to the song's lyrics using Instagram. The lyric video premiered on Goulding's YouTube channel on 9 August 2012.\n\nBen & Ellie Edit\nA second music video, titled the Ben & Ellie Edit, was released on Goulding's YouTube channel on 9 October 2012. This version all shot close up and cross fading into different scenes. The video begins with the text \"Ellie Goulding\", and flashes of a car driving and Goulding in multiple shots of her body. Once the song begins, Goulding starts singing, multiple shots of her being shown, close-up, side view, and bright lights, singing along.\n\nUse in media and cover versions\nGoulding is featured performing \"Anything Could Happen\" in the Beats by Dre commercial as part of their #ShowYourColor campaign, which debuted in September 2012, alongside the likes of Miami Heat player LeBron James and fellow Universal Music artists Lil Wayne and MGK.\n\nThe track was also used in the trailer for the second season of the HBO comedy-drama series Girls and in an episode of the Fox sitcom New Girl. It was also used in the trailer for the fourth season of the Network Ten comedy-drama series Offspring in Australia. The track was also used by TBS during the intro for game one of the 2012 ALDS between the Oakland Athletics and the Detroit Tigers. The song is also featured as the background music for the HTC Vive commercial, with Emily Blunt, Jennifer Garner, Michelle Yeoh and Juliette Lewis.\n\nThe song was covered in BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge by both Irish alternative rock band the Script and American indie pop band Fun on 27 November 2012 and 26 February 2013, respectively. In December 2012, the girl group Fifth Harmony performed \"Anything Could Happen\" in the semi-finals and finals on the second season of The X Factor (U.S.). Melissa Benoist, Jacob Artist and Kevin McHale covered the song in the fourteenth episode of the fourth season of the Fox series Glee, \"I Do\", aired 14 February 2013. Goulding joined Taylor Swift for a surprise performance of the song during Swift's Red Tour at Los Angeles' Staples Center on 23 August 2013. On 14 December 2013, Goulding performed \"Anything Could Happen\" on tenth series finale of The X Factor with finalist Luke Friend. The track has also been featured in the 2013 teen film, G.B.F. starring Michael J. Willett, Paul Iacono and Sasha Pieterse.\n\nNotable performances\nOn September 30, 2021 Goulding performed the song surrounded by floating cloud structures and white-clad dancers as part of the opening ceremony of Expo 2020 held under the fair's centerpiece, the Al Wasl Dome in Dubai, U.A.E.\n\nTrack listings\n\nCredits and personnel\nCredits adapted from the liner notes of Halcyon.\n\n Ellie Goulding – vocals, production\n Jim Eliot – production, drums, synths, piano, percussion, drum programming, sound effects\n London Community Gospel Choir – choir\n Sally Herbert – choir arrangement, choir conducting\n Graham Archer – choir recording engineering\n Joel M. Peters – choir recording engineering assistance\n Tom Elmhirst – mixing\n Ben Baptie – mixing assistance, additional engineering\n Naweed – mastering\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nRelease history\n\nSee also\n List of number-one dance singles of 2012 (U.S.)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n Lyrics at elliegoulding.com\n\n2012 singles\n2012 songs\nEllie Goulding songs\nInterscope Records singles\nMusic videos directed by Floria Sigismondi\nPolydor Records singles\nSongs written by Ellie Goulding\nSongs written by Jim Eliot"
] |
[
"Dreamgirls (film)",
"Premieres, road show engagements, and general releases",
"What was the premier date?",
"Dreamgirls premiered on December 4, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City,",
"Did all of the stars attend?",
"I don't know.",
"Did anything of interest happen at the premier?",
"The film's Los Angeles premiere was held on December 11 at the Wilshire Theater in Beverly Hills."
] | C_867af2e657024cc0910e36deae8d265f_0 | What was the road show? | 4 | What was the road show for Dreamgirls? | Dreamgirls (film) | Dreamgirls premiered on December 4, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, where it received a standing ovation. The film's Los Angeles premiere was held on December 11 at the Wilshire Theater in Beverly Hills. Similar to the releases of older Hollywood musicals such as The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, and West Side Story, Dreamgirls debuted with three special ten-day roadshow engagements beginning on December 15, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, the Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles, and the AMC Metreon 15 in San Francisco. Tickets for the reserved seats were $25 each; the premium price included a forty-eight page full-color program and a limited-print lithograph. This release made Dreamgirls the first American feature film to have a roadshow release since Man of La Mancha in 1972. Dreamgirls earned a total of $851,664 from the roadshow engagements, playing to sold-out houses on the weekends. The film's national release, at regular prices, began on December 25. Outside of the U.S., Dreamgirls opened in Australia on January 18, and in the United Kingdom on February 2. Releases in other countries began on various dates between January and early March. Dreamgirls eventually grossed $103 million in North America, and almost $155 million worldwide. DreamWorks Home Entertainment released Dreamgirls to home video on May 1, 2007 in DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray formats. The DVD version was issued in two editions: a one-disc standard version and a two-disc "Showstopper Edition". The two-disc version also included a feature-length production documentary, production featurettes, screen tests, animatics, and other previsualization materials and artwork. Both DVD versions featured alternate and extended versions of the musical numbers from the film as extras, including the "Effie, Sing My Song" scene deleted during previews. Both the Blu-ray and HD DVD versions were issued in two-disc formats. Dreamgirls was the first DreamWorks film to be issued in a high definition home entertainment format. As of 2017, total domestic video sales to date are at $95.1 million. A "Director's Extended Edition" of Dreamgirls was released on Blu-Ray and Digital HD on October 10, 2017 by Paramount Home Media Distribution. This version, based on edits done for preview screenings before the film's release, runs ten minutes longer than the theatrical version and features longer musical numbers (including songs and verses cut during previews) and additional scenes. CANNOTANSWER | Dreamgirls debuted with three special ten-day roadshow engagements beginning on December 15, 2006 | Dreamgirls is a 2006 American musical drama film written and directed by Bill Condon and jointly produced and released by DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures. Adapted from the 1981 Broadway musical of the same name, Dreamgirls is a film à clef, a work of fiction taking strong inspiration from the history of the Motown record label and one of its acts, The Supremes. The story follows the history and evolution of American R&B music during the 1960s and 1970s through the eyes of a Detroit girl group known as "The Dreams" and their manipulative record executive.
The film adaptation stars Jamie Foxx, Beyoncé Knowles and Eddie Murphy, and also features Jennifer Hudson, Danny Glover, Anika Noni Rose and Keith Robinson. In addition to the original compositions by composer Henry Krieger and lyricist/librettist Tom Eyen, four new songs, composed by Krieger with various lyricists, were added for the film. The film marks the acting debut of Hudson, a former American Idol contestant.
Dreamgirls debuted in four special road show engagements starting on December 15, 2006, before its nationwide release on December 25, 2006. With a production budget of $80 million, Dreamgirls is one of the most expensive films to feature a predominant African-American starring cast in American film history. Upon its release, the film garnered positive reviews from critics, who particularly praised Condon's direction, the soundtrack, costume design, production design, and performances of the cast (in particular of Hudson, which many deemed a standout performance). The film was a commercial success, grossing over $155 million at the international box office. At the 79th Academy Awards, the film received a leading eight nominations, winning Best Supporting Actress (for Hudson), and Best Sound Mixing. At the 64th Golden Globe Awards, it won three awards, including for the Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.
Plot
In 1962 Detroit, Michigan, young car salesman Curtis Taylor Jr. meets a Black girl group known as "The Dreamettes", which consists of lead singer Effie White and backup singers Deena Jones and Lorrell Robinson, at an R&B amateur talent show at the Detroit Theatre. Presenting himself as their new manager, he hires the girls as backup singers for Chitlin' Circuit R&B star Jimmy "Thunder" Early.
Curtis soon starts his own record label, Rainbow Records, out of his Detroit car dealership, and appoints Effie's brother, C.C., as his head songwriter. When their first single "Cadillac Car" fails after a white pop group named Dave and the Sweethearts releases a cover version, Curtis, C.C., and their producer Wayne turn to payola to make "Jimmy Early & The Dreamettes" mainstream pop stars. Offstage, Effie falls in love with Curtis while the married Jimmy does likewise with Lorrell.
Jimmy's manager, Marty Madison, grows weary of Curtis' plans to make his client more pop-friendly and walks out. When Jimmy bombs in front of an all-white Miami Beach supper club audience, Curtis sends Jimmy out on the road alone, keeping The Dreamettes behind to headline in his place. Feeling that Effie's figure and distinctive, soulful voice will not attract white audiences, Curtis appoints the slimmer, more conventionally attractive Deena (who has a more basic, generic, and marketable voice) as the new lead singer, renaming the group "The Dreams".
Aided by new songs and a new image, Curtis and C.C. transform The Dreams into a top-selling mainstream pop group. By 1965, however, Effie begins acting out, particularly when Curtis' affections also turn towards Deena. Curtis eventually drops Effie, hiring his secretary Michelle Morris to replace her beginning with their 1966 New Year's Eve debut in Las Vegas as "Deena Jones & the Dreams." Though Effie defiantly and desperately appeals to Curtis, he, C.C., and The Dreams abandon her, forging ahead to stardom.
By 1973, Effie has become an impoverished welfare mother living in Detroit with her daughter Magic. To restart her music career, she hires Marty as her manager and begins performing at a local club. Meanwhile, with The Dreams superstars and Rainbow, having moved to Los Angeles, now the biggest pop business in the country, Curtis attempts to produce a film about Cleopatra starring an unwilling Deena, now his wife.
The following year, Jimmy, who has descended into drug addiction due to Curtis' preoccupation with Deena, along with the rejection of the charity single he recorded, does an improvised rap and drops his pants during Rainbow Records' tenth-anniversary television special. Curtis promptly drops him from the label and Lorrell ends their affair. Sometime later, C.C., who feels Curtis is undermining the artistic merit of his songs by making them into disco music, quits the label, only for everyone to then learn of Jimmy's unexpected death from a heroin overdose, which greatly upsets Lorrell.
Disillusioned by Jimmy's death and Curtis' cold reaction to the news, C.C. travels to Detroit and reconciles with Effie, for whom he writes and produces a comeback single, "One Night Only". Just as it begins gaining local radio play, Curtis uses payola to force radio stations to play The Dreams' disco cover of the song. The plan falls apart, however, when Deena, angry over how Curtis controls her career, discovers his schemes and contacts Effie, who arrives in Los Angeles with C.C., Marty, and a lawyer.
Deena and Effie reconcile, with Effie telling Deena that Curtis is Magic's father, while Curtis agrees to nationally distribute Effie's record to avoid being reported to the FBI. Inspired by Effie's victory and realizing Curtis' true character, Deena leaves him.
By 1975, The Dreams give a farewell performance at the Detroit Theater, inviting Effie for the final song. Towards the end, Curtis notices Magic in the front row, realizing she is his daughter.
Cast
Jennifer Hudson as Effie White; inspired by Supremes member Florence Ballard, Effie is a talented yet temperamental singer who suffers when Curtis, the man she loves, replaces her as lead singer of the Dreams and his love interest, and later drops her altogether. With the help of Jimmy's old manager Marty, Effie begins to resurrect her career a decade later, while raising her daughter Magic, the offspring of her union with Curtis.
Jamie Foxx as Curtis Taylor, Jr.; based upon Motown founder Berry Gordy, Jr., Curtis is a slick Cadillac dealer-turned-record executive who founds the Rainbow Records label and shows ruthless ambition in his quest to make his black artists household names with white audiences. At first romantically involved with Effie, Curtis takes a professional and personal interest in Deena after appointing her lead singer of the Dreams in Effie's place.
Beyoncé Knowles-Carter as Deena Jones; based upon Motown star and lead Supremes member Diana Ross and two former Supremes members Jean Terrell and Scherrie Payne, Deena is a very shy young woman who becomes a star after Curtis makes her lead singer of the Dreams. This, as well as her romantic involvement and later marriage to Curtis, draw Effie's ire, though Deena realizes over time she is a puppet for her controlling husband.
Anika Noni Rose as Lorrell Robinson; inspired by Supremes member Mary Wilson, is a good-natured background singer with the Dreams who falls deeply in love with the married Jimmy Early and becomes his mistress.
Keith Robinson as Clarence Conrad (C.C.) White; inspired by Motown vice president, artist, producer, and songwriter Smokey Robinson, Effie's soft-spoken younger brother serves as the main songwriter for first the Dreams and later the entire Rainbow roster.
Eddie Murphy as James (Jimmy) "Thunder" Early; inspired by R&B/soul singers such as James Brown, Jackie Wilson and Marvin Gaye, is a raucous performer on the Rainbow label engaged in an adulterous affair with Dreams member Lorrell. Curtis attempts to repackage Early as a pop-friendly balladeer. Jimmy's stardom fades as the Dreams' stardom rises, and as a result – he falls into depression (which he copes with through drug abuse).
Danny Glover as Marty Madison, Jimmy's original manager before Curtis steps into the picture; Marty serves as both counsel and confidant to Jimmy, and later to Effie as well.
Sharon Leal as Michelle Morris; based upon Supremes members Cindy Birdsong and Susaye Greene, Curtis' secretary who replaces Effie in the Dreams and begins dating C.C.
Hinton Battle as Wayne, a salesman at Curtis' Cadillac dealership who becomes Rainbow's first record producer and Curtis' henchman.
Yvette Cason as May, Deena's mother
Loretta Devine as Jazz Singer. Devine originated the role of Lorrell in the 1981 stage production.
Dawnn Lewis as Melba Early, James' wife
John Lithgow as Jerry Harris, a film producer looking to cast Deena
John Krasinski as Sam Walsh, Jerry Harris' screenwriter/film director
Jaleel White as Talent Booker at the Detroit Theatre talent show
Cleo King as Janice
Robert Cicchini as Nicky Cassaro
Yvette Nicole Brown as Curtis' Secretary
Mariah I. Wilson as Magic White, Effie's daughter
Paul Kirby as Promo Film Narrator (voice)
Musical numbers
Production
Pre-production
In the 1980s and 1990s, several attempts were made to produce a film adaptation of Dreamgirls, a Broadway musical loosely based upon the story of The Supremes and Motown Records, which won six Tony Awards in 1982. David Geffen, the stage musical's co-financier, retained the film rights to Dreamgirls and turned down many offers to adapt the story for the screen. He cited a need to preserve the integrity of Dreamgirls stage director Michael Bennett's work after his death in 1987. That same year, Geffen, who ran his Warner Bros.-associated Geffen Pictures film production company at the time, began talks with Broadway lyricist and producer Howard Ashman to adapt it as a star vehicle for Whitney Houston, who was to portray Deena. The production ran into problems when Houston wanted to sing both Deena and Effie's songs (particularly "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going"), and the film was eventually abandoned.
When Geffen co-founded DreamWorks in 1994 and dissolved Geffen Pictures, the rights to Dreamgirls remained with Warner Bros. Warner planned to go ahead with the film with director Joel Schumacher and screenwriter Tina Andrews in the late 1990s, following the success of Touchstone Pictures's Tina Turner biopic What's Love Got to Do with It. Schumacher planned to have Lauryn Hill portray Deena and Kelly Price play Effie. After Warner's Frankie Lymon biopic Why Do Fools Fall in Love failed at the box office, the studio shut down development on Dreamgirls.
DreamWorks' Dreamgirls adaptation came about after the film version of the Broadway musical Chicago was a success at both the box office and the Academy Awards. Screenwriter and director Bill Condon, who wrote Chicagos screenplay, met producer Laurence Mark at a Hollywood holiday party in late 2002, where the two discussed a long-held "dream project" of Condon's – adapting Dreamgirls for the screen. The two had dinner with Geffen and successfully convinced him to allow Condon to write a screenplay for Dreamgirls. Condon did not start work on the Dreamgirls script until after making the Alfred Kinsey biographical film Kinsey (2004). After sending Geffen the first draft of his screenplay in January 2005, Condon's adaptation of Dreamgirls was greenlit.
Stage to script changes
While much of the stage musical's story remains intact, a number of significant changes were made. The Dreams' hometown—the setting for much of the action—was moved from Chicago to Detroit, the real-life hometown of The Supremes and Motown Records. The roles of many of the characters were related more closely to their real-life inspirations, following a suggestion by Geffen.
Warner Bros. had retained the film rights to Dreamgirls, and agreed to co-produce with DreamWorks. However, after casting was completed, the film was budgeted at $73 million and Warner backed out of the production. Geffen, taking the role of co-producer, brought Paramount Pictures in to co-finance and release Dreamgirls. During the course of production, Paramount's parent company, Viacom, would purchase DreamWorks, aligning the two studios under one umbrella (and giving the senior studio US distribution rights on behalf of DreamWorks). The completed film had a production budget of $75 million, making Dreamgirls the most expensive film with an all-black starring cast in cinema history.
Casting and rehearsal
Mark and Condon began pre-production with the intentions of casting Jamie Foxx and Eddie Murphy, both actors with record industry experience, as Curtis Taylor, Jr. and James "Thunder" Early, respectively. When offered the part of Curtis, Foxx initially declined because DreamWorks could not meet his salary demands. Denzel Washington, Will Smith, and Terrence Howard were among the other actors also approached to play Curtis. Murphy, on the other hand, accepted the role of Jimmy Early after being convinced to do so by DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg.
While Condon had intended to cast relatively unknown actresses as all three Dreams, R&B singer Beyoncé Knowles lobbied for the part of Deena Jones, and was cast after a successful screen test. Upon learning that Knowles and Murphy had signed on, Foxx rethought his original decision and accepted the Curtis role at DreamWorks' lower salary.
R&B star Usher was to have been cast as C.C. White, but contract negotiations failed; Usher was unable to dedicate half a year to the project. André 3000 of Outkast was also offered the role, but declined. After briefly considering R&B singer Omarion, singer/actor Keith Robinson was eventually cast in the role.
Anika Noni Rose, a Broadway veteran and a Tony Award winner, won the part of Lorrell Robinson after an extensive auditioning process. Rose, significantly shorter than most of her co-stars at five feet and two inches (157 cm), was required to wear (and dance in) four and five-inch (127 mm) heels for much of the picture, which she later stated caused her discomfort.
The most crucial casting decision involved the role of Effie White, the emotional center of the story. The filmmakers insisted on casting a relative unknown in the role, paralleling the casting of then-21-year-old Jennifer Holliday in that role for the original Broadway production. A total of 783 singing actresses auditioned for the role of Effie White, among them American Idol alumnae Fantasia Barrino and Jennifer Hudson, former Disney star Raven-Symoné, and Broadway stars Capathia Jenkins and Patina Miller. Though Barrino emerged as an early frontrunner for the part, Hudson was eventually selected to play Effie, leading Barrino to telephone Hudson and jokingly complain that Hudson "stole [Barrino's] part."
Hudson was required to gain twenty pounds for the role, which marked her debut film performance. In casting Hudson, Condon recalled that he initially was not confident he'd made the right decision, but instinctively cast Hudson after she'd auditioned several times because he "just didn't believe any of the others."
After Hudson was cast in November 2005, the Dreamgirls cast began extensive rehearsals with Condon and choreographers Fatima Robinson and Aakomon "AJ" Jones, veterans of the music video industry. Meanwhile, the music production crew began work with the actors and studio musicians recording the songs for the film. Although rehearsals ended just before Christmas 2005, Condon called Hudson back for a week of one-on-one rehearsals, to help her more fully become the "diva" character of Effie. Hudson was required to be rude and come in late both on set and off, and she and Condon went over Effie's lines and scenes throughout the week.
Loretta Devine, who played Lorrell in the original Broadway production, has a cameo as a jazz singer who performs the song "I Miss You Old Friend." Another Dreamgirls veteran present in the film is Hinton Battle, who was a summer replacement for James "Thunder" Early onstage and here portrays Curtis' aide-de-camp Wayne.
Principal photography
Principal photography began January 6, 2006 with the filming of dance footage for the first half of "Steppin' to the Bad Side," footage later deleted from the film. The film was primarily shot on soundstages at the Los Angeles Center Studios and on location in the Los Angeles area, with some second unit footage shot in Detroit, Miami, and New York City. The award-winning Broadway lighting team of Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer were brought in to create theatrical lighting techniques for the film's musical numbers.
Beyoncé Knowles elected to lose weight to give the mature Deena Jones of the 1970s a different look than the younger version of the character. By sticking to a highly publicized diet of water, lemons, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper (also known as the Master Cleanse), Knowles rapidly lost twenty pounds, which she gained back once production ended.
Shooting was completed in the early-morning hours of April 8, 2006, after four days were spent shooting Jennifer Hudson's musical number "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going", which had purposefully been saved until the end of the shoot. Originally scheduled to be shot in one day, Condon was forced to ask for extra time and money to finish shooting the "And I Am Telling You" scene, as Hudson's voice would give out after four hours of shooting the musical number, and she was unable to plausibly lip-sync while hoarse. The scene was felt by everyone involved to be pivotal to the film, as "And I Am Telling You" was Jennifer Holliday's show-stopping number in the original Broadway musical.
Music
Dreamgirls musical supervisors Randy Spendlove and Matt Sullivan hired R&B production team The Underdogs — Harvey Mason, Jr. and Damon Thomas — to restructure and rearrange the Henry Krieger/Tom Eyen Dreamgirls score so that it better reflected its proper time period, yet also reflected then-modern R&B/pop sensibilities. During post-production, composer Stephen Trask was contracted to provide additional score material for the film. Several musical numbers from the Broadway score were not included in the film version, in particular Lorrell's solo "Ain't No Party".
Four new songs were added for the film: "Love You I Do", "Patience", "Perfect World," and "Listen." All of the new songs feature music composed by original Dreamgirls stage composer Henry Krieger. With Tom Eyen having died in 1991, various lyricists were brought in by Krieger to co-author the new songs. "Love You I Do," with lyrics by Siedah Garrett, is performed in the film by Effie during a rehearsal at the Rainbow Records studio. Willie Reale wrote the lyrics for "Patience," a song performed in the film by Jimmy, Lorrell, C.C., and a gospel choir, as the characters attempt to record a message song for Jimmy. "Perfect World," also featuring lyrics by Garrett, is performed during the Rainbow 10th anniversary special sequence by Jackson 5 doppelgängers The Campbell Connection. "Listen", with additional music by Scott Cutler and Beyoncé, and lyrics by Anne Preven, is presented as a defining moment for Deena's character late in the film.
After preview screenings during the summer of 2006, several minutes worth of musical footage were deleted from the film due to negative audience reactions to the amount of music. Among this footage was one whole musical number, C.C. and Effie's sung reunion "Effie, Sing My Song", which was replaced with an alternative spoken version.
The Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture soundtrack album was released on December 5 by Music World Entertainment/Columbia Records, in both a single-disc version containing highlights and a double-disc "Deluxe Version" containing all of the film's songs. The single-disc version of the soundtrack peaked at number-one on the Billboard 200 during a slow sales week in early January 2007. "Listen" was the first official single from the soundtrack, supported by a music video featuring Beyoncé. "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" was the Dreamgirls soundtrack's second single. Though a music video with all-original footage was once planned, the video eventually released for "And I Am Telling You" comprised the entire corresponding scene in the actual film.
Release
Dreamgirls premiered on December 4, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, where it received a standing ovation. The film's Los Angeles premiere was held on December 11 at the Wilshire Theater in Beverly Hills.
Similar to the releases of older Hollywood musicals such as The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, and West Side Story, Dreamgirls debuted with three special ten-day roadshow engagements beginning on December 15, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, the Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles, and the AMC Metreon 15 in San Francisco. Tickets for the reserved seats were $25 each; the premium price included a forty-eight page full-color program and a limited-print lithograph. This release made Dreamgirls the first American feature film to have a roadshow release since Man of La Mancha in 1972. Dreamgirls earned a total of $851,664 from the roadshow engagements, playing to sold-out houses on the weekends. The film's national release, at regular prices, began on December 25. Outside of the U.S., Dreamgirls opened in Australia on January 18, and in the United Kingdom on February 2. Releases in other countries began on various dates between January and early March. Dreamgirls eventually grossed $103 million in North America, and almost $155 million worldwide.
DreamWorks Home Entertainment released Dreamgirls to home video on May 1, 2007 in DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray formats. The DVD version was issued in two editions: a one-disc standard version and a two-disc "Showstopper Edition". The two-disc version also included a feature-length production documentary, production featurettes, screen tests, animatics, and other previsualization materials and artwork. Both DVD versions featured alternative and extended versions of the musical numbers from the film as extras, including the "Effie, Sing My Song" scene deleted during previews. Both the Blu-ray and HD DVD versions were issued in two-disc formats. Dreamgirls was the first DreamWorks film to be issued in a high definition home entertainment format. , total domestic video sales to date are at $95.1 million.
A "Director's Extended Edition" of Dreamgirls was released on Blu-ray and Digital HD on October 10, 2017 by Paramount Home Media Distribution. This version, based on edits done for preview screenings before the film's release, runs ten minutes longer than the theatrical version and features longer musical numbers (including songs and verses cut during previews) and additional scenes.
Reception
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 78% based on 208 reviews, with an average rating of 7.24/10. The site's critics consensus states: "Dreamgirls simple characters and plot hardly detract from the movie's real feats: the electrifying performances and the dazzling musical numbers." Metacritic reports a weighted average score of 76 out of 100 rating, based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.
Rolling Stone's Peter Travers gave the film three and a half stars (out of four) and the number-two position on his "best of 2006" list, stating that "despite transitional bumps, Condon does Dreamgirls proud". David Rooney of Variety reported that the film featured "tremendously exciting musical sequences" and that "after The Phantom of the Opera, Rent and The Producers botched the transfer from stage to screen, Dreamgirls gets it right."
On the December 10, 2006 episode of the television show Ebert & Roeper, Richard Roeper and guest critic Aisha Tyler (filling in for Roger Ebert, who was recovering from cancer-related surgery) gave the film "two thumbs up", with Roeper's reservations that it was "a little short on heart and soul" and "deeply conventional". Roeper still enjoyed the film, noting that Jennifer Hudson's rendition of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" as the "show-stopping moment of any film of 2006" and very much enjoyed Murphy's performance as well, remarking that "people are going to love this film." Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter was less enthusiastic, stating that while the film was "a damn good commercial movie, it is not the film that will revive the musical or win over the world". Ed Gonzales of Slant magazine found the entire picture too glossy, and declared that "the film doesn't care to articulate the emotions that haunt its characters". University of Sydney academic Timothy Laurie was critical of the film's social message, noting that "the worthy receive just deserts by working even
harder for the industries that marginalise them".
Many reviews, regardless of their overall opinion of the film, cited Hudson's and Murphy's performances as standouts, with Travers proclaiming Murphy's performance of "Jimmy's Rap" as "his finest screen moment." Television host Oprah Winfrey saw the film during a November 15 press screening, and telephoned Hudson on the Oprah episode airing the next day, praising her performance as "a religious experience" and "a transcendent performance". A review for The Celebrity Cafe echoes that Hudson's voice "is like nothing we’ve heard in a long time, and her acting is a great match for that power-house sound."
Jennifer Holliday, who originated the role of Effie onstage, expressed her disappointment at not being involved in the film project in several TV, radio, and print interviews. Holliday in particular objected to the fact that her 1982 recording of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" was used in an early Dreamgirls film teaser trailer created before production began. Many of the other original Dreamgirls Broadway cast members, among them Obba Babatundé, Vondie Curtis-Hall, and Cleavant Derricks, were interviewed for a Jet magazine article in which they discussed their varying opinions of both the Dreamgirls film's script and production.
Awards and nominations
DreamWorks and Paramount began a significant awards campaign for Dreamgirls while the film was still in production. In February 2006, the press was invited on set to a special live event showcasing the making of the film, including a live performance of "Steppin' to the Bad Side" by the cast. Three months later, twenty minutes of the film — specifically, the musical sequences "Fake Your Way to the Top", "Family", "When I First Saw You", and "Dreamgirls" – were screened at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, with most of the cast and crew in attendance. The resulting positive buzz earned Dreamgirls the status of "front-runner" for the 2006 Academy Award for Best Picture and several of the other Oscars as well.
Following the success of the Cannes screening, DreamWorks and Paramount began a widespread "For Your Consideration" advertisement campaign, raising several eyebrows by demoting Jennifer Hudson to consideration for Best Supporting Actress and presenting Beyoncé Knowles as the sole Best Actress candidate, as opposed to having both compete for Best Actress awards. By contrast, the actresses who originated Hudson's and Knowles' roles on Broadway, Jennifer Holliday and Sheryl Lee Ralph, respectively, were both nominated for the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress, with Holliday winning the award. The presentation of Knowles over Hudson as the sole Best Actress candidate had interesting parallels with the film itself.
Dreamgirls received eight 2007 Academy Award nominations covering six categories, the most of any film for the year, although it was not nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, or either of the lead acting categories. The film's nominations included Best Supporting Actor (Eddie Murphy), Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson), Best Achievement in Costume Design, Best Achievement in Art Direction, Best Achievement in Sound Mixing, and three nominations for Best Song ("Listen", "Love You I Do", and "Patience"). Dreamgirls is the first live-action film to receive three nominations for Best Song; previously the Disney animated features Beauty and the Beast (1991) and The Lion King (1994) had each received three Academy Award nominations for Best Song; Enchanted (2007) has since repeated the feat.
In addition, Dreamgirls was the first film in Academy Award history to receive the highest number of nominations for the year, yet not be nominated for Best Picture. The film's failure to gain a Best Picture or Best Director nod was widely viewed by the entertainment press as a "snub" by the Academy. Some journalists registered shock, while others cited a "backlash".<ref>Felton, Robert (Feb. 28, 2007). "[http://austinweeklynews.1upsoftware.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=1101&TM=82934.76 Dreamgirls' Best Picture snub and Oscar night thud] ". Austin Weekly News. Retrieved March 11, 2007.</ref> On the other hand, director Bill Condon stated that "I think academy members just liked the other movies better" and that he believed that "we were never going to win even if we were nominated." Reports emerged of significant behind-the-scenes in-fighting between the DreamWorks and Paramount camps, in particular between DreamWorks' David Geffen and Paramount CEO Brad Grey, over decision making and credit-claiming during the Dreamgirls awards campaign.
At the Academy Awards ceremony on February 25, 2007, Dreamgirls won Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and Best Sound Mixing. As such, Hudson became one of the few actresses ever to win an Oscar for a film debut performance. In what was considered an upset, Murphy lost the Best Supporting Actor award to Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine. Knowles, Hudson, Rose, and Robinson performed a medley of the three Dreamgirls songs nominated for Best Original Song, although all three songs lost the award to "I Need to Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth.
For the 2007 Golden Globe Awards, Dreamgirls was nominated in five categories: Best Picture – Comedy or Musical, Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical (Beyoncé Knowles), Best Supporting Actor (Eddie Murphy), Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson), and Best Original Song ("Listen"). The film won the awards for Best Picture — Comedy or Musical, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress. Dreamgirls received eight NAACP Image Award nominations, winning for Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson) and Outstanding Album (the soundtrack LP). It was also named as one of the American Film Institute's top ten films of 2006.Dreamgirls also garnered Screen Actors Guild Awards for Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson) and Supporting Actor (Eddie Murphy), as well as a nomination for its ensemble cast. The film was also nominated by the Producers Guild of America for Best Picture and the Directors Guild of America for Bill Condon's directing. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts gave the film awards for Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson) and Music (Henry Krieger).
Furthermore, Dreamgirls was nominated for eleven 2007 International Press Academy Satellite Awards, and won four of the awards: Best Picture — Comedy or Musical, Best Director (Bill Condon), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Jennifer Hudson), and Best Sound (Mixing & Editing). Dreamgirls also received a record eleven Black Reel Award nominations, and won six of the awards, among them Best Film. At the 50th Grammy Awards ceremony, "Love You I Do" won the award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media. The Dreamgirls soundtrack was also nominated for the Grammy for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album.
For the opening performance at the 2007 BET Awards on June 26 of that year, Hudson performed a duet of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" with her predecessor, Jennifer Holliday. Later that night, Hudson won the BET Award for Best Actress.
In February 2022, Hudson's rendition of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" was named one of the five finalists for Oscars Cheer Moment as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' "Oscars Fan Favorite" contest.
Accolades
Related promotions and products
To give the story more exposure for the upcoming film release, DreamWorks and the licenser of the original play, The Tams-Witmark Music Library, announced that they would pay the licensing fees for all non-professional stage performances of Dreamgirls for the calendar year of 2006. DreamWorks hoped to encourage amateur productions of Dreamgirls, and familiarize a wider audience with the play. As a result, more than fifty high schools, colleges, community theaters, and other non-commercial theater entities staged productions of Dreamgirls in 2006, and DreamWorks spent up to $250,000 subsidizing the licensing.
The Dreamgirls novelization was written by African-American novelist Denene Millner, and adapts the film's official script in chapter form, along with fourteen pages of photographs from the film. The book was released on October 31, 2006. A scrapbook, entitled Dreamgirls: The Movie Musical, was released on March 27, 2007. The limited edition program guide accompanying the Dreamgirls road show release was made available for retail purchase in February. In addition, the Tonnor Doll Company released "The Dreamettes" collection, featuring dolls of the characters Deena, Lorrell, and Effie, to coincide with the release of the film.
Allusions to actual events
Aside from the overall plot of the film and elements already present in the stage musical, many direct references to The Supremes, Motown, or R&B/soul history in general are included in the film. In one scene, Effie saunters into Curtis' office and discusses Rainbow Records' latest LP, The Great March to Freedom, a spoken word album featuring speeches by Martin Luther King Jr. This LP is an authentic Motown release, issued as Gordy 906 in June 1963.Edwards, David and Callahan, Mike (1999). "Gordy Album Discography, Part 1 (1962–1981)". Retrieved Feb. 3, 2007. A later scene features Curtis and the Dreams recording in the studio, while a riot rages outside. By comparison, Motown's Hitsville U.S.A. studio remained open and active during Detroit's 12th Street Riot in July 1967.Posner, Gerald (2002). Motown: Music, Money, Sex, and Power. New York: Random House. . Pg. 173. The photo shoot montage which accompanies "When I First Saw You", as well as the subplot of Deena being forced to star in Curtis' Cleopatra film against her will, reflect both scenes from and the production of Mahogany, a 1975 Motown film starring Diana Ross and directed by Motown CEO Berry Gordy. In a snapshot, Ed Sullivan appears presenting the real Supremes on his show.
Among the more direct references are the uses of adapted Supremes album cover designs for albums recorded in the film by the Dreams. Three Supremes albums – Let the Sunshine In, Cream of the Crop, and Touch – were reworked into Deena Jones & The Dreams album designs, with the only differences in the designs being the substitution of the names and images of the Supremes with those of Deena Jones & the Dreams. Another Dreams LP seen in the film, Meet the Dreams, is represented by an album cover derived from the designs for the Supremes LPs Meet The Supremes, More Hits by The Supremes and The Supremes A' Go-Go. There is also a solo album, Just In Time, recorded by Deena Jones shown in the film, the album cover for which is based on Dionne Warwick's 1970 album, Very Dionne.
Diana Ross, long a critic of the Broadway version of Dreamgirls for what she saw as an appropriation of her life story, denied having seen the film version. On the other hand, Mary Wilson attended the film's Los Angeles premiere, later stating that Dreamgirls moved her to tears and that it was "closer to the truth than they even know".
However, Smokey Robinson was less than pleased about the film's allusions to Motown history. In a January 25, 2007 interview with NPR, Robinson expressed offense at the film's portrayal of its Berry Gordy analogue, Curtis Taylor Jr., as a "villainous character" who deals in payola and other illegal activities. He repeated these concerns in a later interview with Access Hollywood'', adding that he felt DreamWorks and Paramount owed Gordy an apology. On February 23, a week before the Oscars ceremony, DreamWorks and Paramount issued an apology to Gordy and the other Motown alumni. Gordy issued a statement shortly afterwards expressing his acceptance of the apology.
The payola scheme used in the film's script, to which Robinson took offense, is identical to the payola scheme allegedly used by Gordy and the other Motown executives, according to sworn court depositions from Motown executive Michael Lushka, offered during the litigation between the label and its chief creative team, Holland–Dozier–Holland. Several references are also made to Mafia-backed loans Curtis uses to fund Rainbow Records. Gordy was highly suspected, though never proven, to have used Mafia-backed loans to finance Motown during its later years.
References
External links
Dreamgirls Blu-ray Disc review
Dreamgirls
2000s historical romance films
2000s musical drama films
2000s romantic drama films
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2006 films
Adultery in films
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BAFTA winners (films)
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Films set in the 1960s
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Films that won the Best Sound Mixing Academy Award
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2006 drama films | true | [
"Final Power Hall in Tokyo Dome was a professional wrestling event produced by New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW). It took place on January 4, 1998 in the Tokyo Dome. Final Power Hall in Tokyo Dome was the seventh January 4 Tokyo Dome Show held by NJPW. The show drew 55,000 spectators and $6,000,000 in ticket sales. One of the focal points of the show was the retirement of wrestling legend Riki Choshu, who would wrestle five times that night against select opponents in what was billed as the Riki Road Final Message 5, the completion of \na months-long \"retirement tour\" for Choshu. The show also featured successful defenses of the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship and the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, which made Final Power Hall in Tokyo Dome the first January 4 Tokyo Dome show to not have a single championship change hands. Besides the five Riki Road Final Message 5 matches the show featured eight additional matches.\n\nProduction\n\nBackground\nThe January 4 Tokyo Dome Show is NJPW's biggest annual event and has been called \"the largest professional wrestling show in the world outside of the United States\" and the \"Japanese equivalent to the Super Bowl\".\n\nStorylines\nFinal Power Hall in Tokyo Dome featured professional wrestling matches that involved different wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds and storylines. Wrestlers portrayed villains, heroes, or less distinguishable characters in scripted events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches.\n\nResults\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNJPW.co.jp \n\n1998 in professional wrestling\n1998 in Tokyo\nJanuary 1998 events in Asia\n1998",
"The former State Road 827, was an east–west road that stretched along the southern edge of the Hillsboro Canal, originally extending from Sixmile Bend to present-day Parkland. Now County Road 827, the road is locally known as Browns Farms Road and Loxahatchee Road in two segments, while a third is unnamed.\n\nWhen the route was established in 1945, it extended from its western terminus, being what is now U.S. Route 27 to its eastern terminus being an intersection with U.S. Route 441 and State Road 7) in Broward County.\n\nRoute description\nThe former SR 827 crossed a vast stretch of the Everglades wetlands along the opposite side of the Hillsboro Canal from the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge and through a region managed by the South Florida Water Management District and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.\n\nHistory\nThe road was established in 1945. It extended from the intersection between it and then-US 441-SR 80, which was re designated as State Road 880 after US 441/SR 80 was rerouted several miles north.\n\nAfter the establishment of the Everglades Wildlife Management Area by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission in the 1960s, the portion of SR 827 within its boundaries was removed from the state highway system, creating a gap in the route. Shortly afterward, a second section east of Browns Farm was reverted to Palm Beach County control (many commercially prepared maps from the 1970s to the present show this second section as part of County Road 827). For at least two decades, SR 827 was an \"interrupted\" State Road.\n\nBy 1990, the Broward County segment was transitioned from State to County control; the northwestern section followed suit within a few years and became CR 827. Despite indications from several commercial maps, only the part of the original SR 827 northwest of Browns Farm is currently signed as CR 827.\n\nMajor intersections\n\nReferences\n\n827\n827\n827\n827"
] |
[
"Dreamgirls (film)",
"Premieres, road show engagements, and general releases",
"What was the premier date?",
"Dreamgirls premiered on December 4, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City,",
"Did all of the stars attend?",
"I don't know.",
"Did anything of interest happen at the premier?",
"The film's Los Angeles premiere was held on December 11 at the Wilshire Theater in Beverly Hills.",
"What was the road show?",
"Dreamgirls debuted with three special ten-day roadshow engagements beginning on December 15, 2006"
] | C_867af2e657024cc0910e36deae8d265f_0 | Did Beyonce participate? | 5 | Did Beyonce participate in the road show for Dreamgirls? | Dreamgirls (film) | Dreamgirls premiered on December 4, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, where it received a standing ovation. The film's Los Angeles premiere was held on December 11 at the Wilshire Theater in Beverly Hills. Similar to the releases of older Hollywood musicals such as The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, and West Side Story, Dreamgirls debuted with three special ten-day roadshow engagements beginning on December 15, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, the Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles, and the AMC Metreon 15 in San Francisco. Tickets for the reserved seats were $25 each; the premium price included a forty-eight page full-color program and a limited-print lithograph. This release made Dreamgirls the first American feature film to have a roadshow release since Man of La Mancha in 1972. Dreamgirls earned a total of $851,664 from the roadshow engagements, playing to sold-out houses on the weekends. The film's national release, at regular prices, began on December 25. Outside of the U.S., Dreamgirls opened in Australia on January 18, and in the United Kingdom on February 2. Releases in other countries began on various dates between January and early March. Dreamgirls eventually grossed $103 million in North America, and almost $155 million worldwide. DreamWorks Home Entertainment released Dreamgirls to home video on May 1, 2007 in DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray formats. The DVD version was issued in two editions: a one-disc standard version and a two-disc "Showstopper Edition". The two-disc version also included a feature-length production documentary, production featurettes, screen tests, animatics, and other previsualization materials and artwork. Both DVD versions featured alternate and extended versions of the musical numbers from the film as extras, including the "Effie, Sing My Song" scene deleted during previews. Both the Blu-ray and HD DVD versions were issued in two-disc formats. Dreamgirls was the first DreamWorks film to be issued in a high definition home entertainment format. As of 2017, total domestic video sales to date are at $95.1 million. A "Director's Extended Edition" of Dreamgirls was released on Blu-Ray and Digital HD on October 10, 2017 by Paramount Home Media Distribution. This version, based on edits done for preview screenings before the film's release, runs ten minutes longer than the theatrical version and features longer musical numbers (including songs and verses cut during previews) and additional scenes. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Dreamgirls is a 2006 American musical drama film written and directed by Bill Condon and jointly produced and released by DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures. Adapted from the 1981 Broadway musical of the same name, Dreamgirls is a film à clef, a work of fiction taking strong inspiration from the history of the Motown record label and one of its acts, The Supremes. The story follows the history and evolution of American R&B music during the 1960s and 1970s through the eyes of a Detroit girl group known as "The Dreams" and their manipulative record executive.
The film adaptation stars Jamie Foxx, Beyoncé Knowles and Eddie Murphy, and also features Jennifer Hudson, Danny Glover, Anika Noni Rose and Keith Robinson. In addition to the original compositions by composer Henry Krieger and lyricist/librettist Tom Eyen, four new songs, composed by Krieger with various lyricists, were added for the film. The film marks the acting debut of Hudson, a former American Idol contestant.
Dreamgirls debuted in four special road show engagements starting on December 15, 2006, before its nationwide release on December 25, 2006. With a production budget of $80 million, Dreamgirls is one of the most expensive films to feature a predominant African-American starring cast in American film history. Upon its release, the film garnered positive reviews from critics, who particularly praised Condon's direction, the soundtrack, costume design, production design, and performances of the cast (in particular of Hudson, which many deemed a standout performance). The film was a commercial success, grossing over $155 million at the international box office. At the 79th Academy Awards, the film received a leading eight nominations, winning Best Supporting Actress (for Hudson), and Best Sound Mixing. At the 64th Golden Globe Awards, it won three awards, including for the Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.
Plot
In 1962 Detroit, Michigan, young car salesman Curtis Taylor Jr. meets a Black girl group known as "The Dreamettes", which consists of lead singer Effie White and backup singers Deena Jones and Lorrell Robinson, at an R&B amateur talent show at the Detroit Theatre. Presenting himself as their new manager, he hires the girls as backup singers for Chitlin' Circuit R&B star Jimmy "Thunder" Early.
Curtis soon starts his own record label, Rainbow Records, out of his Detroit car dealership, and appoints Effie's brother, C.C., as his head songwriter. When their first single "Cadillac Car" fails after a white pop group named Dave and the Sweethearts releases a cover version, Curtis, C.C., and their producer Wayne turn to payola to make "Jimmy Early & The Dreamettes" mainstream pop stars. Offstage, Effie falls in love with Curtis while the married Jimmy does likewise with Lorrell.
Jimmy's manager, Marty Madison, grows weary of Curtis' plans to make his client more pop-friendly and walks out. When Jimmy bombs in front of an all-white Miami Beach supper club audience, Curtis sends Jimmy out on the road alone, keeping The Dreamettes behind to headline in his place. Feeling that Effie's figure and distinctive, soulful voice will not attract white audiences, Curtis appoints the slimmer, more conventionally attractive Deena (who has a more basic, generic, and marketable voice) as the new lead singer, renaming the group "The Dreams".
Aided by new songs and a new image, Curtis and C.C. transform The Dreams into a top-selling mainstream pop group. By 1965, however, Effie begins acting out, particularly when Curtis' affections also turn towards Deena. Curtis eventually drops Effie, hiring his secretary Michelle Morris to replace her beginning with their 1966 New Year's Eve debut in Las Vegas as "Deena Jones & the Dreams." Though Effie defiantly and desperately appeals to Curtis, he, C.C., and The Dreams abandon her, forging ahead to stardom.
By 1973, Effie has become an impoverished welfare mother living in Detroit with her daughter Magic. To restart her music career, she hires Marty as her manager and begins performing at a local club. Meanwhile, with The Dreams superstars and Rainbow, having moved to Los Angeles, now the biggest pop business in the country, Curtis attempts to produce a film about Cleopatra starring an unwilling Deena, now his wife.
The following year, Jimmy, who has descended into drug addiction due to Curtis' preoccupation with Deena, along with the rejection of the charity single he recorded, does an improvised rap and drops his pants during Rainbow Records' tenth-anniversary television special. Curtis promptly drops him from the label and Lorrell ends their affair. Sometime later, C.C., who feels Curtis is undermining the artistic merit of his songs by making them into disco music, quits the label, only for everyone to then learn of Jimmy's unexpected death from a heroin overdose, which greatly upsets Lorrell.
Disillusioned by Jimmy's death and Curtis' cold reaction to the news, C.C. travels to Detroit and reconciles with Effie, for whom he writes and produces a comeback single, "One Night Only". Just as it begins gaining local radio play, Curtis uses payola to force radio stations to play The Dreams' disco cover of the song. The plan falls apart, however, when Deena, angry over how Curtis controls her career, discovers his schemes and contacts Effie, who arrives in Los Angeles with C.C., Marty, and a lawyer.
Deena and Effie reconcile, with Effie telling Deena that Curtis is Magic's father, while Curtis agrees to nationally distribute Effie's record to avoid being reported to the FBI. Inspired by Effie's victory and realizing Curtis' true character, Deena leaves him.
By 1975, The Dreams give a farewell performance at the Detroit Theater, inviting Effie for the final song. Towards the end, Curtis notices Magic in the front row, realizing she is his daughter.
Cast
Jennifer Hudson as Effie White; inspired by Supremes member Florence Ballard, Effie is a talented yet temperamental singer who suffers when Curtis, the man she loves, replaces her as lead singer of the Dreams and his love interest, and later drops her altogether. With the help of Jimmy's old manager Marty, Effie begins to resurrect her career a decade later, while raising her daughter Magic, the offspring of her union with Curtis.
Jamie Foxx as Curtis Taylor, Jr.; based upon Motown founder Berry Gordy, Jr., Curtis is a slick Cadillac dealer-turned-record executive who founds the Rainbow Records label and shows ruthless ambition in his quest to make his black artists household names with white audiences. At first romantically involved with Effie, Curtis takes a professional and personal interest in Deena after appointing her lead singer of the Dreams in Effie's place.
Beyoncé Knowles-Carter as Deena Jones; based upon Motown star and lead Supremes member Diana Ross and two former Supremes members Jean Terrell and Scherrie Payne, Deena is a very shy young woman who becomes a star after Curtis makes her lead singer of the Dreams. This, as well as her romantic involvement and later marriage to Curtis, draw Effie's ire, though Deena realizes over time she is a puppet for her controlling husband.
Anika Noni Rose as Lorrell Robinson; inspired by Supremes member Mary Wilson, is a good-natured background singer with the Dreams who falls deeply in love with the married Jimmy Early and becomes his mistress.
Keith Robinson as Clarence Conrad (C.C.) White; inspired by Motown vice president, artist, producer, and songwriter Smokey Robinson, Effie's soft-spoken younger brother serves as the main songwriter for first the Dreams and later the entire Rainbow roster.
Eddie Murphy as James (Jimmy) "Thunder" Early; inspired by R&B/soul singers such as James Brown, Jackie Wilson and Marvin Gaye, is a raucous performer on the Rainbow label engaged in an adulterous affair with Dreams member Lorrell. Curtis attempts to repackage Early as a pop-friendly balladeer. Jimmy's stardom fades as the Dreams' stardom rises, and as a result – he falls into depression (which he copes with through drug abuse).
Danny Glover as Marty Madison, Jimmy's original manager before Curtis steps into the picture; Marty serves as both counsel and confidant to Jimmy, and later to Effie as well.
Sharon Leal as Michelle Morris; based upon Supremes members Cindy Birdsong and Susaye Greene, Curtis' secretary who replaces Effie in the Dreams and begins dating C.C.
Hinton Battle as Wayne, a salesman at Curtis' Cadillac dealership who becomes Rainbow's first record producer and Curtis' henchman.
Yvette Cason as May, Deena's mother
Loretta Devine as Jazz Singer. Devine originated the role of Lorrell in the 1981 stage production.
Dawnn Lewis as Melba Early, James' wife
John Lithgow as Jerry Harris, a film producer looking to cast Deena
John Krasinski as Sam Walsh, Jerry Harris' screenwriter/film director
Jaleel White as Talent Booker at the Detroit Theatre talent show
Cleo King as Janice
Robert Cicchini as Nicky Cassaro
Yvette Nicole Brown as Curtis' Secretary
Mariah I. Wilson as Magic White, Effie's daughter
Paul Kirby as Promo Film Narrator (voice)
Musical numbers
Production
Pre-production
In the 1980s and 1990s, several attempts were made to produce a film adaptation of Dreamgirls, a Broadway musical loosely based upon the story of The Supremes and Motown Records, which won six Tony Awards in 1982. David Geffen, the stage musical's co-financier, retained the film rights to Dreamgirls and turned down many offers to adapt the story for the screen. He cited a need to preserve the integrity of Dreamgirls stage director Michael Bennett's work after his death in 1987. That same year, Geffen, who ran his Warner Bros.-associated Geffen Pictures film production company at the time, began talks with Broadway lyricist and producer Howard Ashman to adapt it as a star vehicle for Whitney Houston, who was to portray Deena. The production ran into problems when Houston wanted to sing both Deena and Effie's songs (particularly "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going"), and the film was eventually abandoned.
When Geffen co-founded DreamWorks in 1994 and dissolved Geffen Pictures, the rights to Dreamgirls remained with Warner Bros. Warner planned to go ahead with the film with director Joel Schumacher and screenwriter Tina Andrews in the late 1990s, following the success of Touchstone Pictures's Tina Turner biopic What's Love Got to Do with It. Schumacher planned to have Lauryn Hill portray Deena and Kelly Price play Effie. After Warner's Frankie Lymon biopic Why Do Fools Fall in Love failed at the box office, the studio shut down development on Dreamgirls.
DreamWorks' Dreamgirls adaptation came about after the film version of the Broadway musical Chicago was a success at both the box office and the Academy Awards. Screenwriter and director Bill Condon, who wrote Chicagos screenplay, met producer Laurence Mark at a Hollywood holiday party in late 2002, where the two discussed a long-held "dream project" of Condon's – adapting Dreamgirls for the screen. The two had dinner with Geffen and successfully convinced him to allow Condon to write a screenplay for Dreamgirls. Condon did not start work on the Dreamgirls script until after making the Alfred Kinsey biographical film Kinsey (2004). After sending Geffen the first draft of his screenplay in January 2005, Condon's adaptation of Dreamgirls was greenlit.
Stage to script changes
While much of the stage musical's story remains intact, a number of significant changes were made. The Dreams' hometown—the setting for much of the action—was moved from Chicago to Detroit, the real-life hometown of The Supremes and Motown Records. The roles of many of the characters were related more closely to their real-life inspirations, following a suggestion by Geffen.
Warner Bros. had retained the film rights to Dreamgirls, and agreed to co-produce with DreamWorks. However, after casting was completed, the film was budgeted at $73 million and Warner backed out of the production. Geffen, taking the role of co-producer, brought Paramount Pictures in to co-finance and release Dreamgirls. During the course of production, Paramount's parent company, Viacom, would purchase DreamWorks, aligning the two studios under one umbrella (and giving the senior studio US distribution rights on behalf of DreamWorks). The completed film had a production budget of $75 million, making Dreamgirls the most expensive film with an all-black starring cast in cinema history.
Casting and rehearsal
Mark and Condon began pre-production with the intentions of casting Jamie Foxx and Eddie Murphy, both actors with record industry experience, as Curtis Taylor, Jr. and James "Thunder" Early, respectively. When offered the part of Curtis, Foxx initially declined because DreamWorks could not meet his salary demands. Denzel Washington, Will Smith, and Terrence Howard were among the other actors also approached to play Curtis. Murphy, on the other hand, accepted the role of Jimmy Early after being convinced to do so by DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg.
While Condon had intended to cast relatively unknown actresses as all three Dreams, R&B singer Beyoncé Knowles lobbied for the part of Deena Jones, and was cast after a successful screen test. Upon learning that Knowles and Murphy had signed on, Foxx rethought his original decision and accepted the Curtis role at DreamWorks' lower salary.
R&B star Usher was to have been cast as C.C. White, but contract negotiations failed; Usher was unable to dedicate half a year to the project. André 3000 of Outkast was also offered the role, but declined. After briefly considering R&B singer Omarion, singer/actor Keith Robinson was eventually cast in the role.
Anika Noni Rose, a Broadway veteran and a Tony Award winner, won the part of Lorrell Robinson after an extensive auditioning process. Rose, significantly shorter than most of her co-stars at five feet and two inches (157 cm), was required to wear (and dance in) four and five-inch (127 mm) heels for much of the picture, which she later stated caused her discomfort.
The most crucial casting decision involved the role of Effie White, the emotional center of the story. The filmmakers insisted on casting a relative unknown in the role, paralleling the casting of then-21-year-old Jennifer Holliday in that role for the original Broadway production. A total of 783 singing actresses auditioned for the role of Effie White, among them American Idol alumnae Fantasia Barrino and Jennifer Hudson, former Disney star Raven-Symoné, and Broadway stars Capathia Jenkins and Patina Miller. Though Barrino emerged as an early frontrunner for the part, Hudson was eventually selected to play Effie, leading Barrino to telephone Hudson and jokingly complain that Hudson "stole [Barrino's] part."
Hudson was required to gain twenty pounds for the role, which marked her debut film performance. In casting Hudson, Condon recalled that he initially was not confident he'd made the right decision, but instinctively cast Hudson after she'd auditioned several times because he "just didn't believe any of the others."
After Hudson was cast in November 2005, the Dreamgirls cast began extensive rehearsals with Condon and choreographers Fatima Robinson and Aakomon "AJ" Jones, veterans of the music video industry. Meanwhile, the music production crew began work with the actors and studio musicians recording the songs for the film. Although rehearsals ended just before Christmas 2005, Condon called Hudson back for a week of one-on-one rehearsals, to help her more fully become the "diva" character of Effie. Hudson was required to be rude and come in late both on set and off, and she and Condon went over Effie's lines and scenes throughout the week.
Loretta Devine, who played Lorrell in the original Broadway production, has a cameo as a jazz singer who performs the song "I Miss You Old Friend." Another Dreamgirls veteran present in the film is Hinton Battle, who was a summer replacement for James "Thunder" Early onstage and here portrays Curtis' aide-de-camp Wayne.
Principal photography
Principal photography began January 6, 2006 with the filming of dance footage for the first half of "Steppin' to the Bad Side," footage later deleted from the film. The film was primarily shot on soundstages at the Los Angeles Center Studios and on location in the Los Angeles area, with some second unit footage shot in Detroit, Miami, and New York City. The award-winning Broadway lighting team of Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer were brought in to create theatrical lighting techniques for the film's musical numbers.
Beyoncé Knowles elected to lose weight to give the mature Deena Jones of the 1970s a different look than the younger version of the character. By sticking to a highly publicized diet of water, lemons, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper (also known as the Master Cleanse), Knowles rapidly lost twenty pounds, which she gained back once production ended.
Shooting was completed in the early-morning hours of April 8, 2006, after four days were spent shooting Jennifer Hudson's musical number "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going", which had purposefully been saved until the end of the shoot. Originally scheduled to be shot in one day, Condon was forced to ask for extra time and money to finish shooting the "And I Am Telling You" scene, as Hudson's voice would give out after four hours of shooting the musical number, and she was unable to plausibly lip-sync while hoarse. The scene was felt by everyone involved to be pivotal to the film, as "And I Am Telling You" was Jennifer Holliday's show-stopping number in the original Broadway musical.
Music
Dreamgirls musical supervisors Randy Spendlove and Matt Sullivan hired R&B production team The Underdogs — Harvey Mason, Jr. and Damon Thomas — to restructure and rearrange the Henry Krieger/Tom Eyen Dreamgirls score so that it better reflected its proper time period, yet also reflected then-modern R&B/pop sensibilities. During post-production, composer Stephen Trask was contracted to provide additional score material for the film. Several musical numbers from the Broadway score were not included in the film version, in particular Lorrell's solo "Ain't No Party".
Four new songs were added for the film: "Love You I Do", "Patience", "Perfect World," and "Listen." All of the new songs feature music composed by original Dreamgirls stage composer Henry Krieger. With Tom Eyen having died in 1991, various lyricists were brought in by Krieger to co-author the new songs. "Love You I Do," with lyrics by Siedah Garrett, is performed in the film by Effie during a rehearsal at the Rainbow Records studio. Willie Reale wrote the lyrics for "Patience," a song performed in the film by Jimmy, Lorrell, C.C., and a gospel choir, as the characters attempt to record a message song for Jimmy. "Perfect World," also featuring lyrics by Garrett, is performed during the Rainbow 10th anniversary special sequence by Jackson 5 doppelgängers The Campbell Connection. "Listen", with additional music by Scott Cutler and Beyoncé, and lyrics by Anne Preven, is presented as a defining moment for Deena's character late in the film.
After preview screenings during the summer of 2006, several minutes worth of musical footage were deleted from the film due to negative audience reactions to the amount of music. Among this footage was one whole musical number, C.C. and Effie's sung reunion "Effie, Sing My Song", which was replaced with an alternative spoken version.
The Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture soundtrack album was released on December 5 by Music World Entertainment/Columbia Records, in both a single-disc version containing highlights and a double-disc "Deluxe Version" containing all of the film's songs. The single-disc version of the soundtrack peaked at number-one on the Billboard 200 during a slow sales week in early January 2007. "Listen" was the first official single from the soundtrack, supported by a music video featuring Beyoncé. "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" was the Dreamgirls soundtrack's second single. Though a music video with all-original footage was once planned, the video eventually released for "And I Am Telling You" comprised the entire corresponding scene in the actual film.
Release
Dreamgirls premiered on December 4, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, where it received a standing ovation. The film's Los Angeles premiere was held on December 11 at the Wilshire Theater in Beverly Hills.
Similar to the releases of older Hollywood musicals such as The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, and West Side Story, Dreamgirls debuted with three special ten-day roadshow engagements beginning on December 15, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, the Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles, and the AMC Metreon 15 in San Francisco. Tickets for the reserved seats were $25 each; the premium price included a forty-eight page full-color program and a limited-print lithograph. This release made Dreamgirls the first American feature film to have a roadshow release since Man of La Mancha in 1972. Dreamgirls earned a total of $851,664 from the roadshow engagements, playing to sold-out houses on the weekends. The film's national release, at regular prices, began on December 25. Outside of the U.S., Dreamgirls opened in Australia on January 18, and in the United Kingdom on February 2. Releases in other countries began on various dates between January and early March. Dreamgirls eventually grossed $103 million in North America, and almost $155 million worldwide.
DreamWorks Home Entertainment released Dreamgirls to home video on May 1, 2007 in DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray formats. The DVD version was issued in two editions: a one-disc standard version and a two-disc "Showstopper Edition". The two-disc version also included a feature-length production documentary, production featurettes, screen tests, animatics, and other previsualization materials and artwork. Both DVD versions featured alternative and extended versions of the musical numbers from the film as extras, including the "Effie, Sing My Song" scene deleted during previews. Both the Blu-ray and HD DVD versions were issued in two-disc formats. Dreamgirls was the first DreamWorks film to be issued in a high definition home entertainment format. , total domestic video sales to date are at $95.1 million.
A "Director's Extended Edition" of Dreamgirls was released on Blu-ray and Digital HD on October 10, 2017 by Paramount Home Media Distribution. This version, based on edits done for preview screenings before the film's release, runs ten minutes longer than the theatrical version and features longer musical numbers (including songs and verses cut during previews) and additional scenes.
Reception
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 78% based on 208 reviews, with an average rating of 7.24/10. The site's critics consensus states: "Dreamgirls simple characters and plot hardly detract from the movie's real feats: the electrifying performances and the dazzling musical numbers." Metacritic reports a weighted average score of 76 out of 100 rating, based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.
Rolling Stone's Peter Travers gave the film three and a half stars (out of four) and the number-two position on his "best of 2006" list, stating that "despite transitional bumps, Condon does Dreamgirls proud". David Rooney of Variety reported that the film featured "tremendously exciting musical sequences" and that "after The Phantom of the Opera, Rent and The Producers botched the transfer from stage to screen, Dreamgirls gets it right."
On the December 10, 2006 episode of the television show Ebert & Roeper, Richard Roeper and guest critic Aisha Tyler (filling in for Roger Ebert, who was recovering from cancer-related surgery) gave the film "two thumbs up", with Roeper's reservations that it was "a little short on heart and soul" and "deeply conventional". Roeper still enjoyed the film, noting that Jennifer Hudson's rendition of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" as the "show-stopping moment of any film of 2006" and very much enjoyed Murphy's performance as well, remarking that "people are going to love this film." Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter was less enthusiastic, stating that while the film was "a damn good commercial movie, it is not the film that will revive the musical or win over the world". Ed Gonzales of Slant magazine found the entire picture too glossy, and declared that "the film doesn't care to articulate the emotions that haunt its characters". University of Sydney academic Timothy Laurie was critical of the film's social message, noting that "the worthy receive just deserts by working even
harder for the industries that marginalise them".
Many reviews, regardless of their overall opinion of the film, cited Hudson's and Murphy's performances as standouts, with Travers proclaiming Murphy's performance of "Jimmy's Rap" as "his finest screen moment." Television host Oprah Winfrey saw the film during a November 15 press screening, and telephoned Hudson on the Oprah episode airing the next day, praising her performance as "a religious experience" and "a transcendent performance". A review for The Celebrity Cafe echoes that Hudson's voice "is like nothing we’ve heard in a long time, and her acting is a great match for that power-house sound."
Jennifer Holliday, who originated the role of Effie onstage, expressed her disappointment at not being involved in the film project in several TV, radio, and print interviews. Holliday in particular objected to the fact that her 1982 recording of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" was used in an early Dreamgirls film teaser trailer created before production began. Many of the other original Dreamgirls Broadway cast members, among them Obba Babatundé, Vondie Curtis-Hall, and Cleavant Derricks, were interviewed for a Jet magazine article in which they discussed their varying opinions of both the Dreamgirls film's script and production.
Awards and nominations
DreamWorks and Paramount began a significant awards campaign for Dreamgirls while the film was still in production. In February 2006, the press was invited on set to a special live event showcasing the making of the film, including a live performance of "Steppin' to the Bad Side" by the cast. Three months later, twenty minutes of the film — specifically, the musical sequences "Fake Your Way to the Top", "Family", "When I First Saw You", and "Dreamgirls" – were screened at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, with most of the cast and crew in attendance. The resulting positive buzz earned Dreamgirls the status of "front-runner" for the 2006 Academy Award for Best Picture and several of the other Oscars as well.
Following the success of the Cannes screening, DreamWorks and Paramount began a widespread "For Your Consideration" advertisement campaign, raising several eyebrows by demoting Jennifer Hudson to consideration for Best Supporting Actress and presenting Beyoncé Knowles as the sole Best Actress candidate, as opposed to having both compete for Best Actress awards. By contrast, the actresses who originated Hudson's and Knowles' roles on Broadway, Jennifer Holliday and Sheryl Lee Ralph, respectively, were both nominated for the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress, with Holliday winning the award. The presentation of Knowles over Hudson as the sole Best Actress candidate had interesting parallels with the film itself.
Dreamgirls received eight 2007 Academy Award nominations covering six categories, the most of any film for the year, although it was not nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, or either of the lead acting categories. The film's nominations included Best Supporting Actor (Eddie Murphy), Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson), Best Achievement in Costume Design, Best Achievement in Art Direction, Best Achievement in Sound Mixing, and three nominations for Best Song ("Listen", "Love You I Do", and "Patience"). Dreamgirls is the first live-action film to receive three nominations for Best Song; previously the Disney animated features Beauty and the Beast (1991) and The Lion King (1994) had each received three Academy Award nominations for Best Song; Enchanted (2007) has since repeated the feat.
In addition, Dreamgirls was the first film in Academy Award history to receive the highest number of nominations for the year, yet not be nominated for Best Picture. The film's failure to gain a Best Picture or Best Director nod was widely viewed by the entertainment press as a "snub" by the Academy. Some journalists registered shock, while others cited a "backlash".<ref>Felton, Robert (Feb. 28, 2007). "[http://austinweeklynews.1upsoftware.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=1101&TM=82934.76 Dreamgirls' Best Picture snub and Oscar night thud] ". Austin Weekly News. Retrieved March 11, 2007.</ref> On the other hand, director Bill Condon stated that "I think academy members just liked the other movies better" and that he believed that "we were never going to win even if we were nominated." Reports emerged of significant behind-the-scenes in-fighting between the DreamWorks and Paramount camps, in particular between DreamWorks' David Geffen and Paramount CEO Brad Grey, over decision making and credit-claiming during the Dreamgirls awards campaign.
At the Academy Awards ceremony on February 25, 2007, Dreamgirls won Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and Best Sound Mixing. As such, Hudson became one of the few actresses ever to win an Oscar for a film debut performance. In what was considered an upset, Murphy lost the Best Supporting Actor award to Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine. Knowles, Hudson, Rose, and Robinson performed a medley of the three Dreamgirls songs nominated for Best Original Song, although all three songs lost the award to "I Need to Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth.
For the 2007 Golden Globe Awards, Dreamgirls was nominated in five categories: Best Picture – Comedy or Musical, Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical (Beyoncé Knowles), Best Supporting Actor (Eddie Murphy), Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson), and Best Original Song ("Listen"). The film won the awards for Best Picture — Comedy or Musical, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress. Dreamgirls received eight NAACP Image Award nominations, winning for Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson) and Outstanding Album (the soundtrack LP). It was also named as one of the American Film Institute's top ten films of 2006.Dreamgirls also garnered Screen Actors Guild Awards for Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson) and Supporting Actor (Eddie Murphy), as well as a nomination for its ensemble cast. The film was also nominated by the Producers Guild of America for Best Picture and the Directors Guild of America for Bill Condon's directing. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts gave the film awards for Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson) and Music (Henry Krieger).
Furthermore, Dreamgirls was nominated for eleven 2007 International Press Academy Satellite Awards, and won four of the awards: Best Picture — Comedy or Musical, Best Director (Bill Condon), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Jennifer Hudson), and Best Sound (Mixing & Editing). Dreamgirls also received a record eleven Black Reel Award nominations, and won six of the awards, among them Best Film. At the 50th Grammy Awards ceremony, "Love You I Do" won the award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media. The Dreamgirls soundtrack was also nominated for the Grammy for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album.
For the opening performance at the 2007 BET Awards on June 26 of that year, Hudson performed a duet of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" with her predecessor, Jennifer Holliday. Later that night, Hudson won the BET Award for Best Actress.
In February 2022, Hudson's rendition of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" was named one of the five finalists for Oscars Cheer Moment as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' "Oscars Fan Favorite" contest.
Accolades
Related promotions and products
To give the story more exposure for the upcoming film release, DreamWorks and the licenser of the original play, The Tams-Witmark Music Library, announced that they would pay the licensing fees for all non-professional stage performances of Dreamgirls for the calendar year of 2006. DreamWorks hoped to encourage amateur productions of Dreamgirls, and familiarize a wider audience with the play. As a result, more than fifty high schools, colleges, community theaters, and other non-commercial theater entities staged productions of Dreamgirls in 2006, and DreamWorks spent up to $250,000 subsidizing the licensing.
The Dreamgirls novelization was written by African-American novelist Denene Millner, and adapts the film's official script in chapter form, along with fourteen pages of photographs from the film. The book was released on October 31, 2006. A scrapbook, entitled Dreamgirls: The Movie Musical, was released on March 27, 2007. The limited edition program guide accompanying the Dreamgirls road show release was made available for retail purchase in February. In addition, the Tonnor Doll Company released "The Dreamettes" collection, featuring dolls of the characters Deena, Lorrell, and Effie, to coincide with the release of the film.
Allusions to actual events
Aside from the overall plot of the film and elements already present in the stage musical, many direct references to The Supremes, Motown, or R&B/soul history in general are included in the film. In one scene, Effie saunters into Curtis' office and discusses Rainbow Records' latest LP, The Great March to Freedom, a spoken word album featuring speeches by Martin Luther King Jr. This LP is an authentic Motown release, issued as Gordy 906 in June 1963.Edwards, David and Callahan, Mike (1999). "Gordy Album Discography, Part 1 (1962–1981)". Retrieved Feb. 3, 2007. A later scene features Curtis and the Dreams recording in the studio, while a riot rages outside. By comparison, Motown's Hitsville U.S.A. studio remained open and active during Detroit's 12th Street Riot in July 1967.Posner, Gerald (2002). Motown: Music, Money, Sex, and Power. New York: Random House. . Pg. 173. The photo shoot montage which accompanies "When I First Saw You", as well as the subplot of Deena being forced to star in Curtis' Cleopatra film against her will, reflect both scenes from and the production of Mahogany, a 1975 Motown film starring Diana Ross and directed by Motown CEO Berry Gordy. In a snapshot, Ed Sullivan appears presenting the real Supremes on his show.
Among the more direct references are the uses of adapted Supremes album cover designs for albums recorded in the film by the Dreams. Three Supremes albums – Let the Sunshine In, Cream of the Crop, and Touch – were reworked into Deena Jones & The Dreams album designs, with the only differences in the designs being the substitution of the names and images of the Supremes with those of Deena Jones & the Dreams. Another Dreams LP seen in the film, Meet the Dreams, is represented by an album cover derived from the designs for the Supremes LPs Meet The Supremes, More Hits by The Supremes and The Supremes A' Go-Go. There is also a solo album, Just In Time, recorded by Deena Jones shown in the film, the album cover for which is based on Dionne Warwick's 1970 album, Very Dionne.
Diana Ross, long a critic of the Broadway version of Dreamgirls for what she saw as an appropriation of her life story, denied having seen the film version. On the other hand, Mary Wilson attended the film's Los Angeles premiere, later stating that Dreamgirls moved her to tears and that it was "closer to the truth than they even know".
However, Smokey Robinson was less than pleased about the film's allusions to Motown history. In a January 25, 2007 interview with NPR, Robinson expressed offense at the film's portrayal of its Berry Gordy analogue, Curtis Taylor Jr., as a "villainous character" who deals in payola and other illegal activities. He repeated these concerns in a later interview with Access Hollywood'', adding that he felt DreamWorks and Paramount owed Gordy an apology. On February 23, a week before the Oscars ceremony, DreamWorks and Paramount issued an apology to Gordy and the other Motown alumni. Gordy issued a statement shortly afterwards expressing his acceptance of the apology.
The payola scheme used in the film's script, to which Robinson took offense, is identical to the payola scheme allegedly used by Gordy and the other Motown executives, according to sworn court depositions from Motown executive Michael Lushka, offered during the litigation between the label and its chief creative team, Holland–Dozier–Holland. Several references are also made to Mafia-backed loans Curtis uses to fund Rainbow Records. Gordy was highly suspected, though never proven, to have used Mafia-backed loans to finance Motown during its later years.
References
External links
Dreamgirls Blu-ray Disc review
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Paramount Pictures films
2006 drama films | false | [
"Queen B may refer to:\n\nPeople\n\nQueen Bee, a nickname given in the 1990's to former Junior Mafia member Lil Kim. \nQueen B , a nickname for Beyonce\nQueen B, a nickname for Sofia Esper\nLil Queen B, a nickname for Analu Arsave\nQueen B/Bey, a nickname for Beyonce\nQueen B/Bee, a nickname for Beyonce\nQueen B, a nickname for the former queen Beatrix of the Netherlands\nQueen B, a nickname for South African TV and Radio personality Bonang Matheba\n\nEntertainment\n\nMusic \n\"Queen B.\", a 2007 song by Puscifer\n\nTelevision\n Queen B, a 2005 TV movie starring Alicia Silverstone\n \"Queen B.\", an episode of the TV series Popular\n Queen B. (Arrested Development), the season four episode of Arrested Development TV series\n\nSee also \n Queen bee (disambiguation)",
"Abdul Salaam Mumini is a Ghanaian film maker.\n\nCareer\nHis first film was God Loves Prostitutes, which starred Nollywood star Genevieve Nnaji. Salaam's Venus Film Production is responsible for the discovery of the likes of Van Vicker, Jackie Aygemang, Nadia Buari and a host of emerging others.\n\nCredits\n Return of Beyonce\n Beyonce\n Mummy's Daughter\n Wedlock of the Gods\n Darkness of Sorrow\n My mothers Heart\n Divine Love\n Heart of Men\n The Game\n Foreplay\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nGhanaian film producers\nGhanaian screenwriters\nLiving people\nYear of birth missing (living people)"
] |
[
"Dreamgirls (film)",
"Premieres, road show engagements, and general releases",
"What was the premier date?",
"Dreamgirls premiered on December 4, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City,",
"Did all of the stars attend?",
"I don't know.",
"Did anything of interest happen at the premier?",
"The film's Los Angeles premiere was held on December 11 at the Wilshire Theater in Beverly Hills.",
"What was the road show?",
"Dreamgirls debuted with three special ten-day roadshow engagements beginning on December 15, 2006",
"Did Beyonce participate?",
"I don't know."
] | C_867af2e657024cc0910e36deae8d265f_0 | Were the shows successful? | 6 | Were the roadshows successful for Dreamgirls? | Dreamgirls (film) | Dreamgirls premiered on December 4, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, where it received a standing ovation. The film's Los Angeles premiere was held on December 11 at the Wilshire Theater in Beverly Hills. Similar to the releases of older Hollywood musicals such as The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, and West Side Story, Dreamgirls debuted with three special ten-day roadshow engagements beginning on December 15, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, the Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles, and the AMC Metreon 15 in San Francisco. Tickets for the reserved seats were $25 each; the premium price included a forty-eight page full-color program and a limited-print lithograph. This release made Dreamgirls the first American feature film to have a roadshow release since Man of La Mancha in 1972. Dreamgirls earned a total of $851,664 from the roadshow engagements, playing to sold-out houses on the weekends. The film's national release, at regular prices, began on December 25. Outside of the U.S., Dreamgirls opened in Australia on January 18, and in the United Kingdom on February 2. Releases in other countries began on various dates between January and early March. Dreamgirls eventually grossed $103 million in North America, and almost $155 million worldwide. DreamWorks Home Entertainment released Dreamgirls to home video on May 1, 2007 in DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray formats. The DVD version was issued in two editions: a one-disc standard version and a two-disc "Showstopper Edition". The two-disc version also included a feature-length production documentary, production featurettes, screen tests, animatics, and other previsualization materials and artwork. Both DVD versions featured alternate and extended versions of the musical numbers from the film as extras, including the "Effie, Sing My Song" scene deleted during previews. Both the Blu-ray and HD DVD versions were issued in two-disc formats. Dreamgirls was the first DreamWorks film to be issued in a high definition home entertainment format. As of 2017, total domestic video sales to date are at $95.1 million. A "Director's Extended Edition" of Dreamgirls was released on Blu-Ray and Digital HD on October 10, 2017 by Paramount Home Media Distribution. This version, based on edits done for preview screenings before the film's release, runs ten minutes longer than the theatrical version and features longer musical numbers (including songs and verses cut during previews) and additional scenes. CANNOTANSWER | Dreamgirls earned a total of $851,664 from the roadshow engagements, playing to sold-out houses on the weekends. | Dreamgirls is a 2006 American musical drama film written and directed by Bill Condon and jointly produced and released by DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures. Adapted from the 1981 Broadway musical of the same name, Dreamgirls is a film à clef, a work of fiction taking strong inspiration from the history of the Motown record label and one of its acts, The Supremes. The story follows the history and evolution of American R&B music during the 1960s and 1970s through the eyes of a Detroit girl group known as "The Dreams" and their manipulative record executive.
The film adaptation stars Jamie Foxx, Beyoncé Knowles and Eddie Murphy, and also features Jennifer Hudson, Danny Glover, Anika Noni Rose and Keith Robinson. In addition to the original compositions by composer Henry Krieger and lyricist/librettist Tom Eyen, four new songs, composed by Krieger with various lyricists, were added for the film. The film marks the acting debut of Hudson, a former American Idol contestant.
Dreamgirls debuted in four special road show engagements starting on December 15, 2006, before its nationwide release on December 25, 2006. With a production budget of $80 million, Dreamgirls is one of the most expensive films to feature a predominant African-American starring cast in American film history. Upon its release, the film garnered positive reviews from critics, who particularly praised Condon's direction, the soundtrack, costume design, production design, and performances of the cast (in particular of Hudson, which many deemed a standout performance). The film was a commercial success, grossing over $155 million at the international box office. At the 79th Academy Awards, the film received a leading eight nominations, winning Best Supporting Actress (for Hudson), and Best Sound Mixing. At the 64th Golden Globe Awards, it won three awards, including for the Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.
Plot
In 1962 Detroit, Michigan, young car salesman Curtis Taylor Jr. meets a Black girl group known as "The Dreamettes", which consists of lead singer Effie White and backup singers Deena Jones and Lorrell Robinson, at an R&B amateur talent show at the Detroit Theatre. Presenting himself as their new manager, he hires the girls as backup singers for Chitlin' Circuit R&B star Jimmy "Thunder" Early.
Curtis soon starts his own record label, Rainbow Records, out of his Detroit car dealership, and appoints Effie's brother, C.C., as his head songwriter. When their first single "Cadillac Car" fails after a white pop group named Dave and the Sweethearts releases a cover version, Curtis, C.C., and their producer Wayne turn to payola to make "Jimmy Early & The Dreamettes" mainstream pop stars. Offstage, Effie falls in love with Curtis while the married Jimmy does likewise with Lorrell.
Jimmy's manager, Marty Madison, grows weary of Curtis' plans to make his client more pop-friendly and walks out. When Jimmy bombs in front of an all-white Miami Beach supper club audience, Curtis sends Jimmy out on the road alone, keeping The Dreamettes behind to headline in his place. Feeling that Effie's figure and distinctive, soulful voice will not attract white audiences, Curtis appoints the slimmer, more conventionally attractive Deena (who has a more basic, generic, and marketable voice) as the new lead singer, renaming the group "The Dreams".
Aided by new songs and a new image, Curtis and C.C. transform The Dreams into a top-selling mainstream pop group. By 1965, however, Effie begins acting out, particularly when Curtis' affections also turn towards Deena. Curtis eventually drops Effie, hiring his secretary Michelle Morris to replace her beginning with their 1966 New Year's Eve debut in Las Vegas as "Deena Jones & the Dreams." Though Effie defiantly and desperately appeals to Curtis, he, C.C., and The Dreams abandon her, forging ahead to stardom.
By 1973, Effie has become an impoverished welfare mother living in Detroit with her daughter Magic. To restart her music career, she hires Marty as her manager and begins performing at a local club. Meanwhile, with The Dreams superstars and Rainbow, having moved to Los Angeles, now the biggest pop business in the country, Curtis attempts to produce a film about Cleopatra starring an unwilling Deena, now his wife.
The following year, Jimmy, who has descended into drug addiction due to Curtis' preoccupation with Deena, along with the rejection of the charity single he recorded, does an improvised rap and drops his pants during Rainbow Records' tenth-anniversary television special. Curtis promptly drops him from the label and Lorrell ends their affair. Sometime later, C.C., who feels Curtis is undermining the artistic merit of his songs by making them into disco music, quits the label, only for everyone to then learn of Jimmy's unexpected death from a heroin overdose, which greatly upsets Lorrell.
Disillusioned by Jimmy's death and Curtis' cold reaction to the news, C.C. travels to Detroit and reconciles with Effie, for whom he writes and produces a comeback single, "One Night Only". Just as it begins gaining local radio play, Curtis uses payola to force radio stations to play The Dreams' disco cover of the song. The plan falls apart, however, when Deena, angry over how Curtis controls her career, discovers his schemes and contacts Effie, who arrives in Los Angeles with C.C., Marty, and a lawyer.
Deena and Effie reconcile, with Effie telling Deena that Curtis is Magic's father, while Curtis agrees to nationally distribute Effie's record to avoid being reported to the FBI. Inspired by Effie's victory and realizing Curtis' true character, Deena leaves him.
By 1975, The Dreams give a farewell performance at the Detroit Theater, inviting Effie for the final song. Towards the end, Curtis notices Magic in the front row, realizing she is his daughter.
Cast
Jennifer Hudson as Effie White; inspired by Supremes member Florence Ballard, Effie is a talented yet temperamental singer who suffers when Curtis, the man she loves, replaces her as lead singer of the Dreams and his love interest, and later drops her altogether. With the help of Jimmy's old manager Marty, Effie begins to resurrect her career a decade later, while raising her daughter Magic, the offspring of her union with Curtis.
Jamie Foxx as Curtis Taylor, Jr.; based upon Motown founder Berry Gordy, Jr., Curtis is a slick Cadillac dealer-turned-record executive who founds the Rainbow Records label and shows ruthless ambition in his quest to make his black artists household names with white audiences. At first romantically involved with Effie, Curtis takes a professional and personal interest in Deena after appointing her lead singer of the Dreams in Effie's place.
Beyoncé Knowles-Carter as Deena Jones; based upon Motown star and lead Supremes member Diana Ross and two former Supremes members Jean Terrell and Scherrie Payne, Deena is a very shy young woman who becomes a star after Curtis makes her lead singer of the Dreams. This, as well as her romantic involvement and later marriage to Curtis, draw Effie's ire, though Deena realizes over time she is a puppet for her controlling husband.
Anika Noni Rose as Lorrell Robinson; inspired by Supremes member Mary Wilson, is a good-natured background singer with the Dreams who falls deeply in love with the married Jimmy Early and becomes his mistress.
Keith Robinson as Clarence Conrad (C.C.) White; inspired by Motown vice president, artist, producer, and songwriter Smokey Robinson, Effie's soft-spoken younger brother serves as the main songwriter for first the Dreams and later the entire Rainbow roster.
Eddie Murphy as James (Jimmy) "Thunder" Early; inspired by R&B/soul singers such as James Brown, Jackie Wilson and Marvin Gaye, is a raucous performer on the Rainbow label engaged in an adulterous affair with Dreams member Lorrell. Curtis attempts to repackage Early as a pop-friendly balladeer. Jimmy's stardom fades as the Dreams' stardom rises, and as a result – he falls into depression (which he copes with through drug abuse).
Danny Glover as Marty Madison, Jimmy's original manager before Curtis steps into the picture; Marty serves as both counsel and confidant to Jimmy, and later to Effie as well.
Sharon Leal as Michelle Morris; based upon Supremes members Cindy Birdsong and Susaye Greene, Curtis' secretary who replaces Effie in the Dreams and begins dating C.C.
Hinton Battle as Wayne, a salesman at Curtis' Cadillac dealership who becomes Rainbow's first record producer and Curtis' henchman.
Yvette Cason as May, Deena's mother
Loretta Devine as Jazz Singer. Devine originated the role of Lorrell in the 1981 stage production.
Dawnn Lewis as Melba Early, James' wife
John Lithgow as Jerry Harris, a film producer looking to cast Deena
John Krasinski as Sam Walsh, Jerry Harris' screenwriter/film director
Jaleel White as Talent Booker at the Detroit Theatre talent show
Cleo King as Janice
Robert Cicchini as Nicky Cassaro
Yvette Nicole Brown as Curtis' Secretary
Mariah I. Wilson as Magic White, Effie's daughter
Paul Kirby as Promo Film Narrator (voice)
Musical numbers
Production
Pre-production
In the 1980s and 1990s, several attempts were made to produce a film adaptation of Dreamgirls, a Broadway musical loosely based upon the story of The Supremes and Motown Records, which won six Tony Awards in 1982. David Geffen, the stage musical's co-financier, retained the film rights to Dreamgirls and turned down many offers to adapt the story for the screen. He cited a need to preserve the integrity of Dreamgirls stage director Michael Bennett's work after his death in 1987. That same year, Geffen, who ran his Warner Bros.-associated Geffen Pictures film production company at the time, began talks with Broadway lyricist and producer Howard Ashman to adapt it as a star vehicle for Whitney Houston, who was to portray Deena. The production ran into problems when Houston wanted to sing both Deena and Effie's songs (particularly "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going"), and the film was eventually abandoned.
When Geffen co-founded DreamWorks in 1994 and dissolved Geffen Pictures, the rights to Dreamgirls remained with Warner Bros. Warner planned to go ahead with the film with director Joel Schumacher and screenwriter Tina Andrews in the late 1990s, following the success of Touchstone Pictures's Tina Turner biopic What's Love Got to Do with It. Schumacher planned to have Lauryn Hill portray Deena and Kelly Price play Effie. After Warner's Frankie Lymon biopic Why Do Fools Fall in Love failed at the box office, the studio shut down development on Dreamgirls.
DreamWorks' Dreamgirls adaptation came about after the film version of the Broadway musical Chicago was a success at both the box office and the Academy Awards. Screenwriter and director Bill Condon, who wrote Chicagos screenplay, met producer Laurence Mark at a Hollywood holiday party in late 2002, where the two discussed a long-held "dream project" of Condon's – adapting Dreamgirls for the screen. The two had dinner with Geffen and successfully convinced him to allow Condon to write a screenplay for Dreamgirls. Condon did not start work on the Dreamgirls script until after making the Alfred Kinsey biographical film Kinsey (2004). After sending Geffen the first draft of his screenplay in January 2005, Condon's adaptation of Dreamgirls was greenlit.
Stage to script changes
While much of the stage musical's story remains intact, a number of significant changes were made. The Dreams' hometown—the setting for much of the action—was moved from Chicago to Detroit, the real-life hometown of The Supremes and Motown Records. The roles of many of the characters were related more closely to their real-life inspirations, following a suggestion by Geffen.
Warner Bros. had retained the film rights to Dreamgirls, and agreed to co-produce with DreamWorks. However, after casting was completed, the film was budgeted at $73 million and Warner backed out of the production. Geffen, taking the role of co-producer, brought Paramount Pictures in to co-finance and release Dreamgirls. During the course of production, Paramount's parent company, Viacom, would purchase DreamWorks, aligning the two studios under one umbrella (and giving the senior studio US distribution rights on behalf of DreamWorks). The completed film had a production budget of $75 million, making Dreamgirls the most expensive film with an all-black starring cast in cinema history.
Casting and rehearsal
Mark and Condon began pre-production with the intentions of casting Jamie Foxx and Eddie Murphy, both actors with record industry experience, as Curtis Taylor, Jr. and James "Thunder" Early, respectively. When offered the part of Curtis, Foxx initially declined because DreamWorks could not meet his salary demands. Denzel Washington, Will Smith, and Terrence Howard were among the other actors also approached to play Curtis. Murphy, on the other hand, accepted the role of Jimmy Early after being convinced to do so by DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg.
While Condon had intended to cast relatively unknown actresses as all three Dreams, R&B singer Beyoncé Knowles lobbied for the part of Deena Jones, and was cast after a successful screen test. Upon learning that Knowles and Murphy had signed on, Foxx rethought his original decision and accepted the Curtis role at DreamWorks' lower salary.
R&B star Usher was to have been cast as C.C. White, but contract negotiations failed; Usher was unable to dedicate half a year to the project. André 3000 of Outkast was also offered the role, but declined. After briefly considering R&B singer Omarion, singer/actor Keith Robinson was eventually cast in the role.
Anika Noni Rose, a Broadway veteran and a Tony Award winner, won the part of Lorrell Robinson after an extensive auditioning process. Rose, significantly shorter than most of her co-stars at five feet and two inches (157 cm), was required to wear (and dance in) four and five-inch (127 mm) heels for much of the picture, which she later stated caused her discomfort.
The most crucial casting decision involved the role of Effie White, the emotional center of the story. The filmmakers insisted on casting a relative unknown in the role, paralleling the casting of then-21-year-old Jennifer Holliday in that role for the original Broadway production. A total of 783 singing actresses auditioned for the role of Effie White, among them American Idol alumnae Fantasia Barrino and Jennifer Hudson, former Disney star Raven-Symoné, and Broadway stars Capathia Jenkins and Patina Miller. Though Barrino emerged as an early frontrunner for the part, Hudson was eventually selected to play Effie, leading Barrino to telephone Hudson and jokingly complain that Hudson "stole [Barrino's] part."
Hudson was required to gain twenty pounds for the role, which marked her debut film performance. In casting Hudson, Condon recalled that he initially was not confident he'd made the right decision, but instinctively cast Hudson after she'd auditioned several times because he "just didn't believe any of the others."
After Hudson was cast in November 2005, the Dreamgirls cast began extensive rehearsals with Condon and choreographers Fatima Robinson and Aakomon "AJ" Jones, veterans of the music video industry. Meanwhile, the music production crew began work with the actors and studio musicians recording the songs for the film. Although rehearsals ended just before Christmas 2005, Condon called Hudson back for a week of one-on-one rehearsals, to help her more fully become the "diva" character of Effie. Hudson was required to be rude and come in late both on set and off, and she and Condon went over Effie's lines and scenes throughout the week.
Loretta Devine, who played Lorrell in the original Broadway production, has a cameo as a jazz singer who performs the song "I Miss You Old Friend." Another Dreamgirls veteran present in the film is Hinton Battle, who was a summer replacement for James "Thunder" Early onstage and here portrays Curtis' aide-de-camp Wayne.
Principal photography
Principal photography began January 6, 2006 with the filming of dance footage for the first half of "Steppin' to the Bad Side," footage later deleted from the film. The film was primarily shot on soundstages at the Los Angeles Center Studios and on location in the Los Angeles area, with some second unit footage shot in Detroit, Miami, and New York City. The award-winning Broadway lighting team of Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer were brought in to create theatrical lighting techniques for the film's musical numbers.
Beyoncé Knowles elected to lose weight to give the mature Deena Jones of the 1970s a different look than the younger version of the character. By sticking to a highly publicized diet of water, lemons, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper (also known as the Master Cleanse), Knowles rapidly lost twenty pounds, which she gained back once production ended.
Shooting was completed in the early-morning hours of April 8, 2006, after four days were spent shooting Jennifer Hudson's musical number "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going", which had purposefully been saved until the end of the shoot. Originally scheduled to be shot in one day, Condon was forced to ask for extra time and money to finish shooting the "And I Am Telling You" scene, as Hudson's voice would give out after four hours of shooting the musical number, and she was unable to plausibly lip-sync while hoarse. The scene was felt by everyone involved to be pivotal to the film, as "And I Am Telling You" was Jennifer Holliday's show-stopping number in the original Broadway musical.
Music
Dreamgirls musical supervisors Randy Spendlove and Matt Sullivan hired R&B production team The Underdogs — Harvey Mason, Jr. and Damon Thomas — to restructure and rearrange the Henry Krieger/Tom Eyen Dreamgirls score so that it better reflected its proper time period, yet also reflected then-modern R&B/pop sensibilities. During post-production, composer Stephen Trask was contracted to provide additional score material for the film. Several musical numbers from the Broadway score were not included in the film version, in particular Lorrell's solo "Ain't No Party".
Four new songs were added for the film: "Love You I Do", "Patience", "Perfect World," and "Listen." All of the new songs feature music composed by original Dreamgirls stage composer Henry Krieger. With Tom Eyen having died in 1991, various lyricists were brought in by Krieger to co-author the new songs. "Love You I Do," with lyrics by Siedah Garrett, is performed in the film by Effie during a rehearsal at the Rainbow Records studio. Willie Reale wrote the lyrics for "Patience," a song performed in the film by Jimmy, Lorrell, C.C., and a gospel choir, as the characters attempt to record a message song for Jimmy. "Perfect World," also featuring lyrics by Garrett, is performed during the Rainbow 10th anniversary special sequence by Jackson 5 doppelgängers The Campbell Connection. "Listen", with additional music by Scott Cutler and Beyoncé, and lyrics by Anne Preven, is presented as a defining moment for Deena's character late in the film.
After preview screenings during the summer of 2006, several minutes worth of musical footage were deleted from the film due to negative audience reactions to the amount of music. Among this footage was one whole musical number, C.C. and Effie's sung reunion "Effie, Sing My Song", which was replaced with an alternative spoken version.
The Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture soundtrack album was released on December 5 by Music World Entertainment/Columbia Records, in both a single-disc version containing highlights and a double-disc "Deluxe Version" containing all of the film's songs. The single-disc version of the soundtrack peaked at number-one on the Billboard 200 during a slow sales week in early January 2007. "Listen" was the first official single from the soundtrack, supported by a music video featuring Beyoncé. "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" was the Dreamgirls soundtrack's second single. Though a music video with all-original footage was once planned, the video eventually released for "And I Am Telling You" comprised the entire corresponding scene in the actual film.
Release
Dreamgirls premiered on December 4, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, where it received a standing ovation. The film's Los Angeles premiere was held on December 11 at the Wilshire Theater in Beverly Hills.
Similar to the releases of older Hollywood musicals such as The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, and West Side Story, Dreamgirls debuted with three special ten-day roadshow engagements beginning on December 15, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, the Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles, and the AMC Metreon 15 in San Francisco. Tickets for the reserved seats were $25 each; the premium price included a forty-eight page full-color program and a limited-print lithograph. This release made Dreamgirls the first American feature film to have a roadshow release since Man of La Mancha in 1972. Dreamgirls earned a total of $851,664 from the roadshow engagements, playing to sold-out houses on the weekends. The film's national release, at regular prices, began on December 25. Outside of the U.S., Dreamgirls opened in Australia on January 18, and in the United Kingdom on February 2. Releases in other countries began on various dates between January and early March. Dreamgirls eventually grossed $103 million in North America, and almost $155 million worldwide.
DreamWorks Home Entertainment released Dreamgirls to home video on May 1, 2007 in DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray formats. The DVD version was issued in two editions: a one-disc standard version and a two-disc "Showstopper Edition". The two-disc version also included a feature-length production documentary, production featurettes, screen tests, animatics, and other previsualization materials and artwork. Both DVD versions featured alternative and extended versions of the musical numbers from the film as extras, including the "Effie, Sing My Song" scene deleted during previews. Both the Blu-ray and HD DVD versions were issued in two-disc formats. Dreamgirls was the first DreamWorks film to be issued in a high definition home entertainment format. , total domestic video sales to date are at $95.1 million.
A "Director's Extended Edition" of Dreamgirls was released on Blu-ray and Digital HD on October 10, 2017 by Paramount Home Media Distribution. This version, based on edits done for preview screenings before the film's release, runs ten minutes longer than the theatrical version and features longer musical numbers (including songs and verses cut during previews) and additional scenes.
Reception
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 78% based on 208 reviews, with an average rating of 7.24/10. The site's critics consensus states: "Dreamgirls simple characters and plot hardly detract from the movie's real feats: the electrifying performances and the dazzling musical numbers." Metacritic reports a weighted average score of 76 out of 100 rating, based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.
Rolling Stone's Peter Travers gave the film three and a half stars (out of four) and the number-two position on his "best of 2006" list, stating that "despite transitional bumps, Condon does Dreamgirls proud". David Rooney of Variety reported that the film featured "tremendously exciting musical sequences" and that "after The Phantom of the Opera, Rent and The Producers botched the transfer from stage to screen, Dreamgirls gets it right."
On the December 10, 2006 episode of the television show Ebert & Roeper, Richard Roeper and guest critic Aisha Tyler (filling in for Roger Ebert, who was recovering from cancer-related surgery) gave the film "two thumbs up", with Roeper's reservations that it was "a little short on heart and soul" and "deeply conventional". Roeper still enjoyed the film, noting that Jennifer Hudson's rendition of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" as the "show-stopping moment of any film of 2006" and very much enjoyed Murphy's performance as well, remarking that "people are going to love this film." Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter was less enthusiastic, stating that while the film was "a damn good commercial movie, it is not the film that will revive the musical or win over the world". Ed Gonzales of Slant magazine found the entire picture too glossy, and declared that "the film doesn't care to articulate the emotions that haunt its characters". University of Sydney academic Timothy Laurie was critical of the film's social message, noting that "the worthy receive just deserts by working even
harder for the industries that marginalise them".
Many reviews, regardless of their overall opinion of the film, cited Hudson's and Murphy's performances as standouts, with Travers proclaiming Murphy's performance of "Jimmy's Rap" as "his finest screen moment." Television host Oprah Winfrey saw the film during a November 15 press screening, and telephoned Hudson on the Oprah episode airing the next day, praising her performance as "a religious experience" and "a transcendent performance". A review for The Celebrity Cafe echoes that Hudson's voice "is like nothing we’ve heard in a long time, and her acting is a great match for that power-house sound."
Jennifer Holliday, who originated the role of Effie onstage, expressed her disappointment at not being involved in the film project in several TV, radio, and print interviews. Holliday in particular objected to the fact that her 1982 recording of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" was used in an early Dreamgirls film teaser trailer created before production began. Many of the other original Dreamgirls Broadway cast members, among them Obba Babatundé, Vondie Curtis-Hall, and Cleavant Derricks, were interviewed for a Jet magazine article in which they discussed their varying opinions of both the Dreamgirls film's script and production.
Awards and nominations
DreamWorks and Paramount began a significant awards campaign for Dreamgirls while the film was still in production. In February 2006, the press was invited on set to a special live event showcasing the making of the film, including a live performance of "Steppin' to the Bad Side" by the cast. Three months later, twenty minutes of the film — specifically, the musical sequences "Fake Your Way to the Top", "Family", "When I First Saw You", and "Dreamgirls" – were screened at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, with most of the cast and crew in attendance. The resulting positive buzz earned Dreamgirls the status of "front-runner" for the 2006 Academy Award for Best Picture and several of the other Oscars as well.
Following the success of the Cannes screening, DreamWorks and Paramount began a widespread "For Your Consideration" advertisement campaign, raising several eyebrows by demoting Jennifer Hudson to consideration for Best Supporting Actress and presenting Beyoncé Knowles as the sole Best Actress candidate, as opposed to having both compete for Best Actress awards. By contrast, the actresses who originated Hudson's and Knowles' roles on Broadway, Jennifer Holliday and Sheryl Lee Ralph, respectively, were both nominated for the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress, with Holliday winning the award. The presentation of Knowles over Hudson as the sole Best Actress candidate had interesting parallels with the film itself.
Dreamgirls received eight 2007 Academy Award nominations covering six categories, the most of any film for the year, although it was not nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, or either of the lead acting categories. The film's nominations included Best Supporting Actor (Eddie Murphy), Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson), Best Achievement in Costume Design, Best Achievement in Art Direction, Best Achievement in Sound Mixing, and three nominations for Best Song ("Listen", "Love You I Do", and "Patience"). Dreamgirls is the first live-action film to receive three nominations for Best Song; previously the Disney animated features Beauty and the Beast (1991) and The Lion King (1994) had each received three Academy Award nominations for Best Song; Enchanted (2007) has since repeated the feat.
In addition, Dreamgirls was the first film in Academy Award history to receive the highest number of nominations for the year, yet not be nominated for Best Picture. The film's failure to gain a Best Picture or Best Director nod was widely viewed by the entertainment press as a "snub" by the Academy. Some journalists registered shock, while others cited a "backlash".<ref>Felton, Robert (Feb. 28, 2007). "[http://austinweeklynews.1upsoftware.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=1101&TM=82934.76 Dreamgirls' Best Picture snub and Oscar night thud] ". Austin Weekly News. Retrieved March 11, 2007.</ref> On the other hand, director Bill Condon stated that "I think academy members just liked the other movies better" and that he believed that "we were never going to win even if we were nominated." Reports emerged of significant behind-the-scenes in-fighting between the DreamWorks and Paramount camps, in particular between DreamWorks' David Geffen and Paramount CEO Brad Grey, over decision making and credit-claiming during the Dreamgirls awards campaign.
At the Academy Awards ceremony on February 25, 2007, Dreamgirls won Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and Best Sound Mixing. As such, Hudson became one of the few actresses ever to win an Oscar for a film debut performance. In what was considered an upset, Murphy lost the Best Supporting Actor award to Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine. Knowles, Hudson, Rose, and Robinson performed a medley of the three Dreamgirls songs nominated for Best Original Song, although all three songs lost the award to "I Need to Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth.
For the 2007 Golden Globe Awards, Dreamgirls was nominated in five categories: Best Picture – Comedy or Musical, Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical (Beyoncé Knowles), Best Supporting Actor (Eddie Murphy), Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson), and Best Original Song ("Listen"). The film won the awards for Best Picture — Comedy or Musical, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress. Dreamgirls received eight NAACP Image Award nominations, winning for Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson) and Outstanding Album (the soundtrack LP). It was also named as one of the American Film Institute's top ten films of 2006.Dreamgirls also garnered Screen Actors Guild Awards for Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson) and Supporting Actor (Eddie Murphy), as well as a nomination for its ensemble cast. The film was also nominated by the Producers Guild of America for Best Picture and the Directors Guild of America for Bill Condon's directing. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts gave the film awards for Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson) and Music (Henry Krieger).
Furthermore, Dreamgirls was nominated for eleven 2007 International Press Academy Satellite Awards, and won four of the awards: Best Picture — Comedy or Musical, Best Director (Bill Condon), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Jennifer Hudson), and Best Sound (Mixing & Editing). Dreamgirls also received a record eleven Black Reel Award nominations, and won six of the awards, among them Best Film. At the 50th Grammy Awards ceremony, "Love You I Do" won the award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media. The Dreamgirls soundtrack was also nominated for the Grammy for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album.
For the opening performance at the 2007 BET Awards on June 26 of that year, Hudson performed a duet of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" with her predecessor, Jennifer Holliday. Later that night, Hudson won the BET Award for Best Actress.
In February 2022, Hudson's rendition of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" was named one of the five finalists for Oscars Cheer Moment as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' "Oscars Fan Favorite" contest.
Accolades
Related promotions and products
To give the story more exposure for the upcoming film release, DreamWorks and the licenser of the original play, The Tams-Witmark Music Library, announced that they would pay the licensing fees for all non-professional stage performances of Dreamgirls for the calendar year of 2006. DreamWorks hoped to encourage amateur productions of Dreamgirls, and familiarize a wider audience with the play. As a result, more than fifty high schools, colleges, community theaters, and other non-commercial theater entities staged productions of Dreamgirls in 2006, and DreamWorks spent up to $250,000 subsidizing the licensing.
The Dreamgirls novelization was written by African-American novelist Denene Millner, and adapts the film's official script in chapter form, along with fourteen pages of photographs from the film. The book was released on October 31, 2006. A scrapbook, entitled Dreamgirls: The Movie Musical, was released on March 27, 2007. The limited edition program guide accompanying the Dreamgirls road show release was made available for retail purchase in February. In addition, the Tonnor Doll Company released "The Dreamettes" collection, featuring dolls of the characters Deena, Lorrell, and Effie, to coincide with the release of the film.
Allusions to actual events
Aside from the overall plot of the film and elements already present in the stage musical, many direct references to The Supremes, Motown, or R&B/soul history in general are included in the film. In one scene, Effie saunters into Curtis' office and discusses Rainbow Records' latest LP, The Great March to Freedom, a spoken word album featuring speeches by Martin Luther King Jr. This LP is an authentic Motown release, issued as Gordy 906 in June 1963.Edwards, David and Callahan, Mike (1999). "Gordy Album Discography, Part 1 (1962–1981)". Retrieved Feb. 3, 2007. A later scene features Curtis and the Dreams recording in the studio, while a riot rages outside. By comparison, Motown's Hitsville U.S.A. studio remained open and active during Detroit's 12th Street Riot in July 1967.Posner, Gerald (2002). Motown: Music, Money, Sex, and Power. New York: Random House. . Pg. 173. The photo shoot montage which accompanies "When I First Saw You", as well as the subplot of Deena being forced to star in Curtis' Cleopatra film against her will, reflect both scenes from and the production of Mahogany, a 1975 Motown film starring Diana Ross and directed by Motown CEO Berry Gordy. In a snapshot, Ed Sullivan appears presenting the real Supremes on his show.
Among the more direct references are the uses of adapted Supremes album cover designs for albums recorded in the film by the Dreams. Three Supremes albums – Let the Sunshine In, Cream of the Crop, and Touch – were reworked into Deena Jones & The Dreams album designs, with the only differences in the designs being the substitution of the names and images of the Supremes with those of Deena Jones & the Dreams. Another Dreams LP seen in the film, Meet the Dreams, is represented by an album cover derived from the designs for the Supremes LPs Meet The Supremes, More Hits by The Supremes and The Supremes A' Go-Go. There is also a solo album, Just In Time, recorded by Deena Jones shown in the film, the album cover for which is based on Dionne Warwick's 1970 album, Very Dionne.
Diana Ross, long a critic of the Broadway version of Dreamgirls for what she saw as an appropriation of her life story, denied having seen the film version. On the other hand, Mary Wilson attended the film's Los Angeles premiere, later stating that Dreamgirls moved her to tears and that it was "closer to the truth than they even know".
However, Smokey Robinson was less than pleased about the film's allusions to Motown history. In a January 25, 2007 interview with NPR, Robinson expressed offense at the film's portrayal of its Berry Gordy analogue, Curtis Taylor Jr., as a "villainous character" who deals in payola and other illegal activities. He repeated these concerns in a later interview with Access Hollywood'', adding that he felt DreamWorks and Paramount owed Gordy an apology. On February 23, a week before the Oscars ceremony, DreamWorks and Paramount issued an apology to Gordy and the other Motown alumni. Gordy issued a statement shortly afterwards expressing his acceptance of the apology.
The payola scheme used in the film's script, to which Robinson took offense, is identical to the payola scheme allegedly used by Gordy and the other Motown executives, according to sworn court depositions from Motown executive Michael Lushka, offered during the litigation between the label and its chief creative team, Holland–Dozier–Holland. Several references are also made to Mafia-backed loans Curtis uses to fund Rainbow Records. Gordy was highly suspected, though never proven, to have used Mafia-backed loans to finance Motown during its later years.
References
External links
Dreamgirls Blu-ray Disc review
Dreamgirls
2000s historical romance films
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2000s romantic drama films
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Adultery in films
African-American drama films
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American musical drama films
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BAFTA winners (films)
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2000s English-language films
Films à clef
Films about musical groups
Films about race and ethnicity
Films based on musicals
Films directed by Bill Condon
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe winning performance
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2006 drama films | true | [
"That article shows the list and details of the managers in their spells at Colo-Colo.\n\nChronology\nThe letter c means Caretaker manager.\n\nMost successful managers\nThe following table, shows the most successful managers according to the club's history (totals include competitive matches only):\n\nTable correct as of 12 March 2013\n\n (*): International tournament runner-up.\n\nColo-Colo managers, List of\nColo-Colo",
"The Celebrity Game is an Australian game show that aired in two different formats. The original series, based on an American game show, People Will Talk was hosted by Bert Newton on the Nine Network in 1969 as Australia's Celebrity Game. The later series, based on the game of charades, involving two teams of celebrities, was hosted by Mike Preston on Network Ten ran from 1976 to 1977.\n\nGameplay\nIn the original 1969 version, similar to the 1964 American version, a panel of nine celebrities were asked a question on a popular topic, and three contestants were then asked to choose a celebrity and to tell how that contestant voted. After every three turns, if all three contestants correctly guessed the celebrity's answers, they each won $10; if two contestants were successful, they received $20; if one contestant was successful, that contestant received $30.\n\nIn the 1976–77 version, two teams of three celebrities and a contestant competed in the game of charades, where one player acted out a word or phrase, often by pantomiming similar-sounding words, and the other players guessed the word or phrase. The celebrity regulars included Joy Chambers, Joe Martin, Johnny Pace, Harriet, Stuart Wagstaff and Barry Creyton.\n\nSee also\n List of Australian game shows\n Pyramid, Australian game show\n Give Us a Clue\n People Will Talk\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1960s Australian game shows\n1970s Australian game shows\nNetwork 10 original programming\nNine Network original programming\n1969 Australian television series debuts\n1969 Australian television series endings\n1976 Australian television series debuts\n1977 Australian television series endings\nBlack-and-white Australian television shows"
] |
[
"Dreamgirls (film)",
"Premieres, road show engagements, and general releases",
"What was the premier date?",
"Dreamgirls premiered on December 4, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City,",
"Did all of the stars attend?",
"I don't know.",
"Did anything of interest happen at the premier?",
"The film's Los Angeles premiere was held on December 11 at the Wilshire Theater in Beverly Hills.",
"What was the road show?",
"Dreamgirls debuted with three special ten-day roadshow engagements beginning on December 15, 2006",
"Did Beyonce participate?",
"I don't know.",
"Were the shows successful?",
"Dreamgirls earned a total of $851,664 from the roadshow engagements, playing to sold-out houses on the weekends."
] | C_867af2e657024cc0910e36deae8d265f_0 | Were the sales good for the general release? | 7 | Were the sales good for the general release of Dreamgirls? | Dreamgirls (film) | Dreamgirls premiered on December 4, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, where it received a standing ovation. The film's Los Angeles premiere was held on December 11 at the Wilshire Theater in Beverly Hills. Similar to the releases of older Hollywood musicals such as The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, and West Side Story, Dreamgirls debuted with three special ten-day roadshow engagements beginning on December 15, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, the Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles, and the AMC Metreon 15 in San Francisco. Tickets for the reserved seats were $25 each; the premium price included a forty-eight page full-color program and a limited-print lithograph. This release made Dreamgirls the first American feature film to have a roadshow release since Man of La Mancha in 1972. Dreamgirls earned a total of $851,664 from the roadshow engagements, playing to sold-out houses on the weekends. The film's national release, at regular prices, began on December 25. Outside of the U.S., Dreamgirls opened in Australia on January 18, and in the United Kingdom on February 2. Releases in other countries began on various dates between January and early March. Dreamgirls eventually grossed $103 million in North America, and almost $155 million worldwide. DreamWorks Home Entertainment released Dreamgirls to home video on May 1, 2007 in DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray formats. The DVD version was issued in two editions: a one-disc standard version and a two-disc "Showstopper Edition". The two-disc version also included a feature-length production documentary, production featurettes, screen tests, animatics, and other previsualization materials and artwork. Both DVD versions featured alternate and extended versions of the musical numbers from the film as extras, including the "Effie, Sing My Song" scene deleted during previews. Both the Blu-ray and HD DVD versions were issued in two-disc formats. Dreamgirls was the first DreamWorks film to be issued in a high definition home entertainment format. As of 2017, total domestic video sales to date are at $95.1 million. A "Director's Extended Edition" of Dreamgirls was released on Blu-Ray and Digital HD on October 10, 2017 by Paramount Home Media Distribution. This version, based on edits done for preview screenings before the film's release, runs ten minutes longer than the theatrical version and features longer musical numbers (including songs and verses cut during previews) and additional scenes. CANNOTANSWER | Dreamgirls eventually grossed $103 million in North America, and almost $155 million worldwide. | Dreamgirls is a 2006 American musical drama film written and directed by Bill Condon and jointly produced and released by DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures. Adapted from the 1981 Broadway musical of the same name, Dreamgirls is a film à clef, a work of fiction taking strong inspiration from the history of the Motown record label and one of its acts, The Supremes. The story follows the history and evolution of American R&B music during the 1960s and 1970s through the eyes of a Detroit girl group known as "The Dreams" and their manipulative record executive.
The film adaptation stars Jamie Foxx, Beyoncé Knowles and Eddie Murphy, and also features Jennifer Hudson, Danny Glover, Anika Noni Rose and Keith Robinson. In addition to the original compositions by composer Henry Krieger and lyricist/librettist Tom Eyen, four new songs, composed by Krieger with various lyricists, were added for the film. The film marks the acting debut of Hudson, a former American Idol contestant.
Dreamgirls debuted in four special road show engagements starting on December 15, 2006, before its nationwide release on December 25, 2006. With a production budget of $80 million, Dreamgirls is one of the most expensive films to feature a predominant African-American starring cast in American film history. Upon its release, the film garnered positive reviews from critics, who particularly praised Condon's direction, the soundtrack, costume design, production design, and performances of the cast (in particular of Hudson, which many deemed a standout performance). The film was a commercial success, grossing over $155 million at the international box office. At the 79th Academy Awards, the film received a leading eight nominations, winning Best Supporting Actress (for Hudson), and Best Sound Mixing. At the 64th Golden Globe Awards, it won three awards, including for the Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.
Plot
In 1962 Detroit, Michigan, young car salesman Curtis Taylor Jr. meets a Black girl group known as "The Dreamettes", which consists of lead singer Effie White and backup singers Deena Jones and Lorrell Robinson, at an R&B amateur talent show at the Detroit Theatre. Presenting himself as their new manager, he hires the girls as backup singers for Chitlin' Circuit R&B star Jimmy "Thunder" Early.
Curtis soon starts his own record label, Rainbow Records, out of his Detroit car dealership, and appoints Effie's brother, C.C., as his head songwriter. When their first single "Cadillac Car" fails after a white pop group named Dave and the Sweethearts releases a cover version, Curtis, C.C., and their producer Wayne turn to payola to make "Jimmy Early & The Dreamettes" mainstream pop stars. Offstage, Effie falls in love with Curtis while the married Jimmy does likewise with Lorrell.
Jimmy's manager, Marty Madison, grows weary of Curtis' plans to make his client more pop-friendly and walks out. When Jimmy bombs in front of an all-white Miami Beach supper club audience, Curtis sends Jimmy out on the road alone, keeping The Dreamettes behind to headline in his place. Feeling that Effie's figure and distinctive, soulful voice will not attract white audiences, Curtis appoints the slimmer, more conventionally attractive Deena (who has a more basic, generic, and marketable voice) as the new lead singer, renaming the group "The Dreams".
Aided by new songs and a new image, Curtis and C.C. transform The Dreams into a top-selling mainstream pop group. By 1965, however, Effie begins acting out, particularly when Curtis' affections also turn towards Deena. Curtis eventually drops Effie, hiring his secretary Michelle Morris to replace her beginning with their 1966 New Year's Eve debut in Las Vegas as "Deena Jones & the Dreams." Though Effie defiantly and desperately appeals to Curtis, he, C.C., and The Dreams abandon her, forging ahead to stardom.
By 1973, Effie has become an impoverished welfare mother living in Detroit with her daughter Magic. To restart her music career, she hires Marty as her manager and begins performing at a local club. Meanwhile, with The Dreams superstars and Rainbow, having moved to Los Angeles, now the biggest pop business in the country, Curtis attempts to produce a film about Cleopatra starring an unwilling Deena, now his wife.
The following year, Jimmy, who has descended into drug addiction due to Curtis' preoccupation with Deena, along with the rejection of the charity single he recorded, does an improvised rap and drops his pants during Rainbow Records' tenth-anniversary television special. Curtis promptly drops him from the label and Lorrell ends their affair. Sometime later, C.C., who feels Curtis is undermining the artistic merit of his songs by making them into disco music, quits the label, only for everyone to then learn of Jimmy's unexpected death from a heroin overdose, which greatly upsets Lorrell.
Disillusioned by Jimmy's death and Curtis' cold reaction to the news, C.C. travels to Detroit and reconciles with Effie, for whom he writes and produces a comeback single, "One Night Only". Just as it begins gaining local radio play, Curtis uses payola to force radio stations to play The Dreams' disco cover of the song. The plan falls apart, however, when Deena, angry over how Curtis controls her career, discovers his schemes and contacts Effie, who arrives in Los Angeles with C.C., Marty, and a lawyer.
Deena and Effie reconcile, with Effie telling Deena that Curtis is Magic's father, while Curtis agrees to nationally distribute Effie's record to avoid being reported to the FBI. Inspired by Effie's victory and realizing Curtis' true character, Deena leaves him.
By 1975, The Dreams give a farewell performance at the Detroit Theater, inviting Effie for the final song. Towards the end, Curtis notices Magic in the front row, realizing she is his daughter.
Cast
Jennifer Hudson as Effie White; inspired by Supremes member Florence Ballard, Effie is a talented yet temperamental singer who suffers when Curtis, the man she loves, replaces her as lead singer of the Dreams and his love interest, and later drops her altogether. With the help of Jimmy's old manager Marty, Effie begins to resurrect her career a decade later, while raising her daughter Magic, the offspring of her union with Curtis.
Jamie Foxx as Curtis Taylor, Jr.; based upon Motown founder Berry Gordy, Jr., Curtis is a slick Cadillac dealer-turned-record executive who founds the Rainbow Records label and shows ruthless ambition in his quest to make his black artists household names with white audiences. At first romantically involved with Effie, Curtis takes a professional and personal interest in Deena after appointing her lead singer of the Dreams in Effie's place.
Beyoncé Knowles-Carter as Deena Jones; based upon Motown star and lead Supremes member Diana Ross and two former Supremes members Jean Terrell and Scherrie Payne, Deena is a very shy young woman who becomes a star after Curtis makes her lead singer of the Dreams. This, as well as her romantic involvement and later marriage to Curtis, draw Effie's ire, though Deena realizes over time she is a puppet for her controlling husband.
Anika Noni Rose as Lorrell Robinson; inspired by Supremes member Mary Wilson, is a good-natured background singer with the Dreams who falls deeply in love with the married Jimmy Early and becomes his mistress.
Keith Robinson as Clarence Conrad (C.C.) White; inspired by Motown vice president, artist, producer, and songwriter Smokey Robinson, Effie's soft-spoken younger brother serves as the main songwriter for first the Dreams and later the entire Rainbow roster.
Eddie Murphy as James (Jimmy) "Thunder" Early; inspired by R&B/soul singers such as James Brown, Jackie Wilson and Marvin Gaye, is a raucous performer on the Rainbow label engaged in an adulterous affair with Dreams member Lorrell. Curtis attempts to repackage Early as a pop-friendly balladeer. Jimmy's stardom fades as the Dreams' stardom rises, and as a result – he falls into depression (which he copes with through drug abuse).
Danny Glover as Marty Madison, Jimmy's original manager before Curtis steps into the picture; Marty serves as both counsel and confidant to Jimmy, and later to Effie as well.
Sharon Leal as Michelle Morris; based upon Supremes members Cindy Birdsong and Susaye Greene, Curtis' secretary who replaces Effie in the Dreams and begins dating C.C.
Hinton Battle as Wayne, a salesman at Curtis' Cadillac dealership who becomes Rainbow's first record producer and Curtis' henchman.
Yvette Cason as May, Deena's mother
Loretta Devine as Jazz Singer. Devine originated the role of Lorrell in the 1981 stage production.
Dawnn Lewis as Melba Early, James' wife
John Lithgow as Jerry Harris, a film producer looking to cast Deena
John Krasinski as Sam Walsh, Jerry Harris' screenwriter/film director
Jaleel White as Talent Booker at the Detroit Theatre talent show
Cleo King as Janice
Robert Cicchini as Nicky Cassaro
Yvette Nicole Brown as Curtis' Secretary
Mariah I. Wilson as Magic White, Effie's daughter
Paul Kirby as Promo Film Narrator (voice)
Musical numbers
Production
Pre-production
In the 1980s and 1990s, several attempts were made to produce a film adaptation of Dreamgirls, a Broadway musical loosely based upon the story of The Supremes and Motown Records, which won six Tony Awards in 1982. David Geffen, the stage musical's co-financier, retained the film rights to Dreamgirls and turned down many offers to adapt the story for the screen. He cited a need to preserve the integrity of Dreamgirls stage director Michael Bennett's work after his death in 1987. That same year, Geffen, who ran his Warner Bros.-associated Geffen Pictures film production company at the time, began talks with Broadway lyricist and producer Howard Ashman to adapt it as a star vehicle for Whitney Houston, who was to portray Deena. The production ran into problems when Houston wanted to sing both Deena and Effie's songs (particularly "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going"), and the film was eventually abandoned.
When Geffen co-founded DreamWorks in 1994 and dissolved Geffen Pictures, the rights to Dreamgirls remained with Warner Bros. Warner planned to go ahead with the film with director Joel Schumacher and screenwriter Tina Andrews in the late 1990s, following the success of Touchstone Pictures's Tina Turner biopic What's Love Got to Do with It. Schumacher planned to have Lauryn Hill portray Deena and Kelly Price play Effie. After Warner's Frankie Lymon biopic Why Do Fools Fall in Love failed at the box office, the studio shut down development on Dreamgirls.
DreamWorks' Dreamgirls adaptation came about after the film version of the Broadway musical Chicago was a success at both the box office and the Academy Awards. Screenwriter and director Bill Condon, who wrote Chicagos screenplay, met producer Laurence Mark at a Hollywood holiday party in late 2002, where the two discussed a long-held "dream project" of Condon's – adapting Dreamgirls for the screen. The two had dinner with Geffen and successfully convinced him to allow Condon to write a screenplay for Dreamgirls. Condon did not start work on the Dreamgirls script until after making the Alfred Kinsey biographical film Kinsey (2004). After sending Geffen the first draft of his screenplay in January 2005, Condon's adaptation of Dreamgirls was greenlit.
Stage to script changes
While much of the stage musical's story remains intact, a number of significant changes were made. The Dreams' hometown—the setting for much of the action—was moved from Chicago to Detroit, the real-life hometown of The Supremes and Motown Records. The roles of many of the characters were related more closely to their real-life inspirations, following a suggestion by Geffen.
Warner Bros. had retained the film rights to Dreamgirls, and agreed to co-produce with DreamWorks. However, after casting was completed, the film was budgeted at $73 million and Warner backed out of the production. Geffen, taking the role of co-producer, brought Paramount Pictures in to co-finance and release Dreamgirls. During the course of production, Paramount's parent company, Viacom, would purchase DreamWorks, aligning the two studios under one umbrella (and giving the senior studio US distribution rights on behalf of DreamWorks). The completed film had a production budget of $75 million, making Dreamgirls the most expensive film with an all-black starring cast in cinema history.
Casting and rehearsal
Mark and Condon began pre-production with the intentions of casting Jamie Foxx and Eddie Murphy, both actors with record industry experience, as Curtis Taylor, Jr. and James "Thunder" Early, respectively. When offered the part of Curtis, Foxx initially declined because DreamWorks could not meet his salary demands. Denzel Washington, Will Smith, and Terrence Howard were among the other actors also approached to play Curtis. Murphy, on the other hand, accepted the role of Jimmy Early after being convinced to do so by DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg.
While Condon had intended to cast relatively unknown actresses as all three Dreams, R&B singer Beyoncé Knowles lobbied for the part of Deena Jones, and was cast after a successful screen test. Upon learning that Knowles and Murphy had signed on, Foxx rethought his original decision and accepted the Curtis role at DreamWorks' lower salary.
R&B star Usher was to have been cast as C.C. White, but contract negotiations failed; Usher was unable to dedicate half a year to the project. André 3000 of Outkast was also offered the role, but declined. After briefly considering R&B singer Omarion, singer/actor Keith Robinson was eventually cast in the role.
Anika Noni Rose, a Broadway veteran and a Tony Award winner, won the part of Lorrell Robinson after an extensive auditioning process. Rose, significantly shorter than most of her co-stars at five feet and two inches (157 cm), was required to wear (and dance in) four and five-inch (127 mm) heels for much of the picture, which she later stated caused her discomfort.
The most crucial casting decision involved the role of Effie White, the emotional center of the story. The filmmakers insisted on casting a relative unknown in the role, paralleling the casting of then-21-year-old Jennifer Holliday in that role for the original Broadway production. A total of 783 singing actresses auditioned for the role of Effie White, among them American Idol alumnae Fantasia Barrino and Jennifer Hudson, former Disney star Raven-Symoné, and Broadway stars Capathia Jenkins and Patina Miller. Though Barrino emerged as an early frontrunner for the part, Hudson was eventually selected to play Effie, leading Barrino to telephone Hudson and jokingly complain that Hudson "stole [Barrino's] part."
Hudson was required to gain twenty pounds for the role, which marked her debut film performance. In casting Hudson, Condon recalled that he initially was not confident he'd made the right decision, but instinctively cast Hudson after she'd auditioned several times because he "just didn't believe any of the others."
After Hudson was cast in November 2005, the Dreamgirls cast began extensive rehearsals with Condon and choreographers Fatima Robinson and Aakomon "AJ" Jones, veterans of the music video industry. Meanwhile, the music production crew began work with the actors and studio musicians recording the songs for the film. Although rehearsals ended just before Christmas 2005, Condon called Hudson back for a week of one-on-one rehearsals, to help her more fully become the "diva" character of Effie. Hudson was required to be rude and come in late both on set and off, and she and Condon went over Effie's lines and scenes throughout the week.
Loretta Devine, who played Lorrell in the original Broadway production, has a cameo as a jazz singer who performs the song "I Miss You Old Friend." Another Dreamgirls veteran present in the film is Hinton Battle, who was a summer replacement for James "Thunder" Early onstage and here portrays Curtis' aide-de-camp Wayne.
Principal photography
Principal photography began January 6, 2006 with the filming of dance footage for the first half of "Steppin' to the Bad Side," footage later deleted from the film. The film was primarily shot on soundstages at the Los Angeles Center Studios and on location in the Los Angeles area, with some second unit footage shot in Detroit, Miami, and New York City. The award-winning Broadway lighting team of Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer were brought in to create theatrical lighting techniques for the film's musical numbers.
Beyoncé Knowles elected to lose weight to give the mature Deena Jones of the 1970s a different look than the younger version of the character. By sticking to a highly publicized diet of water, lemons, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper (also known as the Master Cleanse), Knowles rapidly lost twenty pounds, which she gained back once production ended.
Shooting was completed in the early-morning hours of April 8, 2006, after four days were spent shooting Jennifer Hudson's musical number "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going", which had purposefully been saved until the end of the shoot. Originally scheduled to be shot in one day, Condon was forced to ask for extra time and money to finish shooting the "And I Am Telling You" scene, as Hudson's voice would give out after four hours of shooting the musical number, and she was unable to plausibly lip-sync while hoarse. The scene was felt by everyone involved to be pivotal to the film, as "And I Am Telling You" was Jennifer Holliday's show-stopping number in the original Broadway musical.
Music
Dreamgirls musical supervisors Randy Spendlove and Matt Sullivan hired R&B production team The Underdogs — Harvey Mason, Jr. and Damon Thomas — to restructure and rearrange the Henry Krieger/Tom Eyen Dreamgirls score so that it better reflected its proper time period, yet also reflected then-modern R&B/pop sensibilities. During post-production, composer Stephen Trask was contracted to provide additional score material for the film. Several musical numbers from the Broadway score were not included in the film version, in particular Lorrell's solo "Ain't No Party".
Four new songs were added for the film: "Love You I Do", "Patience", "Perfect World," and "Listen." All of the new songs feature music composed by original Dreamgirls stage composer Henry Krieger. With Tom Eyen having died in 1991, various lyricists were brought in by Krieger to co-author the new songs. "Love You I Do," with lyrics by Siedah Garrett, is performed in the film by Effie during a rehearsal at the Rainbow Records studio. Willie Reale wrote the lyrics for "Patience," a song performed in the film by Jimmy, Lorrell, C.C., and a gospel choir, as the characters attempt to record a message song for Jimmy. "Perfect World," also featuring lyrics by Garrett, is performed during the Rainbow 10th anniversary special sequence by Jackson 5 doppelgängers The Campbell Connection. "Listen", with additional music by Scott Cutler and Beyoncé, and lyrics by Anne Preven, is presented as a defining moment for Deena's character late in the film.
After preview screenings during the summer of 2006, several minutes worth of musical footage were deleted from the film due to negative audience reactions to the amount of music. Among this footage was one whole musical number, C.C. and Effie's sung reunion "Effie, Sing My Song", which was replaced with an alternative spoken version.
The Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture soundtrack album was released on December 5 by Music World Entertainment/Columbia Records, in both a single-disc version containing highlights and a double-disc "Deluxe Version" containing all of the film's songs. The single-disc version of the soundtrack peaked at number-one on the Billboard 200 during a slow sales week in early January 2007. "Listen" was the first official single from the soundtrack, supported by a music video featuring Beyoncé. "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" was the Dreamgirls soundtrack's second single. Though a music video with all-original footage was once planned, the video eventually released for "And I Am Telling You" comprised the entire corresponding scene in the actual film.
Release
Dreamgirls premiered on December 4, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, where it received a standing ovation. The film's Los Angeles premiere was held on December 11 at the Wilshire Theater in Beverly Hills.
Similar to the releases of older Hollywood musicals such as The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, and West Side Story, Dreamgirls debuted with three special ten-day roadshow engagements beginning on December 15, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, the Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles, and the AMC Metreon 15 in San Francisco. Tickets for the reserved seats were $25 each; the premium price included a forty-eight page full-color program and a limited-print lithograph. This release made Dreamgirls the first American feature film to have a roadshow release since Man of La Mancha in 1972. Dreamgirls earned a total of $851,664 from the roadshow engagements, playing to sold-out houses on the weekends. The film's national release, at regular prices, began on December 25. Outside of the U.S., Dreamgirls opened in Australia on January 18, and in the United Kingdom on February 2. Releases in other countries began on various dates between January and early March. Dreamgirls eventually grossed $103 million in North America, and almost $155 million worldwide.
DreamWorks Home Entertainment released Dreamgirls to home video on May 1, 2007 in DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray formats. The DVD version was issued in two editions: a one-disc standard version and a two-disc "Showstopper Edition". The two-disc version also included a feature-length production documentary, production featurettes, screen tests, animatics, and other previsualization materials and artwork. Both DVD versions featured alternative and extended versions of the musical numbers from the film as extras, including the "Effie, Sing My Song" scene deleted during previews. Both the Blu-ray and HD DVD versions were issued in two-disc formats. Dreamgirls was the first DreamWorks film to be issued in a high definition home entertainment format. , total domestic video sales to date are at $95.1 million.
A "Director's Extended Edition" of Dreamgirls was released on Blu-ray and Digital HD on October 10, 2017 by Paramount Home Media Distribution. This version, based on edits done for preview screenings before the film's release, runs ten minutes longer than the theatrical version and features longer musical numbers (including songs and verses cut during previews) and additional scenes.
Reception
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 78% based on 208 reviews, with an average rating of 7.24/10. The site's critics consensus states: "Dreamgirls simple characters and plot hardly detract from the movie's real feats: the electrifying performances and the dazzling musical numbers." Metacritic reports a weighted average score of 76 out of 100 rating, based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.
Rolling Stone's Peter Travers gave the film three and a half stars (out of four) and the number-two position on his "best of 2006" list, stating that "despite transitional bumps, Condon does Dreamgirls proud". David Rooney of Variety reported that the film featured "tremendously exciting musical sequences" and that "after The Phantom of the Opera, Rent and The Producers botched the transfer from stage to screen, Dreamgirls gets it right."
On the December 10, 2006 episode of the television show Ebert & Roeper, Richard Roeper and guest critic Aisha Tyler (filling in for Roger Ebert, who was recovering from cancer-related surgery) gave the film "two thumbs up", with Roeper's reservations that it was "a little short on heart and soul" and "deeply conventional". Roeper still enjoyed the film, noting that Jennifer Hudson's rendition of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" as the "show-stopping moment of any film of 2006" and very much enjoyed Murphy's performance as well, remarking that "people are going to love this film." Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter was less enthusiastic, stating that while the film was "a damn good commercial movie, it is not the film that will revive the musical or win over the world". Ed Gonzales of Slant magazine found the entire picture too glossy, and declared that "the film doesn't care to articulate the emotions that haunt its characters". University of Sydney academic Timothy Laurie was critical of the film's social message, noting that "the worthy receive just deserts by working even
harder for the industries that marginalise them".
Many reviews, regardless of their overall opinion of the film, cited Hudson's and Murphy's performances as standouts, with Travers proclaiming Murphy's performance of "Jimmy's Rap" as "his finest screen moment." Television host Oprah Winfrey saw the film during a November 15 press screening, and telephoned Hudson on the Oprah episode airing the next day, praising her performance as "a religious experience" and "a transcendent performance". A review for The Celebrity Cafe echoes that Hudson's voice "is like nothing we’ve heard in a long time, and her acting is a great match for that power-house sound."
Jennifer Holliday, who originated the role of Effie onstage, expressed her disappointment at not being involved in the film project in several TV, radio, and print interviews. Holliday in particular objected to the fact that her 1982 recording of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" was used in an early Dreamgirls film teaser trailer created before production began. Many of the other original Dreamgirls Broadway cast members, among them Obba Babatundé, Vondie Curtis-Hall, and Cleavant Derricks, were interviewed for a Jet magazine article in which they discussed their varying opinions of both the Dreamgirls film's script and production.
Awards and nominations
DreamWorks and Paramount began a significant awards campaign for Dreamgirls while the film was still in production. In February 2006, the press was invited on set to a special live event showcasing the making of the film, including a live performance of "Steppin' to the Bad Side" by the cast. Three months later, twenty minutes of the film — specifically, the musical sequences "Fake Your Way to the Top", "Family", "When I First Saw You", and "Dreamgirls" – were screened at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, with most of the cast and crew in attendance. The resulting positive buzz earned Dreamgirls the status of "front-runner" for the 2006 Academy Award for Best Picture and several of the other Oscars as well.
Following the success of the Cannes screening, DreamWorks and Paramount began a widespread "For Your Consideration" advertisement campaign, raising several eyebrows by demoting Jennifer Hudson to consideration for Best Supporting Actress and presenting Beyoncé Knowles as the sole Best Actress candidate, as opposed to having both compete for Best Actress awards. By contrast, the actresses who originated Hudson's and Knowles' roles on Broadway, Jennifer Holliday and Sheryl Lee Ralph, respectively, were both nominated for the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress, with Holliday winning the award. The presentation of Knowles over Hudson as the sole Best Actress candidate had interesting parallels with the film itself.
Dreamgirls received eight 2007 Academy Award nominations covering six categories, the most of any film for the year, although it was not nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, or either of the lead acting categories. The film's nominations included Best Supporting Actor (Eddie Murphy), Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson), Best Achievement in Costume Design, Best Achievement in Art Direction, Best Achievement in Sound Mixing, and three nominations for Best Song ("Listen", "Love You I Do", and "Patience"). Dreamgirls is the first live-action film to receive three nominations for Best Song; previously the Disney animated features Beauty and the Beast (1991) and The Lion King (1994) had each received three Academy Award nominations for Best Song; Enchanted (2007) has since repeated the feat.
In addition, Dreamgirls was the first film in Academy Award history to receive the highest number of nominations for the year, yet not be nominated for Best Picture. The film's failure to gain a Best Picture or Best Director nod was widely viewed by the entertainment press as a "snub" by the Academy. Some journalists registered shock, while others cited a "backlash".<ref>Felton, Robert (Feb. 28, 2007). "[http://austinweeklynews.1upsoftware.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=1101&TM=82934.76 Dreamgirls' Best Picture snub and Oscar night thud] ". Austin Weekly News. Retrieved March 11, 2007.</ref> On the other hand, director Bill Condon stated that "I think academy members just liked the other movies better" and that he believed that "we were never going to win even if we were nominated." Reports emerged of significant behind-the-scenes in-fighting between the DreamWorks and Paramount camps, in particular between DreamWorks' David Geffen and Paramount CEO Brad Grey, over decision making and credit-claiming during the Dreamgirls awards campaign.
At the Academy Awards ceremony on February 25, 2007, Dreamgirls won Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and Best Sound Mixing. As such, Hudson became one of the few actresses ever to win an Oscar for a film debut performance. In what was considered an upset, Murphy lost the Best Supporting Actor award to Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine. Knowles, Hudson, Rose, and Robinson performed a medley of the three Dreamgirls songs nominated for Best Original Song, although all three songs lost the award to "I Need to Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth.
For the 2007 Golden Globe Awards, Dreamgirls was nominated in five categories: Best Picture – Comedy or Musical, Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical (Beyoncé Knowles), Best Supporting Actor (Eddie Murphy), Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson), and Best Original Song ("Listen"). The film won the awards for Best Picture — Comedy or Musical, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress. Dreamgirls received eight NAACP Image Award nominations, winning for Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson) and Outstanding Album (the soundtrack LP). It was also named as one of the American Film Institute's top ten films of 2006.Dreamgirls also garnered Screen Actors Guild Awards for Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson) and Supporting Actor (Eddie Murphy), as well as a nomination for its ensemble cast. The film was also nominated by the Producers Guild of America for Best Picture and the Directors Guild of America for Bill Condon's directing. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts gave the film awards for Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson) and Music (Henry Krieger).
Furthermore, Dreamgirls was nominated for eleven 2007 International Press Academy Satellite Awards, and won four of the awards: Best Picture — Comedy or Musical, Best Director (Bill Condon), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Jennifer Hudson), and Best Sound (Mixing & Editing). Dreamgirls also received a record eleven Black Reel Award nominations, and won six of the awards, among them Best Film. At the 50th Grammy Awards ceremony, "Love You I Do" won the award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media. The Dreamgirls soundtrack was also nominated for the Grammy for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album.
For the opening performance at the 2007 BET Awards on June 26 of that year, Hudson performed a duet of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" with her predecessor, Jennifer Holliday. Later that night, Hudson won the BET Award for Best Actress.
In February 2022, Hudson's rendition of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" was named one of the five finalists for Oscars Cheer Moment as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' "Oscars Fan Favorite" contest.
Accolades
Related promotions and products
To give the story more exposure for the upcoming film release, DreamWorks and the licenser of the original play, The Tams-Witmark Music Library, announced that they would pay the licensing fees for all non-professional stage performances of Dreamgirls for the calendar year of 2006. DreamWorks hoped to encourage amateur productions of Dreamgirls, and familiarize a wider audience with the play. As a result, more than fifty high schools, colleges, community theaters, and other non-commercial theater entities staged productions of Dreamgirls in 2006, and DreamWorks spent up to $250,000 subsidizing the licensing.
The Dreamgirls novelization was written by African-American novelist Denene Millner, and adapts the film's official script in chapter form, along with fourteen pages of photographs from the film. The book was released on October 31, 2006. A scrapbook, entitled Dreamgirls: The Movie Musical, was released on March 27, 2007. The limited edition program guide accompanying the Dreamgirls road show release was made available for retail purchase in February. In addition, the Tonnor Doll Company released "The Dreamettes" collection, featuring dolls of the characters Deena, Lorrell, and Effie, to coincide with the release of the film.
Allusions to actual events
Aside from the overall plot of the film and elements already present in the stage musical, many direct references to The Supremes, Motown, or R&B/soul history in general are included in the film. In one scene, Effie saunters into Curtis' office and discusses Rainbow Records' latest LP, The Great March to Freedom, a spoken word album featuring speeches by Martin Luther King Jr. This LP is an authentic Motown release, issued as Gordy 906 in June 1963.Edwards, David and Callahan, Mike (1999). "Gordy Album Discography, Part 1 (1962–1981)". Retrieved Feb. 3, 2007. A later scene features Curtis and the Dreams recording in the studio, while a riot rages outside. By comparison, Motown's Hitsville U.S.A. studio remained open and active during Detroit's 12th Street Riot in July 1967.Posner, Gerald (2002). Motown: Music, Money, Sex, and Power. New York: Random House. . Pg. 173. The photo shoot montage which accompanies "When I First Saw You", as well as the subplot of Deena being forced to star in Curtis' Cleopatra film against her will, reflect both scenes from and the production of Mahogany, a 1975 Motown film starring Diana Ross and directed by Motown CEO Berry Gordy. In a snapshot, Ed Sullivan appears presenting the real Supremes on his show.
Among the more direct references are the uses of adapted Supremes album cover designs for albums recorded in the film by the Dreams. Three Supremes albums – Let the Sunshine In, Cream of the Crop, and Touch – were reworked into Deena Jones & The Dreams album designs, with the only differences in the designs being the substitution of the names and images of the Supremes with those of Deena Jones & the Dreams. Another Dreams LP seen in the film, Meet the Dreams, is represented by an album cover derived from the designs for the Supremes LPs Meet The Supremes, More Hits by The Supremes and The Supremes A' Go-Go. There is also a solo album, Just In Time, recorded by Deena Jones shown in the film, the album cover for which is based on Dionne Warwick's 1970 album, Very Dionne.
Diana Ross, long a critic of the Broadway version of Dreamgirls for what she saw as an appropriation of her life story, denied having seen the film version. On the other hand, Mary Wilson attended the film's Los Angeles premiere, later stating that Dreamgirls moved her to tears and that it was "closer to the truth than they even know".
However, Smokey Robinson was less than pleased about the film's allusions to Motown history. In a January 25, 2007 interview with NPR, Robinson expressed offense at the film's portrayal of its Berry Gordy analogue, Curtis Taylor Jr., as a "villainous character" who deals in payola and other illegal activities. He repeated these concerns in a later interview with Access Hollywood'', adding that he felt DreamWorks and Paramount owed Gordy an apology. On February 23, a week before the Oscars ceremony, DreamWorks and Paramount issued an apology to Gordy and the other Motown alumni. Gordy issued a statement shortly afterwards expressing his acceptance of the apology.
The payola scheme used in the film's script, to which Robinson took offense, is identical to the payola scheme allegedly used by Gordy and the other Motown executives, according to sworn court depositions from Motown executive Michael Lushka, offered during the litigation between the label and its chief creative team, Holland–Dozier–Holland. Several references are also made to Mafia-backed loans Curtis uses to fund Rainbow Records. Gordy was highly suspected, though never proven, to have used Mafia-backed loans to finance Motown during its later years.
References
External links
Dreamgirls Blu-ray Disc review
Dreamgirls
2000s historical romance films
2000s musical drama films
2000s romantic drama films
2000s romantic musical films
2006 films
Adultery in films
African-American drama films
African-American musical films
American films
American films based on plays
American historical romance films
American musical drama films
American romantic drama films
American romantic musical films
BAFTA winners (films)
Best Musical or Comedy Picture Golden Globe winners
DreamWorks Pictures films
2000s English-language films
Films à clef
Films about musical groups
Films about race and ethnicity
Films based on musicals
Films directed by Bill Condon
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe winning performance
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award-winning performance
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe-winning performance
Films produced by Laurence Mark
Films scored by Stephen Trask
Films set in the 1960s
Films set in the 1970s
Films set in Detroit
Films shot in Michigan
Films that won the Best Sound Mixing Academy Award
Films with screenplays by Bill Condon
Paramount Pictures films
2006 drama films | true | [
"A Song for ×× (the \"××\" is silent) is the debut album by Japanese pop artist Ayumi Hamasaki, released January 1, 1999, by Avex Trax. Primarily a rock-pop album, it features musical composition and arrangements by Yasuhiko Hoshino, Mitsuru Igarashi, and others.\n\n\"Poker Face\" was released as the album's lead single on April 8, 1998. Entering the Oricon chart at number twenty, it became her first charting single. Four further singles were released to promote A Song for ××: \"You\", \"Trust\", \"For My Dear...\", and Depend on You\". All of them were top twenty hits in Japan, with the latter three reaching the top ten.\n\nThe album debuted atop the Oricon Charts with first week sales of 548,210 copies; it topped the chart for five weeks, a remarkable feat for a debut album. Its high first week sales were partly due to its debut sales being the first and second week sales combined (Oricon only has 51 weeks instead of 52). The album charted for 63 weeks and was certified Million by the Recording Industry Association of Japan for shipments exceeding one million copies in the country. As of 2008, A Song for ×× is Japan's 139th best selling album of all time.\n\nTrack listing\n\nRelease history\n\nCharts\nOricon Sales Chart (Japan)\n\n Total sales: 1,610,000 (Japan)\n Total sales: 1,910,000 (Avex)\n\nSingles\n\nTotal Single Sales: 775,000\n\nTotal Album and Single Sales: 2,385,000\n\nReferences \n\nAyumi Hamasaki albums\n1999 debut albums\nAvex Group albums\nJapanese-language albums",
"New home sales is an economic indicator which records sales of newly constructed residences in the United States of America. \nThe United States Census Bureau publishes new home sales statistics monthly on their website. Statistics are reported as unadjusted monthly rates and seasonally adjusted annual rates.\n\nEconomic significance\n\nBecause new home sales trigger consumption, they have significant market impact upon release. New home sales also serve as a good indicator of economic turning points due to its consumer income sensitivity. Generally, when economic conditions slow down, new home sales serves as an early indicator of such a depression.\n\nLimitations\n\nSeveral cautions apply when interpreting new home sales statistics:\n\n Statistics exclude any new houses that were not built for immediate sale. For example, in the situation where a purchaser commissions a builder to build a house on a lot that the purchaser already owns, this housing unit would not be included in the statistics. Other construction statistics, such as Permits, starts and completions, do include virtually all new residential construction.\n Sales are reported as of the month that a customer signs a sales contract or the builder accepts a deposit. The house can be in any stage of construction.\n Sales are not reduced to account for sales contracts which are subsequently cancelled by the customer or the builder. However, in those situations where a cancellation occurs, the house is not re-counted upon a subsequent sale to another customer.\n\nSee also\n Economic reports\n FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data)\n\nExternal links\n New Residential Sales definitions and statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau\n\nEconomic indicators\nHousing in the United States"
] |
[
"Michele Bachmann",
"Early life, education, and early career"
] | C_23ae721041f747e2b0a1ef889204eaab_1 | What shaped her thoughts about gay conversion therapy? | 1 | What shaped Bachmann's thoughts about gay conversion therapy? | Michele Bachmann | Bachmann was born Michele Marie Amble in Waterloo, Iowa, "into a family of Norwegian Lutheran Democrats"; her family moved from Iowa to Minnesota when she was 13 years old. After her parents divorced, Bachmann's father, David John Amble, moved to California, and Bachmann was raised by her mother, Arlene Jean (nee Johnson), who worked at the First National Bank in Anoka, Minnesota. Her mother remarried when Bachmann was a teenager; the new marriage resulted in a family with nine children. She graduated from Anoka High School in 1974 and, after graduation, spent one summer working on kibbutz Be'eri in Israel. In 1978, she graduated from Winona State University with a B.A. In 1979, Bachmann was a member of the first class of the O. W. Coburn School of Law, then a part of Oral Roberts University (ORU). While there, Bachmann studied with John Eidsmoe, whom she described in 2011 as "one of the professors who had a great influence on me". Bachmann worked as a research assistant on Eidsmoe's 1987 book Christianity and the Constitution, which argues that the United States was founded as a Christian theocracy and should become one again. In 1986 Bachmann received a J.D. degree from Oral Roberts University. She was a member of the ORU law school's final graduating class, and was part of a group of faculty, staff, and students who moved the ORU law school library to what is now Regent University. In 1988, Bachmann received an LL.M. degree in tax law from William & Mary Law School. From 1988 to 1993 she worked as an attorney for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). She left the IRS to become a full-time mother when her fourth child was born. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Michele Marie Bachmann (; née Amble; born April 6, 1956) is an American politician who was the U.S. representative for from 2007 until 2015. A member of the Republican Party, she was a candidate for President of the United States in the 2012 election, but lost the Republican nomination to Mitt Romney.
Born in Waterloo, Iowa, Bachmann moved to Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, as a teenager. She graduated from O. W. Coburn School of Law, the law school of Oral Roberts University, and the William & Mary Law School. After graduating, she briefly worked in tax law for the Internal Revenue Service before becoming a stay-at-home mom. She became involved in local politics, specifically around education.
Bachmann formally entered politics in 2000, when she was elected to the Minnesota Senate. In 2006, she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. After her unsuccessful run for president, Bachmann was elected to another term in the House in 2012, before announcing her retirement before the 2014 election.
Early life, education, and early career
Bachmann was born Michele Marie Amble in Waterloo, Iowa, to Norwegian-American parents David John Amble (1929–2003) and Arlene Jean Amble (née Johnson; born c. 1932). Two of her great-great-great-grandparents, Melchior and Martha Munson, emigrated from Sogndal, Norway, to Wisconsin in 1857. David was an engineer. Her family moved from Iowa to Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, when she was 13 years old. After her parents divorced when she was 14, David moved to California and remarried. Bachmann was raised by her mother, who worked at the First National Bank in Anoka, Minnesota, where they moved again. Three years later her mother married widower Raymond J. LaFave; the new marriage resulted in a family with nine children.
Bachmann graduated from Anoka High School in 1974 and, after graduation, spent one summer working at kibbutz Be'eri in Israel. In 1978, she graduated from Winona State University with a B.A. In 1979, Bachmann was a member of the first class of the O. W. Coburn School of Law, then a part of Oral Roberts University (ORU). There she studied with John Eidsmoe, whom she described in 2011 as "one of the professors who had a great influence on me". Bachmann worked as a research assistant on Eidsmoe's 1987 book Christianity and the Constitution, which argues that the United States was founded as a Christian theocracy and should become one again. In 1986, Bachmann received a J.D. degree from Oral Roberts University. She was a member of the ORU law school's final graduating class, and was part of a group of faculty, staff, and students who moved the ORU law school library to what is now Regent University.
In 1988, Bachmann received an LL.M. degree in tax law from William & Mary Law School. From 1988 to 1993 she worked as an attorney for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). She left the IRS to become a full-time mother when her fourth child was born.
Early political activism
Bachmann grew up in a Democratic family and has said she became a Republican during her senior year at Winona State University. She told the Star Tribune that she was reading Gore Vidal's 1973 novel Burr and claimed that "[h]e was kind of mocking the Founding Fathers and I just thought—I just remember reading the book, putting it in my lap, looking out the window and thinking, 'You know what? I don't think I am a Democrat. I must be a Republican.
While still a Democrat, she and her then-fiancé, Marcus, were motivated to join the anti-abortion movement after watching Francis Schaeffer's 1976 Christian documentary film How Should We Then Live? They prayed outside of clinics and engaged in sidewalk interference, an activity in which anti-abortion activists attempt to persuade women entering clinics not to get abortions. Bachmann has since made statements supportive of sidewalk interference.
Bachmann supported Jimmy Carter for president in 1976, and she and her husband worked on his campaign. During Carter's presidency, Bachmann became disappointed with his liberal approach to public policy, support for legalized abortion and economic decisions she held responsible for increased gas prices. In the 1980 presidential election, she voted for Ronald Reagan and worked for his campaign.
Bachmann's political activism gained media attention at an anti-abortion protest in 1991. She and approximately 30 other protesters went to a Ramsey County Board meeting where $3 million was to be appropriated to build a morgue for the county at St. Paul-Ramsey Medical Center (now Regions Hospital). The Medical Center performed abortions and employed pro-choice activist Jane Hodgson. Bachmann voiced her opposition to tax dollars going to the hospital; to the Star Tribune, she said, "in effect, since 1973, I have been a landlord of an abortion clinic, and I don't like that distinction".
In 1993, Bachmann and other parents started the K–12 New Heights Charter School in Stillwater. The publicly funded school's charter mandated that it be non-sectarian in all programs and practices, but the school soon developed a strong Christian orientation. Parents of students at the school complained and the superintendent of schools warned Bachmann that the school was in violation of state law. Six months after the school's founding, Bachmann resigned and the Christian orientation was removed from the curriculum, allowing the school to keep its charter. Bachmann began speaking against a state-mandated set of educational standards, which propelled her into politics.
Bachmann became a critic and opponent of Minnesota's School-to-Work policies. In a 1999 column, she wrote, "School-to-Work alters the basic mission and purpose of K–12 academic education away from traditional broad-based academic studies geared toward maximizing intellectual achievement of the individual. Instead, School-to-Work utilizes the school day to promote children's acquisition of workplace skills, viewing children as trainees for increased economic productivity." In November 1999, Bachmann and four other Republicans were candidates, as the "Slate of Five", in an election for the school board of Stillwater. All five lost.
Minnesota Senate
In 2000 Bachmann defeated 18-year incumbent Gary Laidig for the Republican nomination for state senator in Minnesota District 56. In the general election she defeated Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) nominee Ted Thompson and Minnesota Independence Party Lyno Sullivan. In 2002, after redistricting due to the 2000 Census, Bachmann defeated another incumbent, DFL State Senator Jane Krentz, in the newly drawn State Senate District 52. Bachmann's agenda as a state senator focused on opposition to abortion and gay marriage.
Same-sex marriage constitutional amendment
On November 20, 2003, Bachmann and Representative Mary Liz Holberg proposed a constitutional amendment that would bar the state from legally recognizing same-sex marriage. In 2004 Bachmann and a coalition of religious leaders announced plans for a "Minnesota for Marriage" rally. Her effort to place a marriage amendment on a referendum ballot in 2004 failed. She resurrected the proposal in March 2005, but it stalled indefinitely in a senate committee that April.
Assistant Minority Leader
In November 2004 Republican Senate Minority Leader Dick Day appointed Bachmann Assistant Minority Leader in charge of policy of the Senate Republican Caucus. In July 2005 the Republican Caucus removed her from her leadership position. Bachmann said that disagreements with Day over her anti-tax stance were the reason for her ouster.
U.S. House of Representatives
From 2007 to 2015 Bachmann represented , which includes the northernmost and eastern suburbs of the Twin Cities and St. Cloud. She is the first Republican woman to be elected to the U.S. House from Minnesota.
110th Congress
Foreign affairs
Bachmann voted "No" on a January 2007 resolution in the House of Representatives opposing President George W. Bush's plan to increase troop levels in Iraq, but called for a full hearing in advance of the troop surge, saying, "the American people deserve to hear and understand the merits of increasing U.S. troop presence in Iraq. Increased troop presence is justifiable if that measure would bring a swift conclusion to a difficult conflict." She hesitated to give a firm endorsement, calling the hearings "a good first step in explaining to the American people the course toward victory in Iraq."
Member of Congressional delegation
In July 2007 Bachmann joined a Congressional delegation visiting Ireland, Germany, Pakistan, Kuwait, and Iraq. She met briefly (due to security concerns) with U.S. personnel in the Green Zone and upon her return said she "was encouraged by reports of progress from Crocker, General David Petraeus and other personnel in Iraq linked to the surge". She said the surge "hasn't had a chance to be in place long enough to offer a critique of how it's working. [Petraeus] said al-Qaida in Iraq is off its plan and we want to keep it that way. The surge has only been fully in place for a week or so."
Bachmann also spoke of the delegation's visit to Islamabad to meet Pakistani Prime Minister Aziz at the same time as the siege of Islamic fundamentalists at the Lal Masjid mosque elsewhere in the city. She reported, "The group [of U.S. Legislators] had to travel in armored vehicles and was constantly accompanied by Pakistani military ... We were all able to see extremely up close and personal what it's like to be in a region where fighting is occurring. We constantly felt like we were in need of security." Bachmann told reporters upon her return that "the dangers posed by Islamic terrorism in Iraq, Britain and Pakistan justified the continued American military presence in Iraq." She said, "We don't want to see al-Qaida get a presence in the United States. Al-Qaida doesn't seem to show any signs of letting up. We have to keep that in mind."
Higher education
On July 11, 2007, Bachmann voted against the College Cost Reduction and Access Act. The act raised the maximum Pell grant from $4,310 to $5,200, lowered interest rates on subsidized student loans from 6.8% to 3.4%, raised loan limits from $7,500 to $30,500, disfavored married students who filed joint tax returns, provided more favorable repayment terms to students who could not use their education to prosper financially, and favored public sector over private sector workers with much more favorable loan forgiveness benefits. Supporters of the bill said it would allow more students to attend college and prosper for the rest of their lives.
Bachmann said she opposed the act because "it fails students and taxpayers with gimmicks, hidden costs and poorly targeted aid. It contains no serious reform of existing programs, and it favors the costly, government-run direct lending program over nonprofit and commercial lenders." The bill passed the House and was signed by President Bush.
Energy and environment
During the summer of 2008, as national gasoline prices rose to over $4 a gallon, Bachmann became a leading Congressional advocate for increased domestic oil and natural gas exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the Outer Continental Shelf. She joined ten other House Republicans and members of the media on a Congressional Energy Tour to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, and to Alaska. The trip was arranged by Arctic Power, an Alaskan lobbying group that advocates for ANWR development. Its purpose was to receive a firsthand account of emerging renewable energy technologies and the prospects of increased domestic oil and natural gas production in Alaska, including ANWR.
Bachmann rejects the overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is real, progressing, and primarily caused by humans. She has claimed that global warming is "all voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax" and has been called "one of the GOP's loudest global warming skeptics." She has claimed, baselessly, that "because life requires carbon dioxide and it is part of the planet's life cycle, it cannot be harmful." On the House floor on Earth Day 2009, Bachmann said she opposed cap and trade climate legislation, again making disproven claims that "carbon dioxide is not a harmful gas, it is a harmless gas. Carbon dioxide is natural; it is not harmful ... We're being told we have to reduce this natural substance to create an arbitrary reduction in something that is naturally occurring in the earth."
In March 2008 Bachmann introduced H.R. 849, the Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act. The bill would have repealed two sections of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 signed into law by George W. Bush. The 2007 Energy Act mandates energy efficiency and labeling standards for incandescent and fluorescent bulbs. Bachmann's bill would have required the Government Accountability Office to show that a change to fluorescent bulbs would have "clear economic, health and environmental benefits" before enforcing lighting efficiency regulations. The bill would have allowed these standards to remain in place if the comptroller general found they would lead to consumer savings, reduce carbon-dioxide emissions and pose no health risks to consumers (such as risks posed by the presence of mercury in fluorescent bulbs). The bill languished in the House and became inactive at the end of the 110th Congress. Bachmann reintroduced the bill in March 2011.
Tort reform
On June 3, 2008, President Bush signed the Credit and Debit Card Receipt Clarification Act (H.R. 4008) into law. The bipartisan bill, which Bachmann cosponsored with Congressman Tim Mahoney (D-Fla.), removed statutory damages for violations of a 2003 federal law prohibiting merchants from printing consumers' credit card numbers and expiration dates on sales receipts, in order to end class-action lawsuits aimed at businesses that violated the law.
Financial sector
Bachmann opposed both versions of the Wall Street bailout bill for America's financial sector. She voted against the first proposed $700 billion bailout of financial institutions, which failed to pass, by a vote of 205–228. She also advocated breaking up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and barring executives from excessive compensation or golden parachutes, and advocated a plan that would suspend mark-to-market accounting rules and suspend the capital gains tax.
Auto industry
The American auto companies approached Congress to ask for roughly $15 billion in loans to keep them operational into 2009. Bachmann criticized that bill, fearing that the initial sum of money would be followed by subsequent ones without the companies making changes to revive their business. Bachmann supported an alternative plan for American auto companies and the rest of the auto industry that would have set benchmarks for reducing their debt and renegotiating labor deals and have set up the financial assistance as interim insurance instead of a taxpayer-financed bailout.
Call for a media "exposé" of alleged "anti-Americanism" of Barack Obama and members of Congress
On October 17, 2008, Bachmann gave an interview on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews in support of the presidential campaign of Senator John McCain that brought the Minnesota 6th Congressional District race national attention. During the interview she criticized Barack Obama for his association with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, saying, "usually we associate with people who have similar ideas to us, and it seems that it calls into question what Barack Obama's true beliefs, and values, and thoughts are ... I am very concerned that he [Obama] may have anti-American views." She noted the bombing campaign orchestrated by Bill Ayers before discussing his association with Obama, arguing that "Bill Ayers is not someone the average American wants to see their president have an association with." Matthews followed up by asking "But he [Obama] is a Senator from the state of Illinois; he's one of the members of Congress you suspect of being anti-American. How many people in the Congress of the United States do you think are anti-American? You've already suspected Barack Obama; is he alone or are there others?" Bachmann answered, "What I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating exposé and take a look ... I wish they would ... I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out are they pro-America, or anti-America. I think people would love to see an exposé like that."
In response, the five Democratic members of Minnesota's congressional delegation—Tim Walz, Betty McCollum, Keith Ellison, Collin Peterson and Jim Oberstar—issued a joint statement questioning Bachmann's ability to "work in a bipartisan way to put the interests of our country first in this time of crisis." Former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Minnesota Governor Arne Carlson said her comments had influenced their decisions to endorse Obama for president.
Bachmann brought up the interview before business leaders and Republicans during a campaign stop in St. Cloud, Minnesota, on October 21, 2008. She claimed she never intended to question Obama's patriotism. "I made a misstatement. I said a comment that I would take back. I did not, nor do I, question Barack Obama's patriotism ... I did not say that Barack Obama is anti-American nor do I believe that Barack Obama is anti-American ... [But] I'm very concerned about Barack Obama's views. I don't believe that socialism is a good thing for America." At a March 2010 fund-raiser for the Susan B. Anthony List, Bachmann said, "I said I had very serious concerns that Barack Obama had anti-American views—and now I look like Nostradamus". In March 2011 she was asked on Meet the Press whether she still believed that Obama held un-American views. She responded, "I believe that the actions of this government have—have been emblematic of ones that have not been based on true American values." Pressed for clarification, she said, "I've already answered that question before. I said I had very serious concerns about the president's views."
111th Congress
Global currency
On March 26, 2009, following comments by China proposing adoption of a global reserve currency, Bachmann introduced a resolution calling for a Constitutional amendment to bar the dollar from being replaced by a foreign currency. Current law prohibits foreign currency from being recognized in the U.S., but Bachmann expressed concerns relating to the president's power to make and interpret treaties. Earlier that month, at a Financial Services Committee hearing, Bachmann asked both Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke whether they would reject calls for the U.S. to move away from the U.S. dollar and they replied that they would.
2010 Census
In a June 17, 2009, interview with The Washington Times, Bachmann expressed concern that the questions on the 2010 United States Census had become "very intricate, very personal" and that ACORN, a community organizing group that had come under fire the previous year, might be part of the Census Bureau's door-to-door information collection efforts. She said, "I know, for my family, the only question we will be answering is how many people are in our home. We won't be answering any information beyond that, because the Constitution doesn't require any information beyond that." According to Politifact, her statement was incorrect, as the Constitution does require citizens to complete the census. Fellow Republican Representatives Patrick McHenry (N.C.), Lynn Westmoreland (Ga.) and John Mica (Fla.), members of the Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census and National Archives, which oversees the census, subsequently asked Bachmann not to boycott the population count.
Along with Congressman Ted Poe (Tex.-02), Bachmann introduced the American Community Survey Act to limit the amount of personal information the U.S. Census Bureau solicits. She reiterated her belief that the census asked too many personal questions.
Cap-and-Trade legislation
In March 2009 Bachmann was interviewed by the Northern Alliance Radio Network and promoted two forums she was hosting the next month in St. Cloud and Woodbury about Obama's proposed cap-and-trade tax policy to limit greenhouse gas emissions. She said she wanted Minnesotans "armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back." Bachmann's office quickly clarified that she was speaking metaphorically, meaning "armed with knowledge". According to the Star Tribune, her quote went viral across the Internet.
AmeriCorps
In 2009 Bachmann became a critic of what she characterized as proposals for mandatory public service. Of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, an expansion to AmeriCorps (a federal community service organization), she said in April:
The original bill called for an exploration of whether a mandatory public service program could be established, but the section on creating a "Congressional Commission on Civic Service" was stripped from the bill.
In August 2009 Bachmann's political opponents publicized in the local media and the blogosphere what they described as the "ironic" fact that her son, Harrison, joined Teach for America, part of the AmeriCorps program.
Health care
Bachmann contributed to the "death panel" controversy when she read from a July 24 article by former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey on the House floor. Sarah Palin said that her "death panel" remark was inspired by what she called the "Orwellian" opinions of Ezekiel Emanuel as described by Bachmann, who accused him of advocating health care rationing by age and disability. According to PolitiFact and Time, Bachmann's euthanasia remarks distorted Emanuel's position on health care for the elderly and disabled. FactCheck.org stated, "We agree that Emanuel's meaning is being twisted." When many doctors wanted to legalize euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide, Emanuel opposed it.
On August 31, 2009, Bachmann spoke at an event in Colorado, saying of Democratic health care overhaul proposals that: She outlined ideas for changing the health care system, including: "Erase the boundaries around every single state when it comes to health care", enabling consumers to purchase insurance across state lines; increase the use of health savings accounts and allow everyone to "take full deductibility of all medical expenses", including insurance premiums; and tort reform.
Bachmann denounced the government-run health insurance public option, calling it a "government takeover of health care" that would "squeeze out private health insurance".
Criticism of President Obama's visit to Asia
In a November 3, 2010, interview with Anderson Cooper, while discussing spending cuts for Medicare and Social Security suggested by Representative Paul Ryan, Bachmann was asked what spending cuts she would make to reduce the deficit. She cited President Obama's then-upcoming visit to Asia as an example, saying it "is expected to cost the taxpayers $200 million a day. He's taking two thousand people with him. He'll be renting out over 870 rooms in India. And these are 5-star hotel rooms at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel. This is the kind of over-the-top spending—it's a very small example, Anderson." Bachmann was apparently referring to information in a story from the Press Trust of India, attributed to "a top official of the Maharashtra Government privy to the arrangements for the high-profile visit", information that was also published in U.S.-based media such as The Drudge Report. A Pentagon spokesman, Geoff Morrell, dismissed the report's claim that 34 warships were accompanying the President as "comical". The White House said that the press report figures were "wildly inflated" and had "no basis in reality". While stating that they could not give the actual projected figures for security reasons, staffers maintained costs were in line with the official travel costs of previous presidents Bush and Clinton.
112th Congress
Leadership run
After the 2010 elections and Representative Mike Pence's announcement that he was stepping away from his leadership position in the House, Bachmann announced her intention to seek the position of House Republican Conference Chair. As Bachmann was the founder of the House's Tea Party Caucus, her announcement caused some to see the leadership election as "an early test of how GOP leaders will treat the antiestablishment movement's winners". Many among the House's Republican leadership, including Eric Cantor and the retiring Pence, were quick to endorse Representative Jeb Hensarling for the position; Speaker-to-be John Boehner remained neutral on the issue. Supporters of Bachmann's run included Representatives Steve King, John Kline, Louie Gohmert, Chip Cravaack, and Erik Paulsen, as well as media personality and political commentator Glenn Beck. Listing her qualifications for the position, Bachmann noted, "I've done an effective job speaking out at a national and local level, motivating people with our message, calling attention to deficits in Obama's policy. I was instrumental in bringing tens of thousands of people to the U.S. capitol to rally against Obama care and to attend our press conference." She noted her work to keep the Tea Party within the GOP rather than having it become a third party, thereby helping the party capture the House, saying, "I have been able to bring a voice and motivate people to, in effect, put that gavel in John Boehner's hands, so that Republicans can lead going forward. …It's important that leadership represents the choice of the people coming into our caucus….I think I have motivated a high number of people to get involved in this cycle who may have sat it out and that have made a difference on a number of these races. I gave a large amount of money to NRCC and individual candidates and started Michele PAC, which raised $650,000 for members since July, so I was able to financially help about 50 people out."
Bachmann's bid suffered a setback when she was passed over for the GOP's transition team on which Hensarling was placed. Despite Bachmann's leading all other Representatives in fundraising, a Republican aide said some "members are getting resentful of Bachmann, who they say is making the argument that you're not really a Tea Party supporter unless you support her. That's gone through the formation of the Tea Party Caucus and the formation of this candidacy of hers. It's just not so." Sarah Palin, with whom Bachmann had campaigned earlier in the year, declined to endorse her leadership bid, while other Tea Party favorites, Representatives Adam Kinzinger and Tim Scott, were placed on the transition team. According to some senior House staff members, the party leadership was concerned about some of Bachmann's high-profile faux pas, the high rate of turnover among her staff, and how willing she would be to advance the party's messaging rather than her own.
On November 10 Bachmann released a statement ending her campaign for Conference Chair and giving Hensarling her "enthusiastic" support.
Committee assignment
House Speaker John Boehner selected Bachmann for a position "on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, giving her a new role as overseer of the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the rest of the U.S. intelligence community." Bachmann, who had "not served on any committee that deals with foreign policy issues" requested the position, "a move that has fueled speculation that she may be planning to carry the Tea Party banner into the GOP presidential primaries."
Repeal of Dodd–Frank reform
Soon after beginning her third term, Bachmann introduced legislation to repeal the Dodd–Frank financial reform law. She said, "I'm pleased to offer a full repeal of the job-killing Dodd–Frank financial regulatory bill. Dodd–Frank grossly expanded the federal government beyond its jurisdictional boundaries. It gave Washington bureaucrats the power to interpret and enforce the legislation with little oversight. Real financial regulatory reform must deal with these lenders who were a leading cause of our economic recession. True reform must also end the bailout mind-set that was perpetuated by the last Congress." She also took issue with the law for not addressing the liabilities of the tax-payer funded Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Bachmann's bill was endorsed by conservative groups such as the Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity. It gained four other Republican co-sponsors, including Representative Darrell Issa, who became the new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee at the start of the 112th Congress. Bachmann's call for total repeal was seen as more drastic than the approach advocated by her fellow Republican Spencer Bachus, who became the House Financial Services Committee Chairman when Republicans gained the House majority. Bachus planned "to provide 'vigorous' oversight of regulators efforts to reform banking and housing ... reform Fannie and Freddie", and "dismantle pieces of [the] Dodd–Frank Act that he believes 'unnecessarily punish small businesses and community banks.'" In response to Bachmann's legislation Representative Barney Frank said, "Michele Bachmann, the Club for Growth, and others in the right-wing coalition have now made their agenda for the financial sector very clear: they yearn to return to the thrilling days of yesteryear, so the loan arrangers can ride again—untrammeled by any rules restraining irresponsibility, excess, deception, and most of all, infinite leverage." It was seen as unlikely that Bachmann's legislation would pass, with the Financial Times writing, "Like the Republican move to repeal healthcare reform, Ms. Bachmann's bill could be passed by the House of Representatives but be blocked by the Senate or White House."
State of the Union response
Bachmann responded to Obama's 2011 State of the Union speech on the Tea Party Express website; her speech was broadcast live by CNN. She insisted that her response was not intended to counter Paul Ryan's official Republican party response. When asked whether the speech was an indication of competition with Ryan and Boehner's leadership team, Bachmann dismissed such a view as "a fiction of the media", saying she had alerted Ryan and the leadership team that her response might go national and that no objections were raised.
Health care
Bachmann continually called for repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). She recalled to reporters that she called for debate to repeal the act "the morning after Obamacare passed". With Steve King she introduced "the Bachmann-King repeal of health care bill", saying that it "is our intent in our heart to make sure that Obamacare is completely repealed." In light of the Democratic-majority Senate's and Obama's opposition to repeal, Bachmann called on the Republican held House of Representatives not to provide any funds for implementation of the act. "But until we can see that [repeal] happen, we want to fully defund this bill so that, like, it would be akin to a helium balloon that gets no helium inside so that it can't take off the ground, and that's what we're planning to do. I'm very, very grateful for nothing else; having a majority in the House of Representatives so that we have the ability of the power of the purse to not fund Obamacare, and this is exactly the right way to go", she said.
On March 4, 2011, Bachmann, one of the six House Republicans to vote against the continuing resolution that gave a two-week extension until a possible government shutdown, expressed her unhappiness with its passage.
In an appearance on Meet the Press on March 6 and during a March 7 interview with Sean Hannity, Bachmann claimed that the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats had hidden $105 billion in spending in the overhaul of the American Health Care System. She portrayed the Democratic leadership as timing the release of the bill's text to avoid detection of the spending. "We didn't get the bill until a literally couple of hours before we were supposed to vote on it", she said. She also said the spending was split up within different portions of the bill to mask its total cost. Bachmann was told this by the conservative Heritage Foundation, which claimed to have read the tallies of the Congressional Research Service and Congressional Budget Office.
According to some reports of the costs, "about $40 billion would go to the Children's Health Insurance Program, $15 billion would go to Medicare and Medicaid innovation programs, and $9.5 billion would go to the Community Health Centers Fund." As the funds are designated mandatory spending (not controlled by the annual appropriations acts), the funds would have remained even if the move to defund the reform law had succeeded.
Bachmann stated that $16 billion of the money gives Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius a "slush fund ... [to do] whatever she wants with this money." She called on the bills supporters to return the money, saying, "I think this deception that the president and [former House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid put forward with appropriating over $105 billion needs to be given back to the people."
When asked during the Meet the Press interview if she would take back her previous comments that Obama "may have anti-American views" and that his administration had "embraced something called gangster government", Bachmann stood by her statements, saying, "I do believe that actions that have been taken by this White House—I don't take back my statements on gangster government. I think that there have been actions taken by the government that are corrupt ... I said I have very serious concerns about the president's views, and I think the president's actions in the last two years speak for themselves."
In response to Bachmann's charges, Chief Deputy Democratic Whip Jan Schakowsky, who served on the House health subcommittee, pointed out that the report in question was an update of a report that came out in October 2010 and that the costs were spelled out in both the bill and the Congressional Budget Office's estimate of its cost, saying, "Michele Bachmann obviously didn't read the bill, because there was absolutely nothing hidden in that legislation." Schakowsky said the costs were not kept secret, citing the $40 billion for the Children's Health Insurance Program as an example: "There was a robust debate about whether or not that should be included, etc. So this idea of somehow, now at the last minute, there was a secret addition to some kind of funding ... is absolute nonsense."
In a September 2011 Republican presidential debate in Tampa, Bachmann criticized Rick Perry for his support for the humanpapilloma virus (HPV) vaccine and his support for mandating the HPV vaccine for all sixth-grade Texas girls. The American Academy of Pediatrics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Academy of Family Physicians, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and other medical organizations worldwide support immunizing girls and boys against HPV. HPV can cause lesions and genital warts, and has been linked to cervical cancer as well as genital and oral cancers in people of any gender. Because the vaccine is effective only if given before the onset of sexual activity and subsequent exposure to the virus, medical groups recommend the three-dose vaccine be given to 11- and 12-year-olds. During the debate and in interviews afterward, Bachmann accused Perry of "crony capitalism" (because Perry's former chief of staff was chief lobbyist for a drug company manufacturing the vaccine), and baselessly claimed that the HPV vaccine was dangerous and caused "mental retardation." She repeatedly referred to an anecdotal account from a mother of a girl who had been immunized for HPV, saying, "She told me that her little daughter took that vaccine, that injection, and she suffered mental retardation thereafter ... There is no second chance for these little girls if there is [sic] any dangerous consequences to their bodies." Shortly after Bachmann's statements at the debate, the American Academy of Pediatrics released a statement: "The American Academy of Pediatrics would like to correct false statements made in the Republican presidential campaign that the HPV vaccine is dangerous and can cause mental retardation. There is absolutely no scientific validity to this statement. Since the vaccine has been introduced, more than 35 million doses have been administered, and it has an excellent safety record." Fewer than one percent of those receiving the vaccine reported neurological side effects or, in rare cases, severe allergic reactions, none linked to changes in cognitive ability. Bachmann later acknowledged that she was not a doctor or a scientist.
Muslim Brotherhood
In June–July 2012, Bachmann and several other Republican legislators sent a series of letters to oversight agencies at five federal departments citing "serious security concerns" about what Bachmann has called a "deep penetration in the halls of our United States government" by the Muslim Brotherhood. They requested formal investigations into what Bachmann called "influence operations" by the Brotherhood.
Bachmann also accused Huma Abedin, an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Rep. Anthony Weiner's wife, of having family connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Bachmann's comments have drawn what the Washington Post calls "fierce criticism from fellow lawmakers and religious groups." In a speech on the Senate floor, 2008 Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain denounced Bachmann's charges as "specious and degrading". He defended Abedin as a "hard-working and loyal servant of our country and our government" and stated "these attacks on Huma have no logic, no basis and no merit. They need to stop now." House Speaker John Boehner termed Bachmann's allegations "dangerous", and other Republicans have also criticized the remarks. Ed Rollins, Bachmann’s former campaign manager, called on her to apologize to Abedin and characterized her allegations as “extreme and dishonest.”
In a letter to Bachmann, her colleague Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., a Muslim, asked for evidence backing her claims and stated, "Your response simply rehashes claims that have existed for years on anti-Muslim websites and contains no reliable information that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the U.S. government".
Bachmann replied that "the intention of the letters was to outline the serious national security concerns I had and ask for answers to questions regarding the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical group's access to top Obama administration officials". In a July 19 interview with radio and TV show host Glenn Beck, Bachmann repeated and expanded her allegations, accusing Ellison of having "a long record of being associated with the Council on American–Islamic Relations and with the Muslim Brotherhood". Ellison replied that "I am not now, nor have I ever been, associated with the Muslim Brotherhood."
113th Congress
Presidential campaign finance investigation
In 2013, Bachmann was under investigation by the House Ethics Committee, the Federal Election Commission, the Iowa Senate Ethics Committee, the Urbandale Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation because of alleged campaign finance violations in her 2012 campaign for president.
It is alleged that members of her staff made under-the-table payments, that funds were illegally transferred from her leadership PAC to pay consultants for her presidential campaign and that hidden payments were made to Iowa State Senator Kent Sorenson.
Additionally, a lawsuit was filed alleging that Bachmann and several former staffers stole and misused an Iowa homeschool group's e-mail distribution list. The trial, Heki v. Bachmann, had been set for May 14, 2014, but the case was settled out of court on June 28, 2013.
On July 26, 2013, the House Ethics Committee announced they were conducting a full investigation of Bachmann, saying that they had received a referral from the Office of Congressional Ethics.
Retirement
On May 29, 2013, Bachmann announced that she would not seek reelection to her Congressional seat in 2014. In a June 2013 Fox News interview, she said she was "not going silent" and would remain involved in politics. She did not rule out a future run for office, or even the White House. With her retirement from Congress, the ethics investigations against her were dropped. During a December 2017 New Year's weekend interview with televangelist Jim Bakker, Bachmann said that she was considering running for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Al Franken but was awaiting "God's counsel" before deciding.
David Lightman and Trevor Graff, writing for McClatchyDC, argued that Bachmann left a "legacy of political missteps and lots of incendiary rhetoric—often loaded with false accusations and wild exaggerations."
Committee assignments
Committee on Financial Services
Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
Political positions
Education
Bachmann supports the teaching of creationism alongside evolution in public school science classes. During a 2003 interview on the KKMS Christian radio program Talk The Walk, Bachmann said that evolution is a theory that has never been proven one way or the other. She co-authored a bill (with no additional endorsements among her fellow legislators) that would require public schools to include alternative explanations for the origin of life as part of the state's public school science curricula. In October 2006, Bachmann told a debate audience in St. Cloud, Minnesota, "there is a controversy among scientists about whether evolution is a fact or not ... There are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe in intelligent design." Despite this, there is an overwhelming scientific consensus that evolution is real, and that intelligent design is not. Indeed, at least one news report presenting a "sampling of Bachmann's ... ludicrous or plain old false claims", stated that Bachmann’s claims are untrue, and that "when the science isn't on [Bachmann's] side, she simply improvises."
Bachmann has praised the Christian youth ministry You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International (YCRBYCH), hailing "the group's work of sharing the gospel in public schools". She appeared as a keynote speaker at their fundraisers in 2006 and 2009. Following a 2011 controversial invocation for the Minnesota House, YCRBYCH founder Bradlee Dean declared that criticisms of him and his ministry were also "intended to harm and destroy the presidential campaign of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann ... [who] previously praised and prayed for the work of my ministry".
Bachmann has had a history of opposing anti-bullying legislation. In 2006, she told the Minnesota Legislature that passing an anti-bullying bill would be a waste of time. "I think for all of us, our experience in public schools is there have always been bullies", she said. "Always have been, always will be. I just don't know how we're ever going to get to the point of zero tolerance ... What does it mean? ... Will we be expecting boys to be girls?"
Fiscal policy
In the Minnesota Senate, Bachmann opposed minimum wage increases. In a June 2011 interview, she did not back away from her earlier proposal to eliminate the federal minimum wage, a change she said would "virtually wipe out unemployment."
In a 2001 flyer, Bachmann and Michael J. Chapman wrote that federal policies manage a centralized, state-controlled economy in the United States. She wrote that education laws passed by Congress in 2001, including "School To Work" and "Goals 2000", created a new national school curriculum that embraced "a socialist, globalist worldview; loyalty to all government and not America." In 2003, Bachmann said that the "Tax Free Zones" economic initiatives of Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty were based on the Marxist principle of "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." She also said the administration was attempting to govern and run centrally planned economies through the Minnesota Economic Leadership Team (MELT), an advisory board on economic and workforce policy Pawlenty chaired. Before her election to the state senate, and again in 2005, Bachmann signed a "no new taxes" pledge sponsored by the Taxpayers League of Minnesota. As a state senator, she introduced two bills that would have severely limited state taxation. In 2003, she proposed amending the Minnesota Constitution to adopt the "Taxpayers' Bill of Rights" (TABOR).
In 2005, Bachmann opposed Pawlenty's proposal of a state surcharge of 75 cents per pack on the wholesale cost of cigarettes. She said she opposed the surcharge "100 percent—it's a tax increase." The Taxpayers' League later criticized her for reversing her position and voting for the surcharge.
Bachmann promised to bring the price of gasoline down to $2 per gallon, without specifying a plan to accomplish this.
Environment
Bachmann supports increased domestic drilling of oil and natural gas, as well as pursuing renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar. She is a strong proponent of nuclear power.
Bachmann has strongly opposed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), pledging at an August 2011 campaign rally, "I guarantee you the EPA will have doors locked and lights turned off and they will only be about conservation." In 2007 and 2010, she actively solicited funds from the EPA on behalf of constituents in her congressional district.
Social Security and Medicare phase-out
Bachmann has called for phasing out Social Security and Medicare: "what you have to do, is keep faith with the people that are already in the system... But basically what we have to do is wean everybody else off."
Foreign policy
Bachmann has said that in dealing with Iran, diplomacy "is our option", but that other options, including a nuclear strike, should not be ruled out. She has also said that she is "a longtime supporter of Israel".
Global economy
In a discussion about the G-20 summit in Toronto, during an interview with conservative radio host Scott Hennen, Bachmann stated that she did not want America to be part of the international global economy.
Bachmann told The Wall Street Journal that Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams influenced her economic views. She said she was "an Art Laffer fiend" and loved Ludwig von Mises.
Immigration
Bachmann believes that strengthened enforcement of immigration laws is required for the growth of the American job market. She supports amending the Immigration and Nationality Act to allow only the immediate family of legal immigrants (not extended family members) priority consideration in the immigration process. She voted against the DREAM Act. She has also said the current law does not need modification but proper enforcement.
Bachmann said, "the immigration system in the United States worked very, very well up until the mid-1960s when liberal members of Congress changed the immigration laws." She has expressed support for immigration of highly skilled professionals such as chemists and engineers.
Bachmann opposed the 2013 immigration reform bill, claiming that its passage would mean the end of the Republican Party. On WorldNetDaily she said, "This is President Obama's number one political agenda because he knows we will never again have a Republican president ever if amnesty goes into effect."
Social issues
Same-sex marriage constitutional amendment
Bachmann supports both federal and state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage and any legal equivalents. In August 2006, the Star Tribune reported that in March 2006, while on a Minneapolis radio show, Bachmann advocated a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. A caller asked her to explain how he, a heterosexual, would be harmed if his gay neighbors were allowed to marry. Bachmann replied, "Public schools would have to teach that homosexuality and same-sex marriage are normal, natural and that maybe children should try them." The Star Tribune also reported that Bachmann had publicly called homosexuality "sexual dysfunction", "sexual identity disorders", and "personal enslavement" leading to "sexual anarchy".
In a July 2014 radio interview, Bachmann claimed that gay rights activists want to abolish age of consent laws in the United States so that adults can "prey on little children sexually."
In 2020, Bachmann claimed that "transgender Black Marxists" were "seeking the overthrow of the United States and the dissolution of the traditional family."
Abortion
Bachmann has identified herself as pro-life and has been endorsed in her runs for Congress by the Susan B. Anthony List and Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life. At a New Hampshire debate among presidential candidates, when asked if abortion should be allowed in cases of rape or incest, she responded that she was "100 percent pro-life," implying that such a fetus would have to be carried to term. In the Minnesota Senate, Bachmann introduced a bill proposing a constitutional amendment restricting state funds for abortion. The bill died in committee.
Federal-backed home loans
According to the Washington Post, in 2008 Bachmann may have taken advantage of a federal program for a home loan, then called for dismantling the program, though the Post noted that the public and other members of Congress have taken advantage of such loans despite seeing reasons to criticize them. When asked about it, she said: "This is the problem. It is almost impossible to buy a home in this country today without the federal government being involved".
Opinion on President Obama's birth certificate
Bachmann claimed not to be part of the birther movement, but said that Obama could resolve the dispute by producing his long-form birth certificate. In April 2011, after Obama released the certificate, George Stephanopoulos asked Bachmann about the issue on Good Morning America. She said that its release "should settle the matter", that "I take the president at his word", and that "We have bigger fish to fry".
Political campaigns
2006 congressional campaign
Bachmann won her Congressional seat in the 2006 election with 50% of the vote, defeating the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) nominee Patty Wetterling and the Independence Party's John Binkowski.
The 6th District's representative since 2001, Mark Kennedy, announced in late 2005 that he would run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Mark Dayton. Bachmann said, "God then called me to run" for the U.S. House seat, and that she and her husband fasted for three days to be more sure.
According to Bloomberg.com, evangelical conservative leader James Dobson put his organization Focus on the Family's resources behind Bachmann's 2006 campaign. The group planned to distribute 250,000 voter guides in Minnesota churches to reach social conservatives, according to Tom Prichard, president of the Minnesota Family Council, a local affiliate of the group. In addition to Minnesota, Dobson's group also organized turnout drives in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey and Montana.
During a debate televised by WCCO-TV on October 28, 2006, news reporter Pat Kessler quoted a story that appeared in the Star Tribune and asked Bachmann whether it was true that the church she belonged to taught that the Pope is the Anti-Christ. Bachmann replied that her church "does not believe that the Pope is the Anti-Christ, that's absolutely false ... I'm very grateful that my pastor has come out and been very clear on this matter, and I think it's patently absurd and it's a false statement."
In early July 2006, Bachmann received a fundraising visit from Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. On July 21, Karl Rove visited Minnesota to raise funds for her election. In August, President Bush was the keynote speaker at her congressional fundraiser, which raised about $500,000. Bachmann also received fundraising support from Vice President Dick Cheney. The National Republican Congressional Committee put nearly $3 million into the race, for electronic and direct-mail ads against Wetterling, significantly more than the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent on Wetterling's behalf. On November 7, Bachmann won the election with 50% of the vote to Wetterling's 42% and Binkowski's 8%.
2008 congressional campaign
In 2008 Bachmann was reelected, defeating DFL and Independence Party nominee Elwyn Tinklenberg with 46.4% of the vote to Tinklenberg's 43.4%. Because Tinklenberg was running as a DFL member in the Democratic primary, Bob Anderson was able to run in the Independence Party primary unopposed, despite not having that party's endorsement. Anderson received 10% of the vote.
2010 congressional campaign
In 2010 Bachmann was challenged by DFL nominee Tarryl Clark and Independence Party candidate Bob Anderson. With more than $8.5 million, Bachmann spent more than any other House of Representative candidate, although Clark was able to raise $4 million, one of the largest fundraising efforts in the nation for a U.S. House challenger. On November 2, 2010, Bachmann defeated Clark, 52% to 40%.
2012 presidential campaign
In early 2011, amid substantial speculation, Bachmann announced her candidacy for president. She participated in the second Republican presidential debate, in New Hampshire, on June 13, 2011, and during the debate announced that she had filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) earlier that day to become a candidate for the nomination. Bachmann formally announced her candidacy for the nomination on June 27, 2011, during an appearance in Waterloo, Iowa, her birth city.
Bachmann won the Ames Straw Poll hosted by the Iowa GOP on August 13, 2011, becoming the first woman ever to win the poll, but finished sixth in the January 3, 2012, caucuses, with 4.98% of the vote. On January 4 she canceled her scheduled campaign trips to South Carolina and suspended her campaign.
2012 congressional campaign
On January 25, 2012, Bachmann announced that she would run for reelection for her seat in Congress.
According to Politico.com, as of July 2012 Bachmann had "raised close to $15 million" for the 2012 election, a figure it called "astounding ... more than some Senate candidates will collect this year." From July to the end of September, Bachmann raised $4.5 million. This amount put her ahead of all other members of Congress (including Allen West who was in second place with $4 million) for the third quarter. Bachmann said she was "humbled by the enormous outpouring of grassroots support for my campaign focused on keeping America the most secure and prosperous nation in the world."
Despite a more favorable district Bachmann won reelection only narrowly, receiving just 4,298 more votes than her DFL challenger, Jim Graves.
Electoral history
Local elections
Congressional elections
2006
2008
2010
2012
Autobiography
In November 2011 Bachmann published her autobiography, Core of Conviction, in which she outlined the events and people who have shaped her values and beliefs. The book describes her break with the Democratic Party. "It was in the perilous fires of the Carter administration that my ideology was forged," she wrote. "In the seventies, Carter taught me what I was against, and then in the eighties, Reagan taught me what I was for." Reflecting on her role as a Tea Party leader, she elaborated, "I once said that the Tea Party represents 90 percent of Americans. I now realize that I misspoke. I should have said 100 percent, because I believe that nearly all Americans retain faith in the ordered liberty that the Constitution offers."
Personal life
Family
In 1978, as Michele Amble, she married Marcus Bachmann, now a clinical therapist with a master's degree from Regent University and a Ph.D. from Union Graduate School, whom she met while they were undergraduates. After she received an LL.M. in taxation from William & Mary School of Law in 1988, the couple moved to Stillwater, Minnesota, a town of 18,000 near Saint Paul, where they run a Christian counseling center that administered gay conversion therapy. Bachmann and her husband have five children: Lucas, Harrison, Elisa, Caroline, and Sophia. In a 2011 town hall meeting, she said that she suffered a miscarriage after the birth of their second child, Harrison, an event she said shaped her anti-abortion views.
Bachmann and her husband have also provided foster care to 23 other children, all of whom were teenage girls. The Bachmanns were licensed from 1992 to 2000 to handle up to three foster children at a time, with the last arriving in 1998. The Bachmanns began by providing short-term care for girls with eating disorders who were patients in a University of Minnesota program. Their home was legally defined as a treatment home, with a daily reimbursement rate per child from the state. Some girls stayed a few months, others more than a year.
Bachmann is a former beauty pageant queen.
Citizenship
In May 2012 it was reported that Marcus Bachmann had registered for Swiss citizenship, and thus, under Swiss nationality law, so would Michele and their children. Within two days of the first reports of Bachmann's dual citizenship, Michele Bachmann announced that she had written to the Swiss consulate to withdraw her Swiss citizenship.
Religion
Bachmann was raised "into a family of Norwegian Lutheran Democrats"; she was a longtime member of Salem Lutheran Church (Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod) in Stillwater. She and her husband withdrew their membership on June 21, 2011, just before she officially began her presidential campaign. They had not attended the church for over two years. In 2011, the Bachmanns began attending Rockpoint Church in Lake Elmo, member of Evangelical Free Church of America.
Bachmann has cited theologian Francis Schaeffer as a "profound influence" on her life and her husband's, especially his film series How Should We Then Live?. She has also described Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity by Nancy Pearcey as a "wonderful" book. Journalist Ryan Lizza has argued that Bachmann's worldview is deeply influenced by the Christian movement known as Dominionism, citing the influence of Schaeffer and Pearcey as evidence. Others have criticized Lizza's article, especially its connection of Schaeffer with Dominionism. Religion writer Sarah Posner broadly concurs with Lizza, pointing to the influence of Christian Reconstructionists Herb Titus and R. J. Rushdoony on Bachmann via the curriculum at O. W. Coburn School of Law.
Businesses
Bachmann and her husband own a Christian counseling practice, Bachmann & Associates. The clinic is run by her husband, who has a Ph.D. with "a concentration in clinical psychology" from Union Graduate School. Marcus Bachmann is not a licensed clinical psychologist in Minnesota. The clinic received nearly $30,000 from Minnesota government agencies between 2006 and 2010 in addition to at least $137,000 in federal payments and $24,000 in government grants for counselor training. In an interview, Michele Bachmann said that she and her husband had not benefited at taxpayer expense, saying, "the money that went to the clinic was actually training money for employees". Marcus Bachmann has falsely claimed that Bachmann & Associates did not provide conversion therapy, a controversial psychological treatment that has been repudiated by the American Psychological Association as unethical and without medical basis. A former client of Bachmann's clinic and a hidden camera investigator with the activist group Truth Wins Out showed that therapists at the clinic do engage in such practices. In a subsequent interview with the Star Tribune, Marcus Bachmann did not deny that he or other counselors at his clinic used the technique, but said they did so only at a client's request.
In personal financial disclosure reports for 2006 through 2009, Bachmann reported earning $32,500 to $105,000 from a farm that was owned at the time by her ailing father-in-law, Paul Bachmann. The farm received $260,000 in federal crop and disaster subsidies between 1995 and 2008. Bachmann said that in 2006–2009, her husband acted as a trustee of the farm for his dying father and so, out of "an abundance of caution", she claimed the farm as income in financial disclosures, though it was her in-laws who profited from the farm during that period.
Anonymous threat against her
In August 2011 a man tweeted his "desire to engage in sadomasochistic activities" with Bachmann using "a Vietnam era machete" while misspelling her given name as "Michelle" in his tweet. Federal investigators ordered Twitter to reveal his identity. Called Mr. X in the grand jury's subpoena, the man filed a motion to quash the order at the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in February 2012. Then-Chief Judge Royce Lamberth denied the request, citing the seriousness of the threat that might have posed to Bachmann, but X was granted the redaction of his identity in a separate order.
Donald Trump
Bachmann vocally supported then-President Donald Trump, saying in 2017 that he "has had the courage and the fortitude to stand up where other Republicans wouldn't dare to stand up." In December 2020, after the presidential election, she posted a video online praying for a Trump second term. Her online prayer specifically called out the contested election results in Georgia, saying: Lord, would you deliver these races in Georgia? O Father, would you deliver various local and state races, Father, that they aren't stolen? Would you give us a true vote? And, O God, I personally ask, from myself, Michele Bachmann, Lord, would you allow Donald Trump to have a second term as president of the United States?
See also
United States congressional delegations from Minnesota
List of United States representatives from Minnesota
Women in the United States House of Representatives
References
External links
Politifact.com File on Michele Bachmann
2008 campaign finance data from OpenSecrets.org
2010 campaign finance data from OpenSecrets.org
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1956 births
Living people
21st-century American politicians
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American women politicians
21st-century American women writers
20th-century Lutherans
21st-century Lutherans
21st-century Protestants
American autobiographers
American Christian Zionists
American critics of Islam
American evangelicals
American people of Norwegian descent
American political writers
American anti-abortion activists
American women lawyers
American women non-fiction writers
Anoka High School alumni
Christians from Iowa
Christians from Minnesota
Converts to Evangelicalism from Lutheranism
Christian critics of Islam
Dominion theology
Female members of the United States House of Representatives
Female candidates for President of the United States
Intelligent design advocates
Internal Revenue Service people
Members of the United States House of Representatives from Minnesota
Minnesota lawyers
Minnesota Republicans
Minnesota state senators
Oral Roberts University alumni
People from Anoka, Minnesota
People from Stillwater, Minnesota
Politicians from Waterloo, Iowa
Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives
Tea Party movement activists
Candidates in the 2012 United States presidential election
William & Mary Law School alumni
Winona State University alumni
Women autobiographers
Women state legislators in Minnesota | false | [
"Boy Erased: A Memoir is a 2016 memoir by Garrard Conley recounting his childhood in a fundamentalist Arkansas family that enrolled him in conversion therapy. According to The Week, it aims to bridge the cultural divide—\"one that makes gay conversion therapy seem a natural choice in some places and unfathomable in others\". It was adapted into the 2018 film Boy Erased.\n\nSynopsis\nThe only child of a car salesman and soon-to-be Baptist pastor, Conley was \"terrified and conflicted about his sexuality\". At 19, while in college, he was outed as gay to his parents by another student who had raped him. His parents gave him the choice of being disowned or going to gay conversion therapy that promised to \"cure\" his homosexuality. The timing came as his father was about to be ordained as a Baptist minister. Conley was enrolled in a Love in Action ex-gay program, and recounts the harm he was subjected to there in the name of curing his sexuality. He recounts the months of counseling he underwent followed by a two-week intensive intervention. He also includes other participants' accounts and a \"Timeline of the Ex-Gay Movement\".\n\nBackground\nConley's hope is that his story will expose ex-gay groups and gay conversion therapy programs as lacking in compassion and more likely to cause harm than cure anything, especially when participants are told, as he was, that they are \"unfixable and disgusting over and over again\".\n\nReception\n The Bay Area Reporter wrote, \"Conley's memoir oscillates between his revelations, good and bad, during time spent in the fold of the ex-gay ministry during his two-week stint in the 'Source' trial program, and his personal and familial history [that led up to] induction in the program.\" Its reviewer called the book \"well-written, compelling, disturbing, and ultimately quite bracing ... an important, refreshingly unsentimental perspective on the dangers and abuses of ex-gay therapy ministries, an atrocious, damaging, hypocritical network that still operates today\".\nEdge Media Network wrote, \"Testimonies like Boy Erased are a necessary part of getting rid of ex-gay ministries or, really, any kind of program in which the explicit aim is to change the identity (in this case, the sexuality) of the subjects.\"\n The Washington Post'''s reviewer Jamie Brickhouse wrote: \"It's a powerful convergence of events that Conley portrays eloquently, if a bit earnestly. Conley was full of confusing contradictions—as deeply embedded in the teachings of the Bible as he was in the prose of great literature.\"\n Michigan Quarterly Review wrote, \"It's in part Conley's deft hand with prose, in part his ability to transcend trauma to render an honest, visceral picture of himself.\"\n GLBT Reviews wrote, \"Conley had much to confront as he inwardly acknowledged his homosexuality, including layers upon layers of family complexity, but as he unspools his eventful journey, he brings readers deep into his mind and soul for a satisfying ride.\"\n Kirkus Reviews wrote, \"Readers follow Conley through a very difficult process of self-identification that sheds light on the degrees of intolerance that are still present in today's world. At times, the text feels a bit passive; some readers may expect more blatant outrage. Nevertheless, Conley has chosen to expose ex-gay therapy as abusive, and that is important.\"\n GLBT Publishers Weekly stated, \"This timely addition to the debate on conversion therapy will build sympathy for both children and parents who avail themselves of it while still showing how damaging it can be.\"\n Out Smart Magazine stated, \"Boy Erased digs deep into a life lived in shadow, the story of a survivor and not of the establishment (which have largely been the voices heard speaking out about ex-gay therapy).\"\n\nFilm adaptation\n\nIn 2018, Joel Edgerton wrote and directed Boy Erased,'' a film adaptation of the memoir. Lucas Hedges stars as a character based on Conley, with Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe in supporting roles as his conservative parents.\n\nReferences \n\n2016 non-fiction books\nBooks about conversion therapy\nAmerican memoirs\nLGBT autobiographies\n2010s LGBT literature\nLGBT literature in the United States\nMemoirs adapted into films\nRiverhead Books books",
"David Matheson is a campaigner known for advocacy of conversion therapy. In 2019, he announced he was divorcing his wife of 34 years and intended to live as a gay man. He previously led the organization Journey into Manhood.\n\nMatheson was an early protege of Joseph Nicolosi, who founded the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH).\n\nMatheson, a Mormon, said “he was not renouncing his religious faith, or the entirety of his work as a conversion therapist, despite dating men. But he did criticise the \"shame-based, homophobic-based system\" of his upbringing in the Mormon church.”\n\nHe and his wife had three children and one grandchild.\n\nCareer\nMatheson has a master’s in counseling and guidance from Brigham Young University and began full-time practice in New Jersey in 2004. He counseled only men and the goal was always to develop what he called “gender wholeness.”\n\nPublications\nMatheson, David (1993) \"The Transition from Homosexuality: The Role of Evergreen International,\" Issues in Religion and Psychotherapy: Vol. 19 : No. 1 , Article 7.\n\nReferences \n\nConversion therapy practitioners\nLiving people\nBrigham Young University alumni\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nPeople self-identified as ex-ex-gay"
] |
[
"Michele Bachmann",
"Early life, education, and early career",
"What shaped her thoughts about gay conversion therapy?",
"I don't know."
] | C_23ae721041f747e2b0a1ef889204eaab_1 | Did she see her father much after her parents divorced? | 2 | Did Bachmann see her father much after her parents divorced? | Michele Bachmann | Bachmann was born Michele Marie Amble in Waterloo, Iowa, "into a family of Norwegian Lutheran Democrats"; her family moved from Iowa to Minnesota when she was 13 years old. After her parents divorced, Bachmann's father, David John Amble, moved to California, and Bachmann was raised by her mother, Arlene Jean (nee Johnson), who worked at the First National Bank in Anoka, Minnesota. Her mother remarried when Bachmann was a teenager; the new marriage resulted in a family with nine children. She graduated from Anoka High School in 1974 and, after graduation, spent one summer working on kibbutz Be'eri in Israel. In 1978, she graduated from Winona State University with a B.A. In 1979, Bachmann was a member of the first class of the O. W. Coburn School of Law, then a part of Oral Roberts University (ORU). While there, Bachmann studied with John Eidsmoe, whom she described in 2011 as "one of the professors who had a great influence on me". Bachmann worked as a research assistant on Eidsmoe's 1987 book Christianity and the Constitution, which argues that the United States was founded as a Christian theocracy and should become one again. In 1986 Bachmann received a J.D. degree from Oral Roberts University. She was a member of the ORU law school's final graduating class, and was part of a group of faculty, staff, and students who moved the ORU law school library to what is now Regent University. In 1988, Bachmann received an LL.M. degree in tax law from William & Mary Law School. From 1988 to 1993 she worked as an attorney for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). She left the IRS to become a full-time mother when her fourth child was born. CANNOTANSWER | After her parents divorced, Bachmann's father, David John Amble, moved to California, and Bachmann was raised by her mother, | Michele Marie Bachmann (; née Amble; born April 6, 1956) is an American politician who was the U.S. representative for from 2007 until 2015. A member of the Republican Party, she was a candidate for President of the United States in the 2012 election, but lost the Republican nomination to Mitt Romney.
Born in Waterloo, Iowa, Bachmann moved to Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, as a teenager. She graduated from O. W. Coburn School of Law, the law school of Oral Roberts University, and the William & Mary Law School. After graduating, she briefly worked in tax law for the Internal Revenue Service before becoming a stay-at-home mom. She became involved in local politics, specifically around education.
Bachmann formally entered politics in 2000, when she was elected to the Minnesota Senate. In 2006, she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. After her unsuccessful run for president, Bachmann was elected to another term in the House in 2012, before announcing her retirement before the 2014 election.
Early life, education, and early career
Bachmann was born Michele Marie Amble in Waterloo, Iowa, to Norwegian-American parents David John Amble (1929–2003) and Arlene Jean Amble (née Johnson; born c. 1932). Two of her great-great-great-grandparents, Melchior and Martha Munson, emigrated from Sogndal, Norway, to Wisconsin in 1857. David was an engineer. Her family moved from Iowa to Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, when she was 13 years old. After her parents divorced when she was 14, David moved to California and remarried. Bachmann was raised by her mother, who worked at the First National Bank in Anoka, Minnesota, where they moved again. Three years later her mother married widower Raymond J. LaFave; the new marriage resulted in a family with nine children.
Bachmann graduated from Anoka High School in 1974 and, after graduation, spent one summer working at kibbutz Be'eri in Israel. In 1978, she graduated from Winona State University with a B.A. In 1979, Bachmann was a member of the first class of the O. W. Coburn School of Law, then a part of Oral Roberts University (ORU). There she studied with John Eidsmoe, whom she described in 2011 as "one of the professors who had a great influence on me". Bachmann worked as a research assistant on Eidsmoe's 1987 book Christianity and the Constitution, which argues that the United States was founded as a Christian theocracy and should become one again. In 1986, Bachmann received a J.D. degree from Oral Roberts University. She was a member of the ORU law school's final graduating class, and was part of a group of faculty, staff, and students who moved the ORU law school library to what is now Regent University.
In 1988, Bachmann received an LL.M. degree in tax law from William & Mary Law School. From 1988 to 1993 she worked as an attorney for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). She left the IRS to become a full-time mother when her fourth child was born.
Early political activism
Bachmann grew up in a Democratic family and has said she became a Republican during her senior year at Winona State University. She told the Star Tribune that she was reading Gore Vidal's 1973 novel Burr and claimed that "[h]e was kind of mocking the Founding Fathers and I just thought—I just remember reading the book, putting it in my lap, looking out the window and thinking, 'You know what? I don't think I am a Democrat. I must be a Republican.
While still a Democrat, she and her then-fiancé, Marcus, were motivated to join the anti-abortion movement after watching Francis Schaeffer's 1976 Christian documentary film How Should We Then Live? They prayed outside of clinics and engaged in sidewalk interference, an activity in which anti-abortion activists attempt to persuade women entering clinics not to get abortions. Bachmann has since made statements supportive of sidewalk interference.
Bachmann supported Jimmy Carter for president in 1976, and she and her husband worked on his campaign. During Carter's presidency, Bachmann became disappointed with his liberal approach to public policy, support for legalized abortion and economic decisions she held responsible for increased gas prices. In the 1980 presidential election, she voted for Ronald Reagan and worked for his campaign.
Bachmann's political activism gained media attention at an anti-abortion protest in 1991. She and approximately 30 other protesters went to a Ramsey County Board meeting where $3 million was to be appropriated to build a morgue for the county at St. Paul-Ramsey Medical Center (now Regions Hospital). The Medical Center performed abortions and employed pro-choice activist Jane Hodgson. Bachmann voiced her opposition to tax dollars going to the hospital; to the Star Tribune, she said, "in effect, since 1973, I have been a landlord of an abortion clinic, and I don't like that distinction".
In 1993, Bachmann and other parents started the K–12 New Heights Charter School in Stillwater. The publicly funded school's charter mandated that it be non-sectarian in all programs and practices, but the school soon developed a strong Christian orientation. Parents of students at the school complained and the superintendent of schools warned Bachmann that the school was in violation of state law. Six months after the school's founding, Bachmann resigned and the Christian orientation was removed from the curriculum, allowing the school to keep its charter. Bachmann began speaking against a state-mandated set of educational standards, which propelled her into politics.
Bachmann became a critic and opponent of Minnesota's School-to-Work policies. In a 1999 column, she wrote, "School-to-Work alters the basic mission and purpose of K–12 academic education away from traditional broad-based academic studies geared toward maximizing intellectual achievement of the individual. Instead, School-to-Work utilizes the school day to promote children's acquisition of workplace skills, viewing children as trainees for increased economic productivity." In November 1999, Bachmann and four other Republicans were candidates, as the "Slate of Five", in an election for the school board of Stillwater. All five lost.
Minnesota Senate
In 2000 Bachmann defeated 18-year incumbent Gary Laidig for the Republican nomination for state senator in Minnesota District 56. In the general election she defeated Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) nominee Ted Thompson and Minnesota Independence Party Lyno Sullivan. In 2002, after redistricting due to the 2000 Census, Bachmann defeated another incumbent, DFL State Senator Jane Krentz, in the newly drawn State Senate District 52. Bachmann's agenda as a state senator focused on opposition to abortion and gay marriage.
Same-sex marriage constitutional amendment
On November 20, 2003, Bachmann and Representative Mary Liz Holberg proposed a constitutional amendment that would bar the state from legally recognizing same-sex marriage. In 2004 Bachmann and a coalition of religious leaders announced plans for a "Minnesota for Marriage" rally. Her effort to place a marriage amendment on a referendum ballot in 2004 failed. She resurrected the proposal in March 2005, but it stalled indefinitely in a senate committee that April.
Assistant Minority Leader
In November 2004 Republican Senate Minority Leader Dick Day appointed Bachmann Assistant Minority Leader in charge of policy of the Senate Republican Caucus. In July 2005 the Republican Caucus removed her from her leadership position. Bachmann said that disagreements with Day over her anti-tax stance were the reason for her ouster.
U.S. House of Representatives
From 2007 to 2015 Bachmann represented , which includes the northernmost and eastern suburbs of the Twin Cities and St. Cloud. She is the first Republican woman to be elected to the U.S. House from Minnesota.
110th Congress
Foreign affairs
Bachmann voted "No" on a January 2007 resolution in the House of Representatives opposing President George W. Bush's plan to increase troop levels in Iraq, but called for a full hearing in advance of the troop surge, saying, "the American people deserve to hear and understand the merits of increasing U.S. troop presence in Iraq. Increased troop presence is justifiable if that measure would bring a swift conclusion to a difficult conflict." She hesitated to give a firm endorsement, calling the hearings "a good first step in explaining to the American people the course toward victory in Iraq."
Member of Congressional delegation
In July 2007 Bachmann joined a Congressional delegation visiting Ireland, Germany, Pakistan, Kuwait, and Iraq. She met briefly (due to security concerns) with U.S. personnel in the Green Zone and upon her return said she "was encouraged by reports of progress from Crocker, General David Petraeus and other personnel in Iraq linked to the surge". She said the surge "hasn't had a chance to be in place long enough to offer a critique of how it's working. [Petraeus] said al-Qaida in Iraq is off its plan and we want to keep it that way. The surge has only been fully in place for a week or so."
Bachmann also spoke of the delegation's visit to Islamabad to meet Pakistani Prime Minister Aziz at the same time as the siege of Islamic fundamentalists at the Lal Masjid mosque elsewhere in the city. She reported, "The group [of U.S. Legislators] had to travel in armored vehicles and was constantly accompanied by Pakistani military ... We were all able to see extremely up close and personal what it's like to be in a region where fighting is occurring. We constantly felt like we were in need of security." Bachmann told reporters upon her return that "the dangers posed by Islamic terrorism in Iraq, Britain and Pakistan justified the continued American military presence in Iraq." She said, "We don't want to see al-Qaida get a presence in the United States. Al-Qaida doesn't seem to show any signs of letting up. We have to keep that in mind."
Higher education
On July 11, 2007, Bachmann voted against the College Cost Reduction and Access Act. The act raised the maximum Pell grant from $4,310 to $5,200, lowered interest rates on subsidized student loans from 6.8% to 3.4%, raised loan limits from $7,500 to $30,500, disfavored married students who filed joint tax returns, provided more favorable repayment terms to students who could not use their education to prosper financially, and favored public sector over private sector workers with much more favorable loan forgiveness benefits. Supporters of the bill said it would allow more students to attend college and prosper for the rest of their lives.
Bachmann said she opposed the act because "it fails students and taxpayers with gimmicks, hidden costs and poorly targeted aid. It contains no serious reform of existing programs, and it favors the costly, government-run direct lending program over nonprofit and commercial lenders." The bill passed the House and was signed by President Bush.
Energy and environment
During the summer of 2008, as national gasoline prices rose to over $4 a gallon, Bachmann became a leading Congressional advocate for increased domestic oil and natural gas exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the Outer Continental Shelf. She joined ten other House Republicans and members of the media on a Congressional Energy Tour to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, and to Alaska. The trip was arranged by Arctic Power, an Alaskan lobbying group that advocates for ANWR development. Its purpose was to receive a firsthand account of emerging renewable energy technologies and the prospects of increased domestic oil and natural gas production in Alaska, including ANWR.
Bachmann rejects the overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is real, progressing, and primarily caused by humans. She has claimed that global warming is "all voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax" and has been called "one of the GOP's loudest global warming skeptics." She has claimed, baselessly, that "because life requires carbon dioxide and it is part of the planet's life cycle, it cannot be harmful." On the House floor on Earth Day 2009, Bachmann said she opposed cap and trade climate legislation, again making disproven claims that "carbon dioxide is not a harmful gas, it is a harmless gas. Carbon dioxide is natural; it is not harmful ... We're being told we have to reduce this natural substance to create an arbitrary reduction in something that is naturally occurring in the earth."
In March 2008 Bachmann introduced H.R. 849, the Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act. The bill would have repealed two sections of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 signed into law by George W. Bush. The 2007 Energy Act mandates energy efficiency and labeling standards for incandescent and fluorescent bulbs. Bachmann's bill would have required the Government Accountability Office to show that a change to fluorescent bulbs would have "clear economic, health and environmental benefits" before enforcing lighting efficiency regulations. The bill would have allowed these standards to remain in place if the comptroller general found they would lead to consumer savings, reduce carbon-dioxide emissions and pose no health risks to consumers (such as risks posed by the presence of mercury in fluorescent bulbs). The bill languished in the House and became inactive at the end of the 110th Congress. Bachmann reintroduced the bill in March 2011.
Tort reform
On June 3, 2008, President Bush signed the Credit and Debit Card Receipt Clarification Act (H.R. 4008) into law. The bipartisan bill, which Bachmann cosponsored with Congressman Tim Mahoney (D-Fla.), removed statutory damages for violations of a 2003 federal law prohibiting merchants from printing consumers' credit card numbers and expiration dates on sales receipts, in order to end class-action lawsuits aimed at businesses that violated the law.
Financial sector
Bachmann opposed both versions of the Wall Street bailout bill for America's financial sector. She voted against the first proposed $700 billion bailout of financial institutions, which failed to pass, by a vote of 205–228. She also advocated breaking up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and barring executives from excessive compensation or golden parachutes, and advocated a plan that would suspend mark-to-market accounting rules and suspend the capital gains tax.
Auto industry
The American auto companies approached Congress to ask for roughly $15 billion in loans to keep them operational into 2009. Bachmann criticized that bill, fearing that the initial sum of money would be followed by subsequent ones without the companies making changes to revive their business. Bachmann supported an alternative plan for American auto companies and the rest of the auto industry that would have set benchmarks for reducing their debt and renegotiating labor deals and have set up the financial assistance as interim insurance instead of a taxpayer-financed bailout.
Call for a media "exposé" of alleged "anti-Americanism" of Barack Obama and members of Congress
On October 17, 2008, Bachmann gave an interview on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews in support of the presidential campaign of Senator John McCain that brought the Minnesota 6th Congressional District race national attention. During the interview she criticized Barack Obama for his association with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, saying, "usually we associate with people who have similar ideas to us, and it seems that it calls into question what Barack Obama's true beliefs, and values, and thoughts are ... I am very concerned that he [Obama] may have anti-American views." She noted the bombing campaign orchestrated by Bill Ayers before discussing his association with Obama, arguing that "Bill Ayers is not someone the average American wants to see their president have an association with." Matthews followed up by asking "But he [Obama] is a Senator from the state of Illinois; he's one of the members of Congress you suspect of being anti-American. How many people in the Congress of the United States do you think are anti-American? You've already suspected Barack Obama; is he alone or are there others?" Bachmann answered, "What I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating exposé and take a look ... I wish they would ... I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out are they pro-America, or anti-America. I think people would love to see an exposé like that."
In response, the five Democratic members of Minnesota's congressional delegation—Tim Walz, Betty McCollum, Keith Ellison, Collin Peterson and Jim Oberstar—issued a joint statement questioning Bachmann's ability to "work in a bipartisan way to put the interests of our country first in this time of crisis." Former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Minnesota Governor Arne Carlson said her comments had influenced their decisions to endorse Obama for president.
Bachmann brought up the interview before business leaders and Republicans during a campaign stop in St. Cloud, Minnesota, on October 21, 2008. She claimed she never intended to question Obama's patriotism. "I made a misstatement. I said a comment that I would take back. I did not, nor do I, question Barack Obama's patriotism ... I did not say that Barack Obama is anti-American nor do I believe that Barack Obama is anti-American ... [But] I'm very concerned about Barack Obama's views. I don't believe that socialism is a good thing for America." At a March 2010 fund-raiser for the Susan B. Anthony List, Bachmann said, "I said I had very serious concerns that Barack Obama had anti-American views—and now I look like Nostradamus". In March 2011 she was asked on Meet the Press whether she still believed that Obama held un-American views. She responded, "I believe that the actions of this government have—have been emblematic of ones that have not been based on true American values." Pressed for clarification, she said, "I've already answered that question before. I said I had very serious concerns about the president's views."
111th Congress
Global currency
On March 26, 2009, following comments by China proposing adoption of a global reserve currency, Bachmann introduced a resolution calling for a Constitutional amendment to bar the dollar from being replaced by a foreign currency. Current law prohibits foreign currency from being recognized in the U.S., but Bachmann expressed concerns relating to the president's power to make and interpret treaties. Earlier that month, at a Financial Services Committee hearing, Bachmann asked both Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke whether they would reject calls for the U.S. to move away from the U.S. dollar and they replied that they would.
2010 Census
In a June 17, 2009, interview with The Washington Times, Bachmann expressed concern that the questions on the 2010 United States Census had become "very intricate, very personal" and that ACORN, a community organizing group that had come under fire the previous year, might be part of the Census Bureau's door-to-door information collection efforts. She said, "I know, for my family, the only question we will be answering is how many people are in our home. We won't be answering any information beyond that, because the Constitution doesn't require any information beyond that." According to Politifact, her statement was incorrect, as the Constitution does require citizens to complete the census. Fellow Republican Representatives Patrick McHenry (N.C.), Lynn Westmoreland (Ga.) and John Mica (Fla.), members of the Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census and National Archives, which oversees the census, subsequently asked Bachmann not to boycott the population count.
Along with Congressman Ted Poe (Tex.-02), Bachmann introduced the American Community Survey Act to limit the amount of personal information the U.S. Census Bureau solicits. She reiterated her belief that the census asked too many personal questions.
Cap-and-Trade legislation
In March 2009 Bachmann was interviewed by the Northern Alliance Radio Network and promoted two forums she was hosting the next month in St. Cloud and Woodbury about Obama's proposed cap-and-trade tax policy to limit greenhouse gas emissions. She said she wanted Minnesotans "armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back." Bachmann's office quickly clarified that she was speaking metaphorically, meaning "armed with knowledge". According to the Star Tribune, her quote went viral across the Internet.
AmeriCorps
In 2009 Bachmann became a critic of what she characterized as proposals for mandatory public service. Of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, an expansion to AmeriCorps (a federal community service organization), she said in April:
The original bill called for an exploration of whether a mandatory public service program could be established, but the section on creating a "Congressional Commission on Civic Service" was stripped from the bill.
In August 2009 Bachmann's political opponents publicized in the local media and the blogosphere what they described as the "ironic" fact that her son, Harrison, joined Teach for America, part of the AmeriCorps program.
Health care
Bachmann contributed to the "death panel" controversy when she read from a July 24 article by former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey on the House floor. Sarah Palin said that her "death panel" remark was inspired by what she called the "Orwellian" opinions of Ezekiel Emanuel as described by Bachmann, who accused him of advocating health care rationing by age and disability. According to PolitiFact and Time, Bachmann's euthanasia remarks distorted Emanuel's position on health care for the elderly and disabled. FactCheck.org stated, "We agree that Emanuel's meaning is being twisted." When many doctors wanted to legalize euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide, Emanuel opposed it.
On August 31, 2009, Bachmann spoke at an event in Colorado, saying of Democratic health care overhaul proposals that: She outlined ideas for changing the health care system, including: "Erase the boundaries around every single state when it comes to health care", enabling consumers to purchase insurance across state lines; increase the use of health savings accounts and allow everyone to "take full deductibility of all medical expenses", including insurance premiums; and tort reform.
Bachmann denounced the government-run health insurance public option, calling it a "government takeover of health care" that would "squeeze out private health insurance".
Criticism of President Obama's visit to Asia
In a November 3, 2010, interview with Anderson Cooper, while discussing spending cuts for Medicare and Social Security suggested by Representative Paul Ryan, Bachmann was asked what spending cuts she would make to reduce the deficit. She cited President Obama's then-upcoming visit to Asia as an example, saying it "is expected to cost the taxpayers $200 million a day. He's taking two thousand people with him. He'll be renting out over 870 rooms in India. And these are 5-star hotel rooms at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel. This is the kind of over-the-top spending—it's a very small example, Anderson." Bachmann was apparently referring to information in a story from the Press Trust of India, attributed to "a top official of the Maharashtra Government privy to the arrangements for the high-profile visit", information that was also published in U.S.-based media such as The Drudge Report. A Pentagon spokesman, Geoff Morrell, dismissed the report's claim that 34 warships were accompanying the President as "comical". The White House said that the press report figures were "wildly inflated" and had "no basis in reality". While stating that they could not give the actual projected figures for security reasons, staffers maintained costs were in line with the official travel costs of previous presidents Bush and Clinton.
112th Congress
Leadership run
After the 2010 elections and Representative Mike Pence's announcement that he was stepping away from his leadership position in the House, Bachmann announced her intention to seek the position of House Republican Conference Chair. As Bachmann was the founder of the House's Tea Party Caucus, her announcement caused some to see the leadership election as "an early test of how GOP leaders will treat the antiestablishment movement's winners". Many among the House's Republican leadership, including Eric Cantor and the retiring Pence, were quick to endorse Representative Jeb Hensarling for the position; Speaker-to-be John Boehner remained neutral on the issue. Supporters of Bachmann's run included Representatives Steve King, John Kline, Louie Gohmert, Chip Cravaack, and Erik Paulsen, as well as media personality and political commentator Glenn Beck. Listing her qualifications for the position, Bachmann noted, "I've done an effective job speaking out at a national and local level, motivating people with our message, calling attention to deficits in Obama's policy. I was instrumental in bringing tens of thousands of people to the U.S. capitol to rally against Obama care and to attend our press conference." She noted her work to keep the Tea Party within the GOP rather than having it become a third party, thereby helping the party capture the House, saying, "I have been able to bring a voice and motivate people to, in effect, put that gavel in John Boehner's hands, so that Republicans can lead going forward. …It's important that leadership represents the choice of the people coming into our caucus….I think I have motivated a high number of people to get involved in this cycle who may have sat it out and that have made a difference on a number of these races. I gave a large amount of money to NRCC and individual candidates and started Michele PAC, which raised $650,000 for members since July, so I was able to financially help about 50 people out."
Bachmann's bid suffered a setback when she was passed over for the GOP's transition team on which Hensarling was placed. Despite Bachmann's leading all other Representatives in fundraising, a Republican aide said some "members are getting resentful of Bachmann, who they say is making the argument that you're not really a Tea Party supporter unless you support her. That's gone through the formation of the Tea Party Caucus and the formation of this candidacy of hers. It's just not so." Sarah Palin, with whom Bachmann had campaigned earlier in the year, declined to endorse her leadership bid, while other Tea Party favorites, Representatives Adam Kinzinger and Tim Scott, were placed on the transition team. According to some senior House staff members, the party leadership was concerned about some of Bachmann's high-profile faux pas, the high rate of turnover among her staff, and how willing she would be to advance the party's messaging rather than her own.
On November 10 Bachmann released a statement ending her campaign for Conference Chair and giving Hensarling her "enthusiastic" support.
Committee assignment
House Speaker John Boehner selected Bachmann for a position "on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, giving her a new role as overseer of the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the rest of the U.S. intelligence community." Bachmann, who had "not served on any committee that deals with foreign policy issues" requested the position, "a move that has fueled speculation that she may be planning to carry the Tea Party banner into the GOP presidential primaries."
Repeal of Dodd–Frank reform
Soon after beginning her third term, Bachmann introduced legislation to repeal the Dodd–Frank financial reform law. She said, "I'm pleased to offer a full repeal of the job-killing Dodd–Frank financial regulatory bill. Dodd–Frank grossly expanded the federal government beyond its jurisdictional boundaries. It gave Washington bureaucrats the power to interpret and enforce the legislation with little oversight. Real financial regulatory reform must deal with these lenders who were a leading cause of our economic recession. True reform must also end the bailout mind-set that was perpetuated by the last Congress." She also took issue with the law for not addressing the liabilities of the tax-payer funded Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Bachmann's bill was endorsed by conservative groups such as the Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity. It gained four other Republican co-sponsors, including Representative Darrell Issa, who became the new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee at the start of the 112th Congress. Bachmann's call for total repeal was seen as more drastic than the approach advocated by her fellow Republican Spencer Bachus, who became the House Financial Services Committee Chairman when Republicans gained the House majority. Bachus planned "to provide 'vigorous' oversight of regulators efforts to reform banking and housing ... reform Fannie and Freddie", and "dismantle pieces of [the] Dodd–Frank Act that he believes 'unnecessarily punish small businesses and community banks.'" In response to Bachmann's legislation Representative Barney Frank said, "Michele Bachmann, the Club for Growth, and others in the right-wing coalition have now made their agenda for the financial sector very clear: they yearn to return to the thrilling days of yesteryear, so the loan arrangers can ride again—untrammeled by any rules restraining irresponsibility, excess, deception, and most of all, infinite leverage." It was seen as unlikely that Bachmann's legislation would pass, with the Financial Times writing, "Like the Republican move to repeal healthcare reform, Ms. Bachmann's bill could be passed by the House of Representatives but be blocked by the Senate or White House."
State of the Union response
Bachmann responded to Obama's 2011 State of the Union speech on the Tea Party Express website; her speech was broadcast live by CNN. She insisted that her response was not intended to counter Paul Ryan's official Republican party response. When asked whether the speech was an indication of competition with Ryan and Boehner's leadership team, Bachmann dismissed such a view as "a fiction of the media", saying she had alerted Ryan and the leadership team that her response might go national and that no objections were raised.
Health care
Bachmann continually called for repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). She recalled to reporters that she called for debate to repeal the act "the morning after Obamacare passed". With Steve King she introduced "the Bachmann-King repeal of health care bill", saying that it "is our intent in our heart to make sure that Obamacare is completely repealed." In light of the Democratic-majority Senate's and Obama's opposition to repeal, Bachmann called on the Republican held House of Representatives not to provide any funds for implementation of the act. "But until we can see that [repeal] happen, we want to fully defund this bill so that, like, it would be akin to a helium balloon that gets no helium inside so that it can't take off the ground, and that's what we're planning to do. I'm very, very grateful for nothing else; having a majority in the House of Representatives so that we have the ability of the power of the purse to not fund Obamacare, and this is exactly the right way to go", she said.
On March 4, 2011, Bachmann, one of the six House Republicans to vote against the continuing resolution that gave a two-week extension until a possible government shutdown, expressed her unhappiness with its passage.
In an appearance on Meet the Press on March 6 and during a March 7 interview with Sean Hannity, Bachmann claimed that the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats had hidden $105 billion in spending in the overhaul of the American Health Care System. She portrayed the Democratic leadership as timing the release of the bill's text to avoid detection of the spending. "We didn't get the bill until a literally couple of hours before we were supposed to vote on it", she said. She also said the spending was split up within different portions of the bill to mask its total cost. Bachmann was told this by the conservative Heritage Foundation, which claimed to have read the tallies of the Congressional Research Service and Congressional Budget Office.
According to some reports of the costs, "about $40 billion would go to the Children's Health Insurance Program, $15 billion would go to Medicare and Medicaid innovation programs, and $9.5 billion would go to the Community Health Centers Fund." As the funds are designated mandatory spending (not controlled by the annual appropriations acts), the funds would have remained even if the move to defund the reform law had succeeded.
Bachmann stated that $16 billion of the money gives Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius a "slush fund ... [to do] whatever she wants with this money." She called on the bills supporters to return the money, saying, "I think this deception that the president and [former House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid put forward with appropriating over $105 billion needs to be given back to the people."
When asked during the Meet the Press interview if she would take back her previous comments that Obama "may have anti-American views" and that his administration had "embraced something called gangster government", Bachmann stood by her statements, saying, "I do believe that actions that have been taken by this White House—I don't take back my statements on gangster government. I think that there have been actions taken by the government that are corrupt ... I said I have very serious concerns about the president's views, and I think the president's actions in the last two years speak for themselves."
In response to Bachmann's charges, Chief Deputy Democratic Whip Jan Schakowsky, who served on the House health subcommittee, pointed out that the report in question was an update of a report that came out in October 2010 and that the costs were spelled out in both the bill and the Congressional Budget Office's estimate of its cost, saying, "Michele Bachmann obviously didn't read the bill, because there was absolutely nothing hidden in that legislation." Schakowsky said the costs were not kept secret, citing the $40 billion for the Children's Health Insurance Program as an example: "There was a robust debate about whether or not that should be included, etc. So this idea of somehow, now at the last minute, there was a secret addition to some kind of funding ... is absolute nonsense."
In a September 2011 Republican presidential debate in Tampa, Bachmann criticized Rick Perry for his support for the humanpapilloma virus (HPV) vaccine and his support for mandating the HPV vaccine for all sixth-grade Texas girls. The American Academy of Pediatrics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Academy of Family Physicians, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and other medical organizations worldwide support immunizing girls and boys against HPV. HPV can cause lesions and genital warts, and has been linked to cervical cancer as well as genital and oral cancers in people of any gender. Because the vaccine is effective only if given before the onset of sexual activity and subsequent exposure to the virus, medical groups recommend the three-dose vaccine be given to 11- and 12-year-olds. During the debate and in interviews afterward, Bachmann accused Perry of "crony capitalism" (because Perry's former chief of staff was chief lobbyist for a drug company manufacturing the vaccine), and baselessly claimed that the HPV vaccine was dangerous and caused "mental retardation." She repeatedly referred to an anecdotal account from a mother of a girl who had been immunized for HPV, saying, "She told me that her little daughter took that vaccine, that injection, and she suffered mental retardation thereafter ... There is no second chance for these little girls if there is [sic] any dangerous consequences to their bodies." Shortly after Bachmann's statements at the debate, the American Academy of Pediatrics released a statement: "The American Academy of Pediatrics would like to correct false statements made in the Republican presidential campaign that the HPV vaccine is dangerous and can cause mental retardation. There is absolutely no scientific validity to this statement. Since the vaccine has been introduced, more than 35 million doses have been administered, and it has an excellent safety record." Fewer than one percent of those receiving the vaccine reported neurological side effects or, in rare cases, severe allergic reactions, none linked to changes in cognitive ability. Bachmann later acknowledged that she was not a doctor or a scientist.
Muslim Brotherhood
In June–July 2012, Bachmann and several other Republican legislators sent a series of letters to oversight agencies at five federal departments citing "serious security concerns" about what Bachmann has called a "deep penetration in the halls of our United States government" by the Muslim Brotherhood. They requested formal investigations into what Bachmann called "influence operations" by the Brotherhood.
Bachmann also accused Huma Abedin, an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Rep. Anthony Weiner's wife, of having family connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Bachmann's comments have drawn what the Washington Post calls "fierce criticism from fellow lawmakers and religious groups." In a speech on the Senate floor, 2008 Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain denounced Bachmann's charges as "specious and degrading". He defended Abedin as a "hard-working and loyal servant of our country and our government" and stated "these attacks on Huma have no logic, no basis and no merit. They need to stop now." House Speaker John Boehner termed Bachmann's allegations "dangerous", and other Republicans have also criticized the remarks. Ed Rollins, Bachmann’s former campaign manager, called on her to apologize to Abedin and characterized her allegations as “extreme and dishonest.”
In a letter to Bachmann, her colleague Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., a Muslim, asked for evidence backing her claims and stated, "Your response simply rehashes claims that have existed for years on anti-Muslim websites and contains no reliable information that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the U.S. government".
Bachmann replied that "the intention of the letters was to outline the serious national security concerns I had and ask for answers to questions regarding the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical group's access to top Obama administration officials". In a July 19 interview with radio and TV show host Glenn Beck, Bachmann repeated and expanded her allegations, accusing Ellison of having "a long record of being associated with the Council on American–Islamic Relations and with the Muslim Brotherhood". Ellison replied that "I am not now, nor have I ever been, associated with the Muslim Brotherhood."
113th Congress
Presidential campaign finance investigation
In 2013, Bachmann was under investigation by the House Ethics Committee, the Federal Election Commission, the Iowa Senate Ethics Committee, the Urbandale Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation because of alleged campaign finance violations in her 2012 campaign for president.
It is alleged that members of her staff made under-the-table payments, that funds were illegally transferred from her leadership PAC to pay consultants for her presidential campaign and that hidden payments were made to Iowa State Senator Kent Sorenson.
Additionally, a lawsuit was filed alleging that Bachmann and several former staffers stole and misused an Iowa homeschool group's e-mail distribution list. The trial, Heki v. Bachmann, had been set for May 14, 2014, but the case was settled out of court on June 28, 2013.
On July 26, 2013, the House Ethics Committee announced they were conducting a full investigation of Bachmann, saying that they had received a referral from the Office of Congressional Ethics.
Retirement
On May 29, 2013, Bachmann announced that she would not seek reelection to her Congressional seat in 2014. In a June 2013 Fox News interview, she said she was "not going silent" and would remain involved in politics. She did not rule out a future run for office, or even the White House. With her retirement from Congress, the ethics investigations against her were dropped. During a December 2017 New Year's weekend interview with televangelist Jim Bakker, Bachmann said that she was considering running for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Al Franken but was awaiting "God's counsel" before deciding.
David Lightman and Trevor Graff, writing for McClatchyDC, argued that Bachmann left a "legacy of political missteps and lots of incendiary rhetoric—often loaded with false accusations and wild exaggerations."
Committee assignments
Committee on Financial Services
Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
Political positions
Education
Bachmann supports the teaching of creationism alongside evolution in public school science classes. During a 2003 interview on the KKMS Christian radio program Talk The Walk, Bachmann said that evolution is a theory that has never been proven one way or the other. She co-authored a bill (with no additional endorsements among her fellow legislators) that would require public schools to include alternative explanations for the origin of life as part of the state's public school science curricula. In October 2006, Bachmann told a debate audience in St. Cloud, Minnesota, "there is a controversy among scientists about whether evolution is a fact or not ... There are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe in intelligent design." Despite this, there is an overwhelming scientific consensus that evolution is real, and that intelligent design is not. Indeed, at least one news report presenting a "sampling of Bachmann's ... ludicrous or plain old false claims", stated that Bachmann’s claims are untrue, and that "when the science isn't on [Bachmann's] side, she simply improvises."
Bachmann has praised the Christian youth ministry You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International (YCRBYCH), hailing "the group's work of sharing the gospel in public schools". She appeared as a keynote speaker at their fundraisers in 2006 and 2009. Following a 2011 controversial invocation for the Minnesota House, YCRBYCH founder Bradlee Dean declared that criticisms of him and his ministry were also "intended to harm and destroy the presidential campaign of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann ... [who] previously praised and prayed for the work of my ministry".
Bachmann has had a history of opposing anti-bullying legislation. In 2006, she told the Minnesota Legislature that passing an anti-bullying bill would be a waste of time. "I think for all of us, our experience in public schools is there have always been bullies", she said. "Always have been, always will be. I just don't know how we're ever going to get to the point of zero tolerance ... What does it mean? ... Will we be expecting boys to be girls?"
Fiscal policy
In the Minnesota Senate, Bachmann opposed minimum wage increases. In a June 2011 interview, she did not back away from her earlier proposal to eliminate the federal minimum wage, a change she said would "virtually wipe out unemployment."
In a 2001 flyer, Bachmann and Michael J. Chapman wrote that federal policies manage a centralized, state-controlled economy in the United States. She wrote that education laws passed by Congress in 2001, including "School To Work" and "Goals 2000", created a new national school curriculum that embraced "a socialist, globalist worldview; loyalty to all government and not America." In 2003, Bachmann said that the "Tax Free Zones" economic initiatives of Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty were based on the Marxist principle of "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." She also said the administration was attempting to govern and run centrally planned economies through the Minnesota Economic Leadership Team (MELT), an advisory board on economic and workforce policy Pawlenty chaired. Before her election to the state senate, and again in 2005, Bachmann signed a "no new taxes" pledge sponsored by the Taxpayers League of Minnesota. As a state senator, she introduced two bills that would have severely limited state taxation. In 2003, she proposed amending the Minnesota Constitution to adopt the "Taxpayers' Bill of Rights" (TABOR).
In 2005, Bachmann opposed Pawlenty's proposal of a state surcharge of 75 cents per pack on the wholesale cost of cigarettes. She said she opposed the surcharge "100 percent—it's a tax increase." The Taxpayers' League later criticized her for reversing her position and voting for the surcharge.
Bachmann promised to bring the price of gasoline down to $2 per gallon, without specifying a plan to accomplish this.
Environment
Bachmann supports increased domestic drilling of oil and natural gas, as well as pursuing renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar. She is a strong proponent of nuclear power.
Bachmann has strongly opposed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), pledging at an August 2011 campaign rally, "I guarantee you the EPA will have doors locked and lights turned off and they will only be about conservation." In 2007 and 2010, she actively solicited funds from the EPA on behalf of constituents in her congressional district.
Social Security and Medicare phase-out
Bachmann has called for phasing out Social Security and Medicare: "what you have to do, is keep faith with the people that are already in the system... But basically what we have to do is wean everybody else off."
Foreign policy
Bachmann has said that in dealing with Iran, diplomacy "is our option", but that other options, including a nuclear strike, should not be ruled out. She has also said that she is "a longtime supporter of Israel".
Global economy
In a discussion about the G-20 summit in Toronto, during an interview with conservative radio host Scott Hennen, Bachmann stated that she did not want America to be part of the international global economy.
Bachmann told The Wall Street Journal that Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams influenced her economic views. She said she was "an Art Laffer fiend" and loved Ludwig von Mises.
Immigration
Bachmann believes that strengthened enforcement of immigration laws is required for the growth of the American job market. She supports amending the Immigration and Nationality Act to allow only the immediate family of legal immigrants (not extended family members) priority consideration in the immigration process. She voted against the DREAM Act. She has also said the current law does not need modification but proper enforcement.
Bachmann said, "the immigration system in the United States worked very, very well up until the mid-1960s when liberal members of Congress changed the immigration laws." She has expressed support for immigration of highly skilled professionals such as chemists and engineers.
Bachmann opposed the 2013 immigration reform bill, claiming that its passage would mean the end of the Republican Party. On WorldNetDaily she said, "This is President Obama's number one political agenda because he knows we will never again have a Republican president ever if amnesty goes into effect."
Social issues
Same-sex marriage constitutional amendment
Bachmann supports both federal and state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage and any legal equivalents. In August 2006, the Star Tribune reported that in March 2006, while on a Minneapolis radio show, Bachmann advocated a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. A caller asked her to explain how he, a heterosexual, would be harmed if his gay neighbors were allowed to marry. Bachmann replied, "Public schools would have to teach that homosexuality and same-sex marriage are normal, natural and that maybe children should try them." The Star Tribune also reported that Bachmann had publicly called homosexuality "sexual dysfunction", "sexual identity disorders", and "personal enslavement" leading to "sexual anarchy".
In a July 2014 radio interview, Bachmann claimed that gay rights activists want to abolish age of consent laws in the United States so that adults can "prey on little children sexually."
In 2020, Bachmann claimed that "transgender Black Marxists" were "seeking the overthrow of the United States and the dissolution of the traditional family."
Abortion
Bachmann has identified herself as pro-life and has been endorsed in her runs for Congress by the Susan B. Anthony List and Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life. At a New Hampshire debate among presidential candidates, when asked if abortion should be allowed in cases of rape or incest, she responded that she was "100 percent pro-life," implying that such a fetus would have to be carried to term. In the Minnesota Senate, Bachmann introduced a bill proposing a constitutional amendment restricting state funds for abortion. The bill died in committee.
Federal-backed home loans
According to the Washington Post, in 2008 Bachmann may have taken advantage of a federal program for a home loan, then called for dismantling the program, though the Post noted that the public and other members of Congress have taken advantage of such loans despite seeing reasons to criticize them. When asked about it, she said: "This is the problem. It is almost impossible to buy a home in this country today without the federal government being involved".
Opinion on President Obama's birth certificate
Bachmann claimed not to be part of the birther movement, but said that Obama could resolve the dispute by producing his long-form birth certificate. In April 2011, after Obama released the certificate, George Stephanopoulos asked Bachmann about the issue on Good Morning America. She said that its release "should settle the matter", that "I take the president at his word", and that "We have bigger fish to fry".
Political campaigns
2006 congressional campaign
Bachmann won her Congressional seat in the 2006 election with 50% of the vote, defeating the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) nominee Patty Wetterling and the Independence Party's John Binkowski.
The 6th District's representative since 2001, Mark Kennedy, announced in late 2005 that he would run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Mark Dayton. Bachmann said, "God then called me to run" for the U.S. House seat, and that she and her husband fasted for three days to be more sure.
According to Bloomberg.com, evangelical conservative leader James Dobson put his organization Focus on the Family's resources behind Bachmann's 2006 campaign. The group planned to distribute 250,000 voter guides in Minnesota churches to reach social conservatives, according to Tom Prichard, president of the Minnesota Family Council, a local affiliate of the group. In addition to Minnesota, Dobson's group also organized turnout drives in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey and Montana.
During a debate televised by WCCO-TV on October 28, 2006, news reporter Pat Kessler quoted a story that appeared in the Star Tribune and asked Bachmann whether it was true that the church she belonged to taught that the Pope is the Anti-Christ. Bachmann replied that her church "does not believe that the Pope is the Anti-Christ, that's absolutely false ... I'm very grateful that my pastor has come out and been very clear on this matter, and I think it's patently absurd and it's a false statement."
In early July 2006, Bachmann received a fundraising visit from Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. On July 21, Karl Rove visited Minnesota to raise funds for her election. In August, President Bush was the keynote speaker at her congressional fundraiser, which raised about $500,000. Bachmann also received fundraising support from Vice President Dick Cheney. The National Republican Congressional Committee put nearly $3 million into the race, for electronic and direct-mail ads against Wetterling, significantly more than the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent on Wetterling's behalf. On November 7, Bachmann won the election with 50% of the vote to Wetterling's 42% and Binkowski's 8%.
2008 congressional campaign
In 2008 Bachmann was reelected, defeating DFL and Independence Party nominee Elwyn Tinklenberg with 46.4% of the vote to Tinklenberg's 43.4%. Because Tinklenberg was running as a DFL member in the Democratic primary, Bob Anderson was able to run in the Independence Party primary unopposed, despite not having that party's endorsement. Anderson received 10% of the vote.
2010 congressional campaign
In 2010 Bachmann was challenged by DFL nominee Tarryl Clark and Independence Party candidate Bob Anderson. With more than $8.5 million, Bachmann spent more than any other House of Representative candidate, although Clark was able to raise $4 million, one of the largest fundraising efforts in the nation for a U.S. House challenger. On November 2, 2010, Bachmann defeated Clark, 52% to 40%.
2012 presidential campaign
In early 2011, amid substantial speculation, Bachmann announced her candidacy for president. She participated in the second Republican presidential debate, in New Hampshire, on June 13, 2011, and during the debate announced that she had filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) earlier that day to become a candidate for the nomination. Bachmann formally announced her candidacy for the nomination on June 27, 2011, during an appearance in Waterloo, Iowa, her birth city.
Bachmann won the Ames Straw Poll hosted by the Iowa GOP on August 13, 2011, becoming the first woman ever to win the poll, but finished sixth in the January 3, 2012, caucuses, with 4.98% of the vote. On January 4 she canceled her scheduled campaign trips to South Carolina and suspended her campaign.
2012 congressional campaign
On January 25, 2012, Bachmann announced that she would run for reelection for her seat in Congress.
According to Politico.com, as of July 2012 Bachmann had "raised close to $15 million" for the 2012 election, a figure it called "astounding ... more than some Senate candidates will collect this year." From July to the end of September, Bachmann raised $4.5 million. This amount put her ahead of all other members of Congress (including Allen West who was in second place with $4 million) for the third quarter. Bachmann said she was "humbled by the enormous outpouring of grassroots support for my campaign focused on keeping America the most secure and prosperous nation in the world."
Despite a more favorable district Bachmann won reelection only narrowly, receiving just 4,298 more votes than her DFL challenger, Jim Graves.
Electoral history
Local elections
Congressional elections
2006
2008
2010
2012
Autobiography
In November 2011 Bachmann published her autobiography, Core of Conviction, in which she outlined the events and people who have shaped her values and beliefs. The book describes her break with the Democratic Party. "It was in the perilous fires of the Carter administration that my ideology was forged," she wrote. "In the seventies, Carter taught me what I was against, and then in the eighties, Reagan taught me what I was for." Reflecting on her role as a Tea Party leader, she elaborated, "I once said that the Tea Party represents 90 percent of Americans. I now realize that I misspoke. I should have said 100 percent, because I believe that nearly all Americans retain faith in the ordered liberty that the Constitution offers."
Personal life
Family
In 1978, as Michele Amble, she married Marcus Bachmann, now a clinical therapist with a master's degree from Regent University and a Ph.D. from Union Graduate School, whom she met while they were undergraduates. After she received an LL.M. in taxation from William & Mary School of Law in 1988, the couple moved to Stillwater, Minnesota, a town of 18,000 near Saint Paul, where they run a Christian counseling center that administered gay conversion therapy. Bachmann and her husband have five children: Lucas, Harrison, Elisa, Caroline, and Sophia. In a 2011 town hall meeting, she said that she suffered a miscarriage after the birth of their second child, Harrison, an event she said shaped her anti-abortion views.
Bachmann and her husband have also provided foster care to 23 other children, all of whom were teenage girls. The Bachmanns were licensed from 1992 to 2000 to handle up to three foster children at a time, with the last arriving in 1998. The Bachmanns began by providing short-term care for girls with eating disorders who were patients in a University of Minnesota program. Their home was legally defined as a treatment home, with a daily reimbursement rate per child from the state. Some girls stayed a few months, others more than a year.
Bachmann is a former beauty pageant queen.
Citizenship
In May 2012 it was reported that Marcus Bachmann had registered for Swiss citizenship, and thus, under Swiss nationality law, so would Michele and their children. Within two days of the first reports of Bachmann's dual citizenship, Michele Bachmann announced that she had written to the Swiss consulate to withdraw her Swiss citizenship.
Religion
Bachmann was raised "into a family of Norwegian Lutheran Democrats"; she was a longtime member of Salem Lutheran Church (Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod) in Stillwater. She and her husband withdrew their membership on June 21, 2011, just before she officially began her presidential campaign. They had not attended the church for over two years. In 2011, the Bachmanns began attending Rockpoint Church in Lake Elmo, member of Evangelical Free Church of America.
Bachmann has cited theologian Francis Schaeffer as a "profound influence" on her life and her husband's, especially his film series How Should We Then Live?. She has also described Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity by Nancy Pearcey as a "wonderful" book. Journalist Ryan Lizza has argued that Bachmann's worldview is deeply influenced by the Christian movement known as Dominionism, citing the influence of Schaeffer and Pearcey as evidence. Others have criticized Lizza's article, especially its connection of Schaeffer with Dominionism. Religion writer Sarah Posner broadly concurs with Lizza, pointing to the influence of Christian Reconstructionists Herb Titus and R. J. Rushdoony on Bachmann via the curriculum at O. W. Coburn School of Law.
Businesses
Bachmann and her husband own a Christian counseling practice, Bachmann & Associates. The clinic is run by her husband, who has a Ph.D. with "a concentration in clinical psychology" from Union Graduate School. Marcus Bachmann is not a licensed clinical psychologist in Minnesota. The clinic received nearly $30,000 from Minnesota government agencies between 2006 and 2010 in addition to at least $137,000 in federal payments and $24,000 in government grants for counselor training. In an interview, Michele Bachmann said that she and her husband had not benefited at taxpayer expense, saying, "the money that went to the clinic was actually training money for employees". Marcus Bachmann has falsely claimed that Bachmann & Associates did not provide conversion therapy, a controversial psychological treatment that has been repudiated by the American Psychological Association as unethical and without medical basis. A former client of Bachmann's clinic and a hidden camera investigator with the activist group Truth Wins Out showed that therapists at the clinic do engage in such practices. In a subsequent interview with the Star Tribune, Marcus Bachmann did not deny that he or other counselors at his clinic used the technique, but said they did so only at a client's request.
In personal financial disclosure reports for 2006 through 2009, Bachmann reported earning $32,500 to $105,000 from a farm that was owned at the time by her ailing father-in-law, Paul Bachmann. The farm received $260,000 in federal crop and disaster subsidies between 1995 and 2008. Bachmann said that in 2006–2009, her husband acted as a trustee of the farm for his dying father and so, out of "an abundance of caution", she claimed the farm as income in financial disclosures, though it was her in-laws who profited from the farm during that period.
Anonymous threat against her
In August 2011 a man tweeted his "desire to engage in sadomasochistic activities" with Bachmann using "a Vietnam era machete" while misspelling her given name as "Michelle" in his tweet. Federal investigators ordered Twitter to reveal his identity. Called Mr. X in the grand jury's subpoena, the man filed a motion to quash the order at the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in February 2012. Then-Chief Judge Royce Lamberth denied the request, citing the seriousness of the threat that might have posed to Bachmann, but X was granted the redaction of his identity in a separate order.
Donald Trump
Bachmann vocally supported then-President Donald Trump, saying in 2017 that he "has had the courage and the fortitude to stand up where other Republicans wouldn't dare to stand up." In December 2020, after the presidential election, she posted a video online praying for a Trump second term. Her online prayer specifically called out the contested election results in Georgia, saying: Lord, would you deliver these races in Georgia? O Father, would you deliver various local and state races, Father, that they aren't stolen? Would you give us a true vote? And, O God, I personally ask, from myself, Michele Bachmann, Lord, would you allow Donald Trump to have a second term as president of the United States?
See also
United States congressional delegations from Minnesota
List of United States representatives from Minnesota
Women in the United States House of Representatives
References
External links
Politifact.com File on Michele Bachmann
2008 campaign finance data from OpenSecrets.org
2010 campaign finance data from OpenSecrets.org
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1956 births
Living people
21st-century American politicians
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American women politicians
21st-century American women writers
20th-century Lutherans
21st-century Lutherans
21st-century Protestants
American autobiographers
American Christian Zionists
American critics of Islam
American evangelicals
American people of Norwegian descent
American political writers
American anti-abortion activists
American women lawyers
American women non-fiction writers
Anoka High School alumni
Christians from Iowa
Christians from Minnesota
Converts to Evangelicalism from Lutheranism
Christian critics of Islam
Dominion theology
Female members of the United States House of Representatives
Female candidates for President of the United States
Intelligent design advocates
Internal Revenue Service people
Members of the United States House of Representatives from Minnesota
Minnesota lawyers
Minnesota Republicans
Minnesota state senators
Oral Roberts University alumni
People from Anoka, Minnesota
People from Stillwater, Minnesota
Politicians from Waterloo, Iowa
Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives
Tea Party movement activists
Candidates in the 2012 United States presidential election
William & Mary Law School alumni
Winona State University alumni
Women autobiographers
Women state legislators in Minnesota | false | [
"Lady Camilla Dorothy Godolphin Osborne (formerly Harris and Dempster; born 14 August 1950) is an English heiress. She is the only child of John Osborne, 11th Duke of Leeds.\n\nEarly life and family \nLady Camilla Osborne was born on 14 August 1950 to John Osborne, 11th Duke of Leeds, and his second wife, Audrey Young. She grew up in Jersey, where her parents moved to avoid heavy taxes.\n\nHer parents divorced in 1955 after her mother had an affair with a Guards officer. Her mother later remarried to Sir David Roland Walter Lawrence, 3rd Baronet.\n\nOsborne's father married a third time in 1955 to Caroline Fleur Vatcher.\n\nIn 1963, at age 13, Osborne's father died without male issue. Due to the entail limiting the peerages to males only, she could not inherit her father's titles. The titles of her father passed to his cousin Sir D'Arcy Osborne, making him the 12th Duke of Leeds. When D'Arcy Osborne died in 1964 without issue, the Dukedom of Leeds and all the other peerages became extinct.\n\nWhile she was not able to inherit the dukedom from her father, she did inherit money from his personal estate upon his death along with an annual allowance. In 1971 she inherited £1,000,000 (equivalent to £12,970,000 in 2016) from the family trust.\n\nOsborne studied philosophy and English at Newcastle University, but left after a year.\n\nPersonal life \nOsborne married Julian Brownlow Harris and in 1972 gave birth to a daughter, Emily Kate Godolphin Harris. The couple later divorced. In 1975 she became engaged to Christopher Moorsom, but later called off the engagement.\n\nOsborne married a second time to Nigel Richard Patton Dempster in 1977 at the Chelsea Register Office. The couple spent the first years of their marriage living separately. She gave birth to another daughter, Louisa Beatrix Dempster, in 1979. The marriage was dissolved in 2002. Nigel Dempster and Lady Camilla remained close after their divorce. Dempster died on 12 July 2007. Osborne was present at his funeral.\n\nOsborne stated that she believed her father, having sold the family estate Hornby Castle, lived an unhappy life without purpose.\n\nIn 2004, Osborne sold a painting by William Oram that had been painted for one of the Dukes of Leeds.\n\nOsborne was featured in the BBC Two documentary The Last Dukes.\n\nReferences \n\nLiving people\n1950 births\nDaughters of English dukes\nCamilla\nPeople associated with Newcastle University",
"Habibah bint Ubayd-Allah () is the daughter of Ubayd-Allah ibn Jahsh and Ramlah bint Abi-Sufyan.\n\nFamily background \nHabibah's father was the brother of Zaynab bint Jahsh, whom Muhammad married at some point, thus is Muhammad Habibah's aunt's husband. \n\nAfter her parents got divorced, due to her father abandoning Islam for Christianity, her mother married Muhammad. Thus, Muhammad became her step-father as well. She married Dawud ibn Urwah ibn Mas'ud al-Thaqifi.\n\nShe has been recorded with the odd name \"Habibah bint Umm Habibah bint Abu Sufyan\" in some Islamic Biography books. This could be due to her father leaving Islam.\n\nNotes \n\nFemale Sahabah\n7th-century Arabs"
] |
[
"Michele Bachmann",
"Early life, education, and early career",
"What shaped her thoughts about gay conversion therapy?",
"I don't know.",
"Did she see her father much after her parents divorced?",
"After her parents divorced, Bachmann's father, David John Amble, moved to California, and Bachmann was raised by her mother,"
] | C_23ae721041f747e2b0a1ef889204eaab_1 | How many grandkids did she end up with? | 3 | How many grandkids did Bachmann end up with? | Michele Bachmann | Bachmann was born Michele Marie Amble in Waterloo, Iowa, "into a family of Norwegian Lutheran Democrats"; her family moved from Iowa to Minnesota when she was 13 years old. After her parents divorced, Bachmann's father, David John Amble, moved to California, and Bachmann was raised by her mother, Arlene Jean (nee Johnson), who worked at the First National Bank in Anoka, Minnesota. Her mother remarried when Bachmann was a teenager; the new marriage resulted in a family with nine children. She graduated from Anoka High School in 1974 and, after graduation, spent one summer working on kibbutz Be'eri in Israel. In 1978, she graduated from Winona State University with a B.A. In 1979, Bachmann was a member of the first class of the O. W. Coburn School of Law, then a part of Oral Roberts University (ORU). While there, Bachmann studied with John Eidsmoe, whom she described in 2011 as "one of the professors who had a great influence on me". Bachmann worked as a research assistant on Eidsmoe's 1987 book Christianity and the Constitution, which argues that the United States was founded as a Christian theocracy and should become one again. In 1986 Bachmann received a J.D. degree from Oral Roberts University. She was a member of the ORU law school's final graduating class, and was part of a group of faculty, staff, and students who moved the ORU law school library to what is now Regent University. In 1988, Bachmann received an LL.M. degree in tax law from William & Mary Law School. From 1988 to 1993 she worked as an attorney for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). She left the IRS to become a full-time mother when her fourth child was born. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Michele Marie Bachmann (; née Amble; born April 6, 1956) is an American politician who was the U.S. representative for from 2007 until 2015. A member of the Republican Party, she was a candidate for President of the United States in the 2012 election, but lost the Republican nomination to Mitt Romney.
Born in Waterloo, Iowa, Bachmann moved to Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, as a teenager. She graduated from O. W. Coburn School of Law, the law school of Oral Roberts University, and the William & Mary Law School. After graduating, she briefly worked in tax law for the Internal Revenue Service before becoming a stay-at-home mom. She became involved in local politics, specifically around education.
Bachmann formally entered politics in 2000, when she was elected to the Minnesota Senate. In 2006, she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. After her unsuccessful run for president, Bachmann was elected to another term in the House in 2012, before announcing her retirement before the 2014 election.
Early life, education, and early career
Bachmann was born Michele Marie Amble in Waterloo, Iowa, to Norwegian-American parents David John Amble (1929–2003) and Arlene Jean Amble (née Johnson; born c. 1932). Two of her great-great-great-grandparents, Melchior and Martha Munson, emigrated from Sogndal, Norway, to Wisconsin in 1857. David was an engineer. Her family moved from Iowa to Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, when she was 13 years old. After her parents divorced when she was 14, David moved to California and remarried. Bachmann was raised by her mother, who worked at the First National Bank in Anoka, Minnesota, where they moved again. Three years later her mother married widower Raymond J. LaFave; the new marriage resulted in a family with nine children.
Bachmann graduated from Anoka High School in 1974 and, after graduation, spent one summer working at kibbutz Be'eri in Israel. In 1978, she graduated from Winona State University with a B.A. In 1979, Bachmann was a member of the first class of the O. W. Coburn School of Law, then a part of Oral Roberts University (ORU). There she studied with John Eidsmoe, whom she described in 2011 as "one of the professors who had a great influence on me". Bachmann worked as a research assistant on Eidsmoe's 1987 book Christianity and the Constitution, which argues that the United States was founded as a Christian theocracy and should become one again. In 1986, Bachmann received a J.D. degree from Oral Roberts University. She was a member of the ORU law school's final graduating class, and was part of a group of faculty, staff, and students who moved the ORU law school library to what is now Regent University.
In 1988, Bachmann received an LL.M. degree in tax law from William & Mary Law School. From 1988 to 1993 she worked as an attorney for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). She left the IRS to become a full-time mother when her fourth child was born.
Early political activism
Bachmann grew up in a Democratic family and has said she became a Republican during her senior year at Winona State University. She told the Star Tribune that she was reading Gore Vidal's 1973 novel Burr and claimed that "[h]e was kind of mocking the Founding Fathers and I just thought—I just remember reading the book, putting it in my lap, looking out the window and thinking, 'You know what? I don't think I am a Democrat. I must be a Republican.
While still a Democrat, she and her then-fiancé, Marcus, were motivated to join the anti-abortion movement after watching Francis Schaeffer's 1976 Christian documentary film How Should We Then Live? They prayed outside of clinics and engaged in sidewalk interference, an activity in which anti-abortion activists attempt to persuade women entering clinics not to get abortions. Bachmann has since made statements supportive of sidewalk interference.
Bachmann supported Jimmy Carter for president in 1976, and she and her husband worked on his campaign. During Carter's presidency, Bachmann became disappointed with his liberal approach to public policy, support for legalized abortion and economic decisions she held responsible for increased gas prices. In the 1980 presidential election, she voted for Ronald Reagan and worked for his campaign.
Bachmann's political activism gained media attention at an anti-abortion protest in 1991. She and approximately 30 other protesters went to a Ramsey County Board meeting where $3 million was to be appropriated to build a morgue for the county at St. Paul-Ramsey Medical Center (now Regions Hospital). The Medical Center performed abortions and employed pro-choice activist Jane Hodgson. Bachmann voiced her opposition to tax dollars going to the hospital; to the Star Tribune, she said, "in effect, since 1973, I have been a landlord of an abortion clinic, and I don't like that distinction".
In 1993, Bachmann and other parents started the K–12 New Heights Charter School in Stillwater. The publicly funded school's charter mandated that it be non-sectarian in all programs and practices, but the school soon developed a strong Christian orientation. Parents of students at the school complained and the superintendent of schools warned Bachmann that the school was in violation of state law. Six months after the school's founding, Bachmann resigned and the Christian orientation was removed from the curriculum, allowing the school to keep its charter. Bachmann began speaking against a state-mandated set of educational standards, which propelled her into politics.
Bachmann became a critic and opponent of Minnesota's School-to-Work policies. In a 1999 column, she wrote, "School-to-Work alters the basic mission and purpose of K–12 academic education away from traditional broad-based academic studies geared toward maximizing intellectual achievement of the individual. Instead, School-to-Work utilizes the school day to promote children's acquisition of workplace skills, viewing children as trainees for increased economic productivity." In November 1999, Bachmann and four other Republicans were candidates, as the "Slate of Five", in an election for the school board of Stillwater. All five lost.
Minnesota Senate
In 2000 Bachmann defeated 18-year incumbent Gary Laidig for the Republican nomination for state senator in Minnesota District 56. In the general election she defeated Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) nominee Ted Thompson and Minnesota Independence Party Lyno Sullivan. In 2002, after redistricting due to the 2000 Census, Bachmann defeated another incumbent, DFL State Senator Jane Krentz, in the newly drawn State Senate District 52. Bachmann's agenda as a state senator focused on opposition to abortion and gay marriage.
Same-sex marriage constitutional amendment
On November 20, 2003, Bachmann and Representative Mary Liz Holberg proposed a constitutional amendment that would bar the state from legally recognizing same-sex marriage. In 2004 Bachmann and a coalition of religious leaders announced plans for a "Minnesota for Marriage" rally. Her effort to place a marriage amendment on a referendum ballot in 2004 failed. She resurrected the proposal in March 2005, but it stalled indefinitely in a senate committee that April.
Assistant Minority Leader
In November 2004 Republican Senate Minority Leader Dick Day appointed Bachmann Assistant Minority Leader in charge of policy of the Senate Republican Caucus. In July 2005 the Republican Caucus removed her from her leadership position. Bachmann said that disagreements with Day over her anti-tax stance were the reason for her ouster.
U.S. House of Representatives
From 2007 to 2015 Bachmann represented , which includes the northernmost and eastern suburbs of the Twin Cities and St. Cloud. She is the first Republican woman to be elected to the U.S. House from Minnesota.
110th Congress
Foreign affairs
Bachmann voted "No" on a January 2007 resolution in the House of Representatives opposing President George W. Bush's plan to increase troop levels in Iraq, but called for a full hearing in advance of the troop surge, saying, "the American people deserve to hear and understand the merits of increasing U.S. troop presence in Iraq. Increased troop presence is justifiable if that measure would bring a swift conclusion to a difficult conflict." She hesitated to give a firm endorsement, calling the hearings "a good first step in explaining to the American people the course toward victory in Iraq."
Member of Congressional delegation
In July 2007 Bachmann joined a Congressional delegation visiting Ireland, Germany, Pakistan, Kuwait, and Iraq. She met briefly (due to security concerns) with U.S. personnel in the Green Zone and upon her return said she "was encouraged by reports of progress from Crocker, General David Petraeus and other personnel in Iraq linked to the surge". She said the surge "hasn't had a chance to be in place long enough to offer a critique of how it's working. [Petraeus] said al-Qaida in Iraq is off its plan and we want to keep it that way. The surge has only been fully in place for a week or so."
Bachmann also spoke of the delegation's visit to Islamabad to meet Pakistani Prime Minister Aziz at the same time as the siege of Islamic fundamentalists at the Lal Masjid mosque elsewhere in the city. She reported, "The group [of U.S. Legislators] had to travel in armored vehicles and was constantly accompanied by Pakistani military ... We were all able to see extremely up close and personal what it's like to be in a region where fighting is occurring. We constantly felt like we were in need of security." Bachmann told reporters upon her return that "the dangers posed by Islamic terrorism in Iraq, Britain and Pakistan justified the continued American military presence in Iraq." She said, "We don't want to see al-Qaida get a presence in the United States. Al-Qaida doesn't seem to show any signs of letting up. We have to keep that in mind."
Higher education
On July 11, 2007, Bachmann voted against the College Cost Reduction and Access Act. The act raised the maximum Pell grant from $4,310 to $5,200, lowered interest rates on subsidized student loans from 6.8% to 3.4%, raised loan limits from $7,500 to $30,500, disfavored married students who filed joint tax returns, provided more favorable repayment terms to students who could not use their education to prosper financially, and favored public sector over private sector workers with much more favorable loan forgiveness benefits. Supporters of the bill said it would allow more students to attend college and prosper for the rest of their lives.
Bachmann said she opposed the act because "it fails students and taxpayers with gimmicks, hidden costs and poorly targeted aid. It contains no serious reform of existing programs, and it favors the costly, government-run direct lending program over nonprofit and commercial lenders." The bill passed the House and was signed by President Bush.
Energy and environment
During the summer of 2008, as national gasoline prices rose to over $4 a gallon, Bachmann became a leading Congressional advocate for increased domestic oil and natural gas exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the Outer Continental Shelf. She joined ten other House Republicans and members of the media on a Congressional Energy Tour to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, and to Alaska. The trip was arranged by Arctic Power, an Alaskan lobbying group that advocates for ANWR development. Its purpose was to receive a firsthand account of emerging renewable energy technologies and the prospects of increased domestic oil and natural gas production in Alaska, including ANWR.
Bachmann rejects the overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is real, progressing, and primarily caused by humans. She has claimed that global warming is "all voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax" and has been called "one of the GOP's loudest global warming skeptics." She has claimed, baselessly, that "because life requires carbon dioxide and it is part of the planet's life cycle, it cannot be harmful." On the House floor on Earth Day 2009, Bachmann said she opposed cap and trade climate legislation, again making disproven claims that "carbon dioxide is not a harmful gas, it is a harmless gas. Carbon dioxide is natural; it is not harmful ... We're being told we have to reduce this natural substance to create an arbitrary reduction in something that is naturally occurring in the earth."
In March 2008 Bachmann introduced H.R. 849, the Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act. The bill would have repealed two sections of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 signed into law by George W. Bush. The 2007 Energy Act mandates energy efficiency and labeling standards for incandescent and fluorescent bulbs. Bachmann's bill would have required the Government Accountability Office to show that a change to fluorescent bulbs would have "clear economic, health and environmental benefits" before enforcing lighting efficiency regulations. The bill would have allowed these standards to remain in place if the comptroller general found they would lead to consumer savings, reduce carbon-dioxide emissions and pose no health risks to consumers (such as risks posed by the presence of mercury in fluorescent bulbs). The bill languished in the House and became inactive at the end of the 110th Congress. Bachmann reintroduced the bill in March 2011.
Tort reform
On June 3, 2008, President Bush signed the Credit and Debit Card Receipt Clarification Act (H.R. 4008) into law. The bipartisan bill, which Bachmann cosponsored with Congressman Tim Mahoney (D-Fla.), removed statutory damages for violations of a 2003 federal law prohibiting merchants from printing consumers' credit card numbers and expiration dates on sales receipts, in order to end class-action lawsuits aimed at businesses that violated the law.
Financial sector
Bachmann opposed both versions of the Wall Street bailout bill for America's financial sector. She voted against the first proposed $700 billion bailout of financial institutions, which failed to pass, by a vote of 205–228. She also advocated breaking up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and barring executives from excessive compensation or golden parachutes, and advocated a plan that would suspend mark-to-market accounting rules and suspend the capital gains tax.
Auto industry
The American auto companies approached Congress to ask for roughly $15 billion in loans to keep them operational into 2009. Bachmann criticized that bill, fearing that the initial sum of money would be followed by subsequent ones without the companies making changes to revive their business. Bachmann supported an alternative plan for American auto companies and the rest of the auto industry that would have set benchmarks for reducing their debt and renegotiating labor deals and have set up the financial assistance as interim insurance instead of a taxpayer-financed bailout.
Call for a media "exposé" of alleged "anti-Americanism" of Barack Obama and members of Congress
On October 17, 2008, Bachmann gave an interview on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews in support of the presidential campaign of Senator John McCain that brought the Minnesota 6th Congressional District race national attention. During the interview she criticized Barack Obama for his association with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, saying, "usually we associate with people who have similar ideas to us, and it seems that it calls into question what Barack Obama's true beliefs, and values, and thoughts are ... I am very concerned that he [Obama] may have anti-American views." She noted the bombing campaign orchestrated by Bill Ayers before discussing his association with Obama, arguing that "Bill Ayers is not someone the average American wants to see their president have an association with." Matthews followed up by asking "But he [Obama] is a Senator from the state of Illinois; he's one of the members of Congress you suspect of being anti-American. How many people in the Congress of the United States do you think are anti-American? You've already suspected Barack Obama; is he alone or are there others?" Bachmann answered, "What I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating exposé and take a look ... I wish they would ... I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out are they pro-America, or anti-America. I think people would love to see an exposé like that."
In response, the five Democratic members of Minnesota's congressional delegation—Tim Walz, Betty McCollum, Keith Ellison, Collin Peterson and Jim Oberstar—issued a joint statement questioning Bachmann's ability to "work in a bipartisan way to put the interests of our country first in this time of crisis." Former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Minnesota Governor Arne Carlson said her comments had influenced their decisions to endorse Obama for president.
Bachmann brought up the interview before business leaders and Republicans during a campaign stop in St. Cloud, Minnesota, on October 21, 2008. She claimed she never intended to question Obama's patriotism. "I made a misstatement. I said a comment that I would take back. I did not, nor do I, question Barack Obama's patriotism ... I did not say that Barack Obama is anti-American nor do I believe that Barack Obama is anti-American ... [But] I'm very concerned about Barack Obama's views. I don't believe that socialism is a good thing for America." At a March 2010 fund-raiser for the Susan B. Anthony List, Bachmann said, "I said I had very serious concerns that Barack Obama had anti-American views—and now I look like Nostradamus". In March 2011 she was asked on Meet the Press whether she still believed that Obama held un-American views. She responded, "I believe that the actions of this government have—have been emblematic of ones that have not been based on true American values." Pressed for clarification, she said, "I've already answered that question before. I said I had very serious concerns about the president's views."
111th Congress
Global currency
On March 26, 2009, following comments by China proposing adoption of a global reserve currency, Bachmann introduced a resolution calling for a Constitutional amendment to bar the dollar from being replaced by a foreign currency. Current law prohibits foreign currency from being recognized in the U.S., but Bachmann expressed concerns relating to the president's power to make and interpret treaties. Earlier that month, at a Financial Services Committee hearing, Bachmann asked both Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke whether they would reject calls for the U.S. to move away from the U.S. dollar and they replied that they would.
2010 Census
In a June 17, 2009, interview with The Washington Times, Bachmann expressed concern that the questions on the 2010 United States Census had become "very intricate, very personal" and that ACORN, a community organizing group that had come under fire the previous year, might be part of the Census Bureau's door-to-door information collection efforts. She said, "I know, for my family, the only question we will be answering is how many people are in our home. We won't be answering any information beyond that, because the Constitution doesn't require any information beyond that." According to Politifact, her statement was incorrect, as the Constitution does require citizens to complete the census. Fellow Republican Representatives Patrick McHenry (N.C.), Lynn Westmoreland (Ga.) and John Mica (Fla.), members of the Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census and National Archives, which oversees the census, subsequently asked Bachmann not to boycott the population count.
Along with Congressman Ted Poe (Tex.-02), Bachmann introduced the American Community Survey Act to limit the amount of personal information the U.S. Census Bureau solicits. She reiterated her belief that the census asked too many personal questions.
Cap-and-Trade legislation
In March 2009 Bachmann was interviewed by the Northern Alliance Radio Network and promoted two forums she was hosting the next month in St. Cloud and Woodbury about Obama's proposed cap-and-trade tax policy to limit greenhouse gas emissions. She said she wanted Minnesotans "armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back." Bachmann's office quickly clarified that she was speaking metaphorically, meaning "armed with knowledge". According to the Star Tribune, her quote went viral across the Internet.
AmeriCorps
In 2009 Bachmann became a critic of what she characterized as proposals for mandatory public service. Of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, an expansion to AmeriCorps (a federal community service organization), she said in April:
The original bill called for an exploration of whether a mandatory public service program could be established, but the section on creating a "Congressional Commission on Civic Service" was stripped from the bill.
In August 2009 Bachmann's political opponents publicized in the local media and the blogosphere what they described as the "ironic" fact that her son, Harrison, joined Teach for America, part of the AmeriCorps program.
Health care
Bachmann contributed to the "death panel" controversy when she read from a July 24 article by former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey on the House floor. Sarah Palin said that her "death panel" remark was inspired by what she called the "Orwellian" opinions of Ezekiel Emanuel as described by Bachmann, who accused him of advocating health care rationing by age and disability. According to PolitiFact and Time, Bachmann's euthanasia remarks distorted Emanuel's position on health care for the elderly and disabled. FactCheck.org stated, "We agree that Emanuel's meaning is being twisted." When many doctors wanted to legalize euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide, Emanuel opposed it.
On August 31, 2009, Bachmann spoke at an event in Colorado, saying of Democratic health care overhaul proposals that: She outlined ideas for changing the health care system, including: "Erase the boundaries around every single state when it comes to health care", enabling consumers to purchase insurance across state lines; increase the use of health savings accounts and allow everyone to "take full deductibility of all medical expenses", including insurance premiums; and tort reform.
Bachmann denounced the government-run health insurance public option, calling it a "government takeover of health care" that would "squeeze out private health insurance".
Criticism of President Obama's visit to Asia
In a November 3, 2010, interview with Anderson Cooper, while discussing spending cuts for Medicare and Social Security suggested by Representative Paul Ryan, Bachmann was asked what spending cuts she would make to reduce the deficit. She cited President Obama's then-upcoming visit to Asia as an example, saying it "is expected to cost the taxpayers $200 million a day. He's taking two thousand people with him. He'll be renting out over 870 rooms in India. And these are 5-star hotel rooms at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel. This is the kind of over-the-top spending—it's a very small example, Anderson." Bachmann was apparently referring to information in a story from the Press Trust of India, attributed to "a top official of the Maharashtra Government privy to the arrangements for the high-profile visit", information that was also published in U.S.-based media such as The Drudge Report. A Pentagon spokesman, Geoff Morrell, dismissed the report's claim that 34 warships were accompanying the President as "comical". The White House said that the press report figures were "wildly inflated" and had "no basis in reality". While stating that they could not give the actual projected figures for security reasons, staffers maintained costs were in line with the official travel costs of previous presidents Bush and Clinton.
112th Congress
Leadership run
After the 2010 elections and Representative Mike Pence's announcement that he was stepping away from his leadership position in the House, Bachmann announced her intention to seek the position of House Republican Conference Chair. As Bachmann was the founder of the House's Tea Party Caucus, her announcement caused some to see the leadership election as "an early test of how GOP leaders will treat the antiestablishment movement's winners". Many among the House's Republican leadership, including Eric Cantor and the retiring Pence, were quick to endorse Representative Jeb Hensarling for the position; Speaker-to-be John Boehner remained neutral on the issue. Supporters of Bachmann's run included Representatives Steve King, John Kline, Louie Gohmert, Chip Cravaack, and Erik Paulsen, as well as media personality and political commentator Glenn Beck. Listing her qualifications for the position, Bachmann noted, "I've done an effective job speaking out at a national and local level, motivating people with our message, calling attention to deficits in Obama's policy. I was instrumental in bringing tens of thousands of people to the U.S. capitol to rally against Obama care and to attend our press conference." She noted her work to keep the Tea Party within the GOP rather than having it become a third party, thereby helping the party capture the House, saying, "I have been able to bring a voice and motivate people to, in effect, put that gavel in John Boehner's hands, so that Republicans can lead going forward. …It's important that leadership represents the choice of the people coming into our caucus….I think I have motivated a high number of people to get involved in this cycle who may have sat it out and that have made a difference on a number of these races. I gave a large amount of money to NRCC and individual candidates and started Michele PAC, which raised $650,000 for members since July, so I was able to financially help about 50 people out."
Bachmann's bid suffered a setback when she was passed over for the GOP's transition team on which Hensarling was placed. Despite Bachmann's leading all other Representatives in fundraising, a Republican aide said some "members are getting resentful of Bachmann, who they say is making the argument that you're not really a Tea Party supporter unless you support her. That's gone through the formation of the Tea Party Caucus and the formation of this candidacy of hers. It's just not so." Sarah Palin, with whom Bachmann had campaigned earlier in the year, declined to endorse her leadership bid, while other Tea Party favorites, Representatives Adam Kinzinger and Tim Scott, were placed on the transition team. According to some senior House staff members, the party leadership was concerned about some of Bachmann's high-profile faux pas, the high rate of turnover among her staff, and how willing she would be to advance the party's messaging rather than her own.
On November 10 Bachmann released a statement ending her campaign for Conference Chair and giving Hensarling her "enthusiastic" support.
Committee assignment
House Speaker John Boehner selected Bachmann for a position "on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, giving her a new role as overseer of the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the rest of the U.S. intelligence community." Bachmann, who had "not served on any committee that deals with foreign policy issues" requested the position, "a move that has fueled speculation that she may be planning to carry the Tea Party banner into the GOP presidential primaries."
Repeal of Dodd–Frank reform
Soon after beginning her third term, Bachmann introduced legislation to repeal the Dodd–Frank financial reform law. She said, "I'm pleased to offer a full repeal of the job-killing Dodd–Frank financial regulatory bill. Dodd–Frank grossly expanded the federal government beyond its jurisdictional boundaries. It gave Washington bureaucrats the power to interpret and enforce the legislation with little oversight. Real financial regulatory reform must deal with these lenders who were a leading cause of our economic recession. True reform must also end the bailout mind-set that was perpetuated by the last Congress." She also took issue with the law for not addressing the liabilities of the tax-payer funded Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Bachmann's bill was endorsed by conservative groups such as the Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity. It gained four other Republican co-sponsors, including Representative Darrell Issa, who became the new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee at the start of the 112th Congress. Bachmann's call for total repeal was seen as more drastic than the approach advocated by her fellow Republican Spencer Bachus, who became the House Financial Services Committee Chairman when Republicans gained the House majority. Bachus planned "to provide 'vigorous' oversight of regulators efforts to reform banking and housing ... reform Fannie and Freddie", and "dismantle pieces of [the] Dodd–Frank Act that he believes 'unnecessarily punish small businesses and community banks.'" In response to Bachmann's legislation Representative Barney Frank said, "Michele Bachmann, the Club for Growth, and others in the right-wing coalition have now made their agenda for the financial sector very clear: they yearn to return to the thrilling days of yesteryear, so the loan arrangers can ride again—untrammeled by any rules restraining irresponsibility, excess, deception, and most of all, infinite leverage." It was seen as unlikely that Bachmann's legislation would pass, with the Financial Times writing, "Like the Republican move to repeal healthcare reform, Ms. Bachmann's bill could be passed by the House of Representatives but be blocked by the Senate or White House."
State of the Union response
Bachmann responded to Obama's 2011 State of the Union speech on the Tea Party Express website; her speech was broadcast live by CNN. She insisted that her response was not intended to counter Paul Ryan's official Republican party response. When asked whether the speech was an indication of competition with Ryan and Boehner's leadership team, Bachmann dismissed such a view as "a fiction of the media", saying she had alerted Ryan and the leadership team that her response might go national and that no objections were raised.
Health care
Bachmann continually called for repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). She recalled to reporters that she called for debate to repeal the act "the morning after Obamacare passed". With Steve King she introduced "the Bachmann-King repeal of health care bill", saying that it "is our intent in our heart to make sure that Obamacare is completely repealed." In light of the Democratic-majority Senate's and Obama's opposition to repeal, Bachmann called on the Republican held House of Representatives not to provide any funds for implementation of the act. "But until we can see that [repeal] happen, we want to fully defund this bill so that, like, it would be akin to a helium balloon that gets no helium inside so that it can't take off the ground, and that's what we're planning to do. I'm very, very grateful for nothing else; having a majority in the House of Representatives so that we have the ability of the power of the purse to not fund Obamacare, and this is exactly the right way to go", she said.
On March 4, 2011, Bachmann, one of the six House Republicans to vote against the continuing resolution that gave a two-week extension until a possible government shutdown, expressed her unhappiness with its passage.
In an appearance on Meet the Press on March 6 and during a March 7 interview with Sean Hannity, Bachmann claimed that the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats had hidden $105 billion in spending in the overhaul of the American Health Care System. She portrayed the Democratic leadership as timing the release of the bill's text to avoid detection of the spending. "We didn't get the bill until a literally couple of hours before we were supposed to vote on it", she said. She also said the spending was split up within different portions of the bill to mask its total cost. Bachmann was told this by the conservative Heritage Foundation, which claimed to have read the tallies of the Congressional Research Service and Congressional Budget Office.
According to some reports of the costs, "about $40 billion would go to the Children's Health Insurance Program, $15 billion would go to Medicare and Medicaid innovation programs, and $9.5 billion would go to the Community Health Centers Fund." As the funds are designated mandatory spending (not controlled by the annual appropriations acts), the funds would have remained even if the move to defund the reform law had succeeded.
Bachmann stated that $16 billion of the money gives Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius a "slush fund ... [to do] whatever she wants with this money." She called on the bills supporters to return the money, saying, "I think this deception that the president and [former House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid put forward with appropriating over $105 billion needs to be given back to the people."
When asked during the Meet the Press interview if she would take back her previous comments that Obama "may have anti-American views" and that his administration had "embraced something called gangster government", Bachmann stood by her statements, saying, "I do believe that actions that have been taken by this White House—I don't take back my statements on gangster government. I think that there have been actions taken by the government that are corrupt ... I said I have very serious concerns about the president's views, and I think the president's actions in the last two years speak for themselves."
In response to Bachmann's charges, Chief Deputy Democratic Whip Jan Schakowsky, who served on the House health subcommittee, pointed out that the report in question was an update of a report that came out in October 2010 and that the costs were spelled out in both the bill and the Congressional Budget Office's estimate of its cost, saying, "Michele Bachmann obviously didn't read the bill, because there was absolutely nothing hidden in that legislation." Schakowsky said the costs were not kept secret, citing the $40 billion for the Children's Health Insurance Program as an example: "There was a robust debate about whether or not that should be included, etc. So this idea of somehow, now at the last minute, there was a secret addition to some kind of funding ... is absolute nonsense."
In a September 2011 Republican presidential debate in Tampa, Bachmann criticized Rick Perry for his support for the humanpapilloma virus (HPV) vaccine and his support for mandating the HPV vaccine for all sixth-grade Texas girls. The American Academy of Pediatrics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Academy of Family Physicians, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and other medical organizations worldwide support immunizing girls and boys against HPV. HPV can cause lesions and genital warts, and has been linked to cervical cancer as well as genital and oral cancers in people of any gender. Because the vaccine is effective only if given before the onset of sexual activity and subsequent exposure to the virus, medical groups recommend the three-dose vaccine be given to 11- and 12-year-olds. During the debate and in interviews afterward, Bachmann accused Perry of "crony capitalism" (because Perry's former chief of staff was chief lobbyist for a drug company manufacturing the vaccine), and baselessly claimed that the HPV vaccine was dangerous and caused "mental retardation." She repeatedly referred to an anecdotal account from a mother of a girl who had been immunized for HPV, saying, "She told me that her little daughter took that vaccine, that injection, and she suffered mental retardation thereafter ... There is no second chance for these little girls if there is [sic] any dangerous consequences to their bodies." Shortly after Bachmann's statements at the debate, the American Academy of Pediatrics released a statement: "The American Academy of Pediatrics would like to correct false statements made in the Republican presidential campaign that the HPV vaccine is dangerous and can cause mental retardation. There is absolutely no scientific validity to this statement. Since the vaccine has been introduced, more than 35 million doses have been administered, and it has an excellent safety record." Fewer than one percent of those receiving the vaccine reported neurological side effects or, in rare cases, severe allergic reactions, none linked to changes in cognitive ability. Bachmann later acknowledged that she was not a doctor or a scientist.
Muslim Brotherhood
In June–July 2012, Bachmann and several other Republican legislators sent a series of letters to oversight agencies at five federal departments citing "serious security concerns" about what Bachmann has called a "deep penetration in the halls of our United States government" by the Muslim Brotherhood. They requested formal investigations into what Bachmann called "influence operations" by the Brotherhood.
Bachmann also accused Huma Abedin, an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Rep. Anthony Weiner's wife, of having family connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Bachmann's comments have drawn what the Washington Post calls "fierce criticism from fellow lawmakers and religious groups." In a speech on the Senate floor, 2008 Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain denounced Bachmann's charges as "specious and degrading". He defended Abedin as a "hard-working and loyal servant of our country and our government" and stated "these attacks on Huma have no logic, no basis and no merit. They need to stop now." House Speaker John Boehner termed Bachmann's allegations "dangerous", and other Republicans have also criticized the remarks. Ed Rollins, Bachmann’s former campaign manager, called on her to apologize to Abedin and characterized her allegations as “extreme and dishonest.”
In a letter to Bachmann, her colleague Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., a Muslim, asked for evidence backing her claims and stated, "Your response simply rehashes claims that have existed for years on anti-Muslim websites and contains no reliable information that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the U.S. government".
Bachmann replied that "the intention of the letters was to outline the serious national security concerns I had and ask for answers to questions regarding the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical group's access to top Obama administration officials". In a July 19 interview with radio and TV show host Glenn Beck, Bachmann repeated and expanded her allegations, accusing Ellison of having "a long record of being associated with the Council on American–Islamic Relations and with the Muslim Brotherhood". Ellison replied that "I am not now, nor have I ever been, associated with the Muslim Brotherhood."
113th Congress
Presidential campaign finance investigation
In 2013, Bachmann was under investigation by the House Ethics Committee, the Federal Election Commission, the Iowa Senate Ethics Committee, the Urbandale Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation because of alleged campaign finance violations in her 2012 campaign for president.
It is alleged that members of her staff made under-the-table payments, that funds were illegally transferred from her leadership PAC to pay consultants for her presidential campaign and that hidden payments were made to Iowa State Senator Kent Sorenson.
Additionally, a lawsuit was filed alleging that Bachmann and several former staffers stole and misused an Iowa homeschool group's e-mail distribution list. The trial, Heki v. Bachmann, had been set for May 14, 2014, but the case was settled out of court on June 28, 2013.
On July 26, 2013, the House Ethics Committee announced they were conducting a full investigation of Bachmann, saying that they had received a referral from the Office of Congressional Ethics.
Retirement
On May 29, 2013, Bachmann announced that she would not seek reelection to her Congressional seat in 2014. In a June 2013 Fox News interview, she said she was "not going silent" and would remain involved in politics. She did not rule out a future run for office, or even the White House. With her retirement from Congress, the ethics investigations against her were dropped. During a December 2017 New Year's weekend interview with televangelist Jim Bakker, Bachmann said that she was considering running for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Al Franken but was awaiting "God's counsel" before deciding.
David Lightman and Trevor Graff, writing for McClatchyDC, argued that Bachmann left a "legacy of political missteps and lots of incendiary rhetoric—often loaded with false accusations and wild exaggerations."
Committee assignments
Committee on Financial Services
Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
Political positions
Education
Bachmann supports the teaching of creationism alongside evolution in public school science classes. During a 2003 interview on the KKMS Christian radio program Talk The Walk, Bachmann said that evolution is a theory that has never been proven one way or the other. She co-authored a bill (with no additional endorsements among her fellow legislators) that would require public schools to include alternative explanations for the origin of life as part of the state's public school science curricula. In October 2006, Bachmann told a debate audience in St. Cloud, Minnesota, "there is a controversy among scientists about whether evolution is a fact or not ... There are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe in intelligent design." Despite this, there is an overwhelming scientific consensus that evolution is real, and that intelligent design is not. Indeed, at least one news report presenting a "sampling of Bachmann's ... ludicrous or plain old false claims", stated that Bachmann’s claims are untrue, and that "when the science isn't on [Bachmann's] side, she simply improvises."
Bachmann has praised the Christian youth ministry You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International (YCRBYCH), hailing "the group's work of sharing the gospel in public schools". She appeared as a keynote speaker at their fundraisers in 2006 and 2009. Following a 2011 controversial invocation for the Minnesota House, YCRBYCH founder Bradlee Dean declared that criticisms of him and his ministry were also "intended to harm and destroy the presidential campaign of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann ... [who] previously praised and prayed for the work of my ministry".
Bachmann has had a history of opposing anti-bullying legislation. In 2006, she told the Minnesota Legislature that passing an anti-bullying bill would be a waste of time. "I think for all of us, our experience in public schools is there have always been bullies", she said. "Always have been, always will be. I just don't know how we're ever going to get to the point of zero tolerance ... What does it mean? ... Will we be expecting boys to be girls?"
Fiscal policy
In the Minnesota Senate, Bachmann opposed minimum wage increases. In a June 2011 interview, she did not back away from her earlier proposal to eliminate the federal minimum wage, a change she said would "virtually wipe out unemployment."
In a 2001 flyer, Bachmann and Michael J. Chapman wrote that federal policies manage a centralized, state-controlled economy in the United States. She wrote that education laws passed by Congress in 2001, including "School To Work" and "Goals 2000", created a new national school curriculum that embraced "a socialist, globalist worldview; loyalty to all government and not America." In 2003, Bachmann said that the "Tax Free Zones" economic initiatives of Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty were based on the Marxist principle of "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." She also said the administration was attempting to govern and run centrally planned economies through the Minnesota Economic Leadership Team (MELT), an advisory board on economic and workforce policy Pawlenty chaired. Before her election to the state senate, and again in 2005, Bachmann signed a "no new taxes" pledge sponsored by the Taxpayers League of Minnesota. As a state senator, she introduced two bills that would have severely limited state taxation. In 2003, she proposed amending the Minnesota Constitution to adopt the "Taxpayers' Bill of Rights" (TABOR).
In 2005, Bachmann opposed Pawlenty's proposal of a state surcharge of 75 cents per pack on the wholesale cost of cigarettes. She said she opposed the surcharge "100 percent—it's a tax increase." The Taxpayers' League later criticized her for reversing her position and voting for the surcharge.
Bachmann promised to bring the price of gasoline down to $2 per gallon, without specifying a plan to accomplish this.
Environment
Bachmann supports increased domestic drilling of oil and natural gas, as well as pursuing renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar. She is a strong proponent of nuclear power.
Bachmann has strongly opposed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), pledging at an August 2011 campaign rally, "I guarantee you the EPA will have doors locked and lights turned off and they will only be about conservation." In 2007 and 2010, she actively solicited funds from the EPA on behalf of constituents in her congressional district.
Social Security and Medicare phase-out
Bachmann has called for phasing out Social Security and Medicare: "what you have to do, is keep faith with the people that are already in the system... But basically what we have to do is wean everybody else off."
Foreign policy
Bachmann has said that in dealing with Iran, diplomacy "is our option", but that other options, including a nuclear strike, should not be ruled out. She has also said that she is "a longtime supporter of Israel".
Global economy
In a discussion about the G-20 summit in Toronto, during an interview with conservative radio host Scott Hennen, Bachmann stated that she did not want America to be part of the international global economy.
Bachmann told The Wall Street Journal that Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams influenced her economic views. She said she was "an Art Laffer fiend" and loved Ludwig von Mises.
Immigration
Bachmann believes that strengthened enforcement of immigration laws is required for the growth of the American job market. She supports amending the Immigration and Nationality Act to allow only the immediate family of legal immigrants (not extended family members) priority consideration in the immigration process. She voted against the DREAM Act. She has also said the current law does not need modification but proper enforcement.
Bachmann said, "the immigration system in the United States worked very, very well up until the mid-1960s when liberal members of Congress changed the immigration laws." She has expressed support for immigration of highly skilled professionals such as chemists and engineers.
Bachmann opposed the 2013 immigration reform bill, claiming that its passage would mean the end of the Republican Party. On WorldNetDaily she said, "This is President Obama's number one political agenda because he knows we will never again have a Republican president ever if amnesty goes into effect."
Social issues
Same-sex marriage constitutional amendment
Bachmann supports both federal and state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage and any legal equivalents. In August 2006, the Star Tribune reported that in March 2006, while on a Minneapolis radio show, Bachmann advocated a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. A caller asked her to explain how he, a heterosexual, would be harmed if his gay neighbors were allowed to marry. Bachmann replied, "Public schools would have to teach that homosexuality and same-sex marriage are normal, natural and that maybe children should try them." The Star Tribune also reported that Bachmann had publicly called homosexuality "sexual dysfunction", "sexual identity disorders", and "personal enslavement" leading to "sexual anarchy".
In a July 2014 radio interview, Bachmann claimed that gay rights activists want to abolish age of consent laws in the United States so that adults can "prey on little children sexually."
In 2020, Bachmann claimed that "transgender Black Marxists" were "seeking the overthrow of the United States and the dissolution of the traditional family."
Abortion
Bachmann has identified herself as pro-life and has been endorsed in her runs for Congress by the Susan B. Anthony List and Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life. At a New Hampshire debate among presidential candidates, when asked if abortion should be allowed in cases of rape or incest, she responded that she was "100 percent pro-life," implying that such a fetus would have to be carried to term. In the Minnesota Senate, Bachmann introduced a bill proposing a constitutional amendment restricting state funds for abortion. The bill died in committee.
Federal-backed home loans
According to the Washington Post, in 2008 Bachmann may have taken advantage of a federal program for a home loan, then called for dismantling the program, though the Post noted that the public and other members of Congress have taken advantage of such loans despite seeing reasons to criticize them. When asked about it, she said: "This is the problem. It is almost impossible to buy a home in this country today without the federal government being involved".
Opinion on President Obama's birth certificate
Bachmann claimed not to be part of the birther movement, but said that Obama could resolve the dispute by producing his long-form birth certificate. In April 2011, after Obama released the certificate, George Stephanopoulos asked Bachmann about the issue on Good Morning America. She said that its release "should settle the matter", that "I take the president at his word", and that "We have bigger fish to fry".
Political campaigns
2006 congressional campaign
Bachmann won her Congressional seat in the 2006 election with 50% of the vote, defeating the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) nominee Patty Wetterling and the Independence Party's John Binkowski.
The 6th District's representative since 2001, Mark Kennedy, announced in late 2005 that he would run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Mark Dayton. Bachmann said, "God then called me to run" for the U.S. House seat, and that she and her husband fasted for three days to be more sure.
According to Bloomberg.com, evangelical conservative leader James Dobson put his organization Focus on the Family's resources behind Bachmann's 2006 campaign. The group planned to distribute 250,000 voter guides in Minnesota churches to reach social conservatives, according to Tom Prichard, president of the Minnesota Family Council, a local affiliate of the group. In addition to Minnesota, Dobson's group also organized turnout drives in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey and Montana.
During a debate televised by WCCO-TV on October 28, 2006, news reporter Pat Kessler quoted a story that appeared in the Star Tribune and asked Bachmann whether it was true that the church she belonged to taught that the Pope is the Anti-Christ. Bachmann replied that her church "does not believe that the Pope is the Anti-Christ, that's absolutely false ... I'm very grateful that my pastor has come out and been very clear on this matter, and I think it's patently absurd and it's a false statement."
In early July 2006, Bachmann received a fundraising visit from Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. On July 21, Karl Rove visited Minnesota to raise funds for her election. In August, President Bush was the keynote speaker at her congressional fundraiser, which raised about $500,000. Bachmann also received fundraising support from Vice President Dick Cheney. The National Republican Congressional Committee put nearly $3 million into the race, for electronic and direct-mail ads against Wetterling, significantly more than the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent on Wetterling's behalf. On November 7, Bachmann won the election with 50% of the vote to Wetterling's 42% and Binkowski's 8%.
2008 congressional campaign
In 2008 Bachmann was reelected, defeating DFL and Independence Party nominee Elwyn Tinklenberg with 46.4% of the vote to Tinklenberg's 43.4%. Because Tinklenberg was running as a DFL member in the Democratic primary, Bob Anderson was able to run in the Independence Party primary unopposed, despite not having that party's endorsement. Anderson received 10% of the vote.
2010 congressional campaign
In 2010 Bachmann was challenged by DFL nominee Tarryl Clark and Independence Party candidate Bob Anderson. With more than $8.5 million, Bachmann spent more than any other House of Representative candidate, although Clark was able to raise $4 million, one of the largest fundraising efforts in the nation for a U.S. House challenger. On November 2, 2010, Bachmann defeated Clark, 52% to 40%.
2012 presidential campaign
In early 2011, amid substantial speculation, Bachmann announced her candidacy for president. She participated in the second Republican presidential debate, in New Hampshire, on June 13, 2011, and during the debate announced that she had filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) earlier that day to become a candidate for the nomination. Bachmann formally announced her candidacy for the nomination on June 27, 2011, during an appearance in Waterloo, Iowa, her birth city.
Bachmann won the Ames Straw Poll hosted by the Iowa GOP on August 13, 2011, becoming the first woman ever to win the poll, but finished sixth in the January 3, 2012, caucuses, with 4.98% of the vote. On January 4 she canceled her scheduled campaign trips to South Carolina and suspended her campaign.
2012 congressional campaign
On January 25, 2012, Bachmann announced that she would run for reelection for her seat in Congress.
According to Politico.com, as of July 2012 Bachmann had "raised close to $15 million" for the 2012 election, a figure it called "astounding ... more than some Senate candidates will collect this year." From July to the end of September, Bachmann raised $4.5 million. This amount put her ahead of all other members of Congress (including Allen West who was in second place with $4 million) for the third quarter. Bachmann said she was "humbled by the enormous outpouring of grassroots support for my campaign focused on keeping America the most secure and prosperous nation in the world."
Despite a more favorable district Bachmann won reelection only narrowly, receiving just 4,298 more votes than her DFL challenger, Jim Graves.
Electoral history
Local elections
Congressional elections
2006
2008
2010
2012
Autobiography
In November 2011 Bachmann published her autobiography, Core of Conviction, in which she outlined the events and people who have shaped her values and beliefs. The book describes her break with the Democratic Party. "It was in the perilous fires of the Carter administration that my ideology was forged," she wrote. "In the seventies, Carter taught me what I was against, and then in the eighties, Reagan taught me what I was for." Reflecting on her role as a Tea Party leader, she elaborated, "I once said that the Tea Party represents 90 percent of Americans. I now realize that I misspoke. I should have said 100 percent, because I believe that nearly all Americans retain faith in the ordered liberty that the Constitution offers."
Personal life
Family
In 1978, as Michele Amble, she married Marcus Bachmann, now a clinical therapist with a master's degree from Regent University and a Ph.D. from Union Graduate School, whom she met while they were undergraduates. After she received an LL.M. in taxation from William & Mary School of Law in 1988, the couple moved to Stillwater, Minnesota, a town of 18,000 near Saint Paul, where they run a Christian counseling center that administered gay conversion therapy. Bachmann and her husband have five children: Lucas, Harrison, Elisa, Caroline, and Sophia. In a 2011 town hall meeting, she said that she suffered a miscarriage after the birth of their second child, Harrison, an event she said shaped her anti-abortion views.
Bachmann and her husband have also provided foster care to 23 other children, all of whom were teenage girls. The Bachmanns were licensed from 1992 to 2000 to handle up to three foster children at a time, with the last arriving in 1998. The Bachmanns began by providing short-term care for girls with eating disorders who were patients in a University of Minnesota program. Their home was legally defined as a treatment home, with a daily reimbursement rate per child from the state. Some girls stayed a few months, others more than a year.
Bachmann is a former beauty pageant queen.
Citizenship
In May 2012 it was reported that Marcus Bachmann had registered for Swiss citizenship, and thus, under Swiss nationality law, so would Michele and their children. Within two days of the first reports of Bachmann's dual citizenship, Michele Bachmann announced that she had written to the Swiss consulate to withdraw her Swiss citizenship.
Religion
Bachmann was raised "into a family of Norwegian Lutheran Democrats"; she was a longtime member of Salem Lutheran Church (Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod) in Stillwater. She and her husband withdrew their membership on June 21, 2011, just before she officially began her presidential campaign. They had not attended the church for over two years. In 2011, the Bachmanns began attending Rockpoint Church in Lake Elmo, member of Evangelical Free Church of America.
Bachmann has cited theologian Francis Schaeffer as a "profound influence" on her life and her husband's, especially his film series How Should We Then Live?. She has also described Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity by Nancy Pearcey as a "wonderful" book. Journalist Ryan Lizza has argued that Bachmann's worldview is deeply influenced by the Christian movement known as Dominionism, citing the influence of Schaeffer and Pearcey as evidence. Others have criticized Lizza's article, especially its connection of Schaeffer with Dominionism. Religion writer Sarah Posner broadly concurs with Lizza, pointing to the influence of Christian Reconstructionists Herb Titus and R. J. Rushdoony on Bachmann via the curriculum at O. W. Coburn School of Law.
Businesses
Bachmann and her husband own a Christian counseling practice, Bachmann & Associates. The clinic is run by her husband, who has a Ph.D. with "a concentration in clinical psychology" from Union Graduate School. Marcus Bachmann is not a licensed clinical psychologist in Minnesota. The clinic received nearly $30,000 from Minnesota government agencies between 2006 and 2010 in addition to at least $137,000 in federal payments and $24,000 in government grants for counselor training. In an interview, Michele Bachmann said that she and her husband had not benefited at taxpayer expense, saying, "the money that went to the clinic was actually training money for employees". Marcus Bachmann has falsely claimed that Bachmann & Associates did not provide conversion therapy, a controversial psychological treatment that has been repudiated by the American Psychological Association as unethical and without medical basis. A former client of Bachmann's clinic and a hidden camera investigator with the activist group Truth Wins Out showed that therapists at the clinic do engage in such practices. In a subsequent interview with the Star Tribune, Marcus Bachmann did not deny that he or other counselors at his clinic used the technique, but said they did so only at a client's request.
In personal financial disclosure reports for 2006 through 2009, Bachmann reported earning $32,500 to $105,000 from a farm that was owned at the time by her ailing father-in-law, Paul Bachmann. The farm received $260,000 in federal crop and disaster subsidies between 1995 and 2008. Bachmann said that in 2006–2009, her husband acted as a trustee of the farm for his dying father and so, out of "an abundance of caution", she claimed the farm as income in financial disclosures, though it was her in-laws who profited from the farm during that period.
Anonymous threat against her
In August 2011 a man tweeted his "desire to engage in sadomasochistic activities" with Bachmann using "a Vietnam era machete" while misspelling her given name as "Michelle" in his tweet. Federal investigators ordered Twitter to reveal his identity. Called Mr. X in the grand jury's subpoena, the man filed a motion to quash the order at the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in February 2012. Then-Chief Judge Royce Lamberth denied the request, citing the seriousness of the threat that might have posed to Bachmann, but X was granted the redaction of his identity in a separate order.
Donald Trump
Bachmann vocally supported then-President Donald Trump, saying in 2017 that he "has had the courage and the fortitude to stand up where other Republicans wouldn't dare to stand up." In December 2020, after the presidential election, she posted a video online praying for a Trump second term. Her online prayer specifically called out the contested election results in Georgia, saying: Lord, would you deliver these races in Georgia? O Father, would you deliver various local and state races, Father, that they aren't stolen? Would you give us a true vote? And, O God, I personally ask, from myself, Michele Bachmann, Lord, would you allow Donald Trump to have a second term as president of the United States?
See also
United States congressional delegations from Minnesota
List of United States representatives from Minnesota
Women in the United States House of Representatives
References
External links
Politifact.com File on Michele Bachmann
2008 campaign finance data from OpenSecrets.org
2010 campaign finance data from OpenSecrets.org
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1956 births
Living people
21st-century American politicians
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American women politicians
21st-century American women writers
20th-century Lutherans
21st-century Lutherans
21st-century Protestants
American autobiographers
American Christian Zionists
American critics of Islam
American evangelicals
American people of Norwegian descent
American political writers
American anti-abortion activists
American women lawyers
American women non-fiction writers
Anoka High School alumni
Christians from Iowa
Christians from Minnesota
Converts to Evangelicalism from Lutheranism
Christian critics of Islam
Dominion theology
Female members of the United States House of Representatives
Female candidates for President of the United States
Intelligent design advocates
Internal Revenue Service people
Members of the United States House of Representatives from Minnesota
Minnesota lawyers
Minnesota Republicans
Minnesota state senators
Oral Roberts University alumni
People from Anoka, Minnesota
People from Stillwater, Minnesota
Politicians from Waterloo, Iowa
Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives
Tea Party movement activists
Candidates in the 2012 United States presidential election
William & Mary Law School alumni
Winona State University alumni
Women autobiographers
Women state legislators in Minnesota | false | [
"\"100 Grandkids\" is a song recorded by American rapper Mac Miller for his third studio album GO:OD AM (2015). It was released on August 7, 2015, by Warner Bros. Records as the lead single from Miller's major label debut album. The song is divided into two parts: \"Grandkids\", produced by Sha Money XL, and \"100 Grand\" produced by ID Labs.\n\nBackground\nMiller premiered \"100 Grandkids\" at the Grassroots Music Festival in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on July 31, 2015. The song was officially released by Warner Bros. Records as the lead single from his third studio album and major label debut GO:OD AM on August 7, 2015.\n\n\"100 Grandkids\" is a two-part song, split between \"Grandkids\"—promising to give his mother grandkids—and \"100 Grand\"—recalling when he \"first made a hundred grand\". The first part was produced by Sha Money XL, and the second by ID Labs. Miller described the two parts as \"thinking about your future\" and \"thinking about yourself\", respectively. The song samples P. Diddy, Black Rob and Mark Curry's \"Bad Boy for Life\" and Norman Connors' \"Last Tango in Paris\".\n\nMusic video\nThe music video was released on the same day as the official audio. Directed by Nick Walker, the video is split into two parts like the song, beginning with Miller rapping as the moon in a play performed by children dressed in costumes. It transitions to Miller rapping in an empty parking lot beside a car bouncing with hydraulics.\n\nTrack listing\nDigital download\n \"100 Grandkids\" – 4:38\nDigital download – Radio Edit\n \"100 Grandkids (Short Radio Edit)\" – 3:58\n\nPersonnel\n\n Malcolm McCormick – lead vocals (as Mac Miller), songwriting\n Elle Varner – additional background vocals\n Michael Clervoix – production (as Sha Money XL), songwriting\n Eric Dan – production (as ID Labs), songwriting, mixing\n Jeremy Kulousek – production (as ID Labs), songwriting, recorded by\n Zach Vaughan – production (as ID Labs), songwriting\n Josh Berg – additional production, recorded by\n Dorsey Wesley – songwriting\n Drayton Goss – songwriting\n Mark Curry – songwriting\n Robert Ross – songwriting\n Jamel Fisher – songwriting\n Gato Barbieri – songwriting\n Dory Previn – songwriting\n Jaslyn Taylee-Edgar – choir\n Jordan Dame – choir\n Nikki Leonti – choir\n Ryan Edgar – choir\n Christian Wunderlich – guitar\n Ben Adamson – organ, trumpet\n Chris Athens – mastering\n Dave Huffman – mastering\n\nCredits adapted from Tidal and ASCAP.\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2015 singles\n2015 songs\nMac Miller songs\nSongs written by Mac Miller\nSongs with lyrics by Dory Previn",
"Jan Youren (born 1943 in Boise, Idaho) is a retired rodeo competitor. She rode bareback horses and bulls, competing for 51 years and winning many world titles. She rodeoed until the age of 63, when she retired with 5 world championships in bareback bronc riding, 13 reserve championships in bareback, and 15 reserve championships in bull riding. She was inducted into the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in 1993. She was inducted into the Idaho Rodeo Hall of Fame in 2015.\n\nLife\nJan Youren was born in 1943 near Garden Valley, Idaho. Youren's father was a rodeo competitor. He competed in bareback bronc riding, bull riding, and wild horse racing. Youren was riding calves when she was about 5 years old, mostly at the Cattleman's convention. When she was 11 years old, her father came home saying that he had seen something she would really like. He explained about the girls riding bareback broncs and horses who were competing in a rodeo the same way men did. Sterling Alley, her father, put on his own rodeo for Youren just so she could ride. For Idaho, it was one of the first. “He entered me in every event. I’d never even seen a barrel race at that time,” she said. “I would have done anything for my dad, anything to get a little higher in my daddy’s eyes.” Regardless of her age and inexperience, she won the bareback brong riding and the cowriding events. Youren became dedicated to the bareback bronc riding event since her first ride. She won her first prize at the age of 11, in one of Idaho’s first rodeos for women.\n\nCareer\nYouren and some others established the Idaho Girls Rodeo Association. She also joined the Girls Northwest Rodeo Association when it was formed in 1957. In the beginning, Youren competed locally in a 600 mile radius. Starting in 1975, she joined the association that became today's Women's Professional Rodeo Association. She started competing in trips up to 1,500 miles long. While still competing, she got married (four times total). She bore 15 children. Jan has 8 kids, 7 step kids, 64 grandkids and over 100 great grandkids. She sometimes traveled with her children.\n\nRetirement\nShe rodeoed until the age of 63, when she retired with 5 world championships in bareback bronc riding, 13 reserve championships in bareback bronc riding, and 15 reserve championships in bull riding.\n\nReferences\n\n1943 births\nLiving people\nBareback bronc riders\nBull riders\nAmerican female equestrians\nCowgirl Hall of Fame inductees\n21st-century American women"
] |
[
"Michele Bachmann",
"Early life, education, and early career",
"What shaped her thoughts about gay conversion therapy?",
"I don't know.",
"Did she see her father much after her parents divorced?",
"After her parents divorced, Bachmann's father, David John Amble, moved to California, and Bachmann was raised by her mother,",
"How many grandkids did she end up with?",
"I don't know."
] | C_23ae721041f747e2b0a1ef889204eaab_1 | Did any of her children have different beliefs than her about gays or abortion? | 4 | Did any of Bachmann's children have different beliefs than her about gays or abortion? | Michele Bachmann | Bachmann was born Michele Marie Amble in Waterloo, Iowa, "into a family of Norwegian Lutheran Democrats"; her family moved from Iowa to Minnesota when she was 13 years old. After her parents divorced, Bachmann's father, David John Amble, moved to California, and Bachmann was raised by her mother, Arlene Jean (nee Johnson), who worked at the First National Bank in Anoka, Minnesota. Her mother remarried when Bachmann was a teenager; the new marriage resulted in a family with nine children. She graduated from Anoka High School in 1974 and, after graduation, spent one summer working on kibbutz Be'eri in Israel. In 1978, she graduated from Winona State University with a B.A. In 1979, Bachmann was a member of the first class of the O. W. Coburn School of Law, then a part of Oral Roberts University (ORU). While there, Bachmann studied with John Eidsmoe, whom she described in 2011 as "one of the professors who had a great influence on me". Bachmann worked as a research assistant on Eidsmoe's 1987 book Christianity and the Constitution, which argues that the United States was founded as a Christian theocracy and should become one again. In 1986 Bachmann received a J.D. degree from Oral Roberts University. She was a member of the ORU law school's final graduating class, and was part of a group of faculty, staff, and students who moved the ORU law school library to what is now Regent University. In 1988, Bachmann received an LL.M. degree in tax law from William & Mary Law School. From 1988 to 1993 she worked as an attorney for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). She left the IRS to become a full-time mother when her fourth child was born. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Michele Marie Bachmann (; née Amble; born April 6, 1956) is an American politician who was the U.S. representative for from 2007 until 2015. A member of the Republican Party, she was a candidate for President of the United States in the 2012 election, but lost the Republican nomination to Mitt Romney.
Born in Waterloo, Iowa, Bachmann moved to Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, as a teenager. She graduated from O. W. Coburn School of Law, the law school of Oral Roberts University, and the William & Mary Law School. After graduating, she briefly worked in tax law for the Internal Revenue Service before becoming a stay-at-home mom. She became involved in local politics, specifically around education.
Bachmann formally entered politics in 2000, when she was elected to the Minnesota Senate. In 2006, she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. After her unsuccessful run for president, Bachmann was elected to another term in the House in 2012, before announcing her retirement before the 2014 election.
Early life, education, and early career
Bachmann was born Michele Marie Amble in Waterloo, Iowa, to Norwegian-American parents David John Amble (1929–2003) and Arlene Jean Amble (née Johnson; born c. 1932). Two of her great-great-great-grandparents, Melchior and Martha Munson, emigrated from Sogndal, Norway, to Wisconsin in 1857. David was an engineer. Her family moved from Iowa to Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, when she was 13 years old. After her parents divorced when she was 14, David moved to California and remarried. Bachmann was raised by her mother, who worked at the First National Bank in Anoka, Minnesota, where they moved again. Three years later her mother married widower Raymond J. LaFave; the new marriage resulted in a family with nine children.
Bachmann graduated from Anoka High School in 1974 and, after graduation, spent one summer working at kibbutz Be'eri in Israel. In 1978, she graduated from Winona State University with a B.A. In 1979, Bachmann was a member of the first class of the O. W. Coburn School of Law, then a part of Oral Roberts University (ORU). There she studied with John Eidsmoe, whom she described in 2011 as "one of the professors who had a great influence on me". Bachmann worked as a research assistant on Eidsmoe's 1987 book Christianity and the Constitution, which argues that the United States was founded as a Christian theocracy and should become one again. In 1986, Bachmann received a J.D. degree from Oral Roberts University. She was a member of the ORU law school's final graduating class, and was part of a group of faculty, staff, and students who moved the ORU law school library to what is now Regent University.
In 1988, Bachmann received an LL.M. degree in tax law from William & Mary Law School. From 1988 to 1993 she worked as an attorney for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). She left the IRS to become a full-time mother when her fourth child was born.
Early political activism
Bachmann grew up in a Democratic family and has said she became a Republican during her senior year at Winona State University. She told the Star Tribune that she was reading Gore Vidal's 1973 novel Burr and claimed that "[h]e was kind of mocking the Founding Fathers and I just thought—I just remember reading the book, putting it in my lap, looking out the window and thinking, 'You know what? I don't think I am a Democrat. I must be a Republican.
While still a Democrat, she and her then-fiancé, Marcus, were motivated to join the anti-abortion movement after watching Francis Schaeffer's 1976 Christian documentary film How Should We Then Live? They prayed outside of clinics and engaged in sidewalk interference, an activity in which anti-abortion activists attempt to persuade women entering clinics not to get abortions. Bachmann has since made statements supportive of sidewalk interference.
Bachmann supported Jimmy Carter for president in 1976, and she and her husband worked on his campaign. During Carter's presidency, Bachmann became disappointed with his liberal approach to public policy, support for legalized abortion and economic decisions she held responsible for increased gas prices. In the 1980 presidential election, she voted for Ronald Reagan and worked for his campaign.
Bachmann's political activism gained media attention at an anti-abortion protest in 1991. She and approximately 30 other protesters went to a Ramsey County Board meeting where $3 million was to be appropriated to build a morgue for the county at St. Paul-Ramsey Medical Center (now Regions Hospital). The Medical Center performed abortions and employed pro-choice activist Jane Hodgson. Bachmann voiced her opposition to tax dollars going to the hospital; to the Star Tribune, she said, "in effect, since 1973, I have been a landlord of an abortion clinic, and I don't like that distinction".
In 1993, Bachmann and other parents started the K–12 New Heights Charter School in Stillwater. The publicly funded school's charter mandated that it be non-sectarian in all programs and practices, but the school soon developed a strong Christian orientation. Parents of students at the school complained and the superintendent of schools warned Bachmann that the school was in violation of state law. Six months after the school's founding, Bachmann resigned and the Christian orientation was removed from the curriculum, allowing the school to keep its charter. Bachmann began speaking against a state-mandated set of educational standards, which propelled her into politics.
Bachmann became a critic and opponent of Minnesota's School-to-Work policies. In a 1999 column, she wrote, "School-to-Work alters the basic mission and purpose of K–12 academic education away from traditional broad-based academic studies geared toward maximizing intellectual achievement of the individual. Instead, School-to-Work utilizes the school day to promote children's acquisition of workplace skills, viewing children as trainees for increased economic productivity." In November 1999, Bachmann and four other Republicans were candidates, as the "Slate of Five", in an election for the school board of Stillwater. All five lost.
Minnesota Senate
In 2000 Bachmann defeated 18-year incumbent Gary Laidig for the Republican nomination for state senator in Minnesota District 56. In the general election she defeated Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) nominee Ted Thompson and Minnesota Independence Party Lyno Sullivan. In 2002, after redistricting due to the 2000 Census, Bachmann defeated another incumbent, DFL State Senator Jane Krentz, in the newly drawn State Senate District 52. Bachmann's agenda as a state senator focused on opposition to abortion and gay marriage.
Same-sex marriage constitutional amendment
On November 20, 2003, Bachmann and Representative Mary Liz Holberg proposed a constitutional amendment that would bar the state from legally recognizing same-sex marriage. In 2004 Bachmann and a coalition of religious leaders announced plans for a "Minnesota for Marriage" rally. Her effort to place a marriage amendment on a referendum ballot in 2004 failed. She resurrected the proposal in March 2005, but it stalled indefinitely in a senate committee that April.
Assistant Minority Leader
In November 2004 Republican Senate Minority Leader Dick Day appointed Bachmann Assistant Minority Leader in charge of policy of the Senate Republican Caucus. In July 2005 the Republican Caucus removed her from her leadership position. Bachmann said that disagreements with Day over her anti-tax stance were the reason for her ouster.
U.S. House of Representatives
From 2007 to 2015 Bachmann represented , which includes the northernmost and eastern suburbs of the Twin Cities and St. Cloud. She is the first Republican woman to be elected to the U.S. House from Minnesota.
110th Congress
Foreign affairs
Bachmann voted "No" on a January 2007 resolution in the House of Representatives opposing President George W. Bush's plan to increase troop levels in Iraq, but called for a full hearing in advance of the troop surge, saying, "the American people deserve to hear and understand the merits of increasing U.S. troop presence in Iraq. Increased troop presence is justifiable if that measure would bring a swift conclusion to a difficult conflict." She hesitated to give a firm endorsement, calling the hearings "a good first step in explaining to the American people the course toward victory in Iraq."
Member of Congressional delegation
In July 2007 Bachmann joined a Congressional delegation visiting Ireland, Germany, Pakistan, Kuwait, and Iraq. She met briefly (due to security concerns) with U.S. personnel in the Green Zone and upon her return said she "was encouraged by reports of progress from Crocker, General David Petraeus and other personnel in Iraq linked to the surge". She said the surge "hasn't had a chance to be in place long enough to offer a critique of how it's working. [Petraeus] said al-Qaida in Iraq is off its plan and we want to keep it that way. The surge has only been fully in place for a week or so."
Bachmann also spoke of the delegation's visit to Islamabad to meet Pakistani Prime Minister Aziz at the same time as the siege of Islamic fundamentalists at the Lal Masjid mosque elsewhere in the city. She reported, "The group [of U.S. Legislators] had to travel in armored vehicles and was constantly accompanied by Pakistani military ... We were all able to see extremely up close and personal what it's like to be in a region where fighting is occurring. We constantly felt like we were in need of security." Bachmann told reporters upon her return that "the dangers posed by Islamic terrorism in Iraq, Britain and Pakistan justified the continued American military presence in Iraq." She said, "We don't want to see al-Qaida get a presence in the United States. Al-Qaida doesn't seem to show any signs of letting up. We have to keep that in mind."
Higher education
On July 11, 2007, Bachmann voted against the College Cost Reduction and Access Act. The act raised the maximum Pell grant from $4,310 to $5,200, lowered interest rates on subsidized student loans from 6.8% to 3.4%, raised loan limits from $7,500 to $30,500, disfavored married students who filed joint tax returns, provided more favorable repayment terms to students who could not use their education to prosper financially, and favored public sector over private sector workers with much more favorable loan forgiveness benefits. Supporters of the bill said it would allow more students to attend college and prosper for the rest of their lives.
Bachmann said she opposed the act because "it fails students and taxpayers with gimmicks, hidden costs and poorly targeted aid. It contains no serious reform of existing programs, and it favors the costly, government-run direct lending program over nonprofit and commercial lenders." The bill passed the House and was signed by President Bush.
Energy and environment
During the summer of 2008, as national gasoline prices rose to over $4 a gallon, Bachmann became a leading Congressional advocate for increased domestic oil and natural gas exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the Outer Continental Shelf. She joined ten other House Republicans and members of the media on a Congressional Energy Tour to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, and to Alaska. The trip was arranged by Arctic Power, an Alaskan lobbying group that advocates for ANWR development. Its purpose was to receive a firsthand account of emerging renewable energy technologies and the prospects of increased domestic oil and natural gas production in Alaska, including ANWR.
Bachmann rejects the overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is real, progressing, and primarily caused by humans. She has claimed that global warming is "all voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax" and has been called "one of the GOP's loudest global warming skeptics." She has claimed, baselessly, that "because life requires carbon dioxide and it is part of the planet's life cycle, it cannot be harmful." On the House floor on Earth Day 2009, Bachmann said she opposed cap and trade climate legislation, again making disproven claims that "carbon dioxide is not a harmful gas, it is a harmless gas. Carbon dioxide is natural; it is not harmful ... We're being told we have to reduce this natural substance to create an arbitrary reduction in something that is naturally occurring in the earth."
In March 2008 Bachmann introduced H.R. 849, the Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act. The bill would have repealed two sections of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 signed into law by George W. Bush. The 2007 Energy Act mandates energy efficiency and labeling standards for incandescent and fluorescent bulbs. Bachmann's bill would have required the Government Accountability Office to show that a change to fluorescent bulbs would have "clear economic, health and environmental benefits" before enforcing lighting efficiency regulations. The bill would have allowed these standards to remain in place if the comptroller general found they would lead to consumer savings, reduce carbon-dioxide emissions and pose no health risks to consumers (such as risks posed by the presence of mercury in fluorescent bulbs). The bill languished in the House and became inactive at the end of the 110th Congress. Bachmann reintroduced the bill in March 2011.
Tort reform
On June 3, 2008, President Bush signed the Credit and Debit Card Receipt Clarification Act (H.R. 4008) into law. The bipartisan bill, which Bachmann cosponsored with Congressman Tim Mahoney (D-Fla.), removed statutory damages for violations of a 2003 federal law prohibiting merchants from printing consumers' credit card numbers and expiration dates on sales receipts, in order to end class-action lawsuits aimed at businesses that violated the law.
Financial sector
Bachmann opposed both versions of the Wall Street bailout bill for America's financial sector. She voted against the first proposed $700 billion bailout of financial institutions, which failed to pass, by a vote of 205–228. She also advocated breaking up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and barring executives from excessive compensation or golden parachutes, and advocated a plan that would suspend mark-to-market accounting rules and suspend the capital gains tax.
Auto industry
The American auto companies approached Congress to ask for roughly $15 billion in loans to keep them operational into 2009. Bachmann criticized that bill, fearing that the initial sum of money would be followed by subsequent ones without the companies making changes to revive their business. Bachmann supported an alternative plan for American auto companies and the rest of the auto industry that would have set benchmarks for reducing their debt and renegotiating labor deals and have set up the financial assistance as interim insurance instead of a taxpayer-financed bailout.
Call for a media "exposé" of alleged "anti-Americanism" of Barack Obama and members of Congress
On October 17, 2008, Bachmann gave an interview on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews in support of the presidential campaign of Senator John McCain that brought the Minnesota 6th Congressional District race national attention. During the interview she criticized Barack Obama for his association with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, saying, "usually we associate with people who have similar ideas to us, and it seems that it calls into question what Barack Obama's true beliefs, and values, and thoughts are ... I am very concerned that he [Obama] may have anti-American views." She noted the bombing campaign orchestrated by Bill Ayers before discussing his association with Obama, arguing that "Bill Ayers is not someone the average American wants to see their president have an association with." Matthews followed up by asking "But he [Obama] is a Senator from the state of Illinois; he's one of the members of Congress you suspect of being anti-American. How many people in the Congress of the United States do you think are anti-American? You've already suspected Barack Obama; is he alone or are there others?" Bachmann answered, "What I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating exposé and take a look ... I wish they would ... I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out are they pro-America, or anti-America. I think people would love to see an exposé like that."
In response, the five Democratic members of Minnesota's congressional delegation—Tim Walz, Betty McCollum, Keith Ellison, Collin Peterson and Jim Oberstar—issued a joint statement questioning Bachmann's ability to "work in a bipartisan way to put the interests of our country first in this time of crisis." Former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Minnesota Governor Arne Carlson said her comments had influenced their decisions to endorse Obama for president.
Bachmann brought up the interview before business leaders and Republicans during a campaign stop in St. Cloud, Minnesota, on October 21, 2008. She claimed she never intended to question Obama's patriotism. "I made a misstatement. I said a comment that I would take back. I did not, nor do I, question Barack Obama's patriotism ... I did not say that Barack Obama is anti-American nor do I believe that Barack Obama is anti-American ... [But] I'm very concerned about Barack Obama's views. I don't believe that socialism is a good thing for America." At a March 2010 fund-raiser for the Susan B. Anthony List, Bachmann said, "I said I had very serious concerns that Barack Obama had anti-American views—and now I look like Nostradamus". In March 2011 she was asked on Meet the Press whether she still believed that Obama held un-American views. She responded, "I believe that the actions of this government have—have been emblematic of ones that have not been based on true American values." Pressed for clarification, she said, "I've already answered that question before. I said I had very serious concerns about the president's views."
111th Congress
Global currency
On March 26, 2009, following comments by China proposing adoption of a global reserve currency, Bachmann introduced a resolution calling for a Constitutional amendment to bar the dollar from being replaced by a foreign currency. Current law prohibits foreign currency from being recognized in the U.S., but Bachmann expressed concerns relating to the president's power to make and interpret treaties. Earlier that month, at a Financial Services Committee hearing, Bachmann asked both Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke whether they would reject calls for the U.S. to move away from the U.S. dollar and they replied that they would.
2010 Census
In a June 17, 2009, interview with The Washington Times, Bachmann expressed concern that the questions on the 2010 United States Census had become "very intricate, very personal" and that ACORN, a community organizing group that had come under fire the previous year, might be part of the Census Bureau's door-to-door information collection efforts. She said, "I know, for my family, the only question we will be answering is how many people are in our home. We won't be answering any information beyond that, because the Constitution doesn't require any information beyond that." According to Politifact, her statement was incorrect, as the Constitution does require citizens to complete the census. Fellow Republican Representatives Patrick McHenry (N.C.), Lynn Westmoreland (Ga.) and John Mica (Fla.), members of the Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census and National Archives, which oversees the census, subsequently asked Bachmann not to boycott the population count.
Along with Congressman Ted Poe (Tex.-02), Bachmann introduced the American Community Survey Act to limit the amount of personal information the U.S. Census Bureau solicits. She reiterated her belief that the census asked too many personal questions.
Cap-and-Trade legislation
In March 2009 Bachmann was interviewed by the Northern Alliance Radio Network and promoted two forums she was hosting the next month in St. Cloud and Woodbury about Obama's proposed cap-and-trade tax policy to limit greenhouse gas emissions. She said she wanted Minnesotans "armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back." Bachmann's office quickly clarified that she was speaking metaphorically, meaning "armed with knowledge". According to the Star Tribune, her quote went viral across the Internet.
AmeriCorps
In 2009 Bachmann became a critic of what she characterized as proposals for mandatory public service. Of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, an expansion to AmeriCorps (a federal community service organization), she said in April:
The original bill called for an exploration of whether a mandatory public service program could be established, but the section on creating a "Congressional Commission on Civic Service" was stripped from the bill.
In August 2009 Bachmann's political opponents publicized in the local media and the blogosphere what they described as the "ironic" fact that her son, Harrison, joined Teach for America, part of the AmeriCorps program.
Health care
Bachmann contributed to the "death panel" controversy when she read from a July 24 article by former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey on the House floor. Sarah Palin said that her "death panel" remark was inspired by what she called the "Orwellian" opinions of Ezekiel Emanuel as described by Bachmann, who accused him of advocating health care rationing by age and disability. According to PolitiFact and Time, Bachmann's euthanasia remarks distorted Emanuel's position on health care for the elderly and disabled. FactCheck.org stated, "We agree that Emanuel's meaning is being twisted." When many doctors wanted to legalize euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide, Emanuel opposed it.
On August 31, 2009, Bachmann spoke at an event in Colorado, saying of Democratic health care overhaul proposals that: She outlined ideas for changing the health care system, including: "Erase the boundaries around every single state when it comes to health care", enabling consumers to purchase insurance across state lines; increase the use of health savings accounts and allow everyone to "take full deductibility of all medical expenses", including insurance premiums; and tort reform.
Bachmann denounced the government-run health insurance public option, calling it a "government takeover of health care" that would "squeeze out private health insurance".
Criticism of President Obama's visit to Asia
In a November 3, 2010, interview with Anderson Cooper, while discussing spending cuts for Medicare and Social Security suggested by Representative Paul Ryan, Bachmann was asked what spending cuts she would make to reduce the deficit. She cited President Obama's then-upcoming visit to Asia as an example, saying it "is expected to cost the taxpayers $200 million a day. He's taking two thousand people with him. He'll be renting out over 870 rooms in India. And these are 5-star hotel rooms at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel. This is the kind of over-the-top spending—it's a very small example, Anderson." Bachmann was apparently referring to information in a story from the Press Trust of India, attributed to "a top official of the Maharashtra Government privy to the arrangements for the high-profile visit", information that was also published in U.S.-based media such as The Drudge Report. A Pentagon spokesman, Geoff Morrell, dismissed the report's claim that 34 warships were accompanying the President as "comical". The White House said that the press report figures were "wildly inflated" and had "no basis in reality". While stating that they could not give the actual projected figures for security reasons, staffers maintained costs were in line with the official travel costs of previous presidents Bush and Clinton.
112th Congress
Leadership run
After the 2010 elections and Representative Mike Pence's announcement that he was stepping away from his leadership position in the House, Bachmann announced her intention to seek the position of House Republican Conference Chair. As Bachmann was the founder of the House's Tea Party Caucus, her announcement caused some to see the leadership election as "an early test of how GOP leaders will treat the antiestablishment movement's winners". Many among the House's Republican leadership, including Eric Cantor and the retiring Pence, were quick to endorse Representative Jeb Hensarling for the position; Speaker-to-be John Boehner remained neutral on the issue. Supporters of Bachmann's run included Representatives Steve King, John Kline, Louie Gohmert, Chip Cravaack, and Erik Paulsen, as well as media personality and political commentator Glenn Beck. Listing her qualifications for the position, Bachmann noted, "I've done an effective job speaking out at a national and local level, motivating people with our message, calling attention to deficits in Obama's policy. I was instrumental in bringing tens of thousands of people to the U.S. capitol to rally against Obama care and to attend our press conference." She noted her work to keep the Tea Party within the GOP rather than having it become a third party, thereby helping the party capture the House, saying, "I have been able to bring a voice and motivate people to, in effect, put that gavel in John Boehner's hands, so that Republicans can lead going forward. …It's important that leadership represents the choice of the people coming into our caucus….I think I have motivated a high number of people to get involved in this cycle who may have sat it out and that have made a difference on a number of these races. I gave a large amount of money to NRCC and individual candidates and started Michele PAC, which raised $650,000 for members since July, so I was able to financially help about 50 people out."
Bachmann's bid suffered a setback when she was passed over for the GOP's transition team on which Hensarling was placed. Despite Bachmann's leading all other Representatives in fundraising, a Republican aide said some "members are getting resentful of Bachmann, who they say is making the argument that you're not really a Tea Party supporter unless you support her. That's gone through the formation of the Tea Party Caucus and the formation of this candidacy of hers. It's just not so." Sarah Palin, with whom Bachmann had campaigned earlier in the year, declined to endorse her leadership bid, while other Tea Party favorites, Representatives Adam Kinzinger and Tim Scott, were placed on the transition team. According to some senior House staff members, the party leadership was concerned about some of Bachmann's high-profile faux pas, the high rate of turnover among her staff, and how willing she would be to advance the party's messaging rather than her own.
On November 10 Bachmann released a statement ending her campaign for Conference Chair and giving Hensarling her "enthusiastic" support.
Committee assignment
House Speaker John Boehner selected Bachmann for a position "on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, giving her a new role as overseer of the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the rest of the U.S. intelligence community." Bachmann, who had "not served on any committee that deals with foreign policy issues" requested the position, "a move that has fueled speculation that she may be planning to carry the Tea Party banner into the GOP presidential primaries."
Repeal of Dodd–Frank reform
Soon after beginning her third term, Bachmann introduced legislation to repeal the Dodd–Frank financial reform law. She said, "I'm pleased to offer a full repeal of the job-killing Dodd–Frank financial regulatory bill. Dodd–Frank grossly expanded the federal government beyond its jurisdictional boundaries. It gave Washington bureaucrats the power to interpret and enforce the legislation with little oversight. Real financial regulatory reform must deal with these lenders who were a leading cause of our economic recession. True reform must also end the bailout mind-set that was perpetuated by the last Congress." She also took issue with the law for not addressing the liabilities of the tax-payer funded Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Bachmann's bill was endorsed by conservative groups such as the Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity. It gained four other Republican co-sponsors, including Representative Darrell Issa, who became the new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee at the start of the 112th Congress. Bachmann's call for total repeal was seen as more drastic than the approach advocated by her fellow Republican Spencer Bachus, who became the House Financial Services Committee Chairman when Republicans gained the House majority. Bachus planned "to provide 'vigorous' oversight of regulators efforts to reform banking and housing ... reform Fannie and Freddie", and "dismantle pieces of [the] Dodd–Frank Act that he believes 'unnecessarily punish small businesses and community banks.'" In response to Bachmann's legislation Representative Barney Frank said, "Michele Bachmann, the Club for Growth, and others in the right-wing coalition have now made their agenda for the financial sector very clear: they yearn to return to the thrilling days of yesteryear, so the loan arrangers can ride again—untrammeled by any rules restraining irresponsibility, excess, deception, and most of all, infinite leverage." It was seen as unlikely that Bachmann's legislation would pass, with the Financial Times writing, "Like the Republican move to repeal healthcare reform, Ms. Bachmann's bill could be passed by the House of Representatives but be blocked by the Senate or White House."
State of the Union response
Bachmann responded to Obama's 2011 State of the Union speech on the Tea Party Express website; her speech was broadcast live by CNN. She insisted that her response was not intended to counter Paul Ryan's official Republican party response. When asked whether the speech was an indication of competition with Ryan and Boehner's leadership team, Bachmann dismissed such a view as "a fiction of the media", saying she had alerted Ryan and the leadership team that her response might go national and that no objections were raised.
Health care
Bachmann continually called for repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). She recalled to reporters that she called for debate to repeal the act "the morning after Obamacare passed". With Steve King she introduced "the Bachmann-King repeal of health care bill", saying that it "is our intent in our heart to make sure that Obamacare is completely repealed." In light of the Democratic-majority Senate's and Obama's opposition to repeal, Bachmann called on the Republican held House of Representatives not to provide any funds for implementation of the act. "But until we can see that [repeal] happen, we want to fully defund this bill so that, like, it would be akin to a helium balloon that gets no helium inside so that it can't take off the ground, and that's what we're planning to do. I'm very, very grateful for nothing else; having a majority in the House of Representatives so that we have the ability of the power of the purse to not fund Obamacare, and this is exactly the right way to go", she said.
On March 4, 2011, Bachmann, one of the six House Republicans to vote against the continuing resolution that gave a two-week extension until a possible government shutdown, expressed her unhappiness with its passage.
In an appearance on Meet the Press on March 6 and during a March 7 interview with Sean Hannity, Bachmann claimed that the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats had hidden $105 billion in spending in the overhaul of the American Health Care System. She portrayed the Democratic leadership as timing the release of the bill's text to avoid detection of the spending. "We didn't get the bill until a literally couple of hours before we were supposed to vote on it", she said. She also said the spending was split up within different portions of the bill to mask its total cost. Bachmann was told this by the conservative Heritage Foundation, which claimed to have read the tallies of the Congressional Research Service and Congressional Budget Office.
According to some reports of the costs, "about $40 billion would go to the Children's Health Insurance Program, $15 billion would go to Medicare and Medicaid innovation programs, and $9.5 billion would go to the Community Health Centers Fund." As the funds are designated mandatory spending (not controlled by the annual appropriations acts), the funds would have remained even if the move to defund the reform law had succeeded.
Bachmann stated that $16 billion of the money gives Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius a "slush fund ... [to do] whatever she wants with this money." She called on the bills supporters to return the money, saying, "I think this deception that the president and [former House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid put forward with appropriating over $105 billion needs to be given back to the people."
When asked during the Meet the Press interview if she would take back her previous comments that Obama "may have anti-American views" and that his administration had "embraced something called gangster government", Bachmann stood by her statements, saying, "I do believe that actions that have been taken by this White House—I don't take back my statements on gangster government. I think that there have been actions taken by the government that are corrupt ... I said I have very serious concerns about the president's views, and I think the president's actions in the last two years speak for themselves."
In response to Bachmann's charges, Chief Deputy Democratic Whip Jan Schakowsky, who served on the House health subcommittee, pointed out that the report in question was an update of a report that came out in October 2010 and that the costs were spelled out in both the bill and the Congressional Budget Office's estimate of its cost, saying, "Michele Bachmann obviously didn't read the bill, because there was absolutely nothing hidden in that legislation." Schakowsky said the costs were not kept secret, citing the $40 billion for the Children's Health Insurance Program as an example: "There was a robust debate about whether or not that should be included, etc. So this idea of somehow, now at the last minute, there was a secret addition to some kind of funding ... is absolute nonsense."
In a September 2011 Republican presidential debate in Tampa, Bachmann criticized Rick Perry for his support for the humanpapilloma virus (HPV) vaccine and his support for mandating the HPV vaccine for all sixth-grade Texas girls. The American Academy of Pediatrics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Academy of Family Physicians, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and other medical organizations worldwide support immunizing girls and boys against HPV. HPV can cause lesions and genital warts, and has been linked to cervical cancer as well as genital and oral cancers in people of any gender. Because the vaccine is effective only if given before the onset of sexual activity and subsequent exposure to the virus, medical groups recommend the three-dose vaccine be given to 11- and 12-year-olds. During the debate and in interviews afterward, Bachmann accused Perry of "crony capitalism" (because Perry's former chief of staff was chief lobbyist for a drug company manufacturing the vaccine), and baselessly claimed that the HPV vaccine was dangerous and caused "mental retardation." She repeatedly referred to an anecdotal account from a mother of a girl who had been immunized for HPV, saying, "She told me that her little daughter took that vaccine, that injection, and she suffered mental retardation thereafter ... There is no second chance for these little girls if there is [sic] any dangerous consequences to their bodies." Shortly after Bachmann's statements at the debate, the American Academy of Pediatrics released a statement: "The American Academy of Pediatrics would like to correct false statements made in the Republican presidential campaign that the HPV vaccine is dangerous and can cause mental retardation. There is absolutely no scientific validity to this statement. Since the vaccine has been introduced, more than 35 million doses have been administered, and it has an excellent safety record." Fewer than one percent of those receiving the vaccine reported neurological side effects or, in rare cases, severe allergic reactions, none linked to changes in cognitive ability. Bachmann later acknowledged that she was not a doctor or a scientist.
Muslim Brotherhood
In June–July 2012, Bachmann and several other Republican legislators sent a series of letters to oversight agencies at five federal departments citing "serious security concerns" about what Bachmann has called a "deep penetration in the halls of our United States government" by the Muslim Brotherhood. They requested formal investigations into what Bachmann called "influence operations" by the Brotherhood.
Bachmann also accused Huma Abedin, an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Rep. Anthony Weiner's wife, of having family connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Bachmann's comments have drawn what the Washington Post calls "fierce criticism from fellow lawmakers and religious groups." In a speech on the Senate floor, 2008 Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain denounced Bachmann's charges as "specious and degrading". He defended Abedin as a "hard-working and loyal servant of our country and our government" and stated "these attacks on Huma have no logic, no basis and no merit. They need to stop now." House Speaker John Boehner termed Bachmann's allegations "dangerous", and other Republicans have also criticized the remarks. Ed Rollins, Bachmann’s former campaign manager, called on her to apologize to Abedin and characterized her allegations as “extreme and dishonest.”
In a letter to Bachmann, her colleague Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., a Muslim, asked for evidence backing her claims and stated, "Your response simply rehashes claims that have existed for years on anti-Muslim websites and contains no reliable information that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the U.S. government".
Bachmann replied that "the intention of the letters was to outline the serious national security concerns I had and ask for answers to questions regarding the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical group's access to top Obama administration officials". In a July 19 interview with radio and TV show host Glenn Beck, Bachmann repeated and expanded her allegations, accusing Ellison of having "a long record of being associated with the Council on American–Islamic Relations and with the Muslim Brotherhood". Ellison replied that "I am not now, nor have I ever been, associated with the Muslim Brotherhood."
113th Congress
Presidential campaign finance investigation
In 2013, Bachmann was under investigation by the House Ethics Committee, the Federal Election Commission, the Iowa Senate Ethics Committee, the Urbandale Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation because of alleged campaign finance violations in her 2012 campaign for president.
It is alleged that members of her staff made under-the-table payments, that funds were illegally transferred from her leadership PAC to pay consultants for her presidential campaign and that hidden payments were made to Iowa State Senator Kent Sorenson.
Additionally, a lawsuit was filed alleging that Bachmann and several former staffers stole and misused an Iowa homeschool group's e-mail distribution list. The trial, Heki v. Bachmann, had been set for May 14, 2014, but the case was settled out of court on June 28, 2013.
On July 26, 2013, the House Ethics Committee announced they were conducting a full investigation of Bachmann, saying that they had received a referral from the Office of Congressional Ethics.
Retirement
On May 29, 2013, Bachmann announced that she would not seek reelection to her Congressional seat in 2014. In a June 2013 Fox News interview, she said she was "not going silent" and would remain involved in politics. She did not rule out a future run for office, or even the White House. With her retirement from Congress, the ethics investigations against her were dropped. During a December 2017 New Year's weekend interview with televangelist Jim Bakker, Bachmann said that she was considering running for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Al Franken but was awaiting "God's counsel" before deciding.
David Lightman and Trevor Graff, writing for McClatchyDC, argued that Bachmann left a "legacy of political missteps and lots of incendiary rhetoric—often loaded with false accusations and wild exaggerations."
Committee assignments
Committee on Financial Services
Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
Political positions
Education
Bachmann supports the teaching of creationism alongside evolution in public school science classes. During a 2003 interview on the KKMS Christian radio program Talk The Walk, Bachmann said that evolution is a theory that has never been proven one way or the other. She co-authored a bill (with no additional endorsements among her fellow legislators) that would require public schools to include alternative explanations for the origin of life as part of the state's public school science curricula. In October 2006, Bachmann told a debate audience in St. Cloud, Minnesota, "there is a controversy among scientists about whether evolution is a fact or not ... There are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe in intelligent design." Despite this, there is an overwhelming scientific consensus that evolution is real, and that intelligent design is not. Indeed, at least one news report presenting a "sampling of Bachmann's ... ludicrous or plain old false claims", stated that Bachmann’s claims are untrue, and that "when the science isn't on [Bachmann's] side, she simply improvises."
Bachmann has praised the Christian youth ministry You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International (YCRBYCH), hailing "the group's work of sharing the gospel in public schools". She appeared as a keynote speaker at their fundraisers in 2006 and 2009. Following a 2011 controversial invocation for the Minnesota House, YCRBYCH founder Bradlee Dean declared that criticisms of him and his ministry were also "intended to harm and destroy the presidential campaign of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann ... [who] previously praised and prayed for the work of my ministry".
Bachmann has had a history of opposing anti-bullying legislation. In 2006, she told the Minnesota Legislature that passing an anti-bullying bill would be a waste of time. "I think for all of us, our experience in public schools is there have always been bullies", she said. "Always have been, always will be. I just don't know how we're ever going to get to the point of zero tolerance ... What does it mean? ... Will we be expecting boys to be girls?"
Fiscal policy
In the Minnesota Senate, Bachmann opposed minimum wage increases. In a June 2011 interview, she did not back away from her earlier proposal to eliminate the federal minimum wage, a change she said would "virtually wipe out unemployment."
In a 2001 flyer, Bachmann and Michael J. Chapman wrote that federal policies manage a centralized, state-controlled economy in the United States. She wrote that education laws passed by Congress in 2001, including "School To Work" and "Goals 2000", created a new national school curriculum that embraced "a socialist, globalist worldview; loyalty to all government and not America." In 2003, Bachmann said that the "Tax Free Zones" economic initiatives of Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty were based on the Marxist principle of "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." She also said the administration was attempting to govern and run centrally planned economies through the Minnesota Economic Leadership Team (MELT), an advisory board on economic and workforce policy Pawlenty chaired. Before her election to the state senate, and again in 2005, Bachmann signed a "no new taxes" pledge sponsored by the Taxpayers League of Minnesota. As a state senator, she introduced two bills that would have severely limited state taxation. In 2003, she proposed amending the Minnesota Constitution to adopt the "Taxpayers' Bill of Rights" (TABOR).
In 2005, Bachmann opposed Pawlenty's proposal of a state surcharge of 75 cents per pack on the wholesale cost of cigarettes. She said she opposed the surcharge "100 percent—it's a tax increase." The Taxpayers' League later criticized her for reversing her position and voting for the surcharge.
Bachmann promised to bring the price of gasoline down to $2 per gallon, without specifying a plan to accomplish this.
Environment
Bachmann supports increased domestic drilling of oil and natural gas, as well as pursuing renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar. She is a strong proponent of nuclear power.
Bachmann has strongly opposed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), pledging at an August 2011 campaign rally, "I guarantee you the EPA will have doors locked and lights turned off and they will only be about conservation." In 2007 and 2010, she actively solicited funds from the EPA on behalf of constituents in her congressional district.
Social Security and Medicare phase-out
Bachmann has called for phasing out Social Security and Medicare: "what you have to do, is keep faith with the people that are already in the system... But basically what we have to do is wean everybody else off."
Foreign policy
Bachmann has said that in dealing with Iran, diplomacy "is our option", but that other options, including a nuclear strike, should not be ruled out. She has also said that she is "a longtime supporter of Israel".
Global economy
In a discussion about the G-20 summit in Toronto, during an interview with conservative radio host Scott Hennen, Bachmann stated that she did not want America to be part of the international global economy.
Bachmann told The Wall Street Journal that Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams influenced her economic views. She said she was "an Art Laffer fiend" and loved Ludwig von Mises.
Immigration
Bachmann believes that strengthened enforcement of immigration laws is required for the growth of the American job market. She supports amending the Immigration and Nationality Act to allow only the immediate family of legal immigrants (not extended family members) priority consideration in the immigration process. She voted against the DREAM Act. She has also said the current law does not need modification but proper enforcement.
Bachmann said, "the immigration system in the United States worked very, very well up until the mid-1960s when liberal members of Congress changed the immigration laws." She has expressed support for immigration of highly skilled professionals such as chemists and engineers.
Bachmann opposed the 2013 immigration reform bill, claiming that its passage would mean the end of the Republican Party. On WorldNetDaily she said, "This is President Obama's number one political agenda because he knows we will never again have a Republican president ever if amnesty goes into effect."
Social issues
Same-sex marriage constitutional amendment
Bachmann supports both federal and state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage and any legal equivalents. In August 2006, the Star Tribune reported that in March 2006, while on a Minneapolis radio show, Bachmann advocated a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. A caller asked her to explain how he, a heterosexual, would be harmed if his gay neighbors were allowed to marry. Bachmann replied, "Public schools would have to teach that homosexuality and same-sex marriage are normal, natural and that maybe children should try them." The Star Tribune also reported that Bachmann had publicly called homosexuality "sexual dysfunction", "sexual identity disorders", and "personal enslavement" leading to "sexual anarchy".
In a July 2014 radio interview, Bachmann claimed that gay rights activists want to abolish age of consent laws in the United States so that adults can "prey on little children sexually."
In 2020, Bachmann claimed that "transgender Black Marxists" were "seeking the overthrow of the United States and the dissolution of the traditional family."
Abortion
Bachmann has identified herself as pro-life and has been endorsed in her runs for Congress by the Susan B. Anthony List and Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life. At a New Hampshire debate among presidential candidates, when asked if abortion should be allowed in cases of rape or incest, she responded that she was "100 percent pro-life," implying that such a fetus would have to be carried to term. In the Minnesota Senate, Bachmann introduced a bill proposing a constitutional amendment restricting state funds for abortion. The bill died in committee.
Federal-backed home loans
According to the Washington Post, in 2008 Bachmann may have taken advantage of a federal program for a home loan, then called for dismantling the program, though the Post noted that the public and other members of Congress have taken advantage of such loans despite seeing reasons to criticize them. When asked about it, she said: "This is the problem. It is almost impossible to buy a home in this country today without the federal government being involved".
Opinion on President Obama's birth certificate
Bachmann claimed not to be part of the birther movement, but said that Obama could resolve the dispute by producing his long-form birth certificate. In April 2011, after Obama released the certificate, George Stephanopoulos asked Bachmann about the issue on Good Morning America. She said that its release "should settle the matter", that "I take the president at his word", and that "We have bigger fish to fry".
Political campaigns
2006 congressional campaign
Bachmann won her Congressional seat in the 2006 election with 50% of the vote, defeating the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) nominee Patty Wetterling and the Independence Party's John Binkowski.
The 6th District's representative since 2001, Mark Kennedy, announced in late 2005 that he would run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Mark Dayton. Bachmann said, "God then called me to run" for the U.S. House seat, and that she and her husband fasted for three days to be more sure.
According to Bloomberg.com, evangelical conservative leader James Dobson put his organization Focus on the Family's resources behind Bachmann's 2006 campaign. The group planned to distribute 250,000 voter guides in Minnesota churches to reach social conservatives, according to Tom Prichard, president of the Minnesota Family Council, a local affiliate of the group. In addition to Minnesota, Dobson's group also organized turnout drives in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey and Montana.
During a debate televised by WCCO-TV on October 28, 2006, news reporter Pat Kessler quoted a story that appeared in the Star Tribune and asked Bachmann whether it was true that the church she belonged to taught that the Pope is the Anti-Christ. Bachmann replied that her church "does not believe that the Pope is the Anti-Christ, that's absolutely false ... I'm very grateful that my pastor has come out and been very clear on this matter, and I think it's patently absurd and it's a false statement."
In early July 2006, Bachmann received a fundraising visit from Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. On July 21, Karl Rove visited Minnesota to raise funds for her election. In August, President Bush was the keynote speaker at her congressional fundraiser, which raised about $500,000. Bachmann also received fundraising support from Vice President Dick Cheney. The National Republican Congressional Committee put nearly $3 million into the race, for electronic and direct-mail ads against Wetterling, significantly more than the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent on Wetterling's behalf. On November 7, Bachmann won the election with 50% of the vote to Wetterling's 42% and Binkowski's 8%.
2008 congressional campaign
In 2008 Bachmann was reelected, defeating DFL and Independence Party nominee Elwyn Tinklenberg with 46.4% of the vote to Tinklenberg's 43.4%. Because Tinklenberg was running as a DFL member in the Democratic primary, Bob Anderson was able to run in the Independence Party primary unopposed, despite not having that party's endorsement. Anderson received 10% of the vote.
2010 congressional campaign
In 2010 Bachmann was challenged by DFL nominee Tarryl Clark and Independence Party candidate Bob Anderson. With more than $8.5 million, Bachmann spent more than any other House of Representative candidate, although Clark was able to raise $4 million, one of the largest fundraising efforts in the nation for a U.S. House challenger. On November 2, 2010, Bachmann defeated Clark, 52% to 40%.
2012 presidential campaign
In early 2011, amid substantial speculation, Bachmann announced her candidacy for president. She participated in the second Republican presidential debate, in New Hampshire, on June 13, 2011, and during the debate announced that she had filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) earlier that day to become a candidate for the nomination. Bachmann formally announced her candidacy for the nomination on June 27, 2011, during an appearance in Waterloo, Iowa, her birth city.
Bachmann won the Ames Straw Poll hosted by the Iowa GOP on August 13, 2011, becoming the first woman ever to win the poll, but finished sixth in the January 3, 2012, caucuses, with 4.98% of the vote. On January 4 she canceled her scheduled campaign trips to South Carolina and suspended her campaign.
2012 congressional campaign
On January 25, 2012, Bachmann announced that she would run for reelection for her seat in Congress.
According to Politico.com, as of July 2012 Bachmann had "raised close to $15 million" for the 2012 election, a figure it called "astounding ... more than some Senate candidates will collect this year." From July to the end of September, Bachmann raised $4.5 million. This amount put her ahead of all other members of Congress (including Allen West who was in second place with $4 million) for the third quarter. Bachmann said she was "humbled by the enormous outpouring of grassroots support for my campaign focused on keeping America the most secure and prosperous nation in the world."
Despite a more favorable district Bachmann won reelection only narrowly, receiving just 4,298 more votes than her DFL challenger, Jim Graves.
Electoral history
Local elections
Congressional elections
2006
2008
2010
2012
Autobiography
In November 2011 Bachmann published her autobiography, Core of Conviction, in which she outlined the events and people who have shaped her values and beliefs. The book describes her break with the Democratic Party. "It was in the perilous fires of the Carter administration that my ideology was forged," she wrote. "In the seventies, Carter taught me what I was against, and then in the eighties, Reagan taught me what I was for." Reflecting on her role as a Tea Party leader, she elaborated, "I once said that the Tea Party represents 90 percent of Americans. I now realize that I misspoke. I should have said 100 percent, because I believe that nearly all Americans retain faith in the ordered liberty that the Constitution offers."
Personal life
Family
In 1978, as Michele Amble, she married Marcus Bachmann, now a clinical therapist with a master's degree from Regent University and a Ph.D. from Union Graduate School, whom she met while they were undergraduates. After she received an LL.M. in taxation from William & Mary School of Law in 1988, the couple moved to Stillwater, Minnesota, a town of 18,000 near Saint Paul, where they run a Christian counseling center that administered gay conversion therapy. Bachmann and her husband have five children: Lucas, Harrison, Elisa, Caroline, and Sophia. In a 2011 town hall meeting, she said that she suffered a miscarriage after the birth of their second child, Harrison, an event she said shaped her anti-abortion views.
Bachmann and her husband have also provided foster care to 23 other children, all of whom were teenage girls. The Bachmanns were licensed from 1992 to 2000 to handle up to three foster children at a time, with the last arriving in 1998. The Bachmanns began by providing short-term care for girls with eating disorders who were patients in a University of Minnesota program. Their home was legally defined as a treatment home, with a daily reimbursement rate per child from the state. Some girls stayed a few months, others more than a year.
Bachmann is a former beauty pageant queen.
Citizenship
In May 2012 it was reported that Marcus Bachmann had registered for Swiss citizenship, and thus, under Swiss nationality law, so would Michele and their children. Within two days of the first reports of Bachmann's dual citizenship, Michele Bachmann announced that she had written to the Swiss consulate to withdraw her Swiss citizenship.
Religion
Bachmann was raised "into a family of Norwegian Lutheran Democrats"; she was a longtime member of Salem Lutheran Church (Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod) in Stillwater. She and her husband withdrew their membership on June 21, 2011, just before she officially began her presidential campaign. They had not attended the church for over two years. In 2011, the Bachmanns began attending Rockpoint Church in Lake Elmo, member of Evangelical Free Church of America.
Bachmann has cited theologian Francis Schaeffer as a "profound influence" on her life and her husband's, especially his film series How Should We Then Live?. She has also described Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity by Nancy Pearcey as a "wonderful" book. Journalist Ryan Lizza has argued that Bachmann's worldview is deeply influenced by the Christian movement known as Dominionism, citing the influence of Schaeffer and Pearcey as evidence. Others have criticized Lizza's article, especially its connection of Schaeffer with Dominionism. Religion writer Sarah Posner broadly concurs with Lizza, pointing to the influence of Christian Reconstructionists Herb Titus and R. J. Rushdoony on Bachmann via the curriculum at O. W. Coburn School of Law.
Businesses
Bachmann and her husband own a Christian counseling practice, Bachmann & Associates. The clinic is run by her husband, who has a Ph.D. with "a concentration in clinical psychology" from Union Graduate School. Marcus Bachmann is not a licensed clinical psychologist in Minnesota. The clinic received nearly $30,000 from Minnesota government agencies between 2006 and 2010 in addition to at least $137,000 in federal payments and $24,000 in government grants for counselor training. In an interview, Michele Bachmann said that she and her husband had not benefited at taxpayer expense, saying, "the money that went to the clinic was actually training money for employees". Marcus Bachmann has falsely claimed that Bachmann & Associates did not provide conversion therapy, a controversial psychological treatment that has been repudiated by the American Psychological Association as unethical and without medical basis. A former client of Bachmann's clinic and a hidden camera investigator with the activist group Truth Wins Out showed that therapists at the clinic do engage in such practices. In a subsequent interview with the Star Tribune, Marcus Bachmann did not deny that he or other counselors at his clinic used the technique, but said they did so only at a client's request.
In personal financial disclosure reports for 2006 through 2009, Bachmann reported earning $32,500 to $105,000 from a farm that was owned at the time by her ailing father-in-law, Paul Bachmann. The farm received $260,000 in federal crop and disaster subsidies between 1995 and 2008. Bachmann said that in 2006–2009, her husband acted as a trustee of the farm for his dying father and so, out of "an abundance of caution", she claimed the farm as income in financial disclosures, though it was her in-laws who profited from the farm during that period.
Anonymous threat against her
In August 2011 a man tweeted his "desire to engage in sadomasochistic activities" with Bachmann using "a Vietnam era machete" while misspelling her given name as "Michelle" in his tweet. Federal investigators ordered Twitter to reveal his identity. Called Mr. X in the grand jury's subpoena, the man filed a motion to quash the order at the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in February 2012. Then-Chief Judge Royce Lamberth denied the request, citing the seriousness of the threat that might have posed to Bachmann, but X was granted the redaction of his identity in a separate order.
Donald Trump
Bachmann vocally supported then-President Donald Trump, saying in 2017 that he "has had the courage and the fortitude to stand up where other Republicans wouldn't dare to stand up." In December 2020, after the presidential election, she posted a video online praying for a Trump second term. Her online prayer specifically called out the contested election results in Georgia, saying: Lord, would you deliver these races in Georgia? O Father, would you deliver various local and state races, Father, that they aren't stolen? Would you give us a true vote? And, O God, I personally ask, from myself, Michele Bachmann, Lord, would you allow Donald Trump to have a second term as president of the United States?
See also
United States congressional delegations from Minnesota
List of United States representatives from Minnesota
Women in the United States House of Representatives
References
External links
Politifact.com File on Michele Bachmann
2008 campaign finance data from OpenSecrets.org
2010 campaign finance data from OpenSecrets.org
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1956 births
Living people
21st-century American politicians
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American women politicians
21st-century American women writers
20th-century Lutherans
21st-century Lutherans
21st-century Protestants
American autobiographers
American Christian Zionists
American critics of Islam
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"Christianity and abortion has a long and complex history. There is scholarly disagreement on how early Christians felt about abortion. Some scholars have concluded that early Christians took a nuanced stance on what is now called abortion, and that at different and in separate places early Christians have taken different stances. Other scholars have concluded that early Christians considered abortion a sin at all stages; though there is disagreement over their thoughts on what type of sin it was and how grave a sin it was held to be. Some early Christians believed that the embryo did not have a soul from conception, and consequently opinion was divided as to whether early abortion was murder or ethically equivalent to murder. Some early Christian texts nonetheless condemned abortion without distinction: Luker mentions the Didache, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Saint Basil. Early church councils punished women for abortions that were combined with other sexual crimes, as well as makers of abortifacient drugs, but, like some early Church Fathers such as Basil of Caesarea, did not make distinction between \"formed\" and \"unformed\" fetuses.\n\nWhile Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus the Confessor held that human life already began at conception, Augustine of Hippo affirmed Aristotle's concepts of ensoulment occurring some time after conception, after which point abortion was to be considered homicide, while still maintaining the condemnation of abortion at any time from conception onward.\n\nThomas Aquinas reiterated Aristotle's views of successive souls: vegetative, animal, and rational. This would be the Catholic Church's position until 1869, when the limitation of automatic excommunication to abortion of a formed fetus was removed, a change that has been interpreted as an implicit declaration that conception was the moment of ensoulment. Most early penitentials imposed equal penances for abortion whether early-term or late-term, but later penitentials in the Middle Ages normally distinguished between the two, imposing heavier penances for late-term abortions and a less severe penance was imposed for the sin of abortion \"before [the foetus] has life\".\n\nContemporary Christian denominations have nuanced positions, thoughts and teachings about abortion, especially in extenuating circumstances. The Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, and most evangelical Protestants oppose deliberate abortion as immoral, while allowing what is sometimes called indirect abortion, namely, an action that does not seek the death of the fetus as an end or a means but that is followed by the death as a side effect. Some mainline Protestant denominations such as the Episcopal Church, United Church of Christ, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, among others, are more permissive of abortion. More generally, some Christian denominations can be considered opposed to abortion while others may be considered in favor of abortion rights.\n\nInfluences\n\nBoth ancient Greek thought and ancient Jewish thought are considered to have affected early Christian thought about abortion. According to Bakke and Clarke &Linzey, early Christians adhered to Aristotle's belief in delayed ensoulment, and consequently did not see abortion before ensoulment as homicide. Lars Østnor says this view was only \"presaged\" by Augustine, who belongs to a period later than that of early Christianity. According to David Albert Jones, this distinction appeared among Christian writers only in the late fourth and early fifth century, while the earlier writers made no distinction between formed and unformed, a distinction explicitly rejected by 4th-century Saint Basil of Caesarea, who also, though earlier than Saint Augustine, does not belong to the early-Christianity period. While the Hebrew text of the Bible only required a fine for the loss of a fetus, whatever its stage of development, the Jewish Septuagint translation, which the early Christians used, introduced a distinction between a formed and an unformed fetus and treated destruction of the former as murder. It has been commented that \"the LXX could easily have been used to distinguish human from non-human fetuses and homicidal from non-homicidal abortions, yet the early Christians, until the time of Augustine in the fifth century, did not do so.\"\n\nThe view of early Christians on the moment of ensoulment is also said to have been not the Aristotelian, but the Pythagorean:\n\nScholars generally agree that abortion was performed in the classical world, but there is disagreement about the frequency with which abortion was performed and which cultures influenced early Christian thought on abortion. Some writers point to the Hippocratic Oath as evidence that condemnation of abortion was not a novelty introduced by the early Christians. Some writers state that there is evidence that some early Christians believed, as the Greeks did, in delayed ensoulment, or that a fetus does not have a soul until quickening, and therefore early abortion was not murder; Luker says there was disagreement on whether early abortion was wrong. Other writers say that early Christians considered abortion a sin even before ensoulment. According to some, the magnitude of the sin was, for the early Christians, on a level with general sexual immorality or other lapses; according to others, they saw it as \"an evil no less severe and social than oppression of the poor and needy\".\nThe society in which Christianity expanded was one in which abortion, infanticide and exposition were commonly used to limit the number of children (especially girls) that a family had to support. These methods were often used also when a pregnancy or birth resulted from sexual licentiousness, including marital infidelity, prostitution and incest, and Bakke holds that these contexts cannot be separated from abortion in early Christianity. Johannes M. Röskamp agrees that one reason for Christian disapproval of abortion was that it was linked with attempts to conceal adultery, but stresses that the main reason was the \"all new concept\" of concern for the fetus,which, Michael J. Gorman declares, \"distinguishes the Christian position from all pagan disapproval of abortion\".\n\nEarly Christianity\n\nEarly Christian thought on abortion is interpreted in different ways. At different times, early Christians held different beliefs about abortion, while yet considering it a grievous sin.\n\nThe earliest Christian texts on abortion condemn it with \"no mention of any distinction in seriousness between the abortion of a formed foetus and that of an unformed embryo\".\n\nAccording to sociologist Kristin Luker: After the beginning of the Christian era... legal regulation of abortion as existed in the Roman Empire was designed primarily to protect the rights of fathers rather than rights of embryos....induced abortion is ignored in the most central Judeo-Christian writings: it was not mentioned in the Christian or the Jewish Bible, or in the Jewish Mishnah or Talmud. Abortion, it is true, was denounced in early Christian writings such as the Didache and by early Christian authors such as Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and St. Basil. But church councils, such as those of Elvira and Ancyra, which were called to specify the legal groundwork for Christian communities, outlined penalties only for those women who committed abortion after a sexual crime such as adultery or prostitution. Most importantly, perhaps, from the third century A.D. onward, Christian thought was divided as to whether early abortion - the abortion of an \"unformed\" embryo - was in fact murder. Different sources of church teachings and laws simply did not agree on the penalties for abortion or on whether early abortion is wrong.\n\nHowever, that the early Christians agreed in rejecting abortion is more generally accepted. They condemned it as a serious sin, even before ensoulment. While agreeing that abortion was seen as a sin, some writers consider that those Christians viewed early abortion as on the same level as general sexual immorality, or that they saw it as a grave contra-life sin like contraception and sterilization, while others hold that it was for them \"an evil no less severe and social than oppression of the poor and needy\". Even in cases where abortion was seen as more than a sexual crime, the practice was still sometimes associated with sexual immorality.\n\nPatristic writings\n\nIn the late 1st century or early 2nd century, the Didache explicitly condemned abortion, as did the Apocalypse of Peter in the 2nd century. Some early Christians considered abortion wrong in all circumstances, and early synods imposed penalties for abortions that were combined with some form of sexual crime and on the making of abortifacient drugs: the early 4th-century Synod of Elvira imposed denial of communion even at the point of death on those who committed the \"double crime\" of adultery and subsequent abortion, and the Synod of Ancyra imposed ten years of exclusion from communion on manufacturers of abortion drugs and on women aborting what they conceived by fornication (previously, such women and the makers of drugs for abortion were excluded until on the point of death). Basil the Great (330-379) imposed the same ten-year exclusion on any woman who purposely destroyed her unborn child, even if unformed. Abortion was sometimes regarded as worse than murder, but Basil thus imposed for it a lesser penance than the twenty-year exclusion that he imposed for intentional homicide, apparently because abortion was likely to be due to fear and shame rather than malice.\n\nSeveral historians have written that prior to the 19th century most Catholic authors did not regard termination of pregnancy before \"quickening\" or \"ensoulment\" as an abortion.\n\nIn the 13th century physician and cleric Peter of Spain wrote a book called Thesaurus Pauperum (literally Treasure of the Poor) containing a long list of early-stage abortifacients, including rue, pennyroyal, and other mints. Peter of Spain became Pope John XXI in 1276.\n\nSome prominent theologians, such as John Chrysostom and Thomas Sanchez, believed that post-quickening abortion was less sinful than deliberate contraception. John Chrysostom believed that late-stage abortion was not as bad as deliberately killing an already-born person, whereas contraception was definitely worse than murder, according to him.\n\nLater Christian thought on abortion \n\nFrom the 4th to 16th Century AD, Christian philosophers, while maintaining the condemnation of abortion as wrong, had varying stances on whether abortion was murder. Under the first Christian Roman emperor Constantine, there was a relaxation of attitudes toward abortion and exposure of children. Bakke writes, \"Since an increasing number of Christian parents were poor and found it difficult to look after their children, the theologians were forced to take into account this situation and reflect anew on the question. This made it possible to take a more tolerant attitude toward poor people who exposed their children.\"\n\nEnsoulment\nAugustine believed that an early abortion is not murder because, according to the Aristotelian concept of delayed ensoulment, the soul of a fetus at an early stage is not present, a belief that passed into canon law. Nonetheless, he harshly condemned the procedure: \"Sometimes, indeed, this lustful cruelty, or if you please, cruel lust, resorts to such extravagant methods as to use poisonous drugs to secure barrenness; or else, if unsuccessful in this, to destroy the conceived seed by some means previous to birth, preferring that its offspring should rather perish than receive vitality; or if it was advancing to life within the womb, should be slain before it was born.\"(De Nube et Concupiscentia 1.17 (15))\n\nThomas Aquinas and Pope Innocent III also believed that a fetus does not have a soul until \"quickening,\" or when the fetus begins to kick and move, and therefore early abortion was not murder, though later abortion was. Aquinas held that abortion was still wrong, even when not murder, regardless of when the soul entered the body. Pope Stephen V and Pope Sixtus V opposed abortion at any stage of pregnancy.\n\nProtestant Reformation\nIn general, the Protestant Reformers retained the teaching of their time against abortion. Neither Martin Luther nor John Calvin wrote individual works discussing only the question of abortion per se, although in 1542, Luther wrote a pamphlet entitled Comfort for Women Who Have Had a Miscarriage.\n\nIn his commentary on Exodus 21:22, John Calvin wrote:\n\n...the unborn, though enclosed in the womb of his mother, is already a human being, and it is an almost monstrous crime to rob it of life which it has not yet begun to enjoy. If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man's house is his most secure place of refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy the unborn in the womb before it has come to light.\n\nIn his 1535–1545 Commentary on Genesis, when discussing Chapter 25, verses 1 through 4, Luther noted,\nHow great, therefore, the wickedness of human nature is! How many girls there are who prevent conception and kill and expel tender fetuses, although procreation is the work of God! Indeed, some spouses who marry and live together in a respectable manner have various ends in mind, but rarely children.’ The God who declares that we are to be fruitful and multiply regards it as a great evil when human beings destroy their offspring.\nIn a letter written in 1544, Luther strongly condemned a woman who reportedly had another person jump on her belly to induce an abortion.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n Early Christian Views on Abortion (Chapter 2 of M.J. Elsakkers, Reading between the lines: Old Germanic and early Christian views on abortion)\n\nChristian thought, early\nAbortion\nCatholic Church and abortion",
"The Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians (PLAGAL) is a United States-based interest group opposed to legalized elective abortion and supportive of alternatives to abortion.\n\nThe group was founded by Tom Sena in 1990 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Washington, D.C., under the name \"Gays Against Abortion\". The name was changed to \"Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians\" in early 1991. Despite both names, the group is inclusive of all LGBT people, as well as straight allies. Its first President was Philip Arcidi, who was elected in 1994.\n\nPositions\nPLAGAL has pointed to some research that shows a link between abortion and breast cancer that has generally been rejected by the medical community. They have also taken the position that even if a woman is infected with HIV she should not abort the fetus because there are ways to prevent the transmission of the virus from the mother. They support expanding access to antiretroviral drugs for all people who need such treatment, including pregnant women and their fetuses. In March 2005, PLAGAL came out in support of legislation introduced by Maine state legislator Brian Duprey, which assuming that science would discover a significant genetic component to homosexuality, would make it illegal for a woman to selectively abort a fetus based on predicted sexual orientation.\n\nReaction from the gay community\nSince the religious right is perceived as dominating the pro-life movement, LGBT pro-choicers question why any LGBT person would want to align themselves with a social movement that has traditionally opposed not only legalized abortion, but often also LGBT rights.\n\nLGBT pro-lifers counter that their beliefs on abortion derive from beliefs regarding nonviolence, human rights, and the interconnectedness of human rights. Although some PLAGAL members are otherwise conservative, they span the entire political spectrum. PLAGAL President Cecilia Brown, for example, is a member of the Green Party. Another national officer, Jackie Malone, is outspoken on disability rights.\n\nAs early as 1994, Chuck Volz, co-founder of the now-defunct Delaware Valley PLAGAL chapter, started a row in the local gay media when he condemned the sponsors of the Philadelphia AIDS walk for diverting \"crucial funds\" to assist in the abortion of HIV positive children.\n\nMost of the debate within the gay and lesbian community remains peaceful, if not always civil. However, in 1995 PLAGAL applied for participation in Boston's annual Pride parade and was denied. PLAGAL set up a table along the parade route, where members distributed literature. During the parade, the table was surrounded by angry hecklers who tore up PLAGAL's leaflets, leading to police asking PLAGAL to leave the parade area to restore order.\n\nAt the 2000 Millennium March for Equality, major gay rights interest groups such as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the Human Rights Campaign endorsed pro-choice public policies, despite the protests from PLAGAL.\n\nReactions from the pro-life community\nThe reaction from the pro-life community is divided. Some pro-life advocates see their position as part of a more secular, human rights position and sent letters of support for PLAGAL. Some of these individuals and organisations affiliate their opposition to abortion as part of a consistent life ethic. Others see the struggle against abortion in more pragmatic terms and welcomed the support of PLAGAL, without care for their positions on other issues.\n\nStill other pro-life advocates that see their position as part of a broader conservative religious movement, opposed the inclusion of an LGBT organization at pro-life events. The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., denied a request to allow PLAGAL to cosponsor a pro-life conference in January 2009, citing the group's support for same-sex marriage and condoning of homosexual sexual activity.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nAnti-abortion organizations in the United States\nOrganizations established in 1990\nLGBT organizations in the United States\nLGBT conservatism in the United States"
] |
[
"Shyam Benegal",
"Feature films"
] | C_b5f02086c6144702a8dc4e6ab4bdf04e_1 | What films did he create? | 1 | What films did Shyam Benegal create? | Shyam Benegal | After returning to Mumbai, he received independent financing and Ankur (The Seedling) was finally made in 1973. It was a story of economic and sexual exploitation in his home state, Telangana, and Benegal instantly shot to fame. The film introduced actors Shabana Azmi and Anant Nag and Benegal won the 1975 National Film Award for Second Best Feature Film. Shabana won the National Film Award for Best Actress. The success that New India Cinema enjoyed in the 1970s and early 1980s could largely be attributed to Shyam Benegal's quartet: Ankur (1973), Nishant (1975), Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977). Benegal used a variety of new actors, mainly from the FTII and NSD, such as Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, Kulbhushan Kharbanda and Amrish Puri. In Benegal's next film, Nishant (Night's End) (1975), a teacher's wife is abducted and gang-raped by four zamindars; officialdom turns a deaf ear to the distraught husband's pleas for help. Manthan (The Churning) (1976) is a film on rural empowerment and is set against the backdrop of Gujarat's fledgling dairy industry. For the first time, over five lakh (half a million) rural farmers in Gujarat contributed Rs 2 each and thus became the film's producers. Upon its release, truckloads of farmers came to see "their" film, making it a success at the box office. After this trilogy on rural oppression, Benegal made a biopic Bhumika (The Role) (1977), broadly based on the life of well-known Marathi stage and film actress of the 1940s, Hansa Wadkar (played by Smita Patil), who led a flamboyant and unconventional life. The main character sets out on an individual search for identity and self-fulfillment, while also grappling with exploitation by men. In the early 1970s, Shyam made 21 film modules for Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE), sponsored by UNICEF. This allowed him to interact with children of SITE and many folk artists. Eventually he used many of these children in his feature length rendition of the classic folk tale Charandas Chor (Charandas the Thief) in 1975. He made it for the Children's Film Society, India. To quote film critic Derek Malcolm: what Benegal has done is to paint a magnificent visual recreation of those extraordinary days and one that is also sensitive to the agonies and predicament of a talented woman whose need for security was only matched by her insistence on freedom. CANNOTANSWER | Ankur (The Seedling) | Shyam Benegal (born 14 December 1934) is an Indian film director, screenwriter and documentary filmmaker. Often regarded as the pioneer of parallel cinema, He is widely considered as one of the greatest filmmakers post 1970s. He has received several accolades, including eighteen National Film Awards, a Filmfare Award and a Nandi Award. In 2005, he was honoured with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, India's highest award in the field of cinema. In 1976, he was honoured by the Government of India with the Padma Shri, the fourth-highest civilian honour of the country, and in 1991, he was awarded Padma Bhushan, the third-highes civilian honour for his contributions in the field of arts.
Benegal was born in Hyderabad to Sridhar B. Benegal who was prominent in the field of photography. Starting his career as a copywriter, he made his first Documentary film in Gujarati, Gher Betha Ganga (Ganges at the Doorstep) in 1962. Benegal's first four feature films Ankur (1973), Nishant (1975), Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977) made him a pioneer of the new wave film movement of that period. Benegal's films, Mammo (1994), along with Sardari Begum (1996) and Zubeidaa (2001) all of which won National Film Awards for Best Feature Film, form the Muslim women Trilogy. Benegal has won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi seven times. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1976, the Padma Bhushan in 1991, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for the year 2005 and the V. Shantaram Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.
Early life and education
Shyam Benegal was born on 14 December 1934 in Hyderabad, as Shyam Sunder Benegal. When he was twelve years old, he made his first film, on a camera given to him by his photographer father Sridhar B. Benegal. He received an M.A. in Economics from Osmania University, Hyderabad. There he formed the Hyderabad Film Society.
Family
Film director and actor Guru Dutt's maternal grandmother and Shyam's paternal grandmother were sisters, thus making Dutt and Shyam second cousins.
Career
Early career
In 1959, he started working as a copywriter at a Mumbai-based advertising agency, Lintas Advertising, where he steadily rose to become a creative head. Meanwhile, Benegal made his first documentary in Gujarati, Gher Betha Ganga (Ganges at the Doorstep) in 1962. His first feature film had to wait another decade while he worked on the script.
In 1963 he had a brief stint with another advertising agency called ASP (Advertising, Sales and Promotion). During his advertising years, he directed over 900 sponsored documentaries and advertising films.
Between 1966 and 1973, Shyam taught at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, and twice served as the institute's chairman: 1980–83 and 1989–92. By this time he had already started making documentaries. One of his early documentaries A Child of the Streets (1967), garnered him wide acclaim. In all, he has made over 70 documentary and short films.
He was awarded the Homi J. Bhabha Fellowship (1970–72) which allowed him to work at the Children's Television Workshop, New York, and later at Boston's WGBH-TV.
Feature films
After returning to Mumbai, he received independent financing and Ankur (The Seedling) was finally made in 1973. It was a story of economic and sexual exploitation in his home state, Telangana, and Benegal instantly shot to fame. The film introduced actors Shabana Azmi and Anant Nag and Benegal won the 1975 National Film Award for Second Best Feature Film. Shabana won the National Film Award for Best Actress.
The success that New India Cinema enjoyed in the 1970s and early 1980s could largely be attributed to Shyam Benegal's quartet: Ankur (1973), Nishant (1975), Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977). Benegal used a variety of new actors, mainly from the FTII and NSD, such as Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, Kulbhushan Kharbanda and Amrish Puri.
In Benegal's next film, Nishant (Night's End) (1975), a teacher's wife is abducted and gang-raped by four zamindars; officialdom turns a deaf ear to the distraught husband's pleas for help. Manthan (The Churning) (1976) is a film on rural empowerment and is set against the backdrop of Gujarat's fledgling dairy industry. For the first time, over five lakh (half a million) rural farmers in Gujarat contributed 2 each and thus became the film's producers. Upon its release, truckloads of farmers came to see "their" film, making it a success at the box office. After this trilogy on rural oppression, Benegal made a biopic Bhumika (The Role) (1977), broadly based on the life of well-known Marathi stage and film actress of the 1940s, Hansa Wadkar (played by Smita Patil), who led a flamboyant and unconventional life. The main character sets out on an individual search for identity and self-fulfilment, while also grappling with exploitation by men.
In the early 1970s, Shyam made 21 film modules for Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE), sponsored by UNICEF. This allowed him to interact with children of SITE and many folk artists. Eventually he used many of these children in his feature length rendition of the classic folk tale Charandas Chor (Charandas the Thief) in 1975. He made it for the Children's Film Society, India.
To quote film critic Derek Malcolm:
what Benegal has done is to paint a magnificent visual recreation of those extraordinary days and one that is also sensitive to the agonies and predicament of a talented woman whose need for security was only matched by her insistence on freedom.
The 1980s
Unlike most New Cinema filmmakers, Benegal has had private backers for many of his films and institutional backing for a few, including Manthan ( Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation ) and Susman (1987) (Handloom Co-operatives). However, his films did not have proper releases. He turned to TV where he directed serials such as Yatra (1986), for the Indian Railways, and one of the biggest projects undertaken on Indian television, the 53-episode television serial Bharat Ek Khoj (1988) based on Jawaharlal Nehru's book, Discovery of India. This gave him an added advantage, as he managed to survive the collapse of the New Cinema movement in the late 1980s due to paucity of funding, with which were lost many neo-realist filmmakers. Benegal continued making films throughout the next two decades. He also served as the Director of the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) from 1980 to 1986.
Following the success of these four films, Benegal was backed by star Shashi Kapoor, for whom he made Junoon (1978) and Kalyug (1981). The former was an interracial love story set amidst the turbulent period of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, while the latter was based on the Mahabharata and was not a big hit, although both won Filmfare Best Movie Awards in 1980 and 1982, respectively.
Benegal's next film Mandi (1983), was a satirical comedy about politics and prostitution, starring Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil. Later, working from his own story, based on the last days of Portuguese in Goa, in the early 1960s, Shyam explored human relationships in Trikal (1985).
Soon, Shyam Benegal stepped beyond traditional narrative films and took to biographical material to achieve greater freedom of expression. His first venture in this genre was with a documentary film based on Satyajit Ray's life, Satyajit Ray, in 1985. This was followed by works such as Sardari Begum (1996) and Zubeidaa, which was written by filmmaker and critic Khalid Mohamed.
In 1985 he was a member of the jury at the 14th Moscow International Film Festival.
The 1990s and beyond
The 1990s saw Shyam Benegal making a trilogy on Indian Muslim women, starting with Mammo (1994), Sardari Begum (1996) and Zubeidaa (2001). With Zubeidaa, he entered mainstream Bollywood, as it starred top Bollywood star Karishma Kapoor and boasted music by A. R. Rahman.
In 1992, he made Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda (Seventh Horse of the Sun), based on a novel by Dharmavir Bharati, which won the 1993 National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi. In 1996 he made another film based on the book The Making of the Mahatma, based on Fatima Meer's, The Apprenticeship of a Mahatma. This turn to biographical material resulted in Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero, his 2005 English language film. He criticised the Indian caste system in Samar (1999), which went on to win the National Film Award for Best Feature Film.
Benegal is the current president of the Federation of Film Societies of India. He owns a production company called Sahyadri Films.
He has authored three books based on his own films: The Churning with Vijay Tendulkar (1984), based on Manthan; Satyajit Ray (1988), based on his biographical film, Satyajit Ray; and The Marketplace (1989), which was based on Mandi.
In 2009 he was a member of the jury at the 31st Moscow International Film Festival.
Recent projects
In 2008, his film Welcome to Sajjanpur, starring Shreyas Talpade and Amrita Rao, was released to a good response. Its music was composed by Shantanu Moitra, and it was produced by Chetan Motiwalla. Shyam Benegal is slated to direct an epic musical, Chamki Chameli, inspired by Georges Bizet's classic Spanish opera Carmen. The story revolves around the eponymous Chamki, a beautiful gypsy girl with a fiery temper and is written by Shama Zaidi. The music is by A. R. Rahman and lyrics are by Javed Akhtar.
In March 2010, Benegal released the political satire Well Done Abba.
One of Benegal's future projects is a film based on the life of Noor Inayat Khan, daughter of Inayat Khan and descendant of Tipu Sultan, who served as a British spy during World War II.
Benegal made a comeback on the small screen with Samvidhaan, a 10-part mini-series revolving around the making of the Indian Constitution, to be aired on Rajya Sabha TV from 2 March 2014. Along with Benegal, Tom Alter, Dalip Tahil, Sachin Khedekar, Divya Dutta, Rajendra Gupta, K K Raina, and Ila Arun were seen at the press conference for the TV series.
Government of Bangladesh has confirmed Benegal would direct the biopic of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The film will be released presumably by 2021.
Personal life
Shyam Benegal is married to Nira Benegal and has a daughter, Pia.
Filmography
Awards and nominations
Non Feature Films
1984 Best Historical Reconstruction for Nehru
1985 Best Biographical Film for Satyajit Ray
Feature Films
1986 Best Director for Trikal
1993 Best Feature Film in Hindi for Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda
1995 Best Feature Film in Hindi for Mammo
1996 Best Feature Film in English for The Making of the Mahatma
1997 Best Feature Film in Urdu for Sardari Begum
1999 Best Feature Film for Samar
1999 Best Feature Film on Family Welfare for Hari-Bhari
2001 Best Feature Film in Hindi for Zubeidaa
2005 Nargis Dutt Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration for Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero
Best Film on Other Social Issues for Well Done Abba
Filmfare Awards
1980 Best Director for Junoon
Cannes Film Festival
1976: Golden Palm: Nishant: Nominated
Berlin International Film Festival
1974 Golden Berlin Bear for Ankur: Nominated
Moscow International Film Festival
1981 Golden Prize: Kalyug
1997 Golden St. George: Sardari Begum: Nominated
All Lights India International Film Festival
2015 Lifetime Achievement Award
Nandi Awards
B. N. Reddy National Award for contribution to Indian Cinema
Honours
1970 Homi Bhabha Fellowship (1970–72)
1976 Padma Shri
1989 Sovietland Nehru Award
1991 Padma Bhushan
2012 D. Litt. Honoris Causa of the University of Calcutta
2013 ANR National Award
2016 D. Litt. "Honoris Causa" of ITM University, Gwalior (M.P.)
Bibliography
Benegal on Ray: Satyajit Ray, a Film, by Shyam Benegal, Alaknanda Datta, Samik Banerjee. Seagull Books, 1988. .
Shyam Benegal's the Churning (Manthan): Screenplay, by, Vijay Tendulkar, Shyam Benegal, Samik Banerjee. Seagull Books, 1984. .
References
Further reading
Shyam Benegal (BFI World Directors) - Sangeeta Datta. 2003, British Film Institute. .
Bollywood Babylon: Interviews with Shyam Benegal, William van der Heide. 2006, Berg Publishers. .
BBC's Tom Brook interviews Shyam Benegal on 25 August 2006
Girish Karnad interviews Shyam Benegal, National Film Theatre, 2002
Sen, Meheli (2011) "Vernacular Modernities and Fitful Globalities in Shyam Benegal's Cinematic Provinces" on manycinemas.org 1, 8-22, Online, pdf-version
New Indian Cinema in Post-Independence India; The Cultural Work of Shyam Benegal’s Films, By Anuradha Dingwaney Needham, 2013
Shyam Benegal, Philosopher and Filmmaker, By Samir Chopra, 2021.
External links
Shyam Benegal's Retrospective Abu Dhabi Sept27-30,2012 by Indian Film Society of UAE
'Shyam Benegal: A Life in Pictures' interview at BAFTA
Shyam Benegal on Upperstall
Awards & recognition for Shyam Benegal's films
Osmania University alumni
20th-century Indian film directors
Indian male screenwriters
Recipients of the Padma Shri in arts
Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in arts
Hindi-language film directors
Indian documentary filmmakers
Filmfare Awards winners
Nominated members of the Rajya Sabha
Dadasaheb Phalke Award recipients
Film directors from Hyderabad, India
1934 births
Living people
Best Director National Film Award winners
21st-century Indian film directors
Best Original Screenplay National Film Award winners
Special Jury Award (feature film) National Film Award winners
Producers who won the Best Feature Film National Film Award
Directors who won the Best Feature Film National Film Award
Directors who won the Best Film on Family Welfare National Film Award
Directors who won the Best Film on National Integration National Film Award
Directors who won the Best Film on Other Social Issues National Film Award | true | [
"On Native Soil is a 2006 documentary by Linda Ellman narrated by Kevin Costner and Hilary Swank. The film analyzes the efforts by the families of 9/11 victims to create the 9/11 Commission and what information was revealed by it.\n\nExternal links \n The official website to the documentary\n \n\n2006 films\n2006 documentary films\nEnglish-language films\nFilms scored by Michael Tavera\nDocumentary films about the September 11 attacks\nAmerican documentary films\nAmerican films\n9/11 Commission",
"The Katy series is a set of novels by Sarah Chauncey Woolsey, writing under the pen-name of Susan Coolidge. The first in the series, What Katy Did, was published in 1872 and followed the next year by What Katy Did at School. What Katy Did Next was released in 1886. Two further novels, Clover (1888) and In the High Valley (1890), focused upon other members of the eponymous character's family. The series was popular with readers in the late 19th century.\n\nThe series was later adapted into a TV series entitled Katy in 1962, and two films, one also called Katy in 1972 and What Katy Did in 1999.\n\nNovels\n What Katy Did\n What Katy Did at School\n What Katy Did Next\n Clover\n In the High Valley\n\nAdaptions\n Katy (TV series, 1962)\n Katy (film, 1972)\n What Katy Did (film, 1999)\n\nLiterary Criticism\nCritics are divided about how much the series played into period gender norms and often compare the series to Little Women. Foster and Simmons argue for its subversion of gender in their book What Katy Read: Feminist Re-Readings of ‘Classic’ Stories for Girls by suggesting the series “deconstructs family hierarchies”.\n\nInfluence\nThe series is unusual for its time by having an entry which focuses not on the family life at home but at school in What Katy Did at School.\n\nIn a 1995 survey, What Katy Did was voted as one of the top 10 books for 12-year-old girls.\n\nSee also\n\nSarah Chauncey Woolsey\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nSeries details at Fantastic Fiction\n\nKaty series\n1870s novels\nNovel series\nSeries of children's books\nNovels by Susan Coolidge\n1880s novels\n1890s novels\n1962 American television series debuts\n1972 films\n1999 films"
] |
[
"Shyam Benegal",
"Feature films",
"What films did he create?",
"Ankur (The Seedling)"
] | C_b5f02086c6144702a8dc4e6ab4bdf04e_1 | Did it get any awards? | 2 | Did Ankur (The Seedling) get any awards? | Shyam Benegal | After returning to Mumbai, he received independent financing and Ankur (The Seedling) was finally made in 1973. It was a story of economic and sexual exploitation in his home state, Telangana, and Benegal instantly shot to fame. The film introduced actors Shabana Azmi and Anant Nag and Benegal won the 1975 National Film Award for Second Best Feature Film. Shabana won the National Film Award for Best Actress. The success that New India Cinema enjoyed in the 1970s and early 1980s could largely be attributed to Shyam Benegal's quartet: Ankur (1973), Nishant (1975), Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977). Benegal used a variety of new actors, mainly from the FTII and NSD, such as Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, Kulbhushan Kharbanda and Amrish Puri. In Benegal's next film, Nishant (Night's End) (1975), a teacher's wife is abducted and gang-raped by four zamindars; officialdom turns a deaf ear to the distraught husband's pleas for help. Manthan (The Churning) (1976) is a film on rural empowerment and is set against the backdrop of Gujarat's fledgling dairy industry. For the first time, over five lakh (half a million) rural farmers in Gujarat contributed Rs 2 each and thus became the film's producers. Upon its release, truckloads of farmers came to see "their" film, making it a success at the box office. After this trilogy on rural oppression, Benegal made a biopic Bhumika (The Role) (1977), broadly based on the life of well-known Marathi stage and film actress of the 1940s, Hansa Wadkar (played by Smita Patil), who led a flamboyant and unconventional life. The main character sets out on an individual search for identity and self-fulfillment, while also grappling with exploitation by men. In the early 1970s, Shyam made 21 film modules for Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE), sponsored by UNICEF. This allowed him to interact with children of SITE and many folk artists. Eventually he used many of these children in his feature length rendition of the classic folk tale Charandas Chor (Charandas the Thief) in 1975. He made it for the Children's Film Society, India. To quote film critic Derek Malcolm: what Benegal has done is to paint a magnificent visual recreation of those extraordinary days and one that is also sensitive to the agonies and predicament of a talented woman whose need for security was only matched by her insistence on freedom. CANNOTANSWER | won the 1975 National Film Award for Second Best Feature Film. | Shyam Benegal (born 14 December 1934) is an Indian film director, screenwriter and documentary filmmaker. Often regarded as the pioneer of parallel cinema, He is widely considered as one of the greatest filmmakers post 1970s. He has received several accolades, including eighteen National Film Awards, a Filmfare Award and a Nandi Award. In 2005, he was honoured with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, India's highest award in the field of cinema. In 1976, he was honoured by the Government of India with the Padma Shri, the fourth-highest civilian honour of the country, and in 1991, he was awarded Padma Bhushan, the third-highes civilian honour for his contributions in the field of arts.
Benegal was born in Hyderabad to Sridhar B. Benegal who was prominent in the field of photography. Starting his career as a copywriter, he made his first Documentary film in Gujarati, Gher Betha Ganga (Ganges at the Doorstep) in 1962. Benegal's first four feature films Ankur (1973), Nishant (1975), Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977) made him a pioneer of the new wave film movement of that period. Benegal's films, Mammo (1994), along with Sardari Begum (1996) and Zubeidaa (2001) all of which won National Film Awards for Best Feature Film, form the Muslim women Trilogy. Benegal has won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi seven times. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1976, the Padma Bhushan in 1991, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for the year 2005 and the V. Shantaram Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.
Early life and education
Shyam Benegal was born on 14 December 1934 in Hyderabad, as Shyam Sunder Benegal. When he was twelve years old, he made his first film, on a camera given to him by his photographer father Sridhar B. Benegal. He received an M.A. in Economics from Osmania University, Hyderabad. There he formed the Hyderabad Film Society.
Family
Film director and actor Guru Dutt's maternal grandmother and Shyam's paternal grandmother were sisters, thus making Dutt and Shyam second cousins.
Career
Early career
In 1959, he started working as a copywriter at a Mumbai-based advertising agency, Lintas Advertising, where he steadily rose to become a creative head. Meanwhile, Benegal made his first documentary in Gujarati, Gher Betha Ganga (Ganges at the Doorstep) in 1962. His first feature film had to wait another decade while he worked on the script.
In 1963 he had a brief stint with another advertising agency called ASP (Advertising, Sales and Promotion). During his advertising years, he directed over 900 sponsored documentaries and advertising films.
Between 1966 and 1973, Shyam taught at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, and twice served as the institute's chairman: 1980–83 and 1989–92. By this time he had already started making documentaries. One of his early documentaries A Child of the Streets (1967), garnered him wide acclaim. In all, he has made over 70 documentary and short films.
He was awarded the Homi J. Bhabha Fellowship (1970–72) which allowed him to work at the Children's Television Workshop, New York, and later at Boston's WGBH-TV.
Feature films
After returning to Mumbai, he received independent financing and Ankur (The Seedling) was finally made in 1973. It was a story of economic and sexual exploitation in his home state, Telangana, and Benegal instantly shot to fame. The film introduced actors Shabana Azmi and Anant Nag and Benegal won the 1975 National Film Award for Second Best Feature Film. Shabana won the National Film Award for Best Actress.
The success that New India Cinema enjoyed in the 1970s and early 1980s could largely be attributed to Shyam Benegal's quartet: Ankur (1973), Nishant (1975), Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977). Benegal used a variety of new actors, mainly from the FTII and NSD, such as Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, Kulbhushan Kharbanda and Amrish Puri.
In Benegal's next film, Nishant (Night's End) (1975), a teacher's wife is abducted and gang-raped by four zamindars; officialdom turns a deaf ear to the distraught husband's pleas for help. Manthan (The Churning) (1976) is a film on rural empowerment and is set against the backdrop of Gujarat's fledgling dairy industry. For the first time, over five lakh (half a million) rural farmers in Gujarat contributed 2 each and thus became the film's producers. Upon its release, truckloads of farmers came to see "their" film, making it a success at the box office. After this trilogy on rural oppression, Benegal made a biopic Bhumika (The Role) (1977), broadly based on the life of well-known Marathi stage and film actress of the 1940s, Hansa Wadkar (played by Smita Patil), who led a flamboyant and unconventional life. The main character sets out on an individual search for identity and self-fulfilment, while also grappling with exploitation by men.
In the early 1970s, Shyam made 21 film modules for Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE), sponsored by UNICEF. This allowed him to interact with children of SITE and many folk artists. Eventually he used many of these children in his feature length rendition of the classic folk tale Charandas Chor (Charandas the Thief) in 1975. He made it for the Children's Film Society, India.
To quote film critic Derek Malcolm:
what Benegal has done is to paint a magnificent visual recreation of those extraordinary days and one that is also sensitive to the agonies and predicament of a talented woman whose need for security was only matched by her insistence on freedom.
The 1980s
Unlike most New Cinema filmmakers, Benegal has had private backers for many of his films and institutional backing for a few, including Manthan ( Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation ) and Susman (1987) (Handloom Co-operatives). However, his films did not have proper releases. He turned to TV where he directed serials such as Yatra (1986), for the Indian Railways, and one of the biggest projects undertaken on Indian television, the 53-episode television serial Bharat Ek Khoj (1988) based on Jawaharlal Nehru's book, Discovery of India. This gave him an added advantage, as he managed to survive the collapse of the New Cinema movement in the late 1980s due to paucity of funding, with which were lost many neo-realist filmmakers. Benegal continued making films throughout the next two decades. He also served as the Director of the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) from 1980 to 1986.
Following the success of these four films, Benegal was backed by star Shashi Kapoor, for whom he made Junoon (1978) and Kalyug (1981). The former was an interracial love story set amidst the turbulent period of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, while the latter was based on the Mahabharata and was not a big hit, although both won Filmfare Best Movie Awards in 1980 and 1982, respectively.
Benegal's next film Mandi (1983), was a satirical comedy about politics and prostitution, starring Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil. Later, working from his own story, based on the last days of Portuguese in Goa, in the early 1960s, Shyam explored human relationships in Trikal (1985).
Soon, Shyam Benegal stepped beyond traditional narrative films and took to biographical material to achieve greater freedom of expression. His first venture in this genre was with a documentary film based on Satyajit Ray's life, Satyajit Ray, in 1985. This was followed by works such as Sardari Begum (1996) and Zubeidaa, which was written by filmmaker and critic Khalid Mohamed.
In 1985 he was a member of the jury at the 14th Moscow International Film Festival.
The 1990s and beyond
The 1990s saw Shyam Benegal making a trilogy on Indian Muslim women, starting with Mammo (1994), Sardari Begum (1996) and Zubeidaa (2001). With Zubeidaa, he entered mainstream Bollywood, as it starred top Bollywood star Karishma Kapoor and boasted music by A. R. Rahman.
In 1992, he made Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda (Seventh Horse of the Sun), based on a novel by Dharmavir Bharati, which won the 1993 National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi. In 1996 he made another film based on the book The Making of the Mahatma, based on Fatima Meer's, The Apprenticeship of a Mahatma. This turn to biographical material resulted in Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero, his 2005 English language film. He criticised the Indian caste system in Samar (1999), which went on to win the National Film Award for Best Feature Film.
Benegal is the current president of the Federation of Film Societies of India. He owns a production company called Sahyadri Films.
He has authored three books based on his own films: The Churning with Vijay Tendulkar (1984), based on Manthan; Satyajit Ray (1988), based on his biographical film, Satyajit Ray; and The Marketplace (1989), which was based on Mandi.
In 2009 he was a member of the jury at the 31st Moscow International Film Festival.
Recent projects
In 2008, his film Welcome to Sajjanpur, starring Shreyas Talpade and Amrita Rao, was released to a good response. Its music was composed by Shantanu Moitra, and it was produced by Chetan Motiwalla. Shyam Benegal is slated to direct an epic musical, Chamki Chameli, inspired by Georges Bizet's classic Spanish opera Carmen. The story revolves around the eponymous Chamki, a beautiful gypsy girl with a fiery temper and is written by Shama Zaidi. The music is by A. R. Rahman and lyrics are by Javed Akhtar.
In March 2010, Benegal released the political satire Well Done Abba.
One of Benegal's future projects is a film based on the life of Noor Inayat Khan, daughter of Inayat Khan and descendant of Tipu Sultan, who served as a British spy during World War II.
Benegal made a comeback on the small screen with Samvidhaan, a 10-part mini-series revolving around the making of the Indian Constitution, to be aired on Rajya Sabha TV from 2 March 2014. Along with Benegal, Tom Alter, Dalip Tahil, Sachin Khedekar, Divya Dutta, Rajendra Gupta, K K Raina, and Ila Arun were seen at the press conference for the TV series.
Government of Bangladesh has confirmed Benegal would direct the biopic of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The film will be released presumably by 2021.
Personal life
Shyam Benegal is married to Nira Benegal and has a daughter, Pia.
Filmography
Awards and nominations
Non Feature Films
1984 Best Historical Reconstruction for Nehru
1985 Best Biographical Film for Satyajit Ray
Feature Films
1986 Best Director for Trikal
1993 Best Feature Film in Hindi for Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda
1995 Best Feature Film in Hindi for Mammo
1996 Best Feature Film in English for The Making of the Mahatma
1997 Best Feature Film in Urdu for Sardari Begum
1999 Best Feature Film for Samar
1999 Best Feature Film on Family Welfare for Hari-Bhari
2001 Best Feature Film in Hindi for Zubeidaa
2005 Nargis Dutt Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration for Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero
Best Film on Other Social Issues for Well Done Abba
Filmfare Awards
1980 Best Director for Junoon
Cannes Film Festival
1976: Golden Palm: Nishant: Nominated
Berlin International Film Festival
1974 Golden Berlin Bear for Ankur: Nominated
Moscow International Film Festival
1981 Golden Prize: Kalyug
1997 Golden St. George: Sardari Begum: Nominated
All Lights India International Film Festival
2015 Lifetime Achievement Award
Nandi Awards
B. N. Reddy National Award for contribution to Indian Cinema
Honours
1970 Homi Bhabha Fellowship (1970–72)
1976 Padma Shri
1989 Sovietland Nehru Award
1991 Padma Bhushan
2012 D. Litt. Honoris Causa of the University of Calcutta
2013 ANR National Award
2016 D. Litt. "Honoris Causa" of ITM University, Gwalior (M.P.)
Bibliography
Benegal on Ray: Satyajit Ray, a Film, by Shyam Benegal, Alaknanda Datta, Samik Banerjee. Seagull Books, 1988. .
Shyam Benegal's the Churning (Manthan): Screenplay, by, Vijay Tendulkar, Shyam Benegal, Samik Banerjee. Seagull Books, 1984. .
References
Further reading
Shyam Benegal (BFI World Directors) - Sangeeta Datta. 2003, British Film Institute. .
Bollywood Babylon: Interviews with Shyam Benegal, William van der Heide. 2006, Berg Publishers. .
BBC's Tom Brook interviews Shyam Benegal on 25 August 2006
Girish Karnad interviews Shyam Benegal, National Film Theatre, 2002
Sen, Meheli (2011) "Vernacular Modernities and Fitful Globalities in Shyam Benegal's Cinematic Provinces" on manycinemas.org 1, 8-22, Online, pdf-version
New Indian Cinema in Post-Independence India; The Cultural Work of Shyam Benegal’s Films, By Anuradha Dingwaney Needham, 2013
Shyam Benegal, Philosopher and Filmmaker, By Samir Chopra, 2021.
External links
Shyam Benegal's Retrospective Abu Dhabi Sept27-30,2012 by Indian Film Society of UAE
'Shyam Benegal: A Life in Pictures' interview at BAFTA
Shyam Benegal on Upperstall
Awards & recognition for Shyam Benegal's films
Osmania University alumni
20th-century Indian film directors
Indian male screenwriters
Recipients of the Padma Shri in arts
Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in arts
Hindi-language film directors
Indian documentary filmmakers
Filmfare Awards winners
Nominated members of the Rajya Sabha
Dadasaheb Phalke Award recipients
Film directors from Hyderabad, India
1934 births
Living people
Best Director National Film Award winners
21st-century Indian film directors
Best Original Screenplay National Film Award winners
Special Jury Award (feature film) National Film Award winners
Producers who won the Best Feature Film National Film Award
Directors who won the Best Feature Film National Film Award
Directors who won the Best Film on Family Welfare National Film Award
Directors who won the Best Film on National Integration National Film Award
Directors who won the Best Film on Other Social Issues National Film Award | true | [
"Pyramix is the first remix album and sixth album by rapper/DJ, Egyptian Lover. The album was released in 1993 for Egyptian Empire Records and was produced by The Egyptian Lover himself. The album was both a commercial and critical failure and did not make it to any billboard charts or feature any hit singles.\n\nTrack listing\n\"Pyramix\" – 1:56\n\"Dance\" – 1:53\n\"The Lover\" – 5:26\n\"I Want Cha\" – 2:19\n\"Computer Power (Version II)\" – 5:25\n\"Kinky Nation (Kingdom Kum)\" – 2:34\n\"Egypt, Egypt\" – 6:44\n\"Planet E (Remix)\" – 7:04\n\"Egypt's Revenge (Mega Mix)\" – 5:27\n\"Get High, Get X'D, Get Drunk, Get Sex'd\" – 5:48\n\nReferences\n\nEgyptian Lover albums\nAlbums produced by Egyptian Lover\n1993 remix albums",
"Active Pensionists (Danish: Aktive Pensionister) was a political party in Denmark.\n\nHistory\nActive Pensionists was established in 1997. The party ran in 2001 in Copenhagen (507 votes), Frederikshavn (212 votes) and Skagen Municipality (19 votes). They did not get any municipal seats.\n\nIn 2005, Active Pensionists ran in Greve Municipality (43 votes), Vejle Municipality (158 votes), Fredericia Municipality (679) and Copenhagen Municipality (232 votes). They did not manage to get any municipal seats.\n\nThe party has not run for municipal elections since 2005, and is assumedly dissolved.\n\nElection results\n\nMunicipal elections\n\nReferences\n\nPolitical parties in Denmark\nPensioners' parties\n1997 establishments in Denmark\nPolitical parties established in 1997\nDefunct political parties in Denmark"
] |
[
"Shyam Benegal",
"Feature films",
"What films did he create?",
"Ankur (The Seedling)",
"Did it get any awards?",
"won the 1975 National Film Award for Second Best Feature Film."
] | C_b5f02086c6144702a8dc4e6ab4bdf04e_1 | what was the film about? | 3 | what was Ankur (The Seedling) about? | Shyam Benegal | After returning to Mumbai, he received independent financing and Ankur (The Seedling) was finally made in 1973. It was a story of economic and sexual exploitation in his home state, Telangana, and Benegal instantly shot to fame. The film introduced actors Shabana Azmi and Anant Nag and Benegal won the 1975 National Film Award for Second Best Feature Film. Shabana won the National Film Award for Best Actress. The success that New India Cinema enjoyed in the 1970s and early 1980s could largely be attributed to Shyam Benegal's quartet: Ankur (1973), Nishant (1975), Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977). Benegal used a variety of new actors, mainly from the FTII and NSD, such as Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, Kulbhushan Kharbanda and Amrish Puri. In Benegal's next film, Nishant (Night's End) (1975), a teacher's wife is abducted and gang-raped by four zamindars; officialdom turns a deaf ear to the distraught husband's pleas for help. Manthan (The Churning) (1976) is a film on rural empowerment and is set against the backdrop of Gujarat's fledgling dairy industry. For the first time, over five lakh (half a million) rural farmers in Gujarat contributed Rs 2 each and thus became the film's producers. Upon its release, truckloads of farmers came to see "their" film, making it a success at the box office. After this trilogy on rural oppression, Benegal made a biopic Bhumika (The Role) (1977), broadly based on the life of well-known Marathi stage and film actress of the 1940s, Hansa Wadkar (played by Smita Patil), who led a flamboyant and unconventional life. The main character sets out on an individual search for identity and self-fulfillment, while also grappling with exploitation by men. In the early 1970s, Shyam made 21 film modules for Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE), sponsored by UNICEF. This allowed him to interact with children of SITE and many folk artists. Eventually he used many of these children in his feature length rendition of the classic folk tale Charandas Chor (Charandas the Thief) in 1975. He made it for the Children's Film Society, India. To quote film critic Derek Malcolm: what Benegal has done is to paint a magnificent visual recreation of those extraordinary days and one that is also sensitive to the agonies and predicament of a talented woman whose need for security was only matched by her insistence on freedom. CANNOTANSWER | It was a story of economic and sexual exploitation in his home state, | Shyam Benegal (born 14 December 1934) is an Indian film director, screenwriter and documentary filmmaker. Often regarded as the pioneer of parallel cinema, He is widely considered as one of the greatest filmmakers post 1970s. He has received several accolades, including eighteen National Film Awards, a Filmfare Award and a Nandi Award. In 2005, he was honoured with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, India's highest award in the field of cinema. In 1976, he was honoured by the Government of India with the Padma Shri, the fourth-highest civilian honour of the country, and in 1991, he was awarded Padma Bhushan, the third-highes civilian honour for his contributions in the field of arts.
Benegal was born in Hyderabad to Sridhar B. Benegal who was prominent in the field of photography. Starting his career as a copywriter, he made his first Documentary film in Gujarati, Gher Betha Ganga (Ganges at the Doorstep) in 1962. Benegal's first four feature films Ankur (1973), Nishant (1975), Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977) made him a pioneer of the new wave film movement of that period. Benegal's films, Mammo (1994), along with Sardari Begum (1996) and Zubeidaa (2001) all of which won National Film Awards for Best Feature Film, form the Muslim women Trilogy. Benegal has won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi seven times. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1976, the Padma Bhushan in 1991, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for the year 2005 and the V. Shantaram Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.
Early life and education
Shyam Benegal was born on 14 December 1934 in Hyderabad, as Shyam Sunder Benegal. When he was twelve years old, he made his first film, on a camera given to him by his photographer father Sridhar B. Benegal. He received an M.A. in Economics from Osmania University, Hyderabad. There he formed the Hyderabad Film Society.
Family
Film director and actor Guru Dutt's maternal grandmother and Shyam's paternal grandmother were sisters, thus making Dutt and Shyam second cousins.
Career
Early career
In 1959, he started working as a copywriter at a Mumbai-based advertising agency, Lintas Advertising, where he steadily rose to become a creative head. Meanwhile, Benegal made his first documentary in Gujarati, Gher Betha Ganga (Ganges at the Doorstep) in 1962. His first feature film had to wait another decade while he worked on the script.
In 1963 he had a brief stint with another advertising agency called ASP (Advertising, Sales and Promotion). During his advertising years, he directed over 900 sponsored documentaries and advertising films.
Between 1966 and 1973, Shyam taught at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, and twice served as the institute's chairman: 1980–83 and 1989–92. By this time he had already started making documentaries. One of his early documentaries A Child of the Streets (1967), garnered him wide acclaim. In all, he has made over 70 documentary and short films.
He was awarded the Homi J. Bhabha Fellowship (1970–72) which allowed him to work at the Children's Television Workshop, New York, and later at Boston's WGBH-TV.
Feature films
After returning to Mumbai, he received independent financing and Ankur (The Seedling) was finally made in 1973. It was a story of economic and sexual exploitation in his home state, Telangana, and Benegal instantly shot to fame. The film introduced actors Shabana Azmi and Anant Nag and Benegal won the 1975 National Film Award for Second Best Feature Film. Shabana won the National Film Award for Best Actress.
The success that New India Cinema enjoyed in the 1970s and early 1980s could largely be attributed to Shyam Benegal's quartet: Ankur (1973), Nishant (1975), Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977). Benegal used a variety of new actors, mainly from the FTII and NSD, such as Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, Kulbhushan Kharbanda and Amrish Puri.
In Benegal's next film, Nishant (Night's End) (1975), a teacher's wife is abducted and gang-raped by four zamindars; officialdom turns a deaf ear to the distraught husband's pleas for help. Manthan (The Churning) (1976) is a film on rural empowerment and is set against the backdrop of Gujarat's fledgling dairy industry. For the first time, over five lakh (half a million) rural farmers in Gujarat contributed 2 each and thus became the film's producers. Upon its release, truckloads of farmers came to see "their" film, making it a success at the box office. After this trilogy on rural oppression, Benegal made a biopic Bhumika (The Role) (1977), broadly based on the life of well-known Marathi stage and film actress of the 1940s, Hansa Wadkar (played by Smita Patil), who led a flamboyant and unconventional life. The main character sets out on an individual search for identity and self-fulfilment, while also grappling with exploitation by men.
In the early 1970s, Shyam made 21 film modules for Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE), sponsored by UNICEF. This allowed him to interact with children of SITE and many folk artists. Eventually he used many of these children in his feature length rendition of the classic folk tale Charandas Chor (Charandas the Thief) in 1975. He made it for the Children's Film Society, India.
To quote film critic Derek Malcolm:
what Benegal has done is to paint a magnificent visual recreation of those extraordinary days and one that is also sensitive to the agonies and predicament of a talented woman whose need for security was only matched by her insistence on freedom.
The 1980s
Unlike most New Cinema filmmakers, Benegal has had private backers for many of his films and institutional backing for a few, including Manthan ( Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation ) and Susman (1987) (Handloom Co-operatives). However, his films did not have proper releases. He turned to TV where he directed serials such as Yatra (1986), for the Indian Railways, and one of the biggest projects undertaken on Indian television, the 53-episode television serial Bharat Ek Khoj (1988) based on Jawaharlal Nehru's book, Discovery of India. This gave him an added advantage, as he managed to survive the collapse of the New Cinema movement in the late 1980s due to paucity of funding, with which were lost many neo-realist filmmakers. Benegal continued making films throughout the next two decades. He also served as the Director of the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) from 1980 to 1986.
Following the success of these four films, Benegal was backed by star Shashi Kapoor, for whom he made Junoon (1978) and Kalyug (1981). The former was an interracial love story set amidst the turbulent period of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, while the latter was based on the Mahabharata and was not a big hit, although both won Filmfare Best Movie Awards in 1980 and 1982, respectively.
Benegal's next film Mandi (1983), was a satirical comedy about politics and prostitution, starring Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil. Later, working from his own story, based on the last days of Portuguese in Goa, in the early 1960s, Shyam explored human relationships in Trikal (1985).
Soon, Shyam Benegal stepped beyond traditional narrative films and took to biographical material to achieve greater freedom of expression. His first venture in this genre was with a documentary film based on Satyajit Ray's life, Satyajit Ray, in 1985. This was followed by works such as Sardari Begum (1996) and Zubeidaa, which was written by filmmaker and critic Khalid Mohamed.
In 1985 he was a member of the jury at the 14th Moscow International Film Festival.
The 1990s and beyond
The 1990s saw Shyam Benegal making a trilogy on Indian Muslim women, starting with Mammo (1994), Sardari Begum (1996) and Zubeidaa (2001). With Zubeidaa, he entered mainstream Bollywood, as it starred top Bollywood star Karishma Kapoor and boasted music by A. R. Rahman.
In 1992, he made Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda (Seventh Horse of the Sun), based on a novel by Dharmavir Bharati, which won the 1993 National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi. In 1996 he made another film based on the book The Making of the Mahatma, based on Fatima Meer's, The Apprenticeship of a Mahatma. This turn to biographical material resulted in Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero, his 2005 English language film. He criticised the Indian caste system in Samar (1999), which went on to win the National Film Award for Best Feature Film.
Benegal is the current president of the Federation of Film Societies of India. He owns a production company called Sahyadri Films.
He has authored three books based on his own films: The Churning with Vijay Tendulkar (1984), based on Manthan; Satyajit Ray (1988), based on his biographical film, Satyajit Ray; and The Marketplace (1989), which was based on Mandi.
In 2009 he was a member of the jury at the 31st Moscow International Film Festival.
Recent projects
In 2008, his film Welcome to Sajjanpur, starring Shreyas Talpade and Amrita Rao, was released to a good response. Its music was composed by Shantanu Moitra, and it was produced by Chetan Motiwalla. Shyam Benegal is slated to direct an epic musical, Chamki Chameli, inspired by Georges Bizet's classic Spanish opera Carmen. The story revolves around the eponymous Chamki, a beautiful gypsy girl with a fiery temper and is written by Shama Zaidi. The music is by A. R. Rahman and lyrics are by Javed Akhtar.
In March 2010, Benegal released the political satire Well Done Abba.
One of Benegal's future projects is a film based on the life of Noor Inayat Khan, daughter of Inayat Khan and descendant of Tipu Sultan, who served as a British spy during World War II.
Benegal made a comeback on the small screen with Samvidhaan, a 10-part mini-series revolving around the making of the Indian Constitution, to be aired on Rajya Sabha TV from 2 March 2014. Along with Benegal, Tom Alter, Dalip Tahil, Sachin Khedekar, Divya Dutta, Rajendra Gupta, K K Raina, and Ila Arun were seen at the press conference for the TV series.
Government of Bangladesh has confirmed Benegal would direct the biopic of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The film will be released presumably by 2021.
Personal life
Shyam Benegal is married to Nira Benegal and has a daughter, Pia.
Filmography
Awards and nominations
Non Feature Films
1984 Best Historical Reconstruction for Nehru
1985 Best Biographical Film for Satyajit Ray
Feature Films
1986 Best Director for Trikal
1993 Best Feature Film in Hindi for Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda
1995 Best Feature Film in Hindi for Mammo
1996 Best Feature Film in English for The Making of the Mahatma
1997 Best Feature Film in Urdu for Sardari Begum
1999 Best Feature Film for Samar
1999 Best Feature Film on Family Welfare for Hari-Bhari
2001 Best Feature Film in Hindi for Zubeidaa
2005 Nargis Dutt Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration for Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero
Best Film on Other Social Issues for Well Done Abba
Filmfare Awards
1980 Best Director for Junoon
Cannes Film Festival
1976: Golden Palm: Nishant: Nominated
Berlin International Film Festival
1974 Golden Berlin Bear for Ankur: Nominated
Moscow International Film Festival
1981 Golden Prize: Kalyug
1997 Golden St. George: Sardari Begum: Nominated
All Lights India International Film Festival
2015 Lifetime Achievement Award
Nandi Awards
B. N. Reddy National Award for contribution to Indian Cinema
Honours
1970 Homi Bhabha Fellowship (1970–72)
1976 Padma Shri
1989 Sovietland Nehru Award
1991 Padma Bhushan
2012 D. Litt. Honoris Causa of the University of Calcutta
2013 ANR National Award
2016 D. Litt. "Honoris Causa" of ITM University, Gwalior (M.P.)
Bibliography
Benegal on Ray: Satyajit Ray, a Film, by Shyam Benegal, Alaknanda Datta, Samik Banerjee. Seagull Books, 1988. .
Shyam Benegal's the Churning (Manthan): Screenplay, by, Vijay Tendulkar, Shyam Benegal, Samik Banerjee. Seagull Books, 1984. .
References
Further reading
Shyam Benegal (BFI World Directors) - Sangeeta Datta. 2003, British Film Institute. .
Bollywood Babylon: Interviews with Shyam Benegal, William van der Heide. 2006, Berg Publishers. .
BBC's Tom Brook interviews Shyam Benegal on 25 August 2006
Girish Karnad interviews Shyam Benegal, National Film Theatre, 2002
Sen, Meheli (2011) "Vernacular Modernities and Fitful Globalities in Shyam Benegal's Cinematic Provinces" on manycinemas.org 1, 8-22, Online, pdf-version
New Indian Cinema in Post-Independence India; The Cultural Work of Shyam Benegal’s Films, By Anuradha Dingwaney Needham, 2013
Shyam Benegal, Philosopher and Filmmaker, By Samir Chopra, 2021.
External links
Shyam Benegal's Retrospective Abu Dhabi Sept27-30,2012 by Indian Film Society of UAE
'Shyam Benegal: A Life in Pictures' interview at BAFTA
Shyam Benegal on Upperstall
Awards & recognition for Shyam Benegal's films
Osmania University alumni
20th-century Indian film directors
Indian male screenwriters
Recipients of the Padma Shri in arts
Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in arts
Hindi-language film directors
Indian documentary filmmakers
Filmfare Awards winners
Nominated members of the Rajya Sabha
Dadasaheb Phalke Award recipients
Film directors from Hyderabad, India
1934 births
Living people
Best Director National Film Award winners
21st-century Indian film directors
Best Original Screenplay National Film Award winners
Special Jury Award (feature film) National Film Award winners
Producers who won the Best Feature Film National Film Award
Directors who won the Best Feature Film National Film Award
Directors who won the Best Film on Family Welfare National Film Award
Directors who won the Best Film on National Integration National Film Award
Directors who won the Best Film on Other Social Issues National Film Award | true | [
"So, What's Your Price? () is a 2007 documentary directed by Olallo Rubio about media, power, and the consumer culture in Mexico and United States. It debuted in Mexico on May 18, 2007, and had several screenings on the United States, the DVD version was released on October 16, 2007.\n\nProduction\nOriginally, the idea was that Olallo Rubio direct a documentary, so it could be sold as a straight to DVD film, while the money earned would go to the finance of This Is Not A Movie, another project of Olallo. Eventually, the project got bigger and it was called So, What's Your Price, using the budget of $100,000. The film was shot in the streets of New York and Mexico City. The film was first screened at a film festival in Guadalajara. In April 2007, it was announced that the film was going to be released May 18, 2007 in Mexico City. The film enjoyed positive reviews, so it was released in different places in Mexico. In July 2007, it was screened in New York with very positive reviews, and in October 2007 it was released on DVD.\n\nPlot\nThe film is about the differences between the United States and Mexico, with different opinions by people on the street, or sellers. It talks about drugs, money, the human body, the price of living, and how people see each other.\n\nRelease\nOn October 16, 2007 the DVD was released in a 2-disc special edition, with several extras, which included, two audio commentaries by the director, one in Spanish and one in English, the making of documentary called A Film For Sale, a podcast that includes fragments of interviews on the radio with the director, an interview with Stephen A. Bezruchka, the trailers, and a photo gallery.\n\nExternal links\n \n\nDocumentary films about consumerism\nMexican documentary films\n2007 films\n2007 documentary films\n2000s English-language films\n2000s Spanish-language films\nMexican films",
"Patrick Douglas Selmes Jackson (26 March 1916 – 3 June 2011) was an English film and television director.\n\nBiography\n\nBorn in Eltham, to a formerly affluent family which was severely affected by the Wall Street Crash in 1929, and his father's long-term illness and early death ending Jackson's formal education. He joined the GPO Film Unit on his 17th birthday as a messenger boy after his mother persuaded her MP, Sir Kingsley Wood, then also postmaster general, to find work for her son. Rising to production assistant, he was part of the crew for the short film Night Mail (1936). The voice narrating the poem by W.H. Auden (\"This is the Night Mail crossing the border, bringing the cheque and the postal order.\") was Jackson himself. He directed a number of documentaries, the first being The Horsey Mail (1938) about the rural postal service in Suffolk. The First Days (1939), co-directed by Harry Watt and Humphrey Jennings, was the first of the wartime documentaries, in this instance concerned with the 'Phoney War' period.\n\nJackson's debut feature film was Western Approaches (1944), a semi-documentary war film for what was now the Ministry of Information's Crown Film Unit. For what became a three-year project, Jackson took on the writing, direction, editing and casting (of non-professional actors) a film about merchant seamen. Featuring an extended period on location at sea, the lifeboat sequences alone took six-months to complete.\n\nAfter the war, Jackson spent three years in Hollywood under contract to MGM, although the only film he directed during this period was Shadow on the Wall (1950), based on the novel Death in the Doll's House by Lawrence P. Bachmann and Hannah Leessuch. His film Encore (1951) was in competition at the 1952 Cannes Film Festival . White Corridors (1951), a semi-documentary drama about a hospital in the regions, was critically well received at the time. What a Carve Up! (1961), a film in the old dark house genre, was the most commercially successful of Jackson's later feature films.\n\nJackson worked in television during the 1960s and 1970s. Impressed by the stage work of Patrick McGoohan, he seems to have been involved in casting him for Danger Man (US:Secret Agent), episodes of which he directed. Apart from McGoohan's The Prisoner (1967), he was also involved with episodes of The Saint and The Professionals.\n\nJackson died on 3 June 2011 aged 95.\n\nFilms and television series\n\nWestern Approaches (documentary feature, 1944)\nWhite Corridors (1951)\nEncore! (1951)\nThe Feminine Touch (1956)\nThe Birthday Present (1957)\nVirgin Island (US Our Virgin Island, 1958)\nSeven Keys (1961)\nWhat a Carve Up! (1961)\nDon't Talk to Strange Men (1962)\nSeventy Deadly Pills (1964)\nThe Prisoner (4 episodes; 1967–1968)\nThe Famous Five (2 episodes; 1978)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1916 births\n2011 deaths\nEnglish film directors\nPeople from Eltham\nPeople educated at Bryanston School"
] |
[
"Shyam Benegal",
"Feature films",
"What films did he create?",
"Ankur (The Seedling)",
"Did it get any awards?",
"won the 1975 National Film Award for Second Best Feature Film.",
"what was the film about?",
"It was a story of economic and sexual exploitation in his home state,"
] | C_b5f02086c6144702a8dc4e6ab4bdf04e_1 | Were there any other films he released? | 4 | Were there any other films Shyam Benegal released besides Ankur (The Seedling)? | Shyam Benegal | After returning to Mumbai, he received independent financing and Ankur (The Seedling) was finally made in 1973. It was a story of economic and sexual exploitation in his home state, Telangana, and Benegal instantly shot to fame. The film introduced actors Shabana Azmi and Anant Nag and Benegal won the 1975 National Film Award for Second Best Feature Film. Shabana won the National Film Award for Best Actress. The success that New India Cinema enjoyed in the 1970s and early 1980s could largely be attributed to Shyam Benegal's quartet: Ankur (1973), Nishant (1975), Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977). Benegal used a variety of new actors, mainly from the FTII and NSD, such as Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, Kulbhushan Kharbanda and Amrish Puri. In Benegal's next film, Nishant (Night's End) (1975), a teacher's wife is abducted and gang-raped by four zamindars; officialdom turns a deaf ear to the distraught husband's pleas for help. Manthan (The Churning) (1976) is a film on rural empowerment and is set against the backdrop of Gujarat's fledgling dairy industry. For the first time, over five lakh (half a million) rural farmers in Gujarat contributed Rs 2 each and thus became the film's producers. Upon its release, truckloads of farmers came to see "their" film, making it a success at the box office. After this trilogy on rural oppression, Benegal made a biopic Bhumika (The Role) (1977), broadly based on the life of well-known Marathi stage and film actress of the 1940s, Hansa Wadkar (played by Smita Patil), who led a flamboyant and unconventional life. The main character sets out on an individual search for identity and self-fulfillment, while also grappling with exploitation by men. In the early 1970s, Shyam made 21 film modules for Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE), sponsored by UNICEF. This allowed him to interact with children of SITE and many folk artists. Eventually he used many of these children in his feature length rendition of the classic folk tale Charandas Chor (Charandas the Thief) in 1975. He made it for the Children's Film Society, India. To quote film critic Derek Malcolm: what Benegal has done is to paint a magnificent visual recreation of those extraordinary days and one that is also sensitive to the agonies and predicament of a talented woman whose need for security was only matched by her insistence on freedom. CANNOTANSWER | ), Nishant (1975), Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977). | Shyam Benegal (born 14 December 1934) is an Indian film director, screenwriter and documentary filmmaker. Often regarded as the pioneer of parallel cinema, He is widely considered as one of the greatest filmmakers post 1970s. He has received several accolades, including eighteen National Film Awards, a Filmfare Award and a Nandi Award. In 2005, he was honoured with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, India's highest award in the field of cinema. In 1976, he was honoured by the Government of India with the Padma Shri, the fourth-highest civilian honour of the country, and in 1991, he was awarded Padma Bhushan, the third-highes civilian honour for his contributions in the field of arts.
Benegal was born in Hyderabad to Sridhar B. Benegal who was prominent in the field of photography. Starting his career as a copywriter, he made his first Documentary film in Gujarati, Gher Betha Ganga (Ganges at the Doorstep) in 1962. Benegal's first four feature films Ankur (1973), Nishant (1975), Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977) made him a pioneer of the new wave film movement of that period. Benegal's films, Mammo (1994), along with Sardari Begum (1996) and Zubeidaa (2001) all of which won National Film Awards for Best Feature Film, form the Muslim women Trilogy. Benegal has won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi seven times. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1976, the Padma Bhushan in 1991, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for the year 2005 and the V. Shantaram Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.
Early life and education
Shyam Benegal was born on 14 December 1934 in Hyderabad, as Shyam Sunder Benegal. When he was twelve years old, he made his first film, on a camera given to him by his photographer father Sridhar B. Benegal. He received an M.A. in Economics from Osmania University, Hyderabad. There he formed the Hyderabad Film Society.
Family
Film director and actor Guru Dutt's maternal grandmother and Shyam's paternal grandmother were sisters, thus making Dutt and Shyam second cousins.
Career
Early career
In 1959, he started working as a copywriter at a Mumbai-based advertising agency, Lintas Advertising, where he steadily rose to become a creative head. Meanwhile, Benegal made his first documentary in Gujarati, Gher Betha Ganga (Ganges at the Doorstep) in 1962. His first feature film had to wait another decade while he worked on the script.
In 1963 he had a brief stint with another advertising agency called ASP (Advertising, Sales and Promotion). During his advertising years, he directed over 900 sponsored documentaries and advertising films.
Between 1966 and 1973, Shyam taught at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, and twice served as the institute's chairman: 1980–83 and 1989–92. By this time he had already started making documentaries. One of his early documentaries A Child of the Streets (1967), garnered him wide acclaim. In all, he has made over 70 documentary and short films.
He was awarded the Homi J. Bhabha Fellowship (1970–72) which allowed him to work at the Children's Television Workshop, New York, and later at Boston's WGBH-TV.
Feature films
After returning to Mumbai, he received independent financing and Ankur (The Seedling) was finally made in 1973. It was a story of economic and sexual exploitation in his home state, Telangana, and Benegal instantly shot to fame. The film introduced actors Shabana Azmi and Anant Nag and Benegal won the 1975 National Film Award for Second Best Feature Film. Shabana won the National Film Award for Best Actress.
The success that New India Cinema enjoyed in the 1970s and early 1980s could largely be attributed to Shyam Benegal's quartet: Ankur (1973), Nishant (1975), Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977). Benegal used a variety of new actors, mainly from the FTII and NSD, such as Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, Kulbhushan Kharbanda and Amrish Puri.
In Benegal's next film, Nishant (Night's End) (1975), a teacher's wife is abducted and gang-raped by four zamindars; officialdom turns a deaf ear to the distraught husband's pleas for help. Manthan (The Churning) (1976) is a film on rural empowerment and is set against the backdrop of Gujarat's fledgling dairy industry. For the first time, over five lakh (half a million) rural farmers in Gujarat contributed 2 each and thus became the film's producers. Upon its release, truckloads of farmers came to see "their" film, making it a success at the box office. After this trilogy on rural oppression, Benegal made a biopic Bhumika (The Role) (1977), broadly based on the life of well-known Marathi stage and film actress of the 1940s, Hansa Wadkar (played by Smita Patil), who led a flamboyant and unconventional life. The main character sets out on an individual search for identity and self-fulfilment, while also grappling with exploitation by men.
In the early 1970s, Shyam made 21 film modules for Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE), sponsored by UNICEF. This allowed him to interact with children of SITE and many folk artists. Eventually he used many of these children in his feature length rendition of the classic folk tale Charandas Chor (Charandas the Thief) in 1975. He made it for the Children's Film Society, India.
To quote film critic Derek Malcolm:
what Benegal has done is to paint a magnificent visual recreation of those extraordinary days and one that is also sensitive to the agonies and predicament of a talented woman whose need for security was only matched by her insistence on freedom.
The 1980s
Unlike most New Cinema filmmakers, Benegal has had private backers for many of his films and institutional backing for a few, including Manthan ( Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation ) and Susman (1987) (Handloom Co-operatives). However, his films did not have proper releases. He turned to TV where he directed serials such as Yatra (1986), for the Indian Railways, and one of the biggest projects undertaken on Indian television, the 53-episode television serial Bharat Ek Khoj (1988) based on Jawaharlal Nehru's book, Discovery of India. This gave him an added advantage, as he managed to survive the collapse of the New Cinema movement in the late 1980s due to paucity of funding, with which were lost many neo-realist filmmakers. Benegal continued making films throughout the next two decades. He also served as the Director of the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) from 1980 to 1986.
Following the success of these four films, Benegal was backed by star Shashi Kapoor, for whom he made Junoon (1978) and Kalyug (1981). The former was an interracial love story set amidst the turbulent period of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, while the latter was based on the Mahabharata and was not a big hit, although both won Filmfare Best Movie Awards in 1980 and 1982, respectively.
Benegal's next film Mandi (1983), was a satirical comedy about politics and prostitution, starring Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil. Later, working from his own story, based on the last days of Portuguese in Goa, in the early 1960s, Shyam explored human relationships in Trikal (1985).
Soon, Shyam Benegal stepped beyond traditional narrative films and took to biographical material to achieve greater freedom of expression. His first venture in this genre was with a documentary film based on Satyajit Ray's life, Satyajit Ray, in 1985. This was followed by works such as Sardari Begum (1996) and Zubeidaa, which was written by filmmaker and critic Khalid Mohamed.
In 1985 he was a member of the jury at the 14th Moscow International Film Festival.
The 1990s and beyond
The 1990s saw Shyam Benegal making a trilogy on Indian Muslim women, starting with Mammo (1994), Sardari Begum (1996) and Zubeidaa (2001). With Zubeidaa, he entered mainstream Bollywood, as it starred top Bollywood star Karishma Kapoor and boasted music by A. R. Rahman.
In 1992, he made Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda (Seventh Horse of the Sun), based on a novel by Dharmavir Bharati, which won the 1993 National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi. In 1996 he made another film based on the book The Making of the Mahatma, based on Fatima Meer's, The Apprenticeship of a Mahatma. This turn to biographical material resulted in Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero, his 2005 English language film. He criticised the Indian caste system in Samar (1999), which went on to win the National Film Award for Best Feature Film.
Benegal is the current president of the Federation of Film Societies of India. He owns a production company called Sahyadri Films.
He has authored three books based on his own films: The Churning with Vijay Tendulkar (1984), based on Manthan; Satyajit Ray (1988), based on his biographical film, Satyajit Ray; and The Marketplace (1989), which was based on Mandi.
In 2009 he was a member of the jury at the 31st Moscow International Film Festival.
Recent projects
In 2008, his film Welcome to Sajjanpur, starring Shreyas Talpade and Amrita Rao, was released to a good response. Its music was composed by Shantanu Moitra, and it was produced by Chetan Motiwalla. Shyam Benegal is slated to direct an epic musical, Chamki Chameli, inspired by Georges Bizet's classic Spanish opera Carmen. The story revolves around the eponymous Chamki, a beautiful gypsy girl with a fiery temper and is written by Shama Zaidi. The music is by A. R. Rahman and lyrics are by Javed Akhtar.
In March 2010, Benegal released the political satire Well Done Abba.
One of Benegal's future projects is a film based on the life of Noor Inayat Khan, daughter of Inayat Khan and descendant of Tipu Sultan, who served as a British spy during World War II.
Benegal made a comeback on the small screen with Samvidhaan, a 10-part mini-series revolving around the making of the Indian Constitution, to be aired on Rajya Sabha TV from 2 March 2014. Along with Benegal, Tom Alter, Dalip Tahil, Sachin Khedekar, Divya Dutta, Rajendra Gupta, K K Raina, and Ila Arun were seen at the press conference for the TV series.
Government of Bangladesh has confirmed Benegal would direct the biopic of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The film will be released presumably by 2021.
Personal life
Shyam Benegal is married to Nira Benegal and has a daughter, Pia.
Filmography
Awards and nominations
Non Feature Films
1984 Best Historical Reconstruction for Nehru
1985 Best Biographical Film for Satyajit Ray
Feature Films
1986 Best Director for Trikal
1993 Best Feature Film in Hindi for Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda
1995 Best Feature Film in Hindi for Mammo
1996 Best Feature Film in English for The Making of the Mahatma
1997 Best Feature Film in Urdu for Sardari Begum
1999 Best Feature Film for Samar
1999 Best Feature Film on Family Welfare for Hari-Bhari
2001 Best Feature Film in Hindi for Zubeidaa
2005 Nargis Dutt Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration for Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero
Best Film on Other Social Issues for Well Done Abba
Filmfare Awards
1980 Best Director for Junoon
Cannes Film Festival
1976: Golden Palm: Nishant: Nominated
Berlin International Film Festival
1974 Golden Berlin Bear for Ankur: Nominated
Moscow International Film Festival
1981 Golden Prize: Kalyug
1997 Golden St. George: Sardari Begum: Nominated
All Lights India International Film Festival
2015 Lifetime Achievement Award
Nandi Awards
B. N. Reddy National Award for contribution to Indian Cinema
Honours
1970 Homi Bhabha Fellowship (1970–72)
1976 Padma Shri
1989 Sovietland Nehru Award
1991 Padma Bhushan
2012 D. Litt. Honoris Causa of the University of Calcutta
2013 ANR National Award
2016 D. Litt. "Honoris Causa" of ITM University, Gwalior (M.P.)
Bibliography
Benegal on Ray: Satyajit Ray, a Film, by Shyam Benegal, Alaknanda Datta, Samik Banerjee. Seagull Books, 1988. .
Shyam Benegal's the Churning (Manthan): Screenplay, by, Vijay Tendulkar, Shyam Benegal, Samik Banerjee. Seagull Books, 1984. .
References
Further reading
Shyam Benegal (BFI World Directors) - Sangeeta Datta. 2003, British Film Institute. .
Bollywood Babylon: Interviews with Shyam Benegal, William van der Heide. 2006, Berg Publishers. .
BBC's Tom Brook interviews Shyam Benegal on 25 August 2006
Girish Karnad interviews Shyam Benegal, National Film Theatre, 2002
Sen, Meheli (2011) "Vernacular Modernities and Fitful Globalities in Shyam Benegal's Cinematic Provinces" on manycinemas.org 1, 8-22, Online, pdf-version
New Indian Cinema in Post-Independence India; The Cultural Work of Shyam Benegal’s Films, By Anuradha Dingwaney Needham, 2013
Shyam Benegal, Philosopher and Filmmaker, By Samir Chopra, 2021.
External links
Shyam Benegal's Retrospective Abu Dhabi Sept27-30,2012 by Indian Film Society of UAE
'Shyam Benegal: A Life in Pictures' interview at BAFTA
Shyam Benegal on Upperstall
Awards & recognition for Shyam Benegal's films
Osmania University alumni
20th-century Indian film directors
Indian male screenwriters
Recipients of the Padma Shri in arts
Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in arts
Hindi-language film directors
Indian documentary filmmakers
Filmfare Awards winners
Nominated members of the Rajya Sabha
Dadasaheb Phalke Award recipients
Film directors from Hyderabad, India
1934 births
Living people
Best Director National Film Award winners
21st-century Indian film directors
Best Original Screenplay National Film Award winners
Special Jury Award (feature film) National Film Award winners
Producers who won the Best Feature Film National Film Award
Directors who won the Best Feature Film National Film Award
Directors who won the Best Film on Family Welfare National Film Award
Directors who won the Best Film on National Integration National Film Award
Directors who won the Best Film on Other Social Issues National Film Award | true | [
"The following is a list of films produced by Paramount Pictures and released (or scheduled to be released) in the 2020s.\n\nAll films listed are theatrical releases unless specified.\nA ‡ signifies a streaming release exclusively through Paramount+ or any other streaming service.\nA § signifies a simultaneous release to theatres and on Paramount+.\n\nReleased\n\nUpcoming\n\nUndated films\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Paramount Pictures Complete Library\n\n 2020-2029\nLists of films by studio\nAmerican films by studio\n2020s in American cinema\nLists of 2020s films",
"Any Gun Can Play () is a 1967 spaghetti Western starring Gilbert Roland, Edd Byrnes and George Hilton. The film is directed by Enzo G. Castellari. The film is about a group of cowboys searching for gold, double-leading to double crosses as they continually change allegiances and get the upper hand only to be thwarted by fellow outlaws, mysterious insurance investigators and each other.\n\nCast\n\nRelease\nAny Gun Can Play was released in Italy in 1967. The film has also been released under the English titles Go Kill and Come Back and Blood River.\n\nReferences\n\nSources\n\nExternal links\n\n1967 films\n1967 Western (genre) films\nSpaghetti Western films\nItalian films\n1960s Italian-language films\nEnglish-language Italian films\n1960s English-language films\nFilms directed by Enzo G. Castellari\nFilms scored by Francesco De Masi\nFilms shot in Almería\nFilms scored by Alessandro Alessandroni\n1960s multilingual films\nItalian multilingual films"
] |
[
"Shyam Benegal",
"Feature films",
"What films did he create?",
"Ankur (The Seedling)",
"Did it get any awards?",
"won the 1975 National Film Award for Second Best Feature Film.",
"what was the film about?",
"It was a story of economic and sexual exploitation in his home state,",
"Were there any other films he released?",
"), Nishant (1975), Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977)."
] | C_b5f02086c6144702a8dc4e6ab4bdf04e_1 | What was Nishant about? | 5 | What was Nishant (1975) about? | Shyam Benegal | After returning to Mumbai, he received independent financing and Ankur (The Seedling) was finally made in 1973. It was a story of economic and sexual exploitation in his home state, Telangana, and Benegal instantly shot to fame. The film introduced actors Shabana Azmi and Anant Nag and Benegal won the 1975 National Film Award for Second Best Feature Film. Shabana won the National Film Award for Best Actress. The success that New India Cinema enjoyed in the 1970s and early 1980s could largely be attributed to Shyam Benegal's quartet: Ankur (1973), Nishant (1975), Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977). Benegal used a variety of new actors, mainly from the FTII and NSD, such as Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, Kulbhushan Kharbanda and Amrish Puri. In Benegal's next film, Nishant (Night's End) (1975), a teacher's wife is abducted and gang-raped by four zamindars; officialdom turns a deaf ear to the distraught husband's pleas for help. Manthan (The Churning) (1976) is a film on rural empowerment and is set against the backdrop of Gujarat's fledgling dairy industry. For the first time, over five lakh (half a million) rural farmers in Gujarat contributed Rs 2 each and thus became the film's producers. Upon its release, truckloads of farmers came to see "their" film, making it a success at the box office. After this trilogy on rural oppression, Benegal made a biopic Bhumika (The Role) (1977), broadly based on the life of well-known Marathi stage and film actress of the 1940s, Hansa Wadkar (played by Smita Patil), who led a flamboyant and unconventional life. The main character sets out on an individual search for identity and self-fulfillment, while also grappling with exploitation by men. In the early 1970s, Shyam made 21 film modules for Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE), sponsored by UNICEF. This allowed him to interact with children of SITE and many folk artists. Eventually he used many of these children in his feature length rendition of the classic folk tale Charandas Chor (Charandas the Thief) in 1975. He made it for the Children's Film Society, India. To quote film critic Derek Malcolm: what Benegal has done is to paint a magnificent visual recreation of those extraordinary days and one that is also sensitive to the agonies and predicament of a talented woman whose need for security was only matched by her insistence on freedom. CANNOTANSWER | a teacher's wife is abducted and gang-raped by four zamindars; | Shyam Benegal (born 14 December 1934) is an Indian film director, screenwriter and documentary filmmaker. Often regarded as the pioneer of parallel cinema, He is widely considered as one of the greatest filmmakers post 1970s. He has received several accolades, including eighteen National Film Awards, a Filmfare Award and a Nandi Award. In 2005, he was honoured with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, India's highest award in the field of cinema. In 1976, he was honoured by the Government of India with the Padma Shri, the fourth-highest civilian honour of the country, and in 1991, he was awarded Padma Bhushan, the third-highes civilian honour for his contributions in the field of arts.
Benegal was born in Hyderabad to Sridhar B. Benegal who was prominent in the field of photography. Starting his career as a copywriter, he made his first Documentary film in Gujarati, Gher Betha Ganga (Ganges at the Doorstep) in 1962. Benegal's first four feature films Ankur (1973), Nishant (1975), Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977) made him a pioneer of the new wave film movement of that period. Benegal's films, Mammo (1994), along with Sardari Begum (1996) and Zubeidaa (2001) all of which won National Film Awards for Best Feature Film, form the Muslim women Trilogy. Benegal has won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi seven times. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1976, the Padma Bhushan in 1991, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for the year 2005 and the V. Shantaram Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.
Early life and education
Shyam Benegal was born on 14 December 1934 in Hyderabad, as Shyam Sunder Benegal. When he was twelve years old, he made his first film, on a camera given to him by his photographer father Sridhar B. Benegal. He received an M.A. in Economics from Osmania University, Hyderabad. There he formed the Hyderabad Film Society.
Family
Film director and actor Guru Dutt's maternal grandmother and Shyam's paternal grandmother were sisters, thus making Dutt and Shyam second cousins.
Career
Early career
In 1959, he started working as a copywriter at a Mumbai-based advertising agency, Lintas Advertising, where he steadily rose to become a creative head. Meanwhile, Benegal made his first documentary in Gujarati, Gher Betha Ganga (Ganges at the Doorstep) in 1962. His first feature film had to wait another decade while he worked on the script.
In 1963 he had a brief stint with another advertising agency called ASP (Advertising, Sales and Promotion). During his advertising years, he directed over 900 sponsored documentaries and advertising films.
Between 1966 and 1973, Shyam taught at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, and twice served as the institute's chairman: 1980–83 and 1989–92. By this time he had already started making documentaries. One of his early documentaries A Child of the Streets (1967), garnered him wide acclaim. In all, he has made over 70 documentary and short films.
He was awarded the Homi J. Bhabha Fellowship (1970–72) which allowed him to work at the Children's Television Workshop, New York, and later at Boston's WGBH-TV.
Feature films
After returning to Mumbai, he received independent financing and Ankur (The Seedling) was finally made in 1973. It was a story of economic and sexual exploitation in his home state, Telangana, and Benegal instantly shot to fame. The film introduced actors Shabana Azmi and Anant Nag and Benegal won the 1975 National Film Award for Second Best Feature Film. Shabana won the National Film Award for Best Actress.
The success that New India Cinema enjoyed in the 1970s and early 1980s could largely be attributed to Shyam Benegal's quartet: Ankur (1973), Nishant (1975), Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977). Benegal used a variety of new actors, mainly from the FTII and NSD, such as Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, Kulbhushan Kharbanda and Amrish Puri.
In Benegal's next film, Nishant (Night's End) (1975), a teacher's wife is abducted and gang-raped by four zamindars; officialdom turns a deaf ear to the distraught husband's pleas for help. Manthan (The Churning) (1976) is a film on rural empowerment and is set against the backdrop of Gujarat's fledgling dairy industry. For the first time, over five lakh (half a million) rural farmers in Gujarat contributed 2 each and thus became the film's producers. Upon its release, truckloads of farmers came to see "their" film, making it a success at the box office. After this trilogy on rural oppression, Benegal made a biopic Bhumika (The Role) (1977), broadly based on the life of well-known Marathi stage and film actress of the 1940s, Hansa Wadkar (played by Smita Patil), who led a flamboyant and unconventional life. The main character sets out on an individual search for identity and self-fulfilment, while also grappling with exploitation by men.
In the early 1970s, Shyam made 21 film modules for Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE), sponsored by UNICEF. This allowed him to interact with children of SITE and many folk artists. Eventually he used many of these children in his feature length rendition of the classic folk tale Charandas Chor (Charandas the Thief) in 1975. He made it for the Children's Film Society, India.
To quote film critic Derek Malcolm:
what Benegal has done is to paint a magnificent visual recreation of those extraordinary days and one that is also sensitive to the agonies and predicament of a talented woman whose need for security was only matched by her insistence on freedom.
The 1980s
Unlike most New Cinema filmmakers, Benegal has had private backers for many of his films and institutional backing for a few, including Manthan ( Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation ) and Susman (1987) (Handloom Co-operatives). However, his films did not have proper releases. He turned to TV where he directed serials such as Yatra (1986), for the Indian Railways, and one of the biggest projects undertaken on Indian television, the 53-episode television serial Bharat Ek Khoj (1988) based on Jawaharlal Nehru's book, Discovery of India. This gave him an added advantage, as he managed to survive the collapse of the New Cinema movement in the late 1980s due to paucity of funding, with which were lost many neo-realist filmmakers. Benegal continued making films throughout the next two decades. He also served as the Director of the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) from 1980 to 1986.
Following the success of these four films, Benegal was backed by star Shashi Kapoor, for whom he made Junoon (1978) and Kalyug (1981). The former was an interracial love story set amidst the turbulent period of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, while the latter was based on the Mahabharata and was not a big hit, although both won Filmfare Best Movie Awards in 1980 and 1982, respectively.
Benegal's next film Mandi (1983), was a satirical comedy about politics and prostitution, starring Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil. Later, working from his own story, based on the last days of Portuguese in Goa, in the early 1960s, Shyam explored human relationships in Trikal (1985).
Soon, Shyam Benegal stepped beyond traditional narrative films and took to biographical material to achieve greater freedom of expression. His first venture in this genre was with a documentary film based on Satyajit Ray's life, Satyajit Ray, in 1985. This was followed by works such as Sardari Begum (1996) and Zubeidaa, which was written by filmmaker and critic Khalid Mohamed.
In 1985 he was a member of the jury at the 14th Moscow International Film Festival.
The 1990s and beyond
The 1990s saw Shyam Benegal making a trilogy on Indian Muslim women, starting with Mammo (1994), Sardari Begum (1996) and Zubeidaa (2001). With Zubeidaa, he entered mainstream Bollywood, as it starred top Bollywood star Karishma Kapoor and boasted music by A. R. Rahman.
In 1992, he made Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda (Seventh Horse of the Sun), based on a novel by Dharmavir Bharati, which won the 1993 National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi. In 1996 he made another film based on the book The Making of the Mahatma, based on Fatima Meer's, The Apprenticeship of a Mahatma. This turn to biographical material resulted in Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero, his 2005 English language film. He criticised the Indian caste system in Samar (1999), which went on to win the National Film Award for Best Feature Film.
Benegal is the current president of the Federation of Film Societies of India. He owns a production company called Sahyadri Films.
He has authored three books based on his own films: The Churning with Vijay Tendulkar (1984), based on Manthan; Satyajit Ray (1988), based on his biographical film, Satyajit Ray; and The Marketplace (1989), which was based on Mandi.
In 2009 he was a member of the jury at the 31st Moscow International Film Festival.
Recent projects
In 2008, his film Welcome to Sajjanpur, starring Shreyas Talpade and Amrita Rao, was released to a good response. Its music was composed by Shantanu Moitra, and it was produced by Chetan Motiwalla. Shyam Benegal is slated to direct an epic musical, Chamki Chameli, inspired by Georges Bizet's classic Spanish opera Carmen. The story revolves around the eponymous Chamki, a beautiful gypsy girl with a fiery temper and is written by Shama Zaidi. The music is by A. R. Rahman and lyrics are by Javed Akhtar.
In March 2010, Benegal released the political satire Well Done Abba.
One of Benegal's future projects is a film based on the life of Noor Inayat Khan, daughter of Inayat Khan and descendant of Tipu Sultan, who served as a British spy during World War II.
Benegal made a comeback on the small screen with Samvidhaan, a 10-part mini-series revolving around the making of the Indian Constitution, to be aired on Rajya Sabha TV from 2 March 2014. Along with Benegal, Tom Alter, Dalip Tahil, Sachin Khedekar, Divya Dutta, Rajendra Gupta, K K Raina, and Ila Arun were seen at the press conference for the TV series.
Government of Bangladesh has confirmed Benegal would direct the biopic of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The film will be released presumably by 2021.
Personal life
Shyam Benegal is married to Nira Benegal and has a daughter, Pia.
Filmography
Awards and nominations
Non Feature Films
1984 Best Historical Reconstruction for Nehru
1985 Best Biographical Film for Satyajit Ray
Feature Films
1986 Best Director for Trikal
1993 Best Feature Film in Hindi for Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda
1995 Best Feature Film in Hindi for Mammo
1996 Best Feature Film in English for The Making of the Mahatma
1997 Best Feature Film in Urdu for Sardari Begum
1999 Best Feature Film for Samar
1999 Best Feature Film on Family Welfare for Hari-Bhari
2001 Best Feature Film in Hindi for Zubeidaa
2005 Nargis Dutt Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration for Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero
Best Film on Other Social Issues for Well Done Abba
Filmfare Awards
1980 Best Director for Junoon
Cannes Film Festival
1976: Golden Palm: Nishant: Nominated
Berlin International Film Festival
1974 Golden Berlin Bear for Ankur: Nominated
Moscow International Film Festival
1981 Golden Prize: Kalyug
1997 Golden St. George: Sardari Begum: Nominated
All Lights India International Film Festival
2015 Lifetime Achievement Award
Nandi Awards
B. N. Reddy National Award for contribution to Indian Cinema
Honours
1970 Homi Bhabha Fellowship (1970–72)
1976 Padma Shri
1989 Sovietland Nehru Award
1991 Padma Bhushan
2012 D. Litt. Honoris Causa of the University of Calcutta
2013 ANR National Award
2016 D. Litt. "Honoris Causa" of ITM University, Gwalior (M.P.)
Bibliography
Benegal on Ray: Satyajit Ray, a Film, by Shyam Benegal, Alaknanda Datta, Samik Banerjee. Seagull Books, 1988. .
Shyam Benegal's the Churning (Manthan): Screenplay, by, Vijay Tendulkar, Shyam Benegal, Samik Banerjee. Seagull Books, 1984. .
References
Further reading
Shyam Benegal (BFI World Directors) - Sangeeta Datta. 2003, British Film Institute. .
Bollywood Babylon: Interviews with Shyam Benegal, William van der Heide. 2006, Berg Publishers. .
BBC's Tom Brook interviews Shyam Benegal on 25 August 2006
Girish Karnad interviews Shyam Benegal, National Film Theatre, 2002
Sen, Meheli (2011) "Vernacular Modernities and Fitful Globalities in Shyam Benegal's Cinematic Provinces" on manycinemas.org 1, 8-22, Online, pdf-version
New Indian Cinema in Post-Independence India; The Cultural Work of Shyam Benegal’s Films, By Anuradha Dingwaney Needham, 2013
Shyam Benegal, Philosopher and Filmmaker, By Samir Chopra, 2021.
External links
Shyam Benegal's Retrospective Abu Dhabi Sept27-30,2012 by Indian Film Society of UAE
'Shyam Benegal: A Life in Pictures' interview at BAFTA
Shyam Benegal on Upperstall
Awards & recognition for Shyam Benegal's films
Osmania University alumni
20th-century Indian film directors
Indian male screenwriters
Recipients of the Padma Shri in arts
Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in arts
Hindi-language film directors
Indian documentary filmmakers
Filmfare Awards winners
Nominated members of the Rajya Sabha
Dadasaheb Phalke Award recipients
Film directors from Hyderabad, India
1934 births
Living people
Best Director National Film Award winners
21st-century Indian film directors
Best Original Screenplay National Film Award winners
Special Jury Award (feature film) National Film Award winners
Producers who won the Best Feature Film National Film Award
Directors who won the Best Feature Film National Film Award
Directors who won the Best Film on Family Welfare National Film Award
Directors who won the Best Film on National Integration National Film Award
Directors who won the Best Film on Other Social Issues National Film Award | true | [
"The DRDO Nishant is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) developed by India's Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE), a branch of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for the Indian Armed Forces. The Nishant UAV is primarily tasked with intelligence gathering over enemy territory and also for reconnaissance, training, surveillance, target designation, artillery fire correction, damage assessment, ELINT and SIGINT. The UAV has an endurance of four hours and thirty minutes. Nishant has completed development phase and user trials.\n\nThe 380 kg (840 lb) Nishant UAV requires rail-launching from a hydro-pneumatic launcher and is able to be recovered by a parachute system. Launches at a velocity of 45 m/s are carried out in 0.6 second with 100 kW power and subsequent launches can be carried out in intervals of 20 minutes. The Mobile Hydro-Pneumatic Launcher (MHPL) system mounted on a Tatra truck weighs 14,000 kg (31,000 lb) and boasts of a life cycle of 1000 launches before requiring overhaul. Nishant is one of the few UAVs in the world in its weight-class capable of being catapult-launched and recovered by using parachute, thus eliminating the need for a runway as in case of conventional take-off and landing with wheels.\n\nDevelopment\nTo meet the Army's operational requirement of a RPV (remotely piloted vehicle), it was decided in September 1988 that DRDO would undertake the indigenous development of the UAV. The General Staff Qualitative Requirement (GSQR) was finalised by the Army in May 1990. The Nishant RPV made its first test flight in 1995. In July 1999, for the first time the Indian army deployed its new Nishant UAV system in the fight against guerilla forces backed by Pakistan in Kashmir Valkey. Nishant, which had been developed for battlefield surveillance and reconnaissance needs of the Indian Army, was test flown again in early 2002. The indigenous Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV) Nishant developed by ADE, DRDO had completed its 100th flight by June 15, 2002. The Indian Army has placed an order for 12 Nishant UAVs along with ground support systems. Nishant Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) developed by DRDO for Indian Army was successfully flight tested near Kolar on 20 June 2008. Nishant has completed development phase and user trials. The present flight tests are pre confirmatory trials before induction into services.\n\nTest flight with Wankel engine\nOn Sunday, 5 April 2009 DRDO launched a test flight of the Nishant UAV. The main goal was to test the performance of the Wankel engine used on the UAV. An abandoned World War II runway at a village near Kolar played host to the first ever flight of this indigenous rotary engine-powered UAV. The flight took off on early Sunday morning and climbed to an altitude of before cruising for a duration of 35 minutes. The air vehicle was recovered safely at the intended place at a dried-up lake, after a total flight duration of 40 min. The engine, a Wankel rotary type, was jointly designed and developed by National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), Vehicle Research and Development Establishment (VRDE) and Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE). The provisional flight clearance for the first indigenous prototype engine was given by the certifying agency, the Regional Centre for Military Airworthiness and Certification. The engine was cleared for flight after rigorous ground endurance test runs. The Wankel engine weighs about 30 kg (70 lb), and this engine type is known for its high power-to-weight ratio in a single rotor category.\n\nDRDO was satisfied with the test results. The performance of the engine during the flight met the requirements of the first flight of an engine in the air vehicle. This 55 hp indigenous engine is expected to replace the present imported engine of Nishant. The critical core engine, including the special cylinder composite nickel–silicon carbide coating and special aluminium alloy castings, was designed and developed by NAL. VRDE developed engine peripherals such as the ignition and fuel systems and ADE developed flight testing. The reconnaissance UAV, which has completed its user trials with the Indian Army, is expected to be handed over to the army shortly.\n\nNishant UAV again underwent crucial confirmatory user trials at Pokhran in April 2010. The trials began April 20 and were supposed to last for one week. A senior Army official at Pokhran said the trials are moving forward in a very satisfactory manner. “We are checking three crucial parameters: video quality, tracking ability and fall of gunshot [missed distance after firing]. These input performances are critical to our operations in the forward areas,” the official said. DRDO has delivered the first four UAVs to the Indian Army at a cost of 800 million ($17.9 million).\n\nAccording to The Times Of India, two UAVs crash-landed in Jaisalmer district near the India-Pakistan border due to change in wind direction on April 28 and April 30. Confirming the news, a DRDO official said, \"The user trials were going on and during the flight there were some technical snags owing to which the craft was landed using parachutes.\" He said, \"But the landing was done safely and no one was hurt in the process. Though before our officials could reach to get the craft back, villagers damaged the aircraft and took away some equipment.\"\n\nOn 3 February 2011 Nishant UAV successfully completed confirmatory trials conducted by the Indian Army at Pokhran, Rajasthan\n\nA wheeled version of the Nishant UAV, named panchi, is under taxi trail as of September 2014, will be flight tested soon. UAV is capable of operating from semi-prepared runway, thereby reducing the turnaround time between missions, which is major advantage over the current catapult launched Nishant\n\nFeatures\n Day/night capability training vehicle\n Battlefield reconnaissance & surveillance,\n Target tracking and localization\n Artillery fire correction\n All terrain mobility\n Target designation (using integral laser target designator)\n Endurance: 4 h 30 min\n\nVariants\n Nishant catapult\n Panchi (Nishant Wheeled version)\n\nGround support systems\n\nGround control station (GCS)\nAntenna vehicle/Ground Data Terminal (GDT)\nAvionics preparation vehicle (APV)\nMechanical maintenance vehicle\nUAV transportation vehicle\nPower supply vehicle\n\nLaunch & recovery\n Launch: Mobile hydropneumatic launcher (MHPL) system\n Recovery: Parachute + landing bags\n\nFormer operators\n\n Indian Army – 4 (all lost)\n\nSpecifications\n\nSee also\n\nReferences\n\nUnmanned military aircraft of India\nSingle-engined pusher aircraft\nTwin-boom aircraft\nNishant",
"Lagna Pahave Karun () is a 2013 Indian Marathi-language romantic comedy film directed by Ajay Naik, and produced by Kiran Deshpande and Mohan Damle under the banners of Solariz International and Sprints Arts Creations respectively.\n\nThe film stars Umesh Kamat and Mukta Barve; it is the third collaboration between Kamat and Barve after Eka Lagnachi Dusri Goshta (2012) and also features Tejashri Pradhan and Siddharth Chandekar. The film follows Aditi Tilak (Barve) and Nishant Barve (Kamat) who set up their own matrimonial agency based on modern principles rather than horoscopes.\n\nThe soundtrack and background score were composed by Ajay Naik while the cinematography, art direction, and editing were handled by Abhijeet Abde, Padmanabh Damle and Suchitra Sathe respectively. The film was released on 4 October 2013.\n\nPlot \nNishant Barve is an Indian software designer who works and stays in America. During his return to India, he loses his job in the US. He decides to meet and inform his fiancée, Madhura Godbole. When Nishant is going to meet his fiancée he accidentally meets Aditi Tilak, a girl who plans to have her own matrimonial agency. Learning that his fiancée is more interested in the American lifestyle than him, Nishant breaks up with her.\n\nOnce again Nishant accidentally meets Aditi and she shares her dream to have her own matrimonial agency with him. Nishant applies for another job in the United States but is more interested in Aditi's proposal of a matrimonial agency, so he decides not to go to the interview. Praful Patel and his girlfriend decide to assist Aditi in her proposal. Nishant and Aditi, along with their associates, plan innovative ideas on getting people married. They decide not to check the horoscopes of the couple. Thus they start their matrimonial agency, \"Shubhvivaah\".\n\nRahul Kulkarni and Aanandi meet each other through Shubhvivaah and decide to get married. Soon people are attracted by this new way of getting married. On the wedding day of Rahul and Aanandi Nalini Dixit, a renowned astrologer and owner of a successful marriage bureau in Pune declares that their horoscopes don't match and the marriage won't last for more than six months. However, Nishant and Aditi are not affected by this and meanwhile fall in love with each other.\n\nNishant proposes to Aditi and tells her that he rejected his job and a luxurious life in the USA just for her incomplete proposal of matrimonial agency as he loves her. Aditi tells Nishant that no one has ever loved her as he does but she has not thought over it. On the other hand, Rahul and Aanandi start facing problems in their married life because of Aanandi's rigid nature. Aditi and Nishant keep suggesting to Rahul ways to keep Aanandi happy but in vain. One day, Rahul and Aanandi have a bad fight, after which Rahul meets with an accident.\n\nAditi, out of guilt for the failure of Aanandi and Rahul's marriage, stops her marriage institution. An enraged Nishant tells Aditi that she is wrong in her decision and shows his disappointment and disagreement with her decision and decides to leave for America. Meanwhile, Aanandi realizes her mistake and reconciles with Rahul. Nishant learns about Aditi's past. Aditi had lost her parents and twice her prospective grooms died. People blamed Aditi's destiny for this and no one dared to marry her or keep any kind of relation with her.\n\nNishant then understands why Aditi is always scared and insecure and how she did not respond to his marriage proposal, as she loves him and does not want him to get harmed due to her. Nishant meets Aditi and tells her that its high time she needs to move on and get married, if not with him then with someone else, and settle down. The film ends with Nishant and Aditi sharing a hug (indicating that Aditi has accepted Nishant's marriage proposal) and going somewhere hand in hand.\n\nCast \nMukta Barve as Aditi Tilak, owner of the matrimonial agency \"Shubhvivaah\"\nUmesh Kamat as Nishant Barve, Aditi's love interest and partner in ownership of \"Shubhvivaah\"\nSiddharth Chandekar as Rahul Kulkarni, he gets married with Aanadi through Shubhvivaah\nTejashri Pradhan as Aanandi Rahul Kulkarni, Rahul's wife\nSwati Chitnis as Nalini \"Nallutai\" Dixit, an astrologer who is against Shubhvivaah\nJayant Sawarkar as Aditi's grandfather, he is an astrologer\nManasi Magikar as Nishant's mother\nSeema Chandekar as Rahul's mother\nUmesh Damle as Nishant's father\nShrikar Pitre as Praful Patel, Aditi and Nishant's assistant\nSayali Deodhar as Praful's girlfriend, Aditi and Nishant's assistant\nPriyanka Barve as Madhura Godbole, Nishant's ex-fiancé\nRahul Navel as Vitthhal, Aditi and Nishant's assistant\n\nProduction \nLagna Pahave Karun was produced by Kiran Deshpande and Mohan Damle under the banner of Solariz International and Sprints Arts Creations respectively. It was co-produced by Sanjeev Langarkande and Ashish Deshpande and written by Kshtij Patwardhan and Sameer Vidwans based on a story by Ajay Naik.\n\nThe film was shot at various locations in Pune and Alibaug.\n\nUmesh Kamat was the first to sign onto the film. Mukta Barve was chosen in as the female lead. Siddharth Chandekar and Tejashree Pradhan were later signed on for pivotal roles. Pradhan and Chandekar play Aanadi and Rahul, respectively. Swati Chitnis also played a vital role in the film.\n\nReception \nDaily News and Analysis wrote about the film \"Clever writing, well-etched out characters, witty dialogue and brilliant performances make this film a fun watch\". Indian Nerve stated that \"Lagna Pahave Karun is the story of enduring and making things work without faltering\". The film received 3.5 stars from Marathistars.com. Rajshri Marathi also wrote good reviews about the film.\n\nSoundtrack \n\nThe music for Lagna Pahave Karun is composed by Ajay Naik. Ajay Naik has also composed the original background score. The lyrics are penned by Ambarish Deshpande, Ajay Naik, Vaibhav Joshi, Kshitij Patwardhan. The soundtrack which included seven songs was released on 28 August 2013 by Everest Entertainment.\n\nAwards and nominations\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n \n \n on Hotstar\n\nIndian films\n2013 films\nMarathi-language films\nIndian romantic musical films\n2010s musical comedy-drama films\n2010s romantic musical films\n2013 romantic comedy-drama films\nIndian romantic comedy-drama films\n2010s Marathi-language films\n2013 comedy films\n2013 drama films"
] |
[
"Scooter Libby",
"Trial, conviction, and sentencing"
] | C_72c2173245744eeea3ae7541ba451877_0 | What was his trial about | 1 | What was Scooter Libby's trial about | Scooter Libby | On March 6, 2007, the jury convicted him on four of the five counts but acquitted him on count three, the second charge of making false statements when interviewed by federal agents about his conversations with Time reporter Matthew Cooper. After being questioned by the FBI in the fall of 2003 and testifying before a Federal grand jury on March 5, 2004, and again on March 24, 2004, Libby pleaded not guilty to all five counts. According to the Associated Press, David Addington, Cheney's legal counsel, described a September 2003 meeting with Libby around the time that a criminal investigation began, saying that Libby had told him, "'I just want to tell you, I didn't do it'... I didn't ask what the 'it' was.'" Libby retained attorney Ted Wells of the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to represent him. Wells had successfully defended former Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy against a 30-count indictment and had also participated in the successful defense of former Secretary of Labor Raymond Donovan. After Judge Reggie Walton denied Libby's motion to dismiss, the press initially reported that Libby would testify at the trial. Libby's criminal trial, United States v. Libby, began on January 16, 2007. A parade of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists testified, including Bob Woodward, Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post and Judith Miller and David E. Sanger of The New York Times. Despite earlier press reports and widespread speculation, neither Libby nor Vice President Cheney testified. The jury began deliberations on February 21, 2007. CANNOTANSWER | second charge of making false statements when interviewed by federal agents about his conversations with Time reporter Matthew Cooper. | I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby (first name generally given as Irv, Irve or Irving; born August 22, 1950) is an American lawyer, and former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.
From 2001 to 2005, Libby held the offices of Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs, Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States, and Assistant to the President during the administration of President George W. Bush.
In October 2005, Libby resigned from all three government positions after he was indicted on five counts by a federal grand jury concerning the investigation of the leak of the covert identity of Central Intelligence Agency officer Valerie Plame Wilson. He was subsequently convicted of four counts (one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury, and one count of making false statements), making him the highest-ranking White House official convicted in a government scandal since John Poindexter, the national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan in the Iran–Contra affair.
After a failed appeal, President Bush commuted Libby's sentence of 30 months in federal prison, leaving the other parts of his sentence intact. As a consequence of his conviction in United States v. Libby, Libby's license to practice law was suspended until being reinstated in 2016. President Donald Trump fully pardoned Libby on April 13, 2018.
Personal history
Background and education
Libby was born to an affluent Jewish family in New Haven, Connecticut. His father, Irving Lewis Leibovitz, was an investment banker. His father changed his family original surname from Leibovitz to Libby.
Libby graduated from the Eaglebrook School, in Deerfield, Massachusetts, a junior boarding school, in 1965. The family lived in the Washington, D.C. region; Miami, Florida; and Connecticut prior to Libby's graduation from Phillips Academy, in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1968.
He and his elder brother, Hank, a retired tax lawyer, were the first in the family to graduate from college. Libby attended Yale University in New Haven, graduating magna cum laude in 1972. As Yale Daily News reporter Jack Mirkinson observes, "Even though he would eventually become a prominent Republican, Libby's political beginnings would not have pointed in that direction. He served as vice president of the Yale College Democrats and later campaigned for Michael Dukakis when he was running for governor of Massachusetts." According to Mirkinson: "Two particular Yale courses helped guide Libby's future endeavors. One of these was a creative writing course, which started Libby on a 20-year mission to complete a novel ... [later published as] The Apprentice ... [and] a political science class with professor and future Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. In an interview with author James Mann, Libby said Wolfowitz was one of his favorite professors, and their professional relationship did not end with the class." Wolfowitz became a significant mentor in his later professional life.
In 1975, as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, Libby received his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Columbia Law School.
Marriage and family
Libby is married to Harriet Grant, whom he met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the late 1980s, while he was a partner and she an associate in the law firm then known as Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin: When he and Harriet became serious,' Dickstein partner Kenneth Simon wrote, 'she chose to leave the firm rather than maintain the awkward situation of an associate dating a partner. Libby and Grant married in the early 1990s, have a son and a daughter, and live in McLean, Virginia.
Name
Libby has been secretive about his full name. He was prosecuted as I. Lewis Libby, also known as "Scooter Libby". National Public Radio's Day to Day reported that the 1972 Yale Banner (the yearbook of Yale) gave his name as Irve Lewis Libby Jr.; it is unclear if Irve is his given name, or if it is short for Irving, as it was for his father. CBS, the BBC, and The New York Timess John Tierney have all used this spelling of his first name. The Timess Eric Schmitt spelled it Irv, though he cited a phone interview with Libby's brother, and did not clarify if he had asked for a spelling.
At times, including in the Yale Banner, and as documented in a federal directory cited by Ron Kampeas and others, Libby has used the suffix Jr. after his name. At other times, however, as listed in his federal indictment and United States v. Libby, which give his alias as Scooter Libby, there is no Jr. after Libby's name. The Columbia Alumni Association online directory lists him as I. Lewis Libby, with a first name of "I." and birth first name of "Irve".
Libby has also been secretive about the origin of his nickname Scooter. The New York Timess Eric Schmitt, citing the aforementioned interview with Libby's brother, wrote that "His nickname 'Scooter' derives from the day [his] father watched him crawling in his crib and joked, 'He's a Scooter! In a February 2002 interview on Larry King Live, King asked Libby specifically, "Where did 'Scooter' come from?"; Libby replied: "Oh, it goes way back to when I was a kid. Some people ask me if ... [crosstalk] ... as you did earlier, if it's related to Phil Rizzuto [nicknamed 'The Scooter']. I had the range but not the arm."
The Apprentice
Libby's only novel, The Apprentice, about a group of travelers stranded in northern Japan in the winter of 1903, during a smallpox epidemic in the run-up to the Russo-Japanese War, was first published in a hardback edition by Graywolf Press in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1996, and reprinted as a trade paperback by St. Martin's Thomas Dunne Books in 2002. After Libby's indictment in the CIA leak grand jury investigation in 2005, St. Martin's Press reissued The Apprentice as a mass market paperback (Griffin imprint). An allegorical meditation on the legitimacy of concealed knowledge, The Apprentice has been described as "a thriller ... that includes references to bestiality, pedophilia and rape."
Law career
After earning his J.D. from Columbia in 1975, Libby joined the firm of Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis LLP. He was admitted to the bar of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on October 27, 1976, and to the Bar of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals on May 19, 1978.
Libby practiced law at Schnader for six years before joining the U.S. State Department policy planning staff, at the invitation of his former Yale professor, Paul Wolfowitz, in 1981. In 1985, returning to private practice, he joined the firm then known as Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin (now Dickstein Shapiro LLP), becoming a partner in 1986 and working there until 1989, when he left to work in the U.S. Defense Department, again under his former Yale professor Paul Wolfowitz, until January 1993.
In 1993, returning to private legal practice from government, Libby became the managing partner of the Washington, D.C. office of Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, Alexander & Ferdon (formerly Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, and Alexander); in 1995, along with his Mudge Rose colleague, Leonard Garment––who had replaced John Dean as acting Special Counsel to U.S. President Richard Nixon for the last two years of his presidency dominated by Watergate, and who had hired Libby at Mudge Rose twenty years later––and three other lawyers from that firm, Libby joined the Washington, D.C. office of Dechert Price & Rhoads (now part of Dechert LLP), where he was a managing partner, a member of its litigation department, and chaired its Public Policy Practice Group. His work there was well regarded, with President Clinton recognizing Libby as one of three "distinguished Republican lawyers" who worked on the Marc Rich pardon case.
In 2001 Libby left the firm to return to work again in government, as Vice President Cheney's chief of staff.
Fugitive billionaire commodities trader Marc Rich, who, along with his business partner Pincus Green, had been indicted of tax evasion and illegal trading with Iran, and who, with Green, was ultimately pardoned by President Bill Clinton, was a client whom Leonard Garment had hired Libby to help represent around the spring of 1985, after Rich and Green had first engaged Garment. Libby stopped representing Rich in the spring of 2000; early in March 2001, at a "contentious" Congressional hearing to review Clinton's pardons, Libby testified that he thought the prosecution's case against Rich "misconstrued the facts and the law". According to Jackson Hogan, Libby's roommate at Yale University, as quoted in the already-cited U.S. News & World Report article by Walsh, He is intensely partisan ... in that if he is your counsel, he'll embrace your case and try to figure a way out of whatever noose you are ensnared in. According to a House Committee on Government Reform report, however, "The arguments made by Garment, [William Bradford] Reynolds and Libby [in their testimony] focused on the claim that the SDNY was criminalizing what should have been a civil tax case. They did not make, compile, or in any other way lay the groundwork for, or make a case for a Presidential pardon. When former President Clinton stated that they 'reviewed and advocated' 'the case for the pardons,' he suggested that they were somehow involved in arguing that Rich and Green should receive pardons. This was completely untrue". (p. 162)
Bar suspension and disbarment
Before his indictment in United States v. Libby, Libby had been a licensed lawyer, admitted to the bars of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, although his Pennsylvania law license was inactive, and he had already been suspended from the Washington, D.C. Office of Bar Counsel (D.C. Bar) for non-payment of fees. The Chief Judge of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals recommended disbarment upon confirmation of his conviction, which Libby had initially indicated that he would appeal. Having suspended his license to practice law on April 3, 2007, the D.C. Bar "disbarred [him] pursuant to D.C. Code § 11-2503(a)" on legal grounds of "moral turpitude", effective April 11, 2007, and recommended to the D.C. Court of Appeals his disbarment if his conviction were not overturned on appeal. On December 10, 2007, Libby's lawyers announced his decision "to drop his appeal of his conviction in the CIA leak case". On March 20, 2008, following the dropping of his appeal of his conviction, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals disbarred Libby. As a result of the Court's ruling, "Libby will lose his license to practice or appear in court in Washington until at least 2012", and, "As is standard, he will probably lose any bar membership he holds in other states"; that is, in Pennsylvania.
Government public service and political career
In 1981, after working as a lawyer in the Philadelphia firm Schnader LLP, Libby accepted the invitation of his former Yale University political science professor and mentor Paul Wolfowitz to join the U.S. State Department's policy planning staff. From 1982 to 1985, Libby served as director of special projects in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. In 1985 he received the Foreign Affairs Award for Public Service from the United States Department of Defense, and he resigned from government to enter private legal practice at Dickstein, Shapiro, and Morin. In 1989, he went to work at the Pentagon, again under Wolfowitz, as principal deputy under-secretary for strategy and resources at the U.S. Defense Department.
During the George H. W. Bush administration, Libby was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as deputy under secretary of defense for policy, serving from 1992 to 1993. In 1992 he also served as legal adviser for the House Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China. Libby co-authored the draft of the Defense Planning Guidance for the 1994–99 fiscal years (dated February 18, 1992) with Wolfowitz for Dick Cheney, who was then Secretary of Defense. In 1993 Libby received the Distinguished Service Award from the U.S. Defense Department and the Distinguished Public Service Award from the U.S. State Department before resuming private legal practice first at Mudge Rose and then at Dechert.
Libby was part of a network of neo-conservatives known as the "Vulcans"—its other members included Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld. While he was still a managing partner of Dechert Price & Rhoads, he was a signatory to the "Statement of Principles" of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) (a document dated June 3, 1997). He joined Wolfowitz, PNAC co-founders William Kristol, Robert Kagan, and other "Project Participants" in developing the PNAC's September 2000 report entitled, "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New Century".
After becoming Cheney's chief of staff in 2001, Libby was reportedly nicknamed "Germ Boy" at the White House, for insisting on universal smallpox vaccination. He was also nicknamed "Dick Cheney's Dick Cheney" for his close working relationship with the Vice President. Mary Matalin, who worked with Libby as an adviser to Cheney during Bush's first term, said of him "He is to the vice president what the vice president is to the president."
Libby was active in the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee of the Pentagon when it was chaired by Richard Perle during the early years of the George W. Bush administration (2001–2003). At various points in his career, Libby has also held positions with the American Bar Association, been on the advisory board of the RAND Corporation's Center for Russia and Eurasia, and been a legal adviser to the United States House of Representatives, as well as served as a consultant for the defense contractor Northrop Grumman.
Libby was also actively involved in the Bush administration's efforts to negotiate the Israeli–Palestinian "road map" for peace; for example, he participated in a series of meetings with Jewish leaders in early December 2002 and a meeting with two aides of then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in mid-April 2003, culminating in the Red Sea Summit on June 4, 2004. In their highly controversial and widely contested "Working Paper" entitled "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy", University of Chicago political science professor John J. Mearsheimer and academic dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University Stephen M. Walt argue that Libby was among the Bush administration's most "fervently pro-Israel ... officials" (20).
Awards for government service
Distinguished Service Award, United States Department of Defense, 1993
Distinguished Public Service Award, United States Department of the Navy, 1993
Foreign Affairs Award for Public Service, United States Department of State, 1985
Subsequent work experience
From January 2006 until March 7, 2007, the day after his conviction in United States v. Libby, when he resigned, Libby served as a "senior adviser" at the Hudson Institute, to "focus on issues relating to the War on Terror and the future of Asia ... offer research guidance and ... advise the institute in strategic planning." His resignation was announced by the Hudson Institute in a press release dated March 8, 2007. However, he has served as Senior Vice President of the Hudson Institute at least since 2010.
Libby also serves as a member of the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense, a group that encourages and advocates changes to government policy to strengthen national biodefense. In order to address biological threats facing the nation, the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense created a 33 step initiative for the U.S. Government to implement. Headed by former Senator Joe Lieberman and former Governor Tom Ridge, the Study Panel assembled in Washington D.C. for four meetings concerning current biodefense programs. The Study Panel concluded that the federal government had little to no defense mechanisms in case of a biological event. The Study Panel's final report, The National Blueprint for Biodefense, proposes a string of solutions and recommendations for the U.S. Government to take, including items such as giving the Vice President authority over biodefense responsibilities and merging the entire biodefense budget. These solutions represent the Panel's call to action in order to increase awareness and activity for pandemic related issues.
Involvement in the Plame affair
Between 2003 and 2005, intense speculation centered on the possibility that Libby may have been the administration official who had "leaked" classified employment information about Valerie Plame, a covert Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent and the wife of Iraq War critic Joseph C. Wilson, to New York Times reporter Judith Miller and other reporters and later tried to hide his having done so.
In August 2005, as revealed in grand jury testimony audiotapes played during the trial and reported in many news accounts, Libby testified that he met with Judith Miller, a reporter with The New York Times, on July 8, 2003, and discussed Plame with her.
Although Libby signed a "blanket waiver" allowing journalists to discuss their conversations with him pursuant to the CIA leak grand jury investigation, Miller maintained that such a waiver did not serve to allow her to reveal her source to that grand jury; moreover, Miller argued that Libby's general waiver pertaining to all journalists could have been coerced and that she would only testify before that grand jury if given an individual waiver.
After refusing to testify about her July 2003 meeting with Libby, Judith Miller was jailed on July 7, 2005, for contempt of court. Months later, however, her new attorney, Robert Bennett, told her that she already had possessed a written, voluntary waiver from Libby all along. After Miller had served most of her sentence, Libby reiterated that he had indeed given her a "waiver" both "voluntarily and personally." He attached the following letter, which, when released publicly, became the subject of further speculation about Libby's possible motives in sending it:
As noted above, my lawyer confirmed my waiver to other reporters in just the way he did with your lawyer. Why? Because as I am sure will not be news to you, the public report of every other reporter's testimony makes clear that they did not discuss Ms. Plame's name or identity with me, or knew about her before our call.
After agreeing to testify, Miller was released on September 29, 2005, appearing before the grand jury the next day, but the charge against her was rescinded only after she testified again on October 12, 2005. For her second grand jury appearance, Miller produced a notebook from a previously undisclosed meeting with Libby on June 23, 2003, two weeks before Wilson's New York Times op-ed was published. In her account published in the Times on October 16, 2005, based on her notes, Miller reports:
... in an interview with me on June 23 [2003], Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, discussed Mr. Wilson's activities and placed blame for intelligence failures on the CIA. In later conversations with me, on July 8 and July 12 [2003], Mr. Libby, ... [at the time] Mr. Cheney's top aide, played down the importance of Mr. Wilson's mission and questioned his performance ... My notes indicate that well before Mr. Wilson published his critique, Mr. Libby told me that Mr. Wilson's wife may have worked on unconventional weapons at the CIA. ... My notes do not show that Mr. Libby identified Mr. Wilson's wife by name. Nor do they show that he described Valerie Wilson as a covert agent or "operative"...
Her notation on her July 8, 2003 meeting with Libby does contain the name "Valerie Flame ", which she added retrospectively. While Miller reveals publicly that she herself had misidentified the last name of Wilson's wife (aka "Valerie Plame") in her own marginal notes on their interview as "Flame" instead of "Plame", in her grand jury (and later trial testimony), she remained uncertain when, how, and why she arrived at that name and did not attribute it to Libby:
I was not permitted to take notes of what I told the grand jury, and my interview notes on Mr. Libby are sketchy in places. It is also difficult, more than two years later, to parse the meaning and context of phrases, of underlining and of parentheses. On one page of my interview notes, for example, I wrote the name "Valerie Flame." Yet, as I told Mr. Fitzgerald, I simply could not recall where that came from, when I wrote it or why the name was misspelled ... I testified that I did not believe the name came from Mr. Libby, in part because the notation does not appear in the same part of my notebook as the interview notes from him.
A year and a half later, a jury convicted Libby of obstruction of justice and perjury in his grand jury testimony and making false statements to federal investigators about when and how he learned that Plame was a CIA agent.
On April 13, 2018, Libby was pardoned by US President Donald Trump.
Indictment and resignation
On October 28, 2005, as a result of the CIA leak grand jury investigation, Special Counsel Fitzgerald indicted Libby on five counts: one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of making false statements when interviewed by agents of the FBI, and two counts of perjury in his testimony before the grand jury. Pursuant to the grand jury investigation, Libby had told FBI investigators that he first heard of Mrs. Wilson's CIA employment from Cheney, and then later heard it from journalist Tim Russert, and acted as if he did not have that information. The indictment alleges that statements to federal investigators and the grand jury were intentionally false, in that Libby had numerous conversations about Mrs. Wilson's CIA employment, including his conversations with Judith Miller (see above), before speaking to Russert; Russert did not tell Libby about Mrs. Wilson's CIA employment; prior to talking with such reporters, Libby knew with certainty that she was employed by the CIA; and Libby told reporters that she worked for the CIA without making any disclaimer that he was uncertain of that fact. The false statements counts in the Libby indictment charge that he intentionally made those false statements to the FBI; the perjury counts charge that he intentionally lied to the grand jury in repeating those false statements; and the obstruction of justice count charges that Libby intentionally made those false statements in order to mislead the grand jury, thus impeding Fitzgerald's grand jury investigation of the truth about the leaking of Mrs. Wilson's then-classified, covert CIA identity.
Trial, conviction, and sentencing
On March 6, 2007, the jury convicted him on four of the five counts: obstruction of justice, one count of making false statements when interviewed by agents of the FBI, and two counts of perjury. They acquitted him on count three, the second charge of making false statements when interviewed by federal agents about his conversations with Time reporter Matthew Cooper.
Libby retained attorney Ted Wells of the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to represent him. Wells had successfully defended former Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy against a 30-count indictment and had also participated in the successful defense of former Secretary of Labor Raymond Donovan.
After Judge Reggie Walton denied Libby's motion to dismiss, the press initially reported that Libby would testify at the trial. Libby's criminal trial, United States v. Libby, began on January 16, 2007. A parade of Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists testified, including Bob Woodward, Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post and Judith Miller and David E. Sanger of The New York Times. Despite earlier press reports and widespread speculation, neither Libby nor Vice President Cheney testified. The jury began deliberations on February 21, 2007.
Verdict
After deliberating for 10 days, the jury rendered its verdict on March 6, 2007. It convicted Libby on four of the five counts against him: two counts of perjury, one count of obstruction of justice in a grand jury investigation, and one of the two counts of making false statements to federal investigators.
After the verdict, initially, Libby's lawyers announced that he would seek a new trial, and that, if that attempt were to fail, they would appeal Libby's conviction. Libby did not speak to reporters. Libby's defense team eventually decided against seeking a new trial.
Speaking to the media outside the courtroom after the verdict, Fitzgerald said that "The jury worked very long and hard and deliberated at length ... [and] was obviously convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had lied and obstructed justice in a serious manner ... I do not expect to file any further charges." The trial confirmed that the leak came first from then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage; since Fitzgerald did not charge Armitage and did not charge anyone else, Libby's conviction effectively ended the investigation.
In his October 28, 2005, press conference about the grand jury's indictment, Fitzgerald had already explained that Libby's obstruction of justice through perjury and false statements had prevented the grand jury from determining whether the leak violated federal law.
During his media appearance outside the courtroom after the verdict in the Libby case, Fitzgerald fielded questions from the press about others involved in the Plame affair and in the CIA leak grand jury investigation, such as Armitage and Cheney, whom he had already described as under "a cloud", as already addressed in his conduct of the case and in his closing arguments in court.
Sentencing
Given current federal sentencing guidelines, which are not mandatory, the conviction could have resulted in a sentence ranging from no imprisonment to imprisonment of up to 25 years and a fine of $1,000,000; yet, as Sniffen and Apuzzo observe, "federal sentencing guidelines will probably prescribe far less." In practice, according to federal sentencing data, three-fourths of the 198 defendants found guilty of obstruction of justice in 2006 served jail time. The average length of jail time on this charge alone was 70 months.
On June 5, 2007, Judge Walton sentenced Libby to 30 months in prison and fined him $250,000, clarifying that Libby would begin his sentence immediately. According to Apuzzo and Yost, the judge also "placed him on two years probation after his prison sentence expires. There is no parole in the federal system, but Libby would be eligible for release after two years." In addition, Judge Walton required Libby to provide "400 hours of community service" during his supervised release. On June 5, 2007, after the announcement of Libby's sentencing, CNN reported that Libby still "plans to appeal the verdict".
That day, in response to the sentencing, Vice President Cheney issued a statement in Libby's defense on The White House website. The statement concluded: "Speaking as friends, we hope that our system will return a final result consistent with what we know of this fine man."
Joseph and Valerie Wilson posted their statement on Libby's sentencing in United States v. Libby on their website, "grateful that justice has been served."
Order to report to prison pending appeal of verdict
After the June 5 sentencing, Walton said he was inclined to jail Libby after the defense laid out its proposed appeal, but the judge told attorneys he was open to changing his mind"; however, on June 14, 2007, Walton ordered Libby to report to prison while his attorneys appealed the conviction. Libby's attorneys asked that the order be stayed, but Walton denied the request and told Libby that he would have 10 days to appeal the ruling. In denying Libby's request, which had questioned Fitzgerald's authority to make the charges in the first place, Walton supported Fitzgerald's authority in the case. He said: "Everyone is accountable, and if you work in the White House, and if it's perceived that somehow (you're) linked at the hip, the American public would have serious questions about the fairness of any investigation of a high-level official conducted by the attorney general." The judge was also responding to an Amicus curiae brief that he had permitted to be filed, which had not apparently convinced him to change his mind, as he subsequently denied Libby bail during his appeal. His "order grant[ing] the [legal academic] scholars permission to file their brief ..." contained a caustic footnote questioning the motivation of the legal academics and suggesting he might not give a great deal of weight to their opinion[:]
... It is an impressive show of public service when twelve prominent and distinguished current and former law professors are able to amass their collective wisdom in the course of only several days to provide their legal expertise to the court on behalf of a criminal defendant. The Court trusts that this is a reflection of these eminent academics' willingness in the future to step to the plate and provide like assistance in cases involving any of the numerous litigants, both in this Court and throughout the courts of this nation, who lack the financial means to fully and properly articulate the merits of their legal positions even in instances where failure to do so could result in monetary penalties, incarceration, or worse. The Court will certainly not hesitate to call for such assistance from these luminaries, as necessary in the interests of justice and equity, whenever similar questions arise in the cases that come before it."
Moreover, when the hearing started, "in the interest of full disclosure," Walton informed the court that he had "received a number of harassing, angry and mean-spirited phone calls and messages. Some wishing bad things on me and my family ... [T]hose types of things will have no impact ... I initially threw them away, but then there were more, some that were more hateful ... [T]hey are being kept."
New York Times reporters Neil Lewis and David Stout estimated subsequently that Libby's prison sentence could begin within "two months", explaining that
Judge Walton's decision means that the defense lawyers will probably ask a federal appeals court to block the sentence, a long-shot move. It also sharpens interest in a question being asked by Mr. Libby's supporters and critics alike: Will President Bush pardon Mr. Libby? ... So far, the president has expressed sympathy for Mr. Libby and his family but has not tipped his hand on the pardon issue. ... If the president does not pardon him, and if an appeals court refuses to second-guess Judge Walton's decision, Mr. Libby will probably be ordered to report to prison in six to eight weeks' time. Federal prison authorities will decide where. "Unless the Court of Appeals overturns my ruling, he will have to report", Judge Walton said.
Failure of Libby's appeal in order to begin prison sentence
On June 20, 2007, Libby appealed Walton's ruling in federal appeals court. The following day, Walton filed a 30-page expanded ruling, in which he explained his decision to deny Libby bail in more detail.
On July 2, 2007, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied Libby's request for a delay and release from his prison sentence, stating that Libby "has not shown that the appeal raises a substantial question under federal law that would merit letting him remain free," increasing "pressure on President George W. Bush to decide soon whether to pardon Libby ... as the former White House official's supporters have urged."
Presidential commutation
Soon after the verdict, calls for Libby to be pardoned by President George W. Bush began to appear in some newspapers; some of them were posted online by the Libby Legal Defense Trust (LLDT). U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid issued a press release about the verdict, urging Bush to pledge not to pardon Libby, and other Democratic politicians followed his lead.
Surveying "the pardon battle" and citing both pro and con publications, The Washington Post online columnist Dan Froomkin concludes that many U.S. newspapers opposed a presidential pardon for Libby. Much of this commentary obscured the fact that the clemency power provided the President with several options short of a full, unconditional pardon. In an op-ed published in The Washington Post, former federal prosecutor and conservative activist William Otis argued the sentence was too stringent and that, instead of pardoning Libby, Bush should commute his sentence.
After the sentencing, Bush stated on camera that he would "not intervene until Libby's legal team has exhausted all of its avenues of appeal ... It wouldn't be appropriate for me to discuss the case until after the legal remedies have run its course." Ultimately, less than a month later, on July 2, 2007, Bush chose Otis's 'third option' — "neither prison nor pardon" — in commuting Libby's prison sentence.
After Libby was denied bail during his appeal process on July 2, 2007, Bush commuted Libby's 30-month federal prison sentence, calling it "excessive", but he did not change the other parts of the sentence and their conditions. That presidential commutation left in place the felony conviction, the $250,000 fine, and the terms of probation. Some have criticized the move, as presidential commutations are rarely issued, but when granted they have generally occurred after the convicted person has already served a substantial portion of his or her sentence: "We can't find any cases, certainly in the last half-century, where the president commuted a sentence before it had even started to be served," said former Justice Department pardon attorney Margaret Colgate Love. Others, notably Cheney himself who argued that Libby was unfairly charged by a politically motivated prosecution, believed that the commutation fell short, as Libby would likely never practice law again.
At the time, Bush explained his "Grant of Executive Clemency" to Libby, in part, as follows:
Mr. Libby was sentenced to thirty months of prison, two years of probation, and a $250,000 fine. In making the sentencing decision, the district court rejected the advice of the probation office, which recommended a lesser sentence and the consideration of factors that could have led to a sentence of home confinement or probation.
Libby paid the required fine of "$250,400, which included a 'special assessment' of costs" that same day.
Bush's explanation was written by Fred F. Fielding, White House Counsel during the last two years of Bush's presidency. According to a Time article published six months after Bush left office, Fielding worded the commutation "in a way that would make it harder for Bush to revisit it in the future ... ; [the] language was intended to send an unmistakable message, internally as well as externally: No one is above the law." The article suggested that there was a fundamental difference between how Bush and Cheney viewed the "War on Terror", with aides close to Bush feeling that Cheney had misled the President and damaged the administration's moral character with the Plame leak.
Libby's lawyer, Theodore V. Wells, Jr. "issued a brief statement saying Mr. Libby and his family 'wished to express their gratitude for the president's decision ... We continue to believe in Mr. Libby's innocence'. ... "
Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, however, took issue with Bush's description of the sentence as 'excessive', saying it was "[i]mposed pursuant to the laws governing sentencings which occur every day throughout this country ... It is fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of justice as equals ... [T]hat principle guided the judge during both the trial and the sentencing," Fitzgerald said.
The day after the commuting of Libby's sentence, James Rowley (Bloomberg News) reported that Bush had not ruled out pardoning Libby in the future and that Bush's press spokesman, Tony Snow, denied any political motivation in the commutation. Quoting Snow, Rowley added: The president is getting pounded on the right because he didn't do a full pardon.' If Bush were 'doing the weather-vane thing' he 'would have done something differently.
Democratic politicians' responses stressed their outrage at what they called a disgraceful abrogation of justice, and, that evening CNN reported that Representative John Conyers, Jr., Democrat of Michigan, announced that there would be a formal Congressional investigation of Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence and other presidential reprieves.
The hearing on "The Use and Misuse of Presidential Clemency Power for Executive Branch Officials" was held by the United States House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Conyers, on July 11, 2007.
Just a few days later, however, Judge Walton questioned "whether ... [Libby] will face two years of probation, as [President Bush] said he would," because the supervised release time is conditioned on Libby's serving the prison sentence, and he "directed the special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, and ... [Libby's] lawyers to file arguments on the point. ... " "If Judge Walton does not impose any supervised release, it could undercut ... [Bush's] argument that ... Libby still faced stiff justice." That issue was resolved on July 10, 2007, clearing the way for Libby to begin serving the rest of his sentence, the supervised release and 400 hours of community service.
In response to Bush's justifications for clemency, liberal commentator Harlan J. Protass noted that in Rita v. United States, the case of a defendant convicted of perjury in front of a grand jury which had been decided two weeks earlier by the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. government had successfully argued that sentences that fall within Federal Sentencing Guidelines are presumed to be "reasonable", regardless of individual circumstances.
Reportedly outraged by Bush's commutation of Libby's prison sentence, on July 2, 2007, Wilson told CNN: "I have nothing to say to Scooter Libby ... I don't owe this administration. They owe my wife and my family an apology for having betrayed her. Scooter Libby is a traitor. Bush's action ... demonstrates that the White House is corrupt from top to bottom." He reiterated this perspective on the commutation in the House Judiciary Committee hearing on July 11, 2007, vehemently protesting that a Republican congressman was engaging in "yet a further smear of my wife's good name and my good name."
According to a USA Today/Gallup Poll conducted from July 6 to July 8, 2007, "most Americans disagree with President George W. Bush's decision to intervene" on Libby's behalf in the case.
Several months after Bush's action, Judge Walton commented publicly on it. He spoke in favor of applying the law equally, stating: "The downside [of the commutation] is there are a lot of people in America who think that justice is determined to a large degree by who you are and that what you have plays a large role in what kind of justice you receive. ... "
Bush took no further action with respect to Libby's conviction or sentence during his presidential term, despite entreaties from conservatives that he should be pardoned. Two days after their term expired, former Vice President Cheney expressed his regret that Bush had not pardoned Libby on his last day in office.
Press coverage of Libby's trial
Blogs played a prominent role in the press coverage of Libby's trial. Scott Shane, in his article "For Liberal Bloggers, Libby Trial Is Fun and Fodder", published in The New York Times on February 15, 2007, quotes Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, who wrote that the trial was "the first federal case for which independent bloggers have been given official credentials along with reporters from the traditional news media." The trial was followed in the mass media and engaged the interest of both professional legal experts and the general public. While awaiting the judge's ruling pertaining to supervised release and the "400 hours of community service that Judge Walton imposed", for example, bloggers discussed the legal issues involved in these non-commuted parts of Libby's sentence and their effects on Libby's future life experiences.
Criticism of investigation
On August 28, 2006, Christopher Hitchens asserted that Richard Armitage was the primary source of the Valerie Plame leak and that Fitzgerald knew this at the beginning of his investigation. This was supported a month later by Armitage himself, who stated that Fitzgerald had instructed him not to go public with this information. Investor's Business Daily questioned Fitzgerald's truthfulness in an editorial, stating "From top to bottom, this has been one of the most disgraceful abuses of prosecutorial power in this country's history ... The Plame case proves [Fitzgerald] can bend the truth with the proficiency of the slickest of pols."
In a September 2008 Wall Street Journal editorial, attorney Alan Dershowitz cited the "questionable investigation[s]" of Scooter Libby as evidence of the problems brought to the criminal justice process by "politically appointed and partisan attorney[s] general". In April 2015, also writing in The Wall Street Journal, Hoover Institution fellow Peter Berkowitz argued that statements by Judith Miller, in her recently published memoir, raised anew contentions that her testimony was inaccurate and that Fitzgerald's conduct as prosecutor was inappropriate.
The Wilsons' civil suit
On July 13, 2006, Joseph and Valerie Wilson filed a civil lawsuit against Libby, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and other unnamed senior White House officials (among whom they later added Richard Armitage) for their role in the public disclosure of Valerie Wilson's classified CIA status. Judge John D. Bates dismissed the Wilsons' lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds on July 19, 2007. The Wilsons appealed Bates's district-court decision the next day. Agreeing with the Bush administration, the Obama Justice Department argued that the Wilsons had no legitimate grounds to sue. Melanie Sloan, one of the Wilsons' attorneys, said: "We are deeply disappointed that the Obama administration has failed to recognize the grievous harm top Bush White House officials inflicted on Joe and Valerie Wilson. The government's position cannot be reconciled with President Obama's oft-stated commitment to once again make government officials accountable for their actions."
On June 21, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal.
Restoration of voting rights, law license, and presidential pardon
Libby's voting rights were restored on November 1, 2012 by then-Governor of Virginia Bob McDonnell. Libby was part of a larger group of individuals who had their voting rights restored by McDonnell, all of whom were non-violent offenders. Three years later, on November 3, 2016, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals granted Libby's petition for reinstatement to the D.C. Bar. On April 13, 2018, President Donald Trump pardoned Libby.
In media portrayals
David Andrews played Scooter Libby in the 2010 film Fair Game, which is about the Plame affair.
Justin Kirk played Libby in the 2018 film Vice.
See also
List of disbarments in the United States
Plame affair criminal investigation
Project for the New American Century
List of people pardoned or granted clemency by the president of the United States
Notes
Citations
References
. United States Department of State, February 2005. Accessed July 8, 2007.
Bromell, Nick. "Scooter Libby and Me". The American Scholar (Phi Beta Kappa) (Winter 2007). Accessed June 8, 2007.
–––. "Scooter's Tragic Innocence: Why My Friend Scooter Libby Is Loyal to Bush, Cheney and an Arrogant Administration Whose Values Are Not His Own". Salon, January 24, 2007. Accessed June 8, 2007. (Premium content; restricted access).
Dickerson, John. "Who Is Scooter Libby? The Secretive Cheney Aide at the Heart of the CIA Leak Case". Slate, October 21, 2005. Accessed June 28, 2007.
Frankel, Max. "The Washington Back Channel". The New York Times, March 25, 2007. Accessed March 23, 2008.
Garfield, Bob. "'Former New York Times Staffer Judith Miller'". On the Media from NPR, National Public Radio, WCNY-FM, November 11, 2005. Accessed March 5, 2007. (Transcript and RealAudio link.)
"I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby". Right Web (International Relations Center). Last updated March 21, 2007. Accessed July 1, 2007.
"Indictment" in United States of America vs. I. Lewis Libby, also known as "Scooter Libby". United States Department of Justice, October 28, 2005. Accessed July 5, 2007.
Libby, Lewis. The Apprentice: A Novel. Rpt. ed. 1996; New York: Griffin, 2005. (10). (13).
Markels, Alex. "Legal Affairs: I. Lewis Libby: The Plight of a Disciplined Risk-Taker". National Public Radio, October 28, 2005. Accessed March 5, 2007.
Merritt, Jeralyn, moderator. "Verdict in the Libby Trial". Transcript. The Washington Post ("Live Online" discussion), March 6, 2007, 2:00–3:00 p.m., ET. Accessed March 6, 2007. (Duration: one hour.) N.B.: "Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions. washingtonpost.com is not responsible for any content posted by third parties."
in "United States of America, v. I. Lewis Libby, Defendant". Criminal No. 05-394 (RBW). United States District Court for the District of Columbia, filed January 10, 2007. Accessed February 10, 2007. ["USA-v-Libby_Rules-of-Order.pdf".]
"President Commutes Libby's Sentence: Calls 30-month Term for Ex-Cheney Aide 'excessive'". Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, July 3, 2007. Accessed July 4, 2007.
. White House biography from 2004. Accessed February 10, 2007.
Waas, Murray. "Cheney 'Authorized' Libby to Leak Classified Information". National Journal, February 9, 2006. Accessed March 6, 2007.
–––, ed., with Jeff Lomonaco. The United States v. I. Lewis Libby. New York: Union Square Press (imprint of Sterling Publishing), 2007. (10). (13). ("Edited & with reporting by Murray Waas" and with research assistance by Jeff Lomonaco.)
Weisman, Steven. "White House Is Pressing Israelis To Take Initiatives in Peace Talks". The New York Times, April 17, 2003. Accessed March 23, 2008.
Wilson, Joseph C. "Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson's Response to Bush Spokesman Tony Snow's Comments at Today's White House Briefing". Online posting. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), July 3, 2007. Accessed July 4, 2007. Online posting. "Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson's Response ... " and "Read more", Joseph and Valerie Wilson Legal Support Trust (Home page), n.d. Accessed July 8, 2007. (Concerning Bush's commutation of Libby's prison sentence.)
–––. "Statement in Response to Jury's Verdict in U.S. v. I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby" (now outdated URL). Press release. Originally posted online. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), March 6, 2007. Accessed March 6, 2007. Posted as "CREW Statement on Libby Conviction: No Man Is Above the Law." Citizens ^Blogging for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (blog), March 6, 2007. Accessed April 18, 2007. Also posted as "Wilsons' Attorney Statement in Response to Jury's Verdict in U.S. v. I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby". Joseph and Valerie Wilson Legal Support Trust, March 6, 2007, home page. Accessed April 18, 2007.
External links
Background on the Plame Investigation at The Washington Post.
CNN Special Reports: CIA Leak Investigation compiled by CNN Newsroom; incl. interactive timeline in Case History.
"Legal Affairs: Lewis Libby's Complete Grand Jury Testimony". Full audio clip and transcript provided by National Public Radio on npr.org,
"The Lewis Libby Case". Archive of articles concerning Libby broadcast on National Public Radio.
.
United States v. I. Lewis Libby. Photo gallery with news captions at The Washington Post.
Membership at the Council on Foreign Relations
1950 births
Jewish American attorneys
Assistants to the President of the United States
Chiefs of Staff to the Vice President of the United States
Columbia Law School alumni
Columbia University alumni
Living people
Members of the Council on Foreign Relations
Pennsylvania Democrats
Pennsylvania Republicans
People associated with the Plame affair
People from McLean, Virginia
Lawyers from New Haven, Connecticut
Lawyers from Philadelphia
Phillips Academy alumni
Reagan administration personnel
Recipients of American presidential clemency
Recipients of American presidential pardons
Yale University alumni
Hudson Institute
Conservatism in the United States | true | [
"Critique of Religious Thought () is a book by the Syrian philosopher and thinker, Sadiq Jalal Al-Azm. It was published in its first edition in 1969 by Dar Al-Tali`a in Beirut, and then it was republished in dozens of editions. Upon its publication, the book caused (and still now) a sensation in the Arab and Islamic worlds. Because of it, Al-Azm was subjected to trial and legal prosecutions in Beirut at the time. This was done under the pretext of \"stirring up sectarian, sectarian and racist strife\" and \"inciting conflict between the various sects of the nation or contempt of religions.\n\nAt the end of the second edition of his book, Al-Azm attached documents about his trial in Lebanon, including the indictment, the interrogation, and the court’s decision that dropped the charges brought against him, because what he wrote: “not a crime, but falls within the framework of freedom of thought, opinion and expression,” and includes “scientific research.” and includes scientific and philosophical criticism.\n\nTrial \nAl-Azm complied with the court’s decision on December 19, 1969, under the pretext of “disdain for both the Christian and Islamic religions” in his book, denying that what he wrote was directed at religious beliefs, as much as religious thought was concerned with reason and not belief.\n\nAl-Azm was released a week later, and he was tried on the 27th of the same month, and the ruling was issued dismissing the case on July 7, 1970 AD.\n\nAnd soon the case against Al-Azm was closed, at that time the Lebanese Minister of Interior, Kamal Jumblatt.\n\nReferences \n\n1969 books\nPhilosophy books\nArabic-language books",
"The Kirkjuból witch trial was a witch trial that took place in Kirkjuból in 1656, in what is today Ísafjörður, in Iceland. It is the most famous witch trial in Iceland.\n\nWitch trial\nThe plaintiff in the trial was pastor Jón Magnússon (author), who had been suffering poor health since 1654. He contended that his illness, as well as what he described as demonic disturbances in his household and in the surrounding district, were brought on by sorcery practiced by two members of his own congregation, who also sang in the choir, a father and son both named Jón Jónsson. The elder Jón confessed to owning a book about magic and that he had used it against Jón Magnússon. The son also confessed to having made the pastor ill and of having used magical signs and farting runes (Fretrúnir) against a girl. The curse of farting was intended to be relentless; to not only humiliate the victim, but also to bring about chronic abdominal discomfort and weakness.\n\nBoth father and son were found guilty of sorcery and were executed by burning at the stake. After they were executed, the priest was awarded all their material holdings. Claiming that the disturbances and sicknesses did not cease, he then accused a Thuridur (Þuríður) Jónsdóttir, the daughter/sister of the Jónssons, of witchcraft. The case was brought to Þingvellir, was dismissed and the woman let free. She later countersued for wrongful persecution and was vindicated. She was awarded the pastor's belongings as compensation. In Iceland, magic was often practiced and not necessarily associated with the Devil, but the religious and secular authorities, influenced directly or indirectly by Denmark and Germany, had a different view on the subject.\n\nIn fiction \nThe witch trial inspired a film by Hrafn Gunnlaugsson in 2000 called \"Myrkrahöfðinginn\", or \"The Prince of Darkness\". The film's storyline departs markedly from the original court records and the account written by Jón Magnússon in the 17th century, which is known by the title Píslarsaga Síra Jóns Magnússonar, or Story of Sufferings of Jón Magnússon.\n\nReferences \n\nhttp://www.newliving.com/issues/may_2004/articles/mystical%20iceland.html \nhttps://web.archive.org/web/20080331183727/http://www.vestfirdir.is/galdrasyning/executed.php\nJan Guillou, Häxornas försvarare, Piratförlaget 2002 ()\nhttps://web.archive.org/web/20080327073140/http://www.vestfirdir.is/galdrasyning/famous_cases.php\nZarrillo, Dominick The Icelandic Witch Craze of the Seventeenth Century. In Academia.edu., from 2018 https://www.academia.edu/36665790/The_Icelandic_Witch_Craze_of_the_Seventeenth_Century\n\n17th century in Iceland\nWitch trials in Iceland\n1656 in law\n1656 in Europe"
] |
[
"Scooter Libby",
"Trial, conviction, and sentencing",
"What was his trial about",
"second charge of making false statements when interviewed by federal agents about his conversations with Time reporter Matthew Cooper."
] | C_72c2173245744eeea3ae7541ba451877_0 | What did he talk to the reporter about | 2 | What did Scooter Libby talk to the reporter about | Scooter Libby | On March 6, 2007, the jury convicted him on four of the five counts but acquitted him on count three, the second charge of making false statements when interviewed by federal agents about his conversations with Time reporter Matthew Cooper. After being questioned by the FBI in the fall of 2003 and testifying before a Federal grand jury on March 5, 2004, and again on March 24, 2004, Libby pleaded not guilty to all five counts. According to the Associated Press, David Addington, Cheney's legal counsel, described a September 2003 meeting with Libby around the time that a criminal investigation began, saying that Libby had told him, "'I just want to tell you, I didn't do it'... I didn't ask what the 'it' was.'" Libby retained attorney Ted Wells of the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to represent him. Wells had successfully defended former Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy against a 30-count indictment and had also participated in the successful defense of former Secretary of Labor Raymond Donovan. After Judge Reggie Walton denied Libby's motion to dismiss, the press initially reported that Libby would testify at the trial. Libby's criminal trial, United States v. Libby, began on January 16, 2007. A parade of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists testified, including Bob Woodward, Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post and Judith Miller and David E. Sanger of The New York Times. Despite earlier press reports and widespread speculation, neither Libby nor Vice President Cheney testified. The jury began deliberations on February 21, 2007. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby (first name generally given as Irv, Irve or Irving; born August 22, 1950) is an American lawyer, and former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.
From 2001 to 2005, Libby held the offices of Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs, Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States, and Assistant to the President during the administration of President George W. Bush.
In October 2005, Libby resigned from all three government positions after he was indicted on five counts by a federal grand jury concerning the investigation of the leak of the covert identity of Central Intelligence Agency officer Valerie Plame Wilson. He was subsequently convicted of four counts (one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury, and one count of making false statements), making him the highest-ranking White House official convicted in a government scandal since John Poindexter, the national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan in the Iran–Contra affair.
After a failed appeal, President Bush commuted Libby's sentence of 30 months in federal prison, leaving the other parts of his sentence intact. As a consequence of his conviction in United States v. Libby, Libby's license to practice law was suspended until being reinstated in 2016. President Donald Trump fully pardoned Libby on April 13, 2018.
Personal history
Background and education
Libby was born to an affluent Jewish family in New Haven, Connecticut. His father, Irving Lewis Leibovitz, was an investment banker. His father changed his family original surname from Leibovitz to Libby.
Libby graduated from the Eaglebrook School, in Deerfield, Massachusetts, a junior boarding school, in 1965. The family lived in the Washington, D.C. region; Miami, Florida; and Connecticut prior to Libby's graduation from Phillips Academy, in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1968.
He and his elder brother, Hank, a retired tax lawyer, were the first in the family to graduate from college. Libby attended Yale University in New Haven, graduating magna cum laude in 1972. As Yale Daily News reporter Jack Mirkinson observes, "Even though he would eventually become a prominent Republican, Libby's political beginnings would not have pointed in that direction. He served as vice president of the Yale College Democrats and later campaigned for Michael Dukakis when he was running for governor of Massachusetts." According to Mirkinson: "Two particular Yale courses helped guide Libby's future endeavors. One of these was a creative writing course, which started Libby on a 20-year mission to complete a novel ... [later published as] The Apprentice ... [and] a political science class with professor and future Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. In an interview with author James Mann, Libby said Wolfowitz was one of his favorite professors, and their professional relationship did not end with the class." Wolfowitz became a significant mentor in his later professional life.
In 1975, as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, Libby received his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Columbia Law School.
Marriage and family
Libby is married to Harriet Grant, whom he met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the late 1980s, while he was a partner and she an associate in the law firm then known as Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin: When he and Harriet became serious,' Dickstein partner Kenneth Simon wrote, 'she chose to leave the firm rather than maintain the awkward situation of an associate dating a partner. Libby and Grant married in the early 1990s, have a son and a daughter, and live in McLean, Virginia.
Name
Libby has been secretive about his full name. He was prosecuted as I. Lewis Libby, also known as "Scooter Libby". National Public Radio's Day to Day reported that the 1972 Yale Banner (the yearbook of Yale) gave his name as Irve Lewis Libby Jr.; it is unclear if Irve is his given name, or if it is short for Irving, as it was for his father. CBS, the BBC, and The New York Timess John Tierney have all used this spelling of his first name. The Timess Eric Schmitt spelled it Irv, though he cited a phone interview with Libby's brother, and did not clarify if he had asked for a spelling.
At times, including in the Yale Banner, and as documented in a federal directory cited by Ron Kampeas and others, Libby has used the suffix Jr. after his name. At other times, however, as listed in his federal indictment and United States v. Libby, which give his alias as Scooter Libby, there is no Jr. after Libby's name. The Columbia Alumni Association online directory lists him as I. Lewis Libby, with a first name of "I." and birth first name of "Irve".
Libby has also been secretive about the origin of his nickname Scooter. The New York Timess Eric Schmitt, citing the aforementioned interview with Libby's brother, wrote that "His nickname 'Scooter' derives from the day [his] father watched him crawling in his crib and joked, 'He's a Scooter! In a February 2002 interview on Larry King Live, King asked Libby specifically, "Where did 'Scooter' come from?"; Libby replied: "Oh, it goes way back to when I was a kid. Some people ask me if ... [crosstalk] ... as you did earlier, if it's related to Phil Rizzuto [nicknamed 'The Scooter']. I had the range but not the arm."
The Apprentice
Libby's only novel, The Apprentice, about a group of travelers stranded in northern Japan in the winter of 1903, during a smallpox epidemic in the run-up to the Russo-Japanese War, was first published in a hardback edition by Graywolf Press in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1996, and reprinted as a trade paperback by St. Martin's Thomas Dunne Books in 2002. After Libby's indictment in the CIA leak grand jury investigation in 2005, St. Martin's Press reissued The Apprentice as a mass market paperback (Griffin imprint). An allegorical meditation on the legitimacy of concealed knowledge, The Apprentice has been described as "a thriller ... that includes references to bestiality, pedophilia and rape."
Law career
After earning his J.D. from Columbia in 1975, Libby joined the firm of Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis LLP. He was admitted to the bar of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on October 27, 1976, and to the Bar of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals on May 19, 1978.
Libby practiced law at Schnader for six years before joining the U.S. State Department policy planning staff, at the invitation of his former Yale professor, Paul Wolfowitz, in 1981. In 1985, returning to private practice, he joined the firm then known as Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin (now Dickstein Shapiro LLP), becoming a partner in 1986 and working there until 1989, when he left to work in the U.S. Defense Department, again under his former Yale professor Paul Wolfowitz, until January 1993.
In 1993, returning to private legal practice from government, Libby became the managing partner of the Washington, D.C. office of Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, Alexander & Ferdon (formerly Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, and Alexander); in 1995, along with his Mudge Rose colleague, Leonard Garment––who had replaced John Dean as acting Special Counsel to U.S. President Richard Nixon for the last two years of his presidency dominated by Watergate, and who had hired Libby at Mudge Rose twenty years later––and three other lawyers from that firm, Libby joined the Washington, D.C. office of Dechert Price & Rhoads (now part of Dechert LLP), where he was a managing partner, a member of its litigation department, and chaired its Public Policy Practice Group. His work there was well regarded, with President Clinton recognizing Libby as one of three "distinguished Republican lawyers" who worked on the Marc Rich pardon case.
In 2001 Libby left the firm to return to work again in government, as Vice President Cheney's chief of staff.
Fugitive billionaire commodities trader Marc Rich, who, along with his business partner Pincus Green, had been indicted of tax evasion and illegal trading with Iran, and who, with Green, was ultimately pardoned by President Bill Clinton, was a client whom Leonard Garment had hired Libby to help represent around the spring of 1985, after Rich and Green had first engaged Garment. Libby stopped representing Rich in the spring of 2000; early in March 2001, at a "contentious" Congressional hearing to review Clinton's pardons, Libby testified that he thought the prosecution's case against Rich "misconstrued the facts and the law". According to Jackson Hogan, Libby's roommate at Yale University, as quoted in the already-cited U.S. News & World Report article by Walsh, He is intensely partisan ... in that if he is your counsel, he'll embrace your case and try to figure a way out of whatever noose you are ensnared in. According to a House Committee on Government Reform report, however, "The arguments made by Garment, [William Bradford] Reynolds and Libby [in their testimony] focused on the claim that the SDNY was criminalizing what should have been a civil tax case. They did not make, compile, or in any other way lay the groundwork for, or make a case for a Presidential pardon. When former President Clinton stated that they 'reviewed and advocated' 'the case for the pardons,' he suggested that they were somehow involved in arguing that Rich and Green should receive pardons. This was completely untrue". (p. 162)
Bar suspension and disbarment
Before his indictment in United States v. Libby, Libby had been a licensed lawyer, admitted to the bars of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, although his Pennsylvania law license was inactive, and he had already been suspended from the Washington, D.C. Office of Bar Counsel (D.C. Bar) for non-payment of fees. The Chief Judge of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals recommended disbarment upon confirmation of his conviction, which Libby had initially indicated that he would appeal. Having suspended his license to practice law on April 3, 2007, the D.C. Bar "disbarred [him] pursuant to D.C. Code § 11-2503(a)" on legal grounds of "moral turpitude", effective April 11, 2007, and recommended to the D.C. Court of Appeals his disbarment if his conviction were not overturned on appeal. On December 10, 2007, Libby's lawyers announced his decision "to drop his appeal of his conviction in the CIA leak case". On March 20, 2008, following the dropping of his appeal of his conviction, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals disbarred Libby. As a result of the Court's ruling, "Libby will lose his license to practice or appear in court in Washington until at least 2012", and, "As is standard, he will probably lose any bar membership he holds in other states"; that is, in Pennsylvania.
Government public service and political career
In 1981, after working as a lawyer in the Philadelphia firm Schnader LLP, Libby accepted the invitation of his former Yale University political science professor and mentor Paul Wolfowitz to join the U.S. State Department's policy planning staff. From 1982 to 1985, Libby served as director of special projects in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. In 1985 he received the Foreign Affairs Award for Public Service from the United States Department of Defense, and he resigned from government to enter private legal practice at Dickstein, Shapiro, and Morin. In 1989, he went to work at the Pentagon, again under Wolfowitz, as principal deputy under-secretary for strategy and resources at the U.S. Defense Department.
During the George H. W. Bush administration, Libby was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as deputy under secretary of defense for policy, serving from 1992 to 1993. In 1992 he also served as legal adviser for the House Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China. Libby co-authored the draft of the Defense Planning Guidance for the 1994–99 fiscal years (dated February 18, 1992) with Wolfowitz for Dick Cheney, who was then Secretary of Defense. In 1993 Libby received the Distinguished Service Award from the U.S. Defense Department and the Distinguished Public Service Award from the U.S. State Department before resuming private legal practice first at Mudge Rose and then at Dechert.
Libby was part of a network of neo-conservatives known as the "Vulcans"—its other members included Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld. While he was still a managing partner of Dechert Price & Rhoads, he was a signatory to the "Statement of Principles" of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) (a document dated June 3, 1997). He joined Wolfowitz, PNAC co-founders William Kristol, Robert Kagan, and other "Project Participants" in developing the PNAC's September 2000 report entitled, "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New Century".
After becoming Cheney's chief of staff in 2001, Libby was reportedly nicknamed "Germ Boy" at the White House, for insisting on universal smallpox vaccination. He was also nicknamed "Dick Cheney's Dick Cheney" for his close working relationship with the Vice President. Mary Matalin, who worked with Libby as an adviser to Cheney during Bush's first term, said of him "He is to the vice president what the vice president is to the president."
Libby was active in the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee of the Pentagon when it was chaired by Richard Perle during the early years of the George W. Bush administration (2001–2003). At various points in his career, Libby has also held positions with the American Bar Association, been on the advisory board of the RAND Corporation's Center for Russia and Eurasia, and been a legal adviser to the United States House of Representatives, as well as served as a consultant for the defense contractor Northrop Grumman.
Libby was also actively involved in the Bush administration's efforts to negotiate the Israeli–Palestinian "road map" for peace; for example, he participated in a series of meetings with Jewish leaders in early December 2002 and a meeting with two aides of then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in mid-April 2003, culminating in the Red Sea Summit on June 4, 2004. In their highly controversial and widely contested "Working Paper" entitled "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy", University of Chicago political science professor John J. Mearsheimer and academic dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University Stephen M. Walt argue that Libby was among the Bush administration's most "fervently pro-Israel ... officials" (20).
Awards for government service
Distinguished Service Award, United States Department of Defense, 1993
Distinguished Public Service Award, United States Department of the Navy, 1993
Foreign Affairs Award for Public Service, United States Department of State, 1985
Subsequent work experience
From January 2006 until March 7, 2007, the day after his conviction in United States v. Libby, when he resigned, Libby served as a "senior adviser" at the Hudson Institute, to "focus on issues relating to the War on Terror and the future of Asia ... offer research guidance and ... advise the institute in strategic planning." His resignation was announced by the Hudson Institute in a press release dated March 8, 2007. However, he has served as Senior Vice President of the Hudson Institute at least since 2010.
Libby also serves as a member of the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense, a group that encourages and advocates changes to government policy to strengthen national biodefense. In order to address biological threats facing the nation, the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense created a 33 step initiative for the U.S. Government to implement. Headed by former Senator Joe Lieberman and former Governor Tom Ridge, the Study Panel assembled in Washington D.C. for four meetings concerning current biodefense programs. The Study Panel concluded that the federal government had little to no defense mechanisms in case of a biological event. The Study Panel's final report, The National Blueprint for Biodefense, proposes a string of solutions and recommendations for the U.S. Government to take, including items such as giving the Vice President authority over biodefense responsibilities and merging the entire biodefense budget. These solutions represent the Panel's call to action in order to increase awareness and activity for pandemic related issues.
Involvement in the Plame affair
Between 2003 and 2005, intense speculation centered on the possibility that Libby may have been the administration official who had "leaked" classified employment information about Valerie Plame, a covert Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent and the wife of Iraq War critic Joseph C. Wilson, to New York Times reporter Judith Miller and other reporters and later tried to hide his having done so.
In August 2005, as revealed in grand jury testimony audiotapes played during the trial and reported in many news accounts, Libby testified that he met with Judith Miller, a reporter with The New York Times, on July 8, 2003, and discussed Plame with her.
Although Libby signed a "blanket waiver" allowing journalists to discuss their conversations with him pursuant to the CIA leak grand jury investigation, Miller maintained that such a waiver did not serve to allow her to reveal her source to that grand jury; moreover, Miller argued that Libby's general waiver pertaining to all journalists could have been coerced and that she would only testify before that grand jury if given an individual waiver.
After refusing to testify about her July 2003 meeting with Libby, Judith Miller was jailed on July 7, 2005, for contempt of court. Months later, however, her new attorney, Robert Bennett, told her that she already had possessed a written, voluntary waiver from Libby all along. After Miller had served most of her sentence, Libby reiterated that he had indeed given her a "waiver" both "voluntarily and personally." He attached the following letter, which, when released publicly, became the subject of further speculation about Libby's possible motives in sending it:
As noted above, my lawyer confirmed my waiver to other reporters in just the way he did with your lawyer. Why? Because as I am sure will not be news to you, the public report of every other reporter's testimony makes clear that they did not discuss Ms. Plame's name or identity with me, or knew about her before our call.
After agreeing to testify, Miller was released on September 29, 2005, appearing before the grand jury the next day, but the charge against her was rescinded only after she testified again on October 12, 2005. For her second grand jury appearance, Miller produced a notebook from a previously undisclosed meeting with Libby on June 23, 2003, two weeks before Wilson's New York Times op-ed was published. In her account published in the Times on October 16, 2005, based on her notes, Miller reports:
... in an interview with me on June 23 [2003], Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, discussed Mr. Wilson's activities and placed blame for intelligence failures on the CIA. In later conversations with me, on July 8 and July 12 [2003], Mr. Libby, ... [at the time] Mr. Cheney's top aide, played down the importance of Mr. Wilson's mission and questioned his performance ... My notes indicate that well before Mr. Wilson published his critique, Mr. Libby told me that Mr. Wilson's wife may have worked on unconventional weapons at the CIA. ... My notes do not show that Mr. Libby identified Mr. Wilson's wife by name. Nor do they show that he described Valerie Wilson as a covert agent or "operative"...
Her notation on her July 8, 2003 meeting with Libby does contain the name "Valerie Flame ", which she added retrospectively. While Miller reveals publicly that she herself had misidentified the last name of Wilson's wife (aka "Valerie Plame") in her own marginal notes on their interview as "Flame" instead of "Plame", in her grand jury (and later trial testimony), she remained uncertain when, how, and why she arrived at that name and did not attribute it to Libby:
I was not permitted to take notes of what I told the grand jury, and my interview notes on Mr. Libby are sketchy in places. It is also difficult, more than two years later, to parse the meaning and context of phrases, of underlining and of parentheses. On one page of my interview notes, for example, I wrote the name "Valerie Flame." Yet, as I told Mr. Fitzgerald, I simply could not recall where that came from, when I wrote it or why the name was misspelled ... I testified that I did not believe the name came from Mr. Libby, in part because the notation does not appear in the same part of my notebook as the interview notes from him.
A year and a half later, a jury convicted Libby of obstruction of justice and perjury in his grand jury testimony and making false statements to federal investigators about when and how he learned that Plame was a CIA agent.
On April 13, 2018, Libby was pardoned by US President Donald Trump.
Indictment and resignation
On October 28, 2005, as a result of the CIA leak grand jury investigation, Special Counsel Fitzgerald indicted Libby on five counts: one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of making false statements when interviewed by agents of the FBI, and two counts of perjury in his testimony before the grand jury. Pursuant to the grand jury investigation, Libby had told FBI investigators that he first heard of Mrs. Wilson's CIA employment from Cheney, and then later heard it from journalist Tim Russert, and acted as if he did not have that information. The indictment alleges that statements to federal investigators and the grand jury were intentionally false, in that Libby had numerous conversations about Mrs. Wilson's CIA employment, including his conversations with Judith Miller (see above), before speaking to Russert; Russert did not tell Libby about Mrs. Wilson's CIA employment; prior to talking with such reporters, Libby knew with certainty that she was employed by the CIA; and Libby told reporters that she worked for the CIA without making any disclaimer that he was uncertain of that fact. The false statements counts in the Libby indictment charge that he intentionally made those false statements to the FBI; the perjury counts charge that he intentionally lied to the grand jury in repeating those false statements; and the obstruction of justice count charges that Libby intentionally made those false statements in order to mislead the grand jury, thus impeding Fitzgerald's grand jury investigation of the truth about the leaking of Mrs. Wilson's then-classified, covert CIA identity.
Trial, conviction, and sentencing
On March 6, 2007, the jury convicted him on four of the five counts: obstruction of justice, one count of making false statements when interviewed by agents of the FBI, and two counts of perjury. They acquitted him on count three, the second charge of making false statements when interviewed by federal agents about his conversations with Time reporter Matthew Cooper.
Libby retained attorney Ted Wells of the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to represent him. Wells had successfully defended former Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy against a 30-count indictment and had also participated in the successful defense of former Secretary of Labor Raymond Donovan.
After Judge Reggie Walton denied Libby's motion to dismiss, the press initially reported that Libby would testify at the trial. Libby's criminal trial, United States v. Libby, began on January 16, 2007. A parade of Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists testified, including Bob Woodward, Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post and Judith Miller and David E. Sanger of The New York Times. Despite earlier press reports and widespread speculation, neither Libby nor Vice President Cheney testified. The jury began deliberations on February 21, 2007.
Verdict
After deliberating for 10 days, the jury rendered its verdict on March 6, 2007. It convicted Libby on four of the five counts against him: two counts of perjury, one count of obstruction of justice in a grand jury investigation, and one of the two counts of making false statements to federal investigators.
After the verdict, initially, Libby's lawyers announced that he would seek a new trial, and that, if that attempt were to fail, they would appeal Libby's conviction. Libby did not speak to reporters. Libby's defense team eventually decided against seeking a new trial.
Speaking to the media outside the courtroom after the verdict, Fitzgerald said that "The jury worked very long and hard and deliberated at length ... [and] was obviously convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had lied and obstructed justice in a serious manner ... I do not expect to file any further charges." The trial confirmed that the leak came first from then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage; since Fitzgerald did not charge Armitage and did not charge anyone else, Libby's conviction effectively ended the investigation.
In his October 28, 2005, press conference about the grand jury's indictment, Fitzgerald had already explained that Libby's obstruction of justice through perjury and false statements had prevented the grand jury from determining whether the leak violated federal law.
During his media appearance outside the courtroom after the verdict in the Libby case, Fitzgerald fielded questions from the press about others involved in the Plame affair and in the CIA leak grand jury investigation, such as Armitage and Cheney, whom he had already described as under "a cloud", as already addressed in his conduct of the case and in his closing arguments in court.
Sentencing
Given current federal sentencing guidelines, which are not mandatory, the conviction could have resulted in a sentence ranging from no imprisonment to imprisonment of up to 25 years and a fine of $1,000,000; yet, as Sniffen and Apuzzo observe, "federal sentencing guidelines will probably prescribe far less." In practice, according to federal sentencing data, three-fourths of the 198 defendants found guilty of obstruction of justice in 2006 served jail time. The average length of jail time on this charge alone was 70 months.
On June 5, 2007, Judge Walton sentenced Libby to 30 months in prison and fined him $250,000, clarifying that Libby would begin his sentence immediately. According to Apuzzo and Yost, the judge also "placed him on two years probation after his prison sentence expires. There is no parole in the federal system, but Libby would be eligible for release after two years." In addition, Judge Walton required Libby to provide "400 hours of community service" during his supervised release. On June 5, 2007, after the announcement of Libby's sentencing, CNN reported that Libby still "plans to appeal the verdict".
That day, in response to the sentencing, Vice President Cheney issued a statement in Libby's defense on The White House website. The statement concluded: "Speaking as friends, we hope that our system will return a final result consistent with what we know of this fine man."
Joseph and Valerie Wilson posted their statement on Libby's sentencing in United States v. Libby on their website, "grateful that justice has been served."
Order to report to prison pending appeal of verdict
After the June 5 sentencing, Walton said he was inclined to jail Libby after the defense laid out its proposed appeal, but the judge told attorneys he was open to changing his mind"; however, on June 14, 2007, Walton ordered Libby to report to prison while his attorneys appealed the conviction. Libby's attorneys asked that the order be stayed, but Walton denied the request and told Libby that he would have 10 days to appeal the ruling. In denying Libby's request, which had questioned Fitzgerald's authority to make the charges in the first place, Walton supported Fitzgerald's authority in the case. He said: "Everyone is accountable, and if you work in the White House, and if it's perceived that somehow (you're) linked at the hip, the American public would have serious questions about the fairness of any investigation of a high-level official conducted by the attorney general." The judge was also responding to an Amicus curiae brief that he had permitted to be filed, which had not apparently convinced him to change his mind, as he subsequently denied Libby bail during his appeal. His "order grant[ing] the [legal academic] scholars permission to file their brief ..." contained a caustic footnote questioning the motivation of the legal academics and suggesting he might not give a great deal of weight to their opinion[:]
... It is an impressive show of public service when twelve prominent and distinguished current and former law professors are able to amass their collective wisdom in the course of only several days to provide their legal expertise to the court on behalf of a criminal defendant. The Court trusts that this is a reflection of these eminent academics' willingness in the future to step to the plate and provide like assistance in cases involving any of the numerous litigants, both in this Court and throughout the courts of this nation, who lack the financial means to fully and properly articulate the merits of their legal positions even in instances where failure to do so could result in monetary penalties, incarceration, or worse. The Court will certainly not hesitate to call for such assistance from these luminaries, as necessary in the interests of justice and equity, whenever similar questions arise in the cases that come before it."
Moreover, when the hearing started, "in the interest of full disclosure," Walton informed the court that he had "received a number of harassing, angry and mean-spirited phone calls and messages. Some wishing bad things on me and my family ... [T]hose types of things will have no impact ... I initially threw them away, but then there were more, some that were more hateful ... [T]hey are being kept."
New York Times reporters Neil Lewis and David Stout estimated subsequently that Libby's prison sentence could begin within "two months", explaining that
Judge Walton's decision means that the defense lawyers will probably ask a federal appeals court to block the sentence, a long-shot move. It also sharpens interest in a question being asked by Mr. Libby's supporters and critics alike: Will President Bush pardon Mr. Libby? ... So far, the president has expressed sympathy for Mr. Libby and his family but has not tipped his hand on the pardon issue. ... If the president does not pardon him, and if an appeals court refuses to second-guess Judge Walton's decision, Mr. Libby will probably be ordered to report to prison in six to eight weeks' time. Federal prison authorities will decide where. "Unless the Court of Appeals overturns my ruling, he will have to report", Judge Walton said.
Failure of Libby's appeal in order to begin prison sentence
On June 20, 2007, Libby appealed Walton's ruling in federal appeals court. The following day, Walton filed a 30-page expanded ruling, in which he explained his decision to deny Libby bail in more detail.
On July 2, 2007, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied Libby's request for a delay and release from his prison sentence, stating that Libby "has not shown that the appeal raises a substantial question under federal law that would merit letting him remain free," increasing "pressure on President George W. Bush to decide soon whether to pardon Libby ... as the former White House official's supporters have urged."
Presidential commutation
Soon after the verdict, calls for Libby to be pardoned by President George W. Bush began to appear in some newspapers; some of them were posted online by the Libby Legal Defense Trust (LLDT). U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid issued a press release about the verdict, urging Bush to pledge not to pardon Libby, and other Democratic politicians followed his lead.
Surveying "the pardon battle" and citing both pro and con publications, The Washington Post online columnist Dan Froomkin concludes that many U.S. newspapers opposed a presidential pardon for Libby. Much of this commentary obscured the fact that the clemency power provided the President with several options short of a full, unconditional pardon. In an op-ed published in The Washington Post, former federal prosecutor and conservative activist William Otis argued the sentence was too stringent and that, instead of pardoning Libby, Bush should commute his sentence.
After the sentencing, Bush stated on camera that he would "not intervene until Libby's legal team has exhausted all of its avenues of appeal ... It wouldn't be appropriate for me to discuss the case until after the legal remedies have run its course." Ultimately, less than a month later, on July 2, 2007, Bush chose Otis's 'third option' — "neither prison nor pardon" — in commuting Libby's prison sentence.
After Libby was denied bail during his appeal process on July 2, 2007, Bush commuted Libby's 30-month federal prison sentence, calling it "excessive", but he did not change the other parts of the sentence and their conditions. That presidential commutation left in place the felony conviction, the $250,000 fine, and the terms of probation. Some have criticized the move, as presidential commutations are rarely issued, but when granted they have generally occurred after the convicted person has already served a substantial portion of his or her sentence: "We can't find any cases, certainly in the last half-century, where the president commuted a sentence before it had even started to be served," said former Justice Department pardon attorney Margaret Colgate Love. Others, notably Cheney himself who argued that Libby was unfairly charged by a politically motivated prosecution, believed that the commutation fell short, as Libby would likely never practice law again.
At the time, Bush explained his "Grant of Executive Clemency" to Libby, in part, as follows:
Mr. Libby was sentenced to thirty months of prison, two years of probation, and a $250,000 fine. In making the sentencing decision, the district court rejected the advice of the probation office, which recommended a lesser sentence and the consideration of factors that could have led to a sentence of home confinement or probation.
Libby paid the required fine of "$250,400, which included a 'special assessment' of costs" that same day.
Bush's explanation was written by Fred F. Fielding, White House Counsel during the last two years of Bush's presidency. According to a Time article published six months after Bush left office, Fielding worded the commutation "in a way that would make it harder for Bush to revisit it in the future ... ; [the] language was intended to send an unmistakable message, internally as well as externally: No one is above the law." The article suggested that there was a fundamental difference between how Bush and Cheney viewed the "War on Terror", with aides close to Bush feeling that Cheney had misled the President and damaged the administration's moral character with the Plame leak.
Libby's lawyer, Theodore V. Wells, Jr. "issued a brief statement saying Mr. Libby and his family 'wished to express their gratitude for the president's decision ... We continue to believe in Mr. Libby's innocence'. ... "
Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, however, took issue with Bush's description of the sentence as 'excessive', saying it was "[i]mposed pursuant to the laws governing sentencings which occur every day throughout this country ... It is fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of justice as equals ... [T]hat principle guided the judge during both the trial and the sentencing," Fitzgerald said.
The day after the commuting of Libby's sentence, James Rowley (Bloomberg News) reported that Bush had not ruled out pardoning Libby in the future and that Bush's press spokesman, Tony Snow, denied any political motivation in the commutation. Quoting Snow, Rowley added: The president is getting pounded on the right because he didn't do a full pardon.' If Bush were 'doing the weather-vane thing' he 'would have done something differently.
Democratic politicians' responses stressed their outrage at what they called a disgraceful abrogation of justice, and, that evening CNN reported that Representative John Conyers, Jr., Democrat of Michigan, announced that there would be a formal Congressional investigation of Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence and other presidential reprieves.
The hearing on "The Use and Misuse of Presidential Clemency Power for Executive Branch Officials" was held by the United States House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Conyers, on July 11, 2007.
Just a few days later, however, Judge Walton questioned "whether ... [Libby] will face two years of probation, as [President Bush] said he would," because the supervised release time is conditioned on Libby's serving the prison sentence, and he "directed the special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, and ... [Libby's] lawyers to file arguments on the point. ... " "If Judge Walton does not impose any supervised release, it could undercut ... [Bush's] argument that ... Libby still faced stiff justice." That issue was resolved on July 10, 2007, clearing the way for Libby to begin serving the rest of his sentence, the supervised release and 400 hours of community service.
In response to Bush's justifications for clemency, liberal commentator Harlan J. Protass noted that in Rita v. United States, the case of a defendant convicted of perjury in front of a grand jury which had been decided two weeks earlier by the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. government had successfully argued that sentences that fall within Federal Sentencing Guidelines are presumed to be "reasonable", regardless of individual circumstances.
Reportedly outraged by Bush's commutation of Libby's prison sentence, on July 2, 2007, Wilson told CNN: "I have nothing to say to Scooter Libby ... I don't owe this administration. They owe my wife and my family an apology for having betrayed her. Scooter Libby is a traitor. Bush's action ... demonstrates that the White House is corrupt from top to bottom." He reiterated this perspective on the commutation in the House Judiciary Committee hearing on July 11, 2007, vehemently protesting that a Republican congressman was engaging in "yet a further smear of my wife's good name and my good name."
According to a USA Today/Gallup Poll conducted from July 6 to July 8, 2007, "most Americans disagree with President George W. Bush's decision to intervene" on Libby's behalf in the case.
Several months after Bush's action, Judge Walton commented publicly on it. He spoke in favor of applying the law equally, stating: "The downside [of the commutation] is there are a lot of people in America who think that justice is determined to a large degree by who you are and that what you have plays a large role in what kind of justice you receive. ... "
Bush took no further action with respect to Libby's conviction or sentence during his presidential term, despite entreaties from conservatives that he should be pardoned. Two days after their term expired, former Vice President Cheney expressed his regret that Bush had not pardoned Libby on his last day in office.
Press coverage of Libby's trial
Blogs played a prominent role in the press coverage of Libby's trial. Scott Shane, in his article "For Liberal Bloggers, Libby Trial Is Fun and Fodder", published in The New York Times on February 15, 2007, quotes Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, who wrote that the trial was "the first federal case for which independent bloggers have been given official credentials along with reporters from the traditional news media." The trial was followed in the mass media and engaged the interest of both professional legal experts and the general public. While awaiting the judge's ruling pertaining to supervised release and the "400 hours of community service that Judge Walton imposed", for example, bloggers discussed the legal issues involved in these non-commuted parts of Libby's sentence and their effects on Libby's future life experiences.
Criticism of investigation
On August 28, 2006, Christopher Hitchens asserted that Richard Armitage was the primary source of the Valerie Plame leak and that Fitzgerald knew this at the beginning of his investigation. This was supported a month later by Armitage himself, who stated that Fitzgerald had instructed him not to go public with this information. Investor's Business Daily questioned Fitzgerald's truthfulness in an editorial, stating "From top to bottom, this has been one of the most disgraceful abuses of prosecutorial power in this country's history ... The Plame case proves [Fitzgerald] can bend the truth with the proficiency of the slickest of pols."
In a September 2008 Wall Street Journal editorial, attorney Alan Dershowitz cited the "questionable investigation[s]" of Scooter Libby as evidence of the problems brought to the criminal justice process by "politically appointed and partisan attorney[s] general". In April 2015, also writing in The Wall Street Journal, Hoover Institution fellow Peter Berkowitz argued that statements by Judith Miller, in her recently published memoir, raised anew contentions that her testimony was inaccurate and that Fitzgerald's conduct as prosecutor was inappropriate.
The Wilsons' civil suit
On July 13, 2006, Joseph and Valerie Wilson filed a civil lawsuit against Libby, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and other unnamed senior White House officials (among whom they later added Richard Armitage) for their role in the public disclosure of Valerie Wilson's classified CIA status. Judge John D. Bates dismissed the Wilsons' lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds on July 19, 2007. The Wilsons appealed Bates's district-court decision the next day. Agreeing with the Bush administration, the Obama Justice Department argued that the Wilsons had no legitimate grounds to sue. Melanie Sloan, one of the Wilsons' attorneys, said: "We are deeply disappointed that the Obama administration has failed to recognize the grievous harm top Bush White House officials inflicted on Joe and Valerie Wilson. The government's position cannot be reconciled with President Obama's oft-stated commitment to once again make government officials accountable for their actions."
On June 21, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal.
Restoration of voting rights, law license, and presidential pardon
Libby's voting rights were restored on November 1, 2012 by then-Governor of Virginia Bob McDonnell. Libby was part of a larger group of individuals who had their voting rights restored by McDonnell, all of whom were non-violent offenders. Three years later, on November 3, 2016, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals granted Libby's petition for reinstatement to the D.C. Bar. On April 13, 2018, President Donald Trump pardoned Libby.
In media portrayals
David Andrews played Scooter Libby in the 2010 film Fair Game, which is about the Plame affair.
Justin Kirk played Libby in the 2018 film Vice.
See also
List of disbarments in the United States
Plame affair criminal investigation
Project for the New American Century
List of people pardoned or granted clemency by the president of the United States
Notes
Citations
References
. United States Department of State, February 2005. Accessed July 8, 2007.
Bromell, Nick. "Scooter Libby and Me". The American Scholar (Phi Beta Kappa) (Winter 2007). Accessed June 8, 2007.
–––. "Scooter's Tragic Innocence: Why My Friend Scooter Libby Is Loyal to Bush, Cheney and an Arrogant Administration Whose Values Are Not His Own". Salon, January 24, 2007. Accessed June 8, 2007. (Premium content; restricted access).
Dickerson, John. "Who Is Scooter Libby? The Secretive Cheney Aide at the Heart of the CIA Leak Case". Slate, October 21, 2005. Accessed June 28, 2007.
Frankel, Max. "The Washington Back Channel". The New York Times, March 25, 2007. Accessed March 23, 2008.
Garfield, Bob. "'Former New York Times Staffer Judith Miller'". On the Media from NPR, National Public Radio, WCNY-FM, November 11, 2005. Accessed March 5, 2007. (Transcript and RealAudio link.)
"I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby". Right Web (International Relations Center). Last updated March 21, 2007. Accessed July 1, 2007.
"Indictment" in United States of America vs. I. Lewis Libby, also known as "Scooter Libby". United States Department of Justice, October 28, 2005. Accessed July 5, 2007.
Libby, Lewis. The Apprentice: A Novel. Rpt. ed. 1996; New York: Griffin, 2005. (10). (13).
Markels, Alex. "Legal Affairs: I. Lewis Libby: The Plight of a Disciplined Risk-Taker". National Public Radio, October 28, 2005. Accessed March 5, 2007.
Merritt, Jeralyn, moderator. "Verdict in the Libby Trial". Transcript. The Washington Post ("Live Online" discussion), March 6, 2007, 2:00–3:00 p.m., ET. Accessed March 6, 2007. (Duration: one hour.) N.B.: "Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions. washingtonpost.com is not responsible for any content posted by third parties."
in "United States of America, v. I. Lewis Libby, Defendant". Criminal No. 05-394 (RBW). United States District Court for the District of Columbia, filed January 10, 2007. Accessed February 10, 2007. ["USA-v-Libby_Rules-of-Order.pdf".]
"President Commutes Libby's Sentence: Calls 30-month Term for Ex-Cheney Aide 'excessive'". Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, July 3, 2007. Accessed July 4, 2007.
. White House biography from 2004. Accessed February 10, 2007.
Waas, Murray. "Cheney 'Authorized' Libby to Leak Classified Information". National Journal, February 9, 2006. Accessed March 6, 2007.
–––, ed., with Jeff Lomonaco. The United States v. I. Lewis Libby. New York: Union Square Press (imprint of Sterling Publishing), 2007. (10). (13). ("Edited & with reporting by Murray Waas" and with research assistance by Jeff Lomonaco.)
Weisman, Steven. "White House Is Pressing Israelis To Take Initiatives in Peace Talks". The New York Times, April 17, 2003. Accessed March 23, 2008.
Wilson, Joseph C. "Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson's Response to Bush Spokesman Tony Snow's Comments at Today's White House Briefing". Online posting. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), July 3, 2007. Accessed July 4, 2007. Online posting. "Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson's Response ... " and "Read more", Joseph and Valerie Wilson Legal Support Trust (Home page), n.d. Accessed July 8, 2007. (Concerning Bush's commutation of Libby's prison sentence.)
–––. "Statement in Response to Jury's Verdict in U.S. v. I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby" (now outdated URL). Press release. Originally posted online. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), March 6, 2007. Accessed March 6, 2007. Posted as "CREW Statement on Libby Conviction: No Man Is Above the Law." Citizens ^Blogging for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (blog), March 6, 2007. Accessed April 18, 2007. Also posted as "Wilsons' Attorney Statement in Response to Jury's Verdict in U.S. v. I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby". Joseph and Valerie Wilson Legal Support Trust, March 6, 2007, home page. Accessed April 18, 2007.
External links
Background on the Plame Investigation at The Washington Post.
CNN Special Reports: CIA Leak Investigation compiled by CNN Newsroom; incl. interactive timeline in Case History.
"Legal Affairs: Lewis Libby's Complete Grand Jury Testimony". Full audio clip and transcript provided by National Public Radio on npr.org,
"The Lewis Libby Case". Archive of articles concerning Libby broadcast on National Public Radio.
.
United States v. I. Lewis Libby. Photo gallery with news captions at The Washington Post.
Membership at the Council on Foreign Relations
1950 births
Jewish American attorneys
Assistants to the President of the United States
Chiefs of Staff to the Vice President of the United States
Columbia Law School alumni
Columbia University alumni
Living people
Members of the Council on Foreign Relations
Pennsylvania Democrats
Pennsylvania Republicans
People associated with the Plame affair
People from McLean, Virginia
Lawyers from New Haven, Connecticut
Lawyers from Philadelphia
Phillips Academy alumni
Reagan administration personnel
Recipients of American presidential clemency
Recipients of American presidential pardons
Yale University alumni
Hudson Institute
Conservatism in the United States | false | [
"What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank is a 2012 short story collection by the American writer Nathan Englander. The book was first published on February 7, 2012 through Knopf and collects eight of Englander's short stories, including the title story \"What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank.\"\n\nThe title of the collection takes its influence from Raymond Carver's 1981 short story collection What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. The book was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, losing to Adam Johnson's The Orphan Master's Son. Englander's collection was awarded the 2012 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award.\n\nStories\n\"What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank\" was originally published in the December 12, 2011 edition of The New Yorker and was included in The Best American Short Stories of 2012. Like Carver's story, \"What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,\" Englander's story centers around two middle-aged married couples sitting around a table and sharing a bottle of liquor (in Carver's story, it is gin and in Englander's, vodka and pot). The story is told by a first-person present narrator who is married to Debbie and they live together in South Florida. Debbie's childhood friend from Yeshiva school, Lauren, who is now known as Shoshana, is visiting from Jerusalem with her husband, Mark, who has adopted the name, Yerucham. The narrator describes Shoshana and Yerucham as having gone \"off to the Holy Land and went from Orthodox to ultra-Orthodox.\" The climax of the story occurs when Debbie and Shoshana revive a childhood game, the Anne Frank game, in which they speculate who among their non-Jewish friends would save them in the event of a second Holocaust.\n\"Sister Hills\" \"traces the growth of a small Israeli settlement from a couple of shacks into a thriving Jerusalem suburb, depicts the emotionally fraught relationship between two neighbors: one, named Rena, loses her husband and her three sons to the war and unhappy accident; the other, named Yehudit, has nine children and lives a vibrant, satisfying life. When Yehudit’s daughter Aheret was a baby, on the verge of death from a high fever, Yehudit was so desperate she indulged an old superstition: to outsmart the Angel of Death, she 'sold' Aheret to Rena for a pittance. Aheret survived, grew up to be a young woman, and now Rena, alone and bitter, decides to reclaim her, insisting that the girl forfeit her freedom and come to live with her as a caregiver.\"\n\"How We Avenged the Blums\" first appeared in The Atlantic (Summer/Fall 2005) and was included in the Best American Short Stories 2006. \n\"Peep Show\" was originally published in the July 26, 1999 edition of The New Yorker. Its protagonist, Allen Fein (formerly known as Ari Feinberg) is on his way to the Port Authority to go home to his pregnant, \"beautiful blond Gentile wife,\" when he encounters three rabbis from his old school at a peep show. Upon seeing the rabbis, Fein feels enormous guilt for leaving his religion. He also feels guilt for having been, as he believes, unfaithful to his wife, Claire, whom he imagines is on the other side of a partition as a performer in the peep show along with his mother.\n\"Everything I Know About My Family On My Mother's Side\" first appeared in Esquire in July 2008 and was included in Best American Nonrequired Reading 2009. \n\"Camp Sundown\"\n\"The Reader\" first appeared in Electric Literature in September 2011. \n\"Free Fruit for Young Widows\" was originally published in the May 17, 2010 edition of The New Yorker and was included in Best American Short Stories 2011.\n\nReception\nCritical reception for What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank has been mostly positive and the book received praise from the Washington Times, Los Angeles Times, and the Jewish Book Council.\n\nIn The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani gave the book a mixed-to-positive review, stating: \"At his best, Mr. Englander manages to delineate such extreme behavior with a combination of psychological insight, allegorical gravity and sometimes uproarious comedy\" but that \"In several instances, however, the delicate narrative balance slips from Mr. Englander’s grasp.\" Kakutani also notes: \"It’s the title story and “Everything I Know About My Family” that point to Mr. Englander’s evolution as a writer, his ability to fuse humor and moral seriousness into a seamless narrative, to incorporate elliptical — yes, Carver-esque — techniques into his arsenal of talents to explore how faith and family (and the stories characters tell about faith and family) ineluctably shape an individual’s identity.\"\n\nJames Lasdun's review for The Guardian was more positive, adding: \"If there is an abiding theme, it is the way in which notions of right and wrong, guilt and innocence, victim and oppressor, shift over time as memories fade or new perspectives open up on old struggles.\" Lasdun also offered praise for Englander: \"The new book (which comes garlanded with praise from just about every A-list author in America) turns out to be a remarkable collection, not least because of its courageous determination to push forward in the direction hinted at by that last story.\" He did, however characterize the title story as a \"dud, or semi-dud\" and noted: \"But I suspect Englander might have pulled it off if he hadn't constrained himself so tightly within the terms of Carver's scrupulous realism.\"\n\nThe book received an honourable mention in the Sophie Brody Award 2013.\n\nExternal links\nWhat We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank\nHow We Avenged the Blums\nEverything I Know About My Family on My Mother's Side\nFree Fruit for Young Widows\n\nReferences\n\n2012 short story collections\nAlfred A. Knopf books\nSingle-writer short story collections",
"Happy talk, also called banter, is the additional and often meaningless commentary interspersed into television news programs by news anchors and others on set. \n\nIt may consist of simple jokes or simply a modified wording in asking a question of another reporter. For instance, instead of a simple handoff to a sportscaster, an anchor might say, \"So, Erin, what the heck happened out on that field today? Is our team going down the tubes?\" \"Happy talk\" may also refer to a format of news which encourages such commentary.\n\nOrigins\nHappy talk was created by Al Primo, who also created the Eyewitness News format.\n\nCriticism\nHappy talk has been derided by some who prefer a more \"traditional\" and staid newscast, though it has been happening in some places since the early days of broadcasting. Employing it can backfire—some newscasters are not comfortable with happy talk and fail in their attempts to do it, and some anchor teams may not have the chemistry or working relationship to be able to pull it off believably.\n\nOther uses\nIt is also the title of former CBS correspendent Fred Graham's book called Happy Talk: Confessions of a TV Newsman.\n\nOnline\nIn the popular book on web usability, Don't Make Me Think, Steve Krug identifies a kind of writing where website authors eagerly share unnecessary information about their own website. Happy talk consists of things such as:\n welcoming messages\n details of the process of creating the website such as how long it took\n information about the design of the website such as rationale\n superfluous instructional advice\n\nKrug says that those who write happy talk do so under the misconception that visitors to the site will find it interesting, but visitors actually want to save time and get things done.\n\nSee also\nInfotainment\nLeast offensive programming\n\nReferences\n\nTelevision news\nTelevision terminology\n1970s neologisms"
] |
[
"Scooter Libby",
"Trial, conviction, and sentencing",
"What was his trial about",
"second charge of making false statements when interviewed by federal agents about his conversations with Time reporter Matthew Cooper.",
"What did he talk to the reporter about",
"I don't know."
] | C_72c2173245744eeea3ae7541ba451877_0 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 3 | Besides Scooter Libby's trial, Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | Scooter Libby | On March 6, 2007, the jury convicted him on four of the five counts but acquitted him on count three, the second charge of making false statements when interviewed by federal agents about his conversations with Time reporter Matthew Cooper. After being questioned by the FBI in the fall of 2003 and testifying before a Federal grand jury on March 5, 2004, and again on March 24, 2004, Libby pleaded not guilty to all five counts. According to the Associated Press, David Addington, Cheney's legal counsel, described a September 2003 meeting with Libby around the time that a criminal investigation began, saying that Libby had told him, "'I just want to tell you, I didn't do it'... I didn't ask what the 'it' was.'" Libby retained attorney Ted Wells of the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to represent him. Wells had successfully defended former Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy against a 30-count indictment and had also participated in the successful defense of former Secretary of Labor Raymond Donovan. After Judge Reggie Walton denied Libby's motion to dismiss, the press initially reported that Libby would testify at the trial. Libby's criminal trial, United States v. Libby, began on January 16, 2007. A parade of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists testified, including Bob Woodward, Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post and Judith Miller and David E. Sanger of The New York Times. Despite earlier press reports and widespread speculation, neither Libby nor Vice President Cheney testified. The jury began deliberations on February 21, 2007. CANNOTANSWER | Libby retained attorney Ted Wells of the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to represent him. | I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby (first name generally given as Irv, Irve or Irving; born August 22, 1950) is an American lawyer, and former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.
From 2001 to 2005, Libby held the offices of Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs, Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States, and Assistant to the President during the administration of President George W. Bush.
In October 2005, Libby resigned from all three government positions after he was indicted on five counts by a federal grand jury concerning the investigation of the leak of the covert identity of Central Intelligence Agency officer Valerie Plame Wilson. He was subsequently convicted of four counts (one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury, and one count of making false statements), making him the highest-ranking White House official convicted in a government scandal since John Poindexter, the national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan in the Iran–Contra affair.
After a failed appeal, President Bush commuted Libby's sentence of 30 months in federal prison, leaving the other parts of his sentence intact. As a consequence of his conviction in United States v. Libby, Libby's license to practice law was suspended until being reinstated in 2016. President Donald Trump fully pardoned Libby on April 13, 2018.
Personal history
Background and education
Libby was born to an affluent Jewish family in New Haven, Connecticut. His father, Irving Lewis Leibovitz, was an investment banker. His father changed his family original surname from Leibovitz to Libby.
Libby graduated from the Eaglebrook School, in Deerfield, Massachusetts, a junior boarding school, in 1965. The family lived in the Washington, D.C. region; Miami, Florida; and Connecticut prior to Libby's graduation from Phillips Academy, in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1968.
He and his elder brother, Hank, a retired tax lawyer, were the first in the family to graduate from college. Libby attended Yale University in New Haven, graduating magna cum laude in 1972. As Yale Daily News reporter Jack Mirkinson observes, "Even though he would eventually become a prominent Republican, Libby's political beginnings would not have pointed in that direction. He served as vice president of the Yale College Democrats and later campaigned for Michael Dukakis when he was running for governor of Massachusetts." According to Mirkinson: "Two particular Yale courses helped guide Libby's future endeavors. One of these was a creative writing course, which started Libby on a 20-year mission to complete a novel ... [later published as] The Apprentice ... [and] a political science class with professor and future Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. In an interview with author James Mann, Libby said Wolfowitz was one of his favorite professors, and their professional relationship did not end with the class." Wolfowitz became a significant mentor in his later professional life.
In 1975, as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, Libby received his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Columbia Law School.
Marriage and family
Libby is married to Harriet Grant, whom he met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the late 1980s, while he was a partner and she an associate in the law firm then known as Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin: When he and Harriet became serious,' Dickstein partner Kenneth Simon wrote, 'she chose to leave the firm rather than maintain the awkward situation of an associate dating a partner. Libby and Grant married in the early 1990s, have a son and a daughter, and live in McLean, Virginia.
Name
Libby has been secretive about his full name. He was prosecuted as I. Lewis Libby, also known as "Scooter Libby". National Public Radio's Day to Day reported that the 1972 Yale Banner (the yearbook of Yale) gave his name as Irve Lewis Libby Jr.; it is unclear if Irve is his given name, or if it is short for Irving, as it was for his father. CBS, the BBC, and The New York Timess John Tierney have all used this spelling of his first name. The Timess Eric Schmitt spelled it Irv, though he cited a phone interview with Libby's brother, and did not clarify if he had asked for a spelling.
At times, including in the Yale Banner, and as documented in a federal directory cited by Ron Kampeas and others, Libby has used the suffix Jr. after his name. At other times, however, as listed in his federal indictment and United States v. Libby, which give his alias as Scooter Libby, there is no Jr. after Libby's name. The Columbia Alumni Association online directory lists him as I. Lewis Libby, with a first name of "I." and birth first name of "Irve".
Libby has also been secretive about the origin of his nickname Scooter. The New York Timess Eric Schmitt, citing the aforementioned interview with Libby's brother, wrote that "His nickname 'Scooter' derives from the day [his] father watched him crawling in his crib and joked, 'He's a Scooter! In a February 2002 interview on Larry King Live, King asked Libby specifically, "Where did 'Scooter' come from?"; Libby replied: "Oh, it goes way back to when I was a kid. Some people ask me if ... [crosstalk] ... as you did earlier, if it's related to Phil Rizzuto [nicknamed 'The Scooter']. I had the range but not the arm."
The Apprentice
Libby's only novel, The Apprentice, about a group of travelers stranded in northern Japan in the winter of 1903, during a smallpox epidemic in the run-up to the Russo-Japanese War, was first published in a hardback edition by Graywolf Press in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1996, and reprinted as a trade paperback by St. Martin's Thomas Dunne Books in 2002. After Libby's indictment in the CIA leak grand jury investigation in 2005, St. Martin's Press reissued The Apprentice as a mass market paperback (Griffin imprint). An allegorical meditation on the legitimacy of concealed knowledge, The Apprentice has been described as "a thriller ... that includes references to bestiality, pedophilia and rape."
Law career
After earning his J.D. from Columbia in 1975, Libby joined the firm of Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis LLP. He was admitted to the bar of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on October 27, 1976, and to the Bar of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals on May 19, 1978.
Libby practiced law at Schnader for six years before joining the U.S. State Department policy planning staff, at the invitation of his former Yale professor, Paul Wolfowitz, in 1981. In 1985, returning to private practice, he joined the firm then known as Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin (now Dickstein Shapiro LLP), becoming a partner in 1986 and working there until 1989, when he left to work in the U.S. Defense Department, again under his former Yale professor Paul Wolfowitz, until January 1993.
In 1993, returning to private legal practice from government, Libby became the managing partner of the Washington, D.C. office of Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, Alexander & Ferdon (formerly Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, and Alexander); in 1995, along with his Mudge Rose colleague, Leonard Garment––who had replaced John Dean as acting Special Counsel to U.S. President Richard Nixon for the last two years of his presidency dominated by Watergate, and who had hired Libby at Mudge Rose twenty years later––and three other lawyers from that firm, Libby joined the Washington, D.C. office of Dechert Price & Rhoads (now part of Dechert LLP), where he was a managing partner, a member of its litigation department, and chaired its Public Policy Practice Group. His work there was well regarded, with President Clinton recognizing Libby as one of three "distinguished Republican lawyers" who worked on the Marc Rich pardon case.
In 2001 Libby left the firm to return to work again in government, as Vice President Cheney's chief of staff.
Fugitive billionaire commodities trader Marc Rich, who, along with his business partner Pincus Green, had been indicted of tax evasion and illegal trading with Iran, and who, with Green, was ultimately pardoned by President Bill Clinton, was a client whom Leonard Garment had hired Libby to help represent around the spring of 1985, after Rich and Green had first engaged Garment. Libby stopped representing Rich in the spring of 2000; early in March 2001, at a "contentious" Congressional hearing to review Clinton's pardons, Libby testified that he thought the prosecution's case against Rich "misconstrued the facts and the law". According to Jackson Hogan, Libby's roommate at Yale University, as quoted in the already-cited U.S. News & World Report article by Walsh, He is intensely partisan ... in that if he is your counsel, he'll embrace your case and try to figure a way out of whatever noose you are ensnared in. According to a House Committee on Government Reform report, however, "The arguments made by Garment, [William Bradford] Reynolds and Libby [in their testimony] focused on the claim that the SDNY was criminalizing what should have been a civil tax case. They did not make, compile, or in any other way lay the groundwork for, or make a case for a Presidential pardon. When former President Clinton stated that they 'reviewed and advocated' 'the case for the pardons,' he suggested that they were somehow involved in arguing that Rich and Green should receive pardons. This was completely untrue". (p. 162)
Bar suspension and disbarment
Before his indictment in United States v. Libby, Libby had been a licensed lawyer, admitted to the bars of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, although his Pennsylvania law license was inactive, and he had already been suspended from the Washington, D.C. Office of Bar Counsel (D.C. Bar) for non-payment of fees. The Chief Judge of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals recommended disbarment upon confirmation of his conviction, which Libby had initially indicated that he would appeal. Having suspended his license to practice law on April 3, 2007, the D.C. Bar "disbarred [him] pursuant to D.C. Code § 11-2503(a)" on legal grounds of "moral turpitude", effective April 11, 2007, and recommended to the D.C. Court of Appeals his disbarment if his conviction were not overturned on appeal. On December 10, 2007, Libby's lawyers announced his decision "to drop his appeal of his conviction in the CIA leak case". On March 20, 2008, following the dropping of his appeal of his conviction, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals disbarred Libby. As a result of the Court's ruling, "Libby will lose his license to practice or appear in court in Washington until at least 2012", and, "As is standard, he will probably lose any bar membership he holds in other states"; that is, in Pennsylvania.
Government public service and political career
In 1981, after working as a lawyer in the Philadelphia firm Schnader LLP, Libby accepted the invitation of his former Yale University political science professor and mentor Paul Wolfowitz to join the U.S. State Department's policy planning staff. From 1982 to 1985, Libby served as director of special projects in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. In 1985 he received the Foreign Affairs Award for Public Service from the United States Department of Defense, and he resigned from government to enter private legal practice at Dickstein, Shapiro, and Morin. In 1989, he went to work at the Pentagon, again under Wolfowitz, as principal deputy under-secretary for strategy and resources at the U.S. Defense Department.
During the George H. W. Bush administration, Libby was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as deputy under secretary of defense for policy, serving from 1992 to 1993. In 1992 he also served as legal adviser for the House Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China. Libby co-authored the draft of the Defense Planning Guidance for the 1994–99 fiscal years (dated February 18, 1992) with Wolfowitz for Dick Cheney, who was then Secretary of Defense. In 1993 Libby received the Distinguished Service Award from the U.S. Defense Department and the Distinguished Public Service Award from the U.S. State Department before resuming private legal practice first at Mudge Rose and then at Dechert.
Libby was part of a network of neo-conservatives known as the "Vulcans"—its other members included Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld. While he was still a managing partner of Dechert Price & Rhoads, he was a signatory to the "Statement of Principles" of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) (a document dated June 3, 1997). He joined Wolfowitz, PNAC co-founders William Kristol, Robert Kagan, and other "Project Participants" in developing the PNAC's September 2000 report entitled, "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New Century".
After becoming Cheney's chief of staff in 2001, Libby was reportedly nicknamed "Germ Boy" at the White House, for insisting on universal smallpox vaccination. He was also nicknamed "Dick Cheney's Dick Cheney" for his close working relationship with the Vice President. Mary Matalin, who worked with Libby as an adviser to Cheney during Bush's first term, said of him "He is to the vice president what the vice president is to the president."
Libby was active in the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee of the Pentagon when it was chaired by Richard Perle during the early years of the George W. Bush administration (2001–2003). At various points in his career, Libby has also held positions with the American Bar Association, been on the advisory board of the RAND Corporation's Center for Russia and Eurasia, and been a legal adviser to the United States House of Representatives, as well as served as a consultant for the defense contractor Northrop Grumman.
Libby was also actively involved in the Bush administration's efforts to negotiate the Israeli–Palestinian "road map" for peace; for example, he participated in a series of meetings with Jewish leaders in early December 2002 and a meeting with two aides of then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in mid-April 2003, culminating in the Red Sea Summit on June 4, 2004. In their highly controversial and widely contested "Working Paper" entitled "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy", University of Chicago political science professor John J. Mearsheimer and academic dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University Stephen M. Walt argue that Libby was among the Bush administration's most "fervently pro-Israel ... officials" (20).
Awards for government service
Distinguished Service Award, United States Department of Defense, 1993
Distinguished Public Service Award, United States Department of the Navy, 1993
Foreign Affairs Award for Public Service, United States Department of State, 1985
Subsequent work experience
From January 2006 until March 7, 2007, the day after his conviction in United States v. Libby, when he resigned, Libby served as a "senior adviser" at the Hudson Institute, to "focus on issues relating to the War on Terror and the future of Asia ... offer research guidance and ... advise the institute in strategic planning." His resignation was announced by the Hudson Institute in a press release dated March 8, 2007. However, he has served as Senior Vice President of the Hudson Institute at least since 2010.
Libby also serves as a member of the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense, a group that encourages and advocates changes to government policy to strengthen national biodefense. In order to address biological threats facing the nation, the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense created a 33 step initiative for the U.S. Government to implement. Headed by former Senator Joe Lieberman and former Governor Tom Ridge, the Study Panel assembled in Washington D.C. for four meetings concerning current biodefense programs. The Study Panel concluded that the federal government had little to no defense mechanisms in case of a biological event. The Study Panel's final report, The National Blueprint for Biodefense, proposes a string of solutions and recommendations for the U.S. Government to take, including items such as giving the Vice President authority over biodefense responsibilities and merging the entire biodefense budget. These solutions represent the Panel's call to action in order to increase awareness and activity for pandemic related issues.
Involvement in the Plame affair
Between 2003 and 2005, intense speculation centered on the possibility that Libby may have been the administration official who had "leaked" classified employment information about Valerie Plame, a covert Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent and the wife of Iraq War critic Joseph C. Wilson, to New York Times reporter Judith Miller and other reporters and later tried to hide his having done so.
In August 2005, as revealed in grand jury testimony audiotapes played during the trial and reported in many news accounts, Libby testified that he met with Judith Miller, a reporter with The New York Times, on July 8, 2003, and discussed Plame with her.
Although Libby signed a "blanket waiver" allowing journalists to discuss their conversations with him pursuant to the CIA leak grand jury investigation, Miller maintained that such a waiver did not serve to allow her to reveal her source to that grand jury; moreover, Miller argued that Libby's general waiver pertaining to all journalists could have been coerced and that she would only testify before that grand jury if given an individual waiver.
After refusing to testify about her July 2003 meeting with Libby, Judith Miller was jailed on July 7, 2005, for contempt of court. Months later, however, her new attorney, Robert Bennett, told her that she already had possessed a written, voluntary waiver from Libby all along. After Miller had served most of her sentence, Libby reiterated that he had indeed given her a "waiver" both "voluntarily and personally." He attached the following letter, which, when released publicly, became the subject of further speculation about Libby's possible motives in sending it:
As noted above, my lawyer confirmed my waiver to other reporters in just the way he did with your lawyer. Why? Because as I am sure will not be news to you, the public report of every other reporter's testimony makes clear that they did not discuss Ms. Plame's name or identity with me, or knew about her before our call.
After agreeing to testify, Miller was released on September 29, 2005, appearing before the grand jury the next day, but the charge against her was rescinded only after she testified again on October 12, 2005. For her second grand jury appearance, Miller produced a notebook from a previously undisclosed meeting with Libby on June 23, 2003, two weeks before Wilson's New York Times op-ed was published. In her account published in the Times on October 16, 2005, based on her notes, Miller reports:
... in an interview with me on June 23 [2003], Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, discussed Mr. Wilson's activities and placed blame for intelligence failures on the CIA. In later conversations with me, on July 8 and July 12 [2003], Mr. Libby, ... [at the time] Mr. Cheney's top aide, played down the importance of Mr. Wilson's mission and questioned his performance ... My notes indicate that well before Mr. Wilson published his critique, Mr. Libby told me that Mr. Wilson's wife may have worked on unconventional weapons at the CIA. ... My notes do not show that Mr. Libby identified Mr. Wilson's wife by name. Nor do they show that he described Valerie Wilson as a covert agent or "operative"...
Her notation on her July 8, 2003 meeting with Libby does contain the name "Valerie Flame ", which she added retrospectively. While Miller reveals publicly that she herself had misidentified the last name of Wilson's wife (aka "Valerie Plame") in her own marginal notes on their interview as "Flame" instead of "Plame", in her grand jury (and later trial testimony), she remained uncertain when, how, and why she arrived at that name and did not attribute it to Libby:
I was not permitted to take notes of what I told the grand jury, and my interview notes on Mr. Libby are sketchy in places. It is also difficult, more than two years later, to parse the meaning and context of phrases, of underlining and of parentheses. On one page of my interview notes, for example, I wrote the name "Valerie Flame." Yet, as I told Mr. Fitzgerald, I simply could not recall where that came from, when I wrote it or why the name was misspelled ... I testified that I did not believe the name came from Mr. Libby, in part because the notation does not appear in the same part of my notebook as the interview notes from him.
A year and a half later, a jury convicted Libby of obstruction of justice and perjury in his grand jury testimony and making false statements to federal investigators about when and how he learned that Plame was a CIA agent.
On April 13, 2018, Libby was pardoned by US President Donald Trump.
Indictment and resignation
On October 28, 2005, as a result of the CIA leak grand jury investigation, Special Counsel Fitzgerald indicted Libby on five counts: one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of making false statements when interviewed by agents of the FBI, and two counts of perjury in his testimony before the grand jury. Pursuant to the grand jury investigation, Libby had told FBI investigators that he first heard of Mrs. Wilson's CIA employment from Cheney, and then later heard it from journalist Tim Russert, and acted as if he did not have that information. The indictment alleges that statements to federal investigators and the grand jury were intentionally false, in that Libby had numerous conversations about Mrs. Wilson's CIA employment, including his conversations with Judith Miller (see above), before speaking to Russert; Russert did not tell Libby about Mrs. Wilson's CIA employment; prior to talking with such reporters, Libby knew with certainty that she was employed by the CIA; and Libby told reporters that she worked for the CIA without making any disclaimer that he was uncertain of that fact. The false statements counts in the Libby indictment charge that he intentionally made those false statements to the FBI; the perjury counts charge that he intentionally lied to the grand jury in repeating those false statements; and the obstruction of justice count charges that Libby intentionally made those false statements in order to mislead the grand jury, thus impeding Fitzgerald's grand jury investigation of the truth about the leaking of Mrs. Wilson's then-classified, covert CIA identity.
Trial, conviction, and sentencing
On March 6, 2007, the jury convicted him on four of the five counts: obstruction of justice, one count of making false statements when interviewed by agents of the FBI, and two counts of perjury. They acquitted him on count three, the second charge of making false statements when interviewed by federal agents about his conversations with Time reporter Matthew Cooper.
Libby retained attorney Ted Wells of the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to represent him. Wells had successfully defended former Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy against a 30-count indictment and had also participated in the successful defense of former Secretary of Labor Raymond Donovan.
After Judge Reggie Walton denied Libby's motion to dismiss, the press initially reported that Libby would testify at the trial. Libby's criminal trial, United States v. Libby, began on January 16, 2007. A parade of Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists testified, including Bob Woodward, Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post and Judith Miller and David E. Sanger of The New York Times. Despite earlier press reports and widespread speculation, neither Libby nor Vice President Cheney testified. The jury began deliberations on February 21, 2007.
Verdict
After deliberating for 10 days, the jury rendered its verdict on March 6, 2007. It convicted Libby on four of the five counts against him: two counts of perjury, one count of obstruction of justice in a grand jury investigation, and one of the two counts of making false statements to federal investigators.
After the verdict, initially, Libby's lawyers announced that he would seek a new trial, and that, if that attempt were to fail, they would appeal Libby's conviction. Libby did not speak to reporters. Libby's defense team eventually decided against seeking a new trial.
Speaking to the media outside the courtroom after the verdict, Fitzgerald said that "The jury worked very long and hard and deliberated at length ... [and] was obviously convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had lied and obstructed justice in a serious manner ... I do not expect to file any further charges." The trial confirmed that the leak came first from then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage; since Fitzgerald did not charge Armitage and did not charge anyone else, Libby's conviction effectively ended the investigation.
In his October 28, 2005, press conference about the grand jury's indictment, Fitzgerald had already explained that Libby's obstruction of justice through perjury and false statements had prevented the grand jury from determining whether the leak violated federal law.
During his media appearance outside the courtroom after the verdict in the Libby case, Fitzgerald fielded questions from the press about others involved in the Plame affair and in the CIA leak grand jury investigation, such as Armitage and Cheney, whom he had already described as under "a cloud", as already addressed in his conduct of the case and in his closing arguments in court.
Sentencing
Given current federal sentencing guidelines, which are not mandatory, the conviction could have resulted in a sentence ranging from no imprisonment to imprisonment of up to 25 years and a fine of $1,000,000; yet, as Sniffen and Apuzzo observe, "federal sentencing guidelines will probably prescribe far less." In practice, according to federal sentencing data, three-fourths of the 198 defendants found guilty of obstruction of justice in 2006 served jail time. The average length of jail time on this charge alone was 70 months.
On June 5, 2007, Judge Walton sentenced Libby to 30 months in prison and fined him $250,000, clarifying that Libby would begin his sentence immediately. According to Apuzzo and Yost, the judge also "placed him on two years probation after his prison sentence expires. There is no parole in the federal system, but Libby would be eligible for release after two years." In addition, Judge Walton required Libby to provide "400 hours of community service" during his supervised release. On June 5, 2007, after the announcement of Libby's sentencing, CNN reported that Libby still "plans to appeal the verdict".
That day, in response to the sentencing, Vice President Cheney issued a statement in Libby's defense on The White House website. The statement concluded: "Speaking as friends, we hope that our system will return a final result consistent with what we know of this fine man."
Joseph and Valerie Wilson posted their statement on Libby's sentencing in United States v. Libby on their website, "grateful that justice has been served."
Order to report to prison pending appeal of verdict
After the June 5 sentencing, Walton said he was inclined to jail Libby after the defense laid out its proposed appeal, but the judge told attorneys he was open to changing his mind"; however, on June 14, 2007, Walton ordered Libby to report to prison while his attorneys appealed the conviction. Libby's attorneys asked that the order be stayed, but Walton denied the request and told Libby that he would have 10 days to appeal the ruling. In denying Libby's request, which had questioned Fitzgerald's authority to make the charges in the first place, Walton supported Fitzgerald's authority in the case. He said: "Everyone is accountable, and if you work in the White House, and if it's perceived that somehow (you're) linked at the hip, the American public would have serious questions about the fairness of any investigation of a high-level official conducted by the attorney general." The judge was also responding to an Amicus curiae brief that he had permitted to be filed, which had not apparently convinced him to change his mind, as he subsequently denied Libby bail during his appeal. His "order grant[ing] the [legal academic] scholars permission to file their brief ..." contained a caustic footnote questioning the motivation of the legal academics and suggesting he might not give a great deal of weight to their opinion[:]
... It is an impressive show of public service when twelve prominent and distinguished current and former law professors are able to amass their collective wisdom in the course of only several days to provide their legal expertise to the court on behalf of a criminal defendant. The Court trusts that this is a reflection of these eminent academics' willingness in the future to step to the plate and provide like assistance in cases involving any of the numerous litigants, both in this Court and throughout the courts of this nation, who lack the financial means to fully and properly articulate the merits of their legal positions even in instances where failure to do so could result in monetary penalties, incarceration, or worse. The Court will certainly not hesitate to call for such assistance from these luminaries, as necessary in the interests of justice and equity, whenever similar questions arise in the cases that come before it."
Moreover, when the hearing started, "in the interest of full disclosure," Walton informed the court that he had "received a number of harassing, angry and mean-spirited phone calls and messages. Some wishing bad things on me and my family ... [T]hose types of things will have no impact ... I initially threw them away, but then there were more, some that were more hateful ... [T]hey are being kept."
New York Times reporters Neil Lewis and David Stout estimated subsequently that Libby's prison sentence could begin within "two months", explaining that
Judge Walton's decision means that the defense lawyers will probably ask a federal appeals court to block the sentence, a long-shot move. It also sharpens interest in a question being asked by Mr. Libby's supporters and critics alike: Will President Bush pardon Mr. Libby? ... So far, the president has expressed sympathy for Mr. Libby and his family but has not tipped his hand on the pardon issue. ... If the president does not pardon him, and if an appeals court refuses to second-guess Judge Walton's decision, Mr. Libby will probably be ordered to report to prison in six to eight weeks' time. Federal prison authorities will decide where. "Unless the Court of Appeals overturns my ruling, he will have to report", Judge Walton said.
Failure of Libby's appeal in order to begin prison sentence
On June 20, 2007, Libby appealed Walton's ruling in federal appeals court. The following day, Walton filed a 30-page expanded ruling, in which he explained his decision to deny Libby bail in more detail.
On July 2, 2007, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied Libby's request for a delay and release from his prison sentence, stating that Libby "has not shown that the appeal raises a substantial question under federal law that would merit letting him remain free," increasing "pressure on President George W. Bush to decide soon whether to pardon Libby ... as the former White House official's supporters have urged."
Presidential commutation
Soon after the verdict, calls for Libby to be pardoned by President George W. Bush began to appear in some newspapers; some of them were posted online by the Libby Legal Defense Trust (LLDT). U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid issued a press release about the verdict, urging Bush to pledge not to pardon Libby, and other Democratic politicians followed his lead.
Surveying "the pardon battle" and citing both pro and con publications, The Washington Post online columnist Dan Froomkin concludes that many U.S. newspapers opposed a presidential pardon for Libby. Much of this commentary obscured the fact that the clemency power provided the President with several options short of a full, unconditional pardon. In an op-ed published in The Washington Post, former federal prosecutor and conservative activist William Otis argued the sentence was too stringent and that, instead of pardoning Libby, Bush should commute his sentence.
After the sentencing, Bush stated on camera that he would "not intervene until Libby's legal team has exhausted all of its avenues of appeal ... It wouldn't be appropriate for me to discuss the case until after the legal remedies have run its course." Ultimately, less than a month later, on July 2, 2007, Bush chose Otis's 'third option' — "neither prison nor pardon" — in commuting Libby's prison sentence.
After Libby was denied bail during his appeal process on July 2, 2007, Bush commuted Libby's 30-month federal prison sentence, calling it "excessive", but he did not change the other parts of the sentence and their conditions. That presidential commutation left in place the felony conviction, the $250,000 fine, and the terms of probation. Some have criticized the move, as presidential commutations are rarely issued, but when granted they have generally occurred after the convicted person has already served a substantial portion of his or her sentence: "We can't find any cases, certainly in the last half-century, where the president commuted a sentence before it had even started to be served," said former Justice Department pardon attorney Margaret Colgate Love. Others, notably Cheney himself who argued that Libby was unfairly charged by a politically motivated prosecution, believed that the commutation fell short, as Libby would likely never practice law again.
At the time, Bush explained his "Grant of Executive Clemency" to Libby, in part, as follows:
Mr. Libby was sentenced to thirty months of prison, two years of probation, and a $250,000 fine. In making the sentencing decision, the district court rejected the advice of the probation office, which recommended a lesser sentence and the consideration of factors that could have led to a sentence of home confinement or probation.
Libby paid the required fine of "$250,400, which included a 'special assessment' of costs" that same day.
Bush's explanation was written by Fred F. Fielding, White House Counsel during the last two years of Bush's presidency. According to a Time article published six months after Bush left office, Fielding worded the commutation "in a way that would make it harder for Bush to revisit it in the future ... ; [the] language was intended to send an unmistakable message, internally as well as externally: No one is above the law." The article suggested that there was a fundamental difference between how Bush and Cheney viewed the "War on Terror", with aides close to Bush feeling that Cheney had misled the President and damaged the administration's moral character with the Plame leak.
Libby's lawyer, Theodore V. Wells, Jr. "issued a brief statement saying Mr. Libby and his family 'wished to express their gratitude for the president's decision ... We continue to believe in Mr. Libby's innocence'. ... "
Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, however, took issue with Bush's description of the sentence as 'excessive', saying it was "[i]mposed pursuant to the laws governing sentencings which occur every day throughout this country ... It is fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of justice as equals ... [T]hat principle guided the judge during both the trial and the sentencing," Fitzgerald said.
The day after the commuting of Libby's sentence, James Rowley (Bloomberg News) reported that Bush had not ruled out pardoning Libby in the future and that Bush's press spokesman, Tony Snow, denied any political motivation in the commutation. Quoting Snow, Rowley added: The president is getting pounded on the right because he didn't do a full pardon.' If Bush were 'doing the weather-vane thing' he 'would have done something differently.
Democratic politicians' responses stressed their outrage at what they called a disgraceful abrogation of justice, and, that evening CNN reported that Representative John Conyers, Jr., Democrat of Michigan, announced that there would be a formal Congressional investigation of Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence and other presidential reprieves.
The hearing on "The Use and Misuse of Presidential Clemency Power for Executive Branch Officials" was held by the United States House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Conyers, on July 11, 2007.
Just a few days later, however, Judge Walton questioned "whether ... [Libby] will face two years of probation, as [President Bush] said he would," because the supervised release time is conditioned on Libby's serving the prison sentence, and he "directed the special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, and ... [Libby's] lawyers to file arguments on the point. ... " "If Judge Walton does not impose any supervised release, it could undercut ... [Bush's] argument that ... Libby still faced stiff justice." That issue was resolved on July 10, 2007, clearing the way for Libby to begin serving the rest of his sentence, the supervised release and 400 hours of community service.
In response to Bush's justifications for clemency, liberal commentator Harlan J. Protass noted that in Rita v. United States, the case of a defendant convicted of perjury in front of a grand jury which had been decided two weeks earlier by the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. government had successfully argued that sentences that fall within Federal Sentencing Guidelines are presumed to be "reasonable", regardless of individual circumstances.
Reportedly outraged by Bush's commutation of Libby's prison sentence, on July 2, 2007, Wilson told CNN: "I have nothing to say to Scooter Libby ... I don't owe this administration. They owe my wife and my family an apology for having betrayed her. Scooter Libby is a traitor. Bush's action ... demonstrates that the White House is corrupt from top to bottom." He reiterated this perspective on the commutation in the House Judiciary Committee hearing on July 11, 2007, vehemently protesting that a Republican congressman was engaging in "yet a further smear of my wife's good name and my good name."
According to a USA Today/Gallup Poll conducted from July 6 to July 8, 2007, "most Americans disagree with President George W. Bush's decision to intervene" on Libby's behalf in the case.
Several months after Bush's action, Judge Walton commented publicly on it. He spoke in favor of applying the law equally, stating: "The downside [of the commutation] is there are a lot of people in America who think that justice is determined to a large degree by who you are and that what you have plays a large role in what kind of justice you receive. ... "
Bush took no further action with respect to Libby's conviction or sentence during his presidential term, despite entreaties from conservatives that he should be pardoned. Two days after their term expired, former Vice President Cheney expressed his regret that Bush had not pardoned Libby on his last day in office.
Press coverage of Libby's trial
Blogs played a prominent role in the press coverage of Libby's trial. Scott Shane, in his article "For Liberal Bloggers, Libby Trial Is Fun and Fodder", published in The New York Times on February 15, 2007, quotes Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, who wrote that the trial was "the first federal case for which independent bloggers have been given official credentials along with reporters from the traditional news media." The trial was followed in the mass media and engaged the interest of both professional legal experts and the general public. While awaiting the judge's ruling pertaining to supervised release and the "400 hours of community service that Judge Walton imposed", for example, bloggers discussed the legal issues involved in these non-commuted parts of Libby's sentence and their effects on Libby's future life experiences.
Criticism of investigation
On August 28, 2006, Christopher Hitchens asserted that Richard Armitage was the primary source of the Valerie Plame leak and that Fitzgerald knew this at the beginning of his investigation. This was supported a month later by Armitage himself, who stated that Fitzgerald had instructed him not to go public with this information. Investor's Business Daily questioned Fitzgerald's truthfulness in an editorial, stating "From top to bottom, this has been one of the most disgraceful abuses of prosecutorial power in this country's history ... The Plame case proves [Fitzgerald] can bend the truth with the proficiency of the slickest of pols."
In a September 2008 Wall Street Journal editorial, attorney Alan Dershowitz cited the "questionable investigation[s]" of Scooter Libby as evidence of the problems brought to the criminal justice process by "politically appointed and partisan attorney[s] general". In April 2015, also writing in The Wall Street Journal, Hoover Institution fellow Peter Berkowitz argued that statements by Judith Miller, in her recently published memoir, raised anew contentions that her testimony was inaccurate and that Fitzgerald's conduct as prosecutor was inappropriate.
The Wilsons' civil suit
On July 13, 2006, Joseph and Valerie Wilson filed a civil lawsuit against Libby, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and other unnamed senior White House officials (among whom they later added Richard Armitage) for their role in the public disclosure of Valerie Wilson's classified CIA status. Judge John D. Bates dismissed the Wilsons' lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds on July 19, 2007. The Wilsons appealed Bates's district-court decision the next day. Agreeing with the Bush administration, the Obama Justice Department argued that the Wilsons had no legitimate grounds to sue. Melanie Sloan, one of the Wilsons' attorneys, said: "We are deeply disappointed that the Obama administration has failed to recognize the grievous harm top Bush White House officials inflicted on Joe and Valerie Wilson. The government's position cannot be reconciled with President Obama's oft-stated commitment to once again make government officials accountable for their actions."
On June 21, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal.
Restoration of voting rights, law license, and presidential pardon
Libby's voting rights were restored on November 1, 2012 by then-Governor of Virginia Bob McDonnell. Libby was part of a larger group of individuals who had their voting rights restored by McDonnell, all of whom were non-violent offenders. Three years later, on November 3, 2016, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals granted Libby's petition for reinstatement to the D.C. Bar. On April 13, 2018, President Donald Trump pardoned Libby.
In media portrayals
David Andrews played Scooter Libby in the 2010 film Fair Game, which is about the Plame affair.
Justin Kirk played Libby in the 2018 film Vice.
See also
List of disbarments in the United States
Plame affair criminal investigation
Project for the New American Century
List of people pardoned or granted clemency by the president of the United States
Notes
Citations
References
. United States Department of State, February 2005. Accessed July 8, 2007.
Bromell, Nick. "Scooter Libby and Me". The American Scholar (Phi Beta Kappa) (Winter 2007). Accessed June 8, 2007.
–––. "Scooter's Tragic Innocence: Why My Friend Scooter Libby Is Loyal to Bush, Cheney and an Arrogant Administration Whose Values Are Not His Own". Salon, January 24, 2007. Accessed June 8, 2007. (Premium content; restricted access).
Dickerson, John. "Who Is Scooter Libby? The Secretive Cheney Aide at the Heart of the CIA Leak Case". Slate, October 21, 2005. Accessed June 28, 2007.
Frankel, Max. "The Washington Back Channel". The New York Times, March 25, 2007. Accessed March 23, 2008.
Garfield, Bob. "'Former New York Times Staffer Judith Miller'". On the Media from NPR, National Public Radio, WCNY-FM, November 11, 2005. Accessed March 5, 2007. (Transcript and RealAudio link.)
"I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby". Right Web (International Relations Center). Last updated March 21, 2007. Accessed July 1, 2007.
"Indictment" in United States of America vs. I. Lewis Libby, also known as "Scooter Libby". United States Department of Justice, October 28, 2005. Accessed July 5, 2007.
Libby, Lewis. The Apprentice: A Novel. Rpt. ed. 1996; New York: Griffin, 2005. (10). (13).
Markels, Alex. "Legal Affairs: I. Lewis Libby: The Plight of a Disciplined Risk-Taker". National Public Radio, October 28, 2005. Accessed March 5, 2007.
Merritt, Jeralyn, moderator. "Verdict in the Libby Trial". Transcript. The Washington Post ("Live Online" discussion), March 6, 2007, 2:00–3:00 p.m., ET. Accessed March 6, 2007. (Duration: one hour.) N.B.: "Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions. washingtonpost.com is not responsible for any content posted by third parties."
in "United States of America, v. I. Lewis Libby, Defendant". Criminal No. 05-394 (RBW). United States District Court for the District of Columbia, filed January 10, 2007. Accessed February 10, 2007. ["USA-v-Libby_Rules-of-Order.pdf".]
"President Commutes Libby's Sentence: Calls 30-month Term for Ex-Cheney Aide 'excessive'". Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, July 3, 2007. Accessed July 4, 2007.
. White House biography from 2004. Accessed February 10, 2007.
Waas, Murray. "Cheney 'Authorized' Libby to Leak Classified Information". National Journal, February 9, 2006. Accessed March 6, 2007.
–––, ed., with Jeff Lomonaco. The United States v. I. Lewis Libby. New York: Union Square Press (imprint of Sterling Publishing), 2007. (10). (13). ("Edited & with reporting by Murray Waas" and with research assistance by Jeff Lomonaco.)
Weisman, Steven. "White House Is Pressing Israelis To Take Initiatives in Peace Talks". The New York Times, April 17, 2003. Accessed March 23, 2008.
Wilson, Joseph C. "Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson's Response to Bush Spokesman Tony Snow's Comments at Today's White House Briefing". Online posting. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), July 3, 2007. Accessed July 4, 2007. Online posting. "Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson's Response ... " and "Read more", Joseph and Valerie Wilson Legal Support Trust (Home page), n.d. Accessed July 8, 2007. (Concerning Bush's commutation of Libby's prison sentence.)
–––. "Statement in Response to Jury's Verdict in U.S. v. I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby" (now outdated URL). Press release. Originally posted online. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), March 6, 2007. Accessed March 6, 2007. Posted as "CREW Statement on Libby Conviction: No Man Is Above the Law." Citizens ^Blogging for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (blog), March 6, 2007. Accessed April 18, 2007. Also posted as "Wilsons' Attorney Statement in Response to Jury's Verdict in U.S. v. I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby". Joseph and Valerie Wilson Legal Support Trust, March 6, 2007, home page. Accessed April 18, 2007.
External links
Background on the Plame Investigation at The Washington Post.
CNN Special Reports: CIA Leak Investigation compiled by CNN Newsroom; incl. interactive timeline in Case History.
"Legal Affairs: Lewis Libby's Complete Grand Jury Testimony". Full audio clip and transcript provided by National Public Radio on npr.org,
"The Lewis Libby Case". Archive of articles concerning Libby broadcast on National Public Radio.
.
United States v. I. Lewis Libby. Photo gallery with news captions at The Washington Post.
Membership at the Council on Foreign Relations
1950 births
Jewish American attorneys
Assistants to the President of the United States
Chiefs of Staff to the Vice President of the United States
Columbia Law School alumni
Columbia University alumni
Living people
Members of the Council on Foreign Relations
Pennsylvania Democrats
Pennsylvania Republicans
People associated with the Plame affair
People from McLean, Virginia
Lawyers from New Haven, Connecticut
Lawyers from Philadelphia
Phillips Academy alumni
Reagan administration personnel
Recipients of American presidential clemency
Recipients of American presidential pardons
Yale University alumni
Hudson Institute
Conservatism in the United States | 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"
] |
[
"Scooter Libby",
"Trial, conviction, and sentencing",
"What was his trial about",
"second charge of making false statements when interviewed by federal agents about his conversations with Time reporter Matthew Cooper.",
"What did he talk to the reporter about",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Libby retained attorney Ted Wells of the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to represent him."
] | C_72c2173245744eeea3ae7541ba451877_0 | How did the trial go | 4 | How did the Scooter Libby's trial go | Scooter Libby | On March 6, 2007, the jury convicted him on four of the five counts but acquitted him on count three, the second charge of making false statements when interviewed by federal agents about his conversations with Time reporter Matthew Cooper. After being questioned by the FBI in the fall of 2003 and testifying before a Federal grand jury on March 5, 2004, and again on March 24, 2004, Libby pleaded not guilty to all five counts. According to the Associated Press, David Addington, Cheney's legal counsel, described a September 2003 meeting with Libby around the time that a criminal investigation began, saying that Libby had told him, "'I just want to tell you, I didn't do it'... I didn't ask what the 'it' was.'" Libby retained attorney Ted Wells of the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to represent him. Wells had successfully defended former Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy against a 30-count indictment and had also participated in the successful defense of former Secretary of Labor Raymond Donovan. After Judge Reggie Walton denied Libby's motion to dismiss, the press initially reported that Libby would testify at the trial. Libby's criminal trial, United States v. Libby, began on January 16, 2007. A parade of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists testified, including Bob Woodward, Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post and Judith Miller and David E. Sanger of The New York Times. Despite earlier press reports and widespread speculation, neither Libby nor Vice President Cheney testified. The jury began deliberations on February 21, 2007. CANNOTANSWER | Libby pleaded not guilty to all five counts. | I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby (first name generally given as Irv, Irve or Irving; born August 22, 1950) is an American lawyer, and former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.
From 2001 to 2005, Libby held the offices of Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs, Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States, and Assistant to the President during the administration of President George W. Bush.
In October 2005, Libby resigned from all three government positions after he was indicted on five counts by a federal grand jury concerning the investigation of the leak of the covert identity of Central Intelligence Agency officer Valerie Plame Wilson. He was subsequently convicted of four counts (one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury, and one count of making false statements), making him the highest-ranking White House official convicted in a government scandal since John Poindexter, the national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan in the Iran–Contra affair.
After a failed appeal, President Bush commuted Libby's sentence of 30 months in federal prison, leaving the other parts of his sentence intact. As a consequence of his conviction in United States v. Libby, Libby's license to practice law was suspended until being reinstated in 2016. President Donald Trump fully pardoned Libby on April 13, 2018.
Personal history
Background and education
Libby was born to an affluent Jewish family in New Haven, Connecticut. His father, Irving Lewis Leibovitz, was an investment banker. His father changed his family original surname from Leibovitz to Libby.
Libby graduated from the Eaglebrook School, in Deerfield, Massachusetts, a junior boarding school, in 1965. The family lived in the Washington, D.C. region; Miami, Florida; and Connecticut prior to Libby's graduation from Phillips Academy, in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1968.
He and his elder brother, Hank, a retired tax lawyer, were the first in the family to graduate from college. Libby attended Yale University in New Haven, graduating magna cum laude in 1972. As Yale Daily News reporter Jack Mirkinson observes, "Even though he would eventually become a prominent Republican, Libby's political beginnings would not have pointed in that direction. He served as vice president of the Yale College Democrats and later campaigned for Michael Dukakis when he was running for governor of Massachusetts." According to Mirkinson: "Two particular Yale courses helped guide Libby's future endeavors. One of these was a creative writing course, which started Libby on a 20-year mission to complete a novel ... [later published as] The Apprentice ... [and] a political science class with professor and future Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. In an interview with author James Mann, Libby said Wolfowitz was one of his favorite professors, and their professional relationship did not end with the class." Wolfowitz became a significant mentor in his later professional life.
In 1975, as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, Libby received his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Columbia Law School.
Marriage and family
Libby is married to Harriet Grant, whom he met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the late 1980s, while he was a partner and she an associate in the law firm then known as Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin: When he and Harriet became serious,' Dickstein partner Kenneth Simon wrote, 'she chose to leave the firm rather than maintain the awkward situation of an associate dating a partner. Libby and Grant married in the early 1990s, have a son and a daughter, and live in McLean, Virginia.
Name
Libby has been secretive about his full name. He was prosecuted as I. Lewis Libby, also known as "Scooter Libby". National Public Radio's Day to Day reported that the 1972 Yale Banner (the yearbook of Yale) gave his name as Irve Lewis Libby Jr.; it is unclear if Irve is his given name, or if it is short for Irving, as it was for his father. CBS, the BBC, and The New York Timess John Tierney have all used this spelling of his first name. The Timess Eric Schmitt spelled it Irv, though he cited a phone interview with Libby's brother, and did not clarify if he had asked for a spelling.
At times, including in the Yale Banner, and as documented in a federal directory cited by Ron Kampeas and others, Libby has used the suffix Jr. after his name. At other times, however, as listed in his federal indictment and United States v. Libby, which give his alias as Scooter Libby, there is no Jr. after Libby's name. The Columbia Alumni Association online directory lists him as I. Lewis Libby, with a first name of "I." and birth first name of "Irve".
Libby has also been secretive about the origin of his nickname Scooter. The New York Timess Eric Schmitt, citing the aforementioned interview with Libby's brother, wrote that "His nickname 'Scooter' derives from the day [his] father watched him crawling in his crib and joked, 'He's a Scooter! In a February 2002 interview on Larry King Live, King asked Libby specifically, "Where did 'Scooter' come from?"; Libby replied: "Oh, it goes way back to when I was a kid. Some people ask me if ... [crosstalk] ... as you did earlier, if it's related to Phil Rizzuto [nicknamed 'The Scooter']. I had the range but not the arm."
The Apprentice
Libby's only novel, The Apprentice, about a group of travelers stranded in northern Japan in the winter of 1903, during a smallpox epidemic in the run-up to the Russo-Japanese War, was first published in a hardback edition by Graywolf Press in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1996, and reprinted as a trade paperback by St. Martin's Thomas Dunne Books in 2002. After Libby's indictment in the CIA leak grand jury investigation in 2005, St. Martin's Press reissued The Apprentice as a mass market paperback (Griffin imprint). An allegorical meditation on the legitimacy of concealed knowledge, The Apprentice has been described as "a thriller ... that includes references to bestiality, pedophilia and rape."
Law career
After earning his J.D. from Columbia in 1975, Libby joined the firm of Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis LLP. He was admitted to the bar of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on October 27, 1976, and to the Bar of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals on May 19, 1978.
Libby practiced law at Schnader for six years before joining the U.S. State Department policy planning staff, at the invitation of his former Yale professor, Paul Wolfowitz, in 1981. In 1985, returning to private practice, he joined the firm then known as Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin (now Dickstein Shapiro LLP), becoming a partner in 1986 and working there until 1989, when he left to work in the U.S. Defense Department, again under his former Yale professor Paul Wolfowitz, until January 1993.
In 1993, returning to private legal practice from government, Libby became the managing partner of the Washington, D.C. office of Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, Alexander & Ferdon (formerly Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, and Alexander); in 1995, along with his Mudge Rose colleague, Leonard Garment––who had replaced John Dean as acting Special Counsel to U.S. President Richard Nixon for the last two years of his presidency dominated by Watergate, and who had hired Libby at Mudge Rose twenty years later––and three other lawyers from that firm, Libby joined the Washington, D.C. office of Dechert Price & Rhoads (now part of Dechert LLP), where he was a managing partner, a member of its litigation department, and chaired its Public Policy Practice Group. His work there was well regarded, with President Clinton recognizing Libby as one of three "distinguished Republican lawyers" who worked on the Marc Rich pardon case.
In 2001 Libby left the firm to return to work again in government, as Vice President Cheney's chief of staff.
Fugitive billionaire commodities trader Marc Rich, who, along with his business partner Pincus Green, had been indicted of tax evasion and illegal trading with Iran, and who, with Green, was ultimately pardoned by President Bill Clinton, was a client whom Leonard Garment had hired Libby to help represent around the spring of 1985, after Rich and Green had first engaged Garment. Libby stopped representing Rich in the spring of 2000; early in March 2001, at a "contentious" Congressional hearing to review Clinton's pardons, Libby testified that he thought the prosecution's case against Rich "misconstrued the facts and the law". According to Jackson Hogan, Libby's roommate at Yale University, as quoted in the already-cited U.S. News & World Report article by Walsh, He is intensely partisan ... in that if he is your counsel, he'll embrace your case and try to figure a way out of whatever noose you are ensnared in. According to a House Committee on Government Reform report, however, "The arguments made by Garment, [William Bradford] Reynolds and Libby [in their testimony] focused on the claim that the SDNY was criminalizing what should have been a civil tax case. They did not make, compile, or in any other way lay the groundwork for, or make a case for a Presidential pardon. When former President Clinton stated that they 'reviewed and advocated' 'the case for the pardons,' he suggested that they were somehow involved in arguing that Rich and Green should receive pardons. This was completely untrue". (p. 162)
Bar suspension and disbarment
Before his indictment in United States v. Libby, Libby had been a licensed lawyer, admitted to the bars of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, although his Pennsylvania law license was inactive, and he had already been suspended from the Washington, D.C. Office of Bar Counsel (D.C. Bar) for non-payment of fees. The Chief Judge of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals recommended disbarment upon confirmation of his conviction, which Libby had initially indicated that he would appeal. Having suspended his license to practice law on April 3, 2007, the D.C. Bar "disbarred [him] pursuant to D.C. Code § 11-2503(a)" on legal grounds of "moral turpitude", effective April 11, 2007, and recommended to the D.C. Court of Appeals his disbarment if his conviction were not overturned on appeal. On December 10, 2007, Libby's lawyers announced his decision "to drop his appeal of his conviction in the CIA leak case". On March 20, 2008, following the dropping of his appeal of his conviction, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals disbarred Libby. As a result of the Court's ruling, "Libby will lose his license to practice or appear in court in Washington until at least 2012", and, "As is standard, he will probably lose any bar membership he holds in other states"; that is, in Pennsylvania.
Government public service and political career
In 1981, after working as a lawyer in the Philadelphia firm Schnader LLP, Libby accepted the invitation of his former Yale University political science professor and mentor Paul Wolfowitz to join the U.S. State Department's policy planning staff. From 1982 to 1985, Libby served as director of special projects in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. In 1985 he received the Foreign Affairs Award for Public Service from the United States Department of Defense, and he resigned from government to enter private legal practice at Dickstein, Shapiro, and Morin. In 1989, he went to work at the Pentagon, again under Wolfowitz, as principal deputy under-secretary for strategy and resources at the U.S. Defense Department.
During the George H. W. Bush administration, Libby was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as deputy under secretary of defense for policy, serving from 1992 to 1993. In 1992 he also served as legal adviser for the House Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China. Libby co-authored the draft of the Defense Planning Guidance for the 1994–99 fiscal years (dated February 18, 1992) with Wolfowitz for Dick Cheney, who was then Secretary of Defense. In 1993 Libby received the Distinguished Service Award from the U.S. Defense Department and the Distinguished Public Service Award from the U.S. State Department before resuming private legal practice first at Mudge Rose and then at Dechert.
Libby was part of a network of neo-conservatives known as the "Vulcans"—its other members included Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld. While he was still a managing partner of Dechert Price & Rhoads, he was a signatory to the "Statement of Principles" of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) (a document dated June 3, 1997). He joined Wolfowitz, PNAC co-founders William Kristol, Robert Kagan, and other "Project Participants" in developing the PNAC's September 2000 report entitled, "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New Century".
After becoming Cheney's chief of staff in 2001, Libby was reportedly nicknamed "Germ Boy" at the White House, for insisting on universal smallpox vaccination. He was also nicknamed "Dick Cheney's Dick Cheney" for his close working relationship with the Vice President. Mary Matalin, who worked with Libby as an adviser to Cheney during Bush's first term, said of him "He is to the vice president what the vice president is to the president."
Libby was active in the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee of the Pentagon when it was chaired by Richard Perle during the early years of the George W. Bush administration (2001–2003). At various points in his career, Libby has also held positions with the American Bar Association, been on the advisory board of the RAND Corporation's Center for Russia and Eurasia, and been a legal adviser to the United States House of Representatives, as well as served as a consultant for the defense contractor Northrop Grumman.
Libby was also actively involved in the Bush administration's efforts to negotiate the Israeli–Palestinian "road map" for peace; for example, he participated in a series of meetings with Jewish leaders in early December 2002 and a meeting with two aides of then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in mid-April 2003, culminating in the Red Sea Summit on June 4, 2004. In their highly controversial and widely contested "Working Paper" entitled "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy", University of Chicago political science professor John J. Mearsheimer and academic dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University Stephen M. Walt argue that Libby was among the Bush administration's most "fervently pro-Israel ... officials" (20).
Awards for government service
Distinguished Service Award, United States Department of Defense, 1993
Distinguished Public Service Award, United States Department of the Navy, 1993
Foreign Affairs Award for Public Service, United States Department of State, 1985
Subsequent work experience
From January 2006 until March 7, 2007, the day after his conviction in United States v. Libby, when he resigned, Libby served as a "senior adviser" at the Hudson Institute, to "focus on issues relating to the War on Terror and the future of Asia ... offer research guidance and ... advise the institute in strategic planning." His resignation was announced by the Hudson Institute in a press release dated March 8, 2007. However, he has served as Senior Vice President of the Hudson Institute at least since 2010.
Libby also serves as a member of the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense, a group that encourages and advocates changes to government policy to strengthen national biodefense. In order to address biological threats facing the nation, the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense created a 33 step initiative for the U.S. Government to implement. Headed by former Senator Joe Lieberman and former Governor Tom Ridge, the Study Panel assembled in Washington D.C. for four meetings concerning current biodefense programs. The Study Panel concluded that the federal government had little to no defense mechanisms in case of a biological event. The Study Panel's final report, The National Blueprint for Biodefense, proposes a string of solutions and recommendations for the U.S. Government to take, including items such as giving the Vice President authority over biodefense responsibilities and merging the entire biodefense budget. These solutions represent the Panel's call to action in order to increase awareness and activity for pandemic related issues.
Involvement in the Plame affair
Between 2003 and 2005, intense speculation centered on the possibility that Libby may have been the administration official who had "leaked" classified employment information about Valerie Plame, a covert Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent and the wife of Iraq War critic Joseph C. Wilson, to New York Times reporter Judith Miller and other reporters and later tried to hide his having done so.
In August 2005, as revealed in grand jury testimony audiotapes played during the trial and reported in many news accounts, Libby testified that he met with Judith Miller, a reporter with The New York Times, on July 8, 2003, and discussed Plame with her.
Although Libby signed a "blanket waiver" allowing journalists to discuss their conversations with him pursuant to the CIA leak grand jury investigation, Miller maintained that such a waiver did not serve to allow her to reveal her source to that grand jury; moreover, Miller argued that Libby's general waiver pertaining to all journalists could have been coerced and that she would only testify before that grand jury if given an individual waiver.
After refusing to testify about her July 2003 meeting with Libby, Judith Miller was jailed on July 7, 2005, for contempt of court. Months later, however, her new attorney, Robert Bennett, told her that she already had possessed a written, voluntary waiver from Libby all along. After Miller had served most of her sentence, Libby reiterated that he had indeed given her a "waiver" both "voluntarily and personally." He attached the following letter, which, when released publicly, became the subject of further speculation about Libby's possible motives in sending it:
As noted above, my lawyer confirmed my waiver to other reporters in just the way he did with your lawyer. Why? Because as I am sure will not be news to you, the public report of every other reporter's testimony makes clear that they did not discuss Ms. Plame's name or identity with me, or knew about her before our call.
After agreeing to testify, Miller was released on September 29, 2005, appearing before the grand jury the next day, but the charge against her was rescinded only after she testified again on October 12, 2005. For her second grand jury appearance, Miller produced a notebook from a previously undisclosed meeting with Libby on June 23, 2003, two weeks before Wilson's New York Times op-ed was published. In her account published in the Times on October 16, 2005, based on her notes, Miller reports:
... in an interview with me on June 23 [2003], Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, discussed Mr. Wilson's activities and placed blame for intelligence failures on the CIA. In later conversations with me, on July 8 and July 12 [2003], Mr. Libby, ... [at the time] Mr. Cheney's top aide, played down the importance of Mr. Wilson's mission and questioned his performance ... My notes indicate that well before Mr. Wilson published his critique, Mr. Libby told me that Mr. Wilson's wife may have worked on unconventional weapons at the CIA. ... My notes do not show that Mr. Libby identified Mr. Wilson's wife by name. Nor do they show that he described Valerie Wilson as a covert agent or "operative"...
Her notation on her July 8, 2003 meeting with Libby does contain the name "Valerie Flame ", which she added retrospectively. While Miller reveals publicly that she herself had misidentified the last name of Wilson's wife (aka "Valerie Plame") in her own marginal notes on their interview as "Flame" instead of "Plame", in her grand jury (and later trial testimony), she remained uncertain when, how, and why she arrived at that name and did not attribute it to Libby:
I was not permitted to take notes of what I told the grand jury, and my interview notes on Mr. Libby are sketchy in places. It is also difficult, more than two years later, to parse the meaning and context of phrases, of underlining and of parentheses. On one page of my interview notes, for example, I wrote the name "Valerie Flame." Yet, as I told Mr. Fitzgerald, I simply could not recall where that came from, when I wrote it or why the name was misspelled ... I testified that I did not believe the name came from Mr. Libby, in part because the notation does not appear in the same part of my notebook as the interview notes from him.
A year and a half later, a jury convicted Libby of obstruction of justice and perjury in his grand jury testimony and making false statements to federal investigators about when and how he learned that Plame was a CIA agent.
On April 13, 2018, Libby was pardoned by US President Donald Trump.
Indictment and resignation
On October 28, 2005, as a result of the CIA leak grand jury investigation, Special Counsel Fitzgerald indicted Libby on five counts: one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of making false statements when interviewed by agents of the FBI, and two counts of perjury in his testimony before the grand jury. Pursuant to the grand jury investigation, Libby had told FBI investigators that he first heard of Mrs. Wilson's CIA employment from Cheney, and then later heard it from journalist Tim Russert, and acted as if he did not have that information. The indictment alleges that statements to federal investigators and the grand jury were intentionally false, in that Libby had numerous conversations about Mrs. Wilson's CIA employment, including his conversations with Judith Miller (see above), before speaking to Russert; Russert did not tell Libby about Mrs. Wilson's CIA employment; prior to talking with such reporters, Libby knew with certainty that she was employed by the CIA; and Libby told reporters that she worked for the CIA without making any disclaimer that he was uncertain of that fact. The false statements counts in the Libby indictment charge that he intentionally made those false statements to the FBI; the perjury counts charge that he intentionally lied to the grand jury in repeating those false statements; and the obstruction of justice count charges that Libby intentionally made those false statements in order to mislead the grand jury, thus impeding Fitzgerald's grand jury investigation of the truth about the leaking of Mrs. Wilson's then-classified, covert CIA identity.
Trial, conviction, and sentencing
On March 6, 2007, the jury convicted him on four of the five counts: obstruction of justice, one count of making false statements when interviewed by agents of the FBI, and two counts of perjury. They acquitted him on count three, the second charge of making false statements when interviewed by federal agents about his conversations with Time reporter Matthew Cooper.
Libby retained attorney Ted Wells of the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to represent him. Wells had successfully defended former Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy against a 30-count indictment and had also participated in the successful defense of former Secretary of Labor Raymond Donovan.
After Judge Reggie Walton denied Libby's motion to dismiss, the press initially reported that Libby would testify at the trial. Libby's criminal trial, United States v. Libby, began on January 16, 2007. A parade of Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists testified, including Bob Woodward, Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post and Judith Miller and David E. Sanger of The New York Times. Despite earlier press reports and widespread speculation, neither Libby nor Vice President Cheney testified. The jury began deliberations on February 21, 2007.
Verdict
After deliberating for 10 days, the jury rendered its verdict on March 6, 2007. It convicted Libby on four of the five counts against him: two counts of perjury, one count of obstruction of justice in a grand jury investigation, and one of the two counts of making false statements to federal investigators.
After the verdict, initially, Libby's lawyers announced that he would seek a new trial, and that, if that attempt were to fail, they would appeal Libby's conviction. Libby did not speak to reporters. Libby's defense team eventually decided against seeking a new trial.
Speaking to the media outside the courtroom after the verdict, Fitzgerald said that "The jury worked very long and hard and deliberated at length ... [and] was obviously convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had lied and obstructed justice in a serious manner ... I do not expect to file any further charges." The trial confirmed that the leak came first from then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage; since Fitzgerald did not charge Armitage and did not charge anyone else, Libby's conviction effectively ended the investigation.
In his October 28, 2005, press conference about the grand jury's indictment, Fitzgerald had already explained that Libby's obstruction of justice through perjury and false statements had prevented the grand jury from determining whether the leak violated federal law.
During his media appearance outside the courtroom after the verdict in the Libby case, Fitzgerald fielded questions from the press about others involved in the Plame affair and in the CIA leak grand jury investigation, such as Armitage and Cheney, whom he had already described as under "a cloud", as already addressed in his conduct of the case and in his closing arguments in court.
Sentencing
Given current federal sentencing guidelines, which are not mandatory, the conviction could have resulted in a sentence ranging from no imprisonment to imprisonment of up to 25 years and a fine of $1,000,000; yet, as Sniffen and Apuzzo observe, "federal sentencing guidelines will probably prescribe far less." In practice, according to federal sentencing data, three-fourths of the 198 defendants found guilty of obstruction of justice in 2006 served jail time. The average length of jail time on this charge alone was 70 months.
On June 5, 2007, Judge Walton sentenced Libby to 30 months in prison and fined him $250,000, clarifying that Libby would begin his sentence immediately. According to Apuzzo and Yost, the judge also "placed him on two years probation after his prison sentence expires. There is no parole in the federal system, but Libby would be eligible for release after two years." In addition, Judge Walton required Libby to provide "400 hours of community service" during his supervised release. On June 5, 2007, after the announcement of Libby's sentencing, CNN reported that Libby still "plans to appeal the verdict".
That day, in response to the sentencing, Vice President Cheney issued a statement in Libby's defense on The White House website. The statement concluded: "Speaking as friends, we hope that our system will return a final result consistent with what we know of this fine man."
Joseph and Valerie Wilson posted their statement on Libby's sentencing in United States v. Libby on their website, "grateful that justice has been served."
Order to report to prison pending appeal of verdict
After the June 5 sentencing, Walton said he was inclined to jail Libby after the defense laid out its proposed appeal, but the judge told attorneys he was open to changing his mind"; however, on June 14, 2007, Walton ordered Libby to report to prison while his attorneys appealed the conviction. Libby's attorneys asked that the order be stayed, but Walton denied the request and told Libby that he would have 10 days to appeal the ruling. In denying Libby's request, which had questioned Fitzgerald's authority to make the charges in the first place, Walton supported Fitzgerald's authority in the case. He said: "Everyone is accountable, and if you work in the White House, and if it's perceived that somehow (you're) linked at the hip, the American public would have serious questions about the fairness of any investigation of a high-level official conducted by the attorney general." The judge was also responding to an Amicus curiae brief that he had permitted to be filed, which had not apparently convinced him to change his mind, as he subsequently denied Libby bail during his appeal. His "order grant[ing] the [legal academic] scholars permission to file their brief ..." contained a caustic footnote questioning the motivation of the legal academics and suggesting he might not give a great deal of weight to their opinion[:]
... It is an impressive show of public service when twelve prominent and distinguished current and former law professors are able to amass their collective wisdom in the course of only several days to provide their legal expertise to the court on behalf of a criminal defendant. The Court trusts that this is a reflection of these eminent academics' willingness in the future to step to the plate and provide like assistance in cases involving any of the numerous litigants, both in this Court and throughout the courts of this nation, who lack the financial means to fully and properly articulate the merits of their legal positions even in instances where failure to do so could result in monetary penalties, incarceration, or worse. The Court will certainly not hesitate to call for such assistance from these luminaries, as necessary in the interests of justice and equity, whenever similar questions arise in the cases that come before it."
Moreover, when the hearing started, "in the interest of full disclosure," Walton informed the court that he had "received a number of harassing, angry and mean-spirited phone calls and messages. Some wishing bad things on me and my family ... [T]hose types of things will have no impact ... I initially threw them away, but then there were more, some that were more hateful ... [T]hey are being kept."
New York Times reporters Neil Lewis and David Stout estimated subsequently that Libby's prison sentence could begin within "two months", explaining that
Judge Walton's decision means that the defense lawyers will probably ask a federal appeals court to block the sentence, a long-shot move. It also sharpens interest in a question being asked by Mr. Libby's supporters and critics alike: Will President Bush pardon Mr. Libby? ... So far, the president has expressed sympathy for Mr. Libby and his family but has not tipped his hand on the pardon issue. ... If the president does not pardon him, and if an appeals court refuses to second-guess Judge Walton's decision, Mr. Libby will probably be ordered to report to prison in six to eight weeks' time. Federal prison authorities will decide where. "Unless the Court of Appeals overturns my ruling, he will have to report", Judge Walton said.
Failure of Libby's appeal in order to begin prison sentence
On June 20, 2007, Libby appealed Walton's ruling in federal appeals court. The following day, Walton filed a 30-page expanded ruling, in which he explained his decision to deny Libby bail in more detail.
On July 2, 2007, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied Libby's request for a delay and release from his prison sentence, stating that Libby "has not shown that the appeal raises a substantial question under federal law that would merit letting him remain free," increasing "pressure on President George W. Bush to decide soon whether to pardon Libby ... as the former White House official's supporters have urged."
Presidential commutation
Soon after the verdict, calls for Libby to be pardoned by President George W. Bush began to appear in some newspapers; some of them were posted online by the Libby Legal Defense Trust (LLDT). U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid issued a press release about the verdict, urging Bush to pledge not to pardon Libby, and other Democratic politicians followed his lead.
Surveying "the pardon battle" and citing both pro and con publications, The Washington Post online columnist Dan Froomkin concludes that many U.S. newspapers opposed a presidential pardon for Libby. Much of this commentary obscured the fact that the clemency power provided the President with several options short of a full, unconditional pardon. In an op-ed published in The Washington Post, former federal prosecutor and conservative activist William Otis argued the sentence was too stringent and that, instead of pardoning Libby, Bush should commute his sentence.
After the sentencing, Bush stated on camera that he would "not intervene until Libby's legal team has exhausted all of its avenues of appeal ... It wouldn't be appropriate for me to discuss the case until after the legal remedies have run its course." Ultimately, less than a month later, on July 2, 2007, Bush chose Otis's 'third option' — "neither prison nor pardon" — in commuting Libby's prison sentence.
After Libby was denied bail during his appeal process on July 2, 2007, Bush commuted Libby's 30-month federal prison sentence, calling it "excessive", but he did not change the other parts of the sentence and their conditions. That presidential commutation left in place the felony conviction, the $250,000 fine, and the terms of probation. Some have criticized the move, as presidential commutations are rarely issued, but when granted they have generally occurred after the convicted person has already served a substantial portion of his or her sentence: "We can't find any cases, certainly in the last half-century, where the president commuted a sentence before it had even started to be served," said former Justice Department pardon attorney Margaret Colgate Love. Others, notably Cheney himself who argued that Libby was unfairly charged by a politically motivated prosecution, believed that the commutation fell short, as Libby would likely never practice law again.
At the time, Bush explained his "Grant of Executive Clemency" to Libby, in part, as follows:
Mr. Libby was sentenced to thirty months of prison, two years of probation, and a $250,000 fine. In making the sentencing decision, the district court rejected the advice of the probation office, which recommended a lesser sentence and the consideration of factors that could have led to a sentence of home confinement or probation.
Libby paid the required fine of "$250,400, which included a 'special assessment' of costs" that same day.
Bush's explanation was written by Fred F. Fielding, White House Counsel during the last two years of Bush's presidency. According to a Time article published six months after Bush left office, Fielding worded the commutation "in a way that would make it harder for Bush to revisit it in the future ... ; [the] language was intended to send an unmistakable message, internally as well as externally: No one is above the law." The article suggested that there was a fundamental difference between how Bush and Cheney viewed the "War on Terror", with aides close to Bush feeling that Cheney had misled the President and damaged the administration's moral character with the Plame leak.
Libby's lawyer, Theodore V. Wells, Jr. "issued a brief statement saying Mr. Libby and his family 'wished to express their gratitude for the president's decision ... We continue to believe in Mr. Libby's innocence'. ... "
Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, however, took issue with Bush's description of the sentence as 'excessive', saying it was "[i]mposed pursuant to the laws governing sentencings which occur every day throughout this country ... It is fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of justice as equals ... [T]hat principle guided the judge during both the trial and the sentencing," Fitzgerald said.
The day after the commuting of Libby's sentence, James Rowley (Bloomberg News) reported that Bush had not ruled out pardoning Libby in the future and that Bush's press spokesman, Tony Snow, denied any political motivation in the commutation. Quoting Snow, Rowley added: The president is getting pounded on the right because he didn't do a full pardon.' If Bush were 'doing the weather-vane thing' he 'would have done something differently.
Democratic politicians' responses stressed their outrage at what they called a disgraceful abrogation of justice, and, that evening CNN reported that Representative John Conyers, Jr., Democrat of Michigan, announced that there would be a formal Congressional investigation of Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence and other presidential reprieves.
The hearing on "The Use and Misuse of Presidential Clemency Power for Executive Branch Officials" was held by the United States House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Conyers, on July 11, 2007.
Just a few days later, however, Judge Walton questioned "whether ... [Libby] will face two years of probation, as [President Bush] said he would," because the supervised release time is conditioned on Libby's serving the prison sentence, and he "directed the special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, and ... [Libby's] lawyers to file arguments on the point. ... " "If Judge Walton does not impose any supervised release, it could undercut ... [Bush's] argument that ... Libby still faced stiff justice." That issue was resolved on July 10, 2007, clearing the way for Libby to begin serving the rest of his sentence, the supervised release and 400 hours of community service.
In response to Bush's justifications for clemency, liberal commentator Harlan J. Protass noted that in Rita v. United States, the case of a defendant convicted of perjury in front of a grand jury which had been decided two weeks earlier by the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. government had successfully argued that sentences that fall within Federal Sentencing Guidelines are presumed to be "reasonable", regardless of individual circumstances.
Reportedly outraged by Bush's commutation of Libby's prison sentence, on July 2, 2007, Wilson told CNN: "I have nothing to say to Scooter Libby ... I don't owe this administration. They owe my wife and my family an apology for having betrayed her. Scooter Libby is a traitor. Bush's action ... demonstrates that the White House is corrupt from top to bottom." He reiterated this perspective on the commutation in the House Judiciary Committee hearing on July 11, 2007, vehemently protesting that a Republican congressman was engaging in "yet a further smear of my wife's good name and my good name."
According to a USA Today/Gallup Poll conducted from July 6 to July 8, 2007, "most Americans disagree with President George W. Bush's decision to intervene" on Libby's behalf in the case.
Several months after Bush's action, Judge Walton commented publicly on it. He spoke in favor of applying the law equally, stating: "The downside [of the commutation] is there are a lot of people in America who think that justice is determined to a large degree by who you are and that what you have plays a large role in what kind of justice you receive. ... "
Bush took no further action with respect to Libby's conviction or sentence during his presidential term, despite entreaties from conservatives that he should be pardoned. Two days after their term expired, former Vice President Cheney expressed his regret that Bush had not pardoned Libby on his last day in office.
Press coverage of Libby's trial
Blogs played a prominent role in the press coverage of Libby's trial. Scott Shane, in his article "For Liberal Bloggers, Libby Trial Is Fun and Fodder", published in The New York Times on February 15, 2007, quotes Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, who wrote that the trial was "the first federal case for which independent bloggers have been given official credentials along with reporters from the traditional news media." The trial was followed in the mass media and engaged the interest of both professional legal experts and the general public. While awaiting the judge's ruling pertaining to supervised release and the "400 hours of community service that Judge Walton imposed", for example, bloggers discussed the legal issues involved in these non-commuted parts of Libby's sentence and their effects on Libby's future life experiences.
Criticism of investigation
On August 28, 2006, Christopher Hitchens asserted that Richard Armitage was the primary source of the Valerie Plame leak and that Fitzgerald knew this at the beginning of his investigation. This was supported a month later by Armitage himself, who stated that Fitzgerald had instructed him not to go public with this information. Investor's Business Daily questioned Fitzgerald's truthfulness in an editorial, stating "From top to bottom, this has been one of the most disgraceful abuses of prosecutorial power in this country's history ... The Plame case proves [Fitzgerald] can bend the truth with the proficiency of the slickest of pols."
In a September 2008 Wall Street Journal editorial, attorney Alan Dershowitz cited the "questionable investigation[s]" of Scooter Libby as evidence of the problems brought to the criminal justice process by "politically appointed and partisan attorney[s] general". In April 2015, also writing in The Wall Street Journal, Hoover Institution fellow Peter Berkowitz argued that statements by Judith Miller, in her recently published memoir, raised anew contentions that her testimony was inaccurate and that Fitzgerald's conduct as prosecutor was inappropriate.
The Wilsons' civil suit
On July 13, 2006, Joseph and Valerie Wilson filed a civil lawsuit against Libby, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and other unnamed senior White House officials (among whom they later added Richard Armitage) for their role in the public disclosure of Valerie Wilson's classified CIA status. Judge John D. Bates dismissed the Wilsons' lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds on July 19, 2007. The Wilsons appealed Bates's district-court decision the next day. Agreeing with the Bush administration, the Obama Justice Department argued that the Wilsons had no legitimate grounds to sue. Melanie Sloan, one of the Wilsons' attorneys, said: "We are deeply disappointed that the Obama administration has failed to recognize the grievous harm top Bush White House officials inflicted on Joe and Valerie Wilson. The government's position cannot be reconciled with President Obama's oft-stated commitment to once again make government officials accountable for their actions."
On June 21, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal.
Restoration of voting rights, law license, and presidential pardon
Libby's voting rights were restored on November 1, 2012 by then-Governor of Virginia Bob McDonnell. Libby was part of a larger group of individuals who had their voting rights restored by McDonnell, all of whom were non-violent offenders. Three years later, on November 3, 2016, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals granted Libby's petition for reinstatement to the D.C. Bar. On April 13, 2018, President Donald Trump pardoned Libby.
In media portrayals
David Andrews played Scooter Libby in the 2010 film Fair Game, which is about the Plame affair.
Justin Kirk played Libby in the 2018 film Vice.
See also
List of disbarments in the United States
Plame affair criminal investigation
Project for the New American Century
List of people pardoned or granted clemency by the president of the United States
Notes
Citations
References
. United States Department of State, February 2005. Accessed July 8, 2007.
Bromell, Nick. "Scooter Libby and Me". The American Scholar (Phi Beta Kappa) (Winter 2007). Accessed June 8, 2007.
–––. "Scooter's Tragic Innocence: Why My Friend Scooter Libby Is Loyal to Bush, Cheney and an Arrogant Administration Whose Values Are Not His Own". Salon, January 24, 2007. Accessed June 8, 2007. (Premium content; restricted access).
Dickerson, John. "Who Is Scooter Libby? The Secretive Cheney Aide at the Heart of the CIA Leak Case". Slate, October 21, 2005. Accessed June 28, 2007.
Frankel, Max. "The Washington Back Channel". The New York Times, March 25, 2007. Accessed March 23, 2008.
Garfield, Bob. "'Former New York Times Staffer Judith Miller'". On the Media from NPR, National Public Radio, WCNY-FM, November 11, 2005. Accessed March 5, 2007. (Transcript and RealAudio link.)
"I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby". Right Web (International Relations Center). Last updated March 21, 2007. Accessed July 1, 2007.
"Indictment" in United States of America vs. I. Lewis Libby, also known as "Scooter Libby". United States Department of Justice, October 28, 2005. Accessed July 5, 2007.
Libby, Lewis. The Apprentice: A Novel. Rpt. ed. 1996; New York: Griffin, 2005. (10). (13).
Markels, Alex. "Legal Affairs: I. Lewis Libby: The Plight of a Disciplined Risk-Taker". National Public Radio, October 28, 2005. Accessed March 5, 2007.
Merritt, Jeralyn, moderator. "Verdict in the Libby Trial". Transcript. The Washington Post ("Live Online" discussion), March 6, 2007, 2:00–3:00 p.m., ET. Accessed March 6, 2007. (Duration: one hour.) N.B.: "Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions. washingtonpost.com is not responsible for any content posted by third parties."
in "United States of America, v. I. Lewis Libby, Defendant". Criminal No. 05-394 (RBW). United States District Court for the District of Columbia, filed January 10, 2007. Accessed February 10, 2007. ["USA-v-Libby_Rules-of-Order.pdf".]
"President Commutes Libby's Sentence: Calls 30-month Term for Ex-Cheney Aide 'excessive'". Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, July 3, 2007. Accessed July 4, 2007.
. White House biography from 2004. Accessed February 10, 2007.
Waas, Murray. "Cheney 'Authorized' Libby to Leak Classified Information". National Journal, February 9, 2006. Accessed March 6, 2007.
–––, ed., with Jeff Lomonaco. The United States v. I. Lewis Libby. New York: Union Square Press (imprint of Sterling Publishing), 2007. (10). (13). ("Edited & with reporting by Murray Waas" and with research assistance by Jeff Lomonaco.)
Weisman, Steven. "White House Is Pressing Israelis To Take Initiatives in Peace Talks". The New York Times, April 17, 2003. Accessed March 23, 2008.
Wilson, Joseph C. "Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson's Response to Bush Spokesman Tony Snow's Comments at Today's White House Briefing". Online posting. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), July 3, 2007. Accessed July 4, 2007. Online posting. "Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson's Response ... " and "Read more", Joseph and Valerie Wilson Legal Support Trust (Home page), n.d. Accessed July 8, 2007. (Concerning Bush's commutation of Libby's prison sentence.)
–––. "Statement in Response to Jury's Verdict in U.S. v. I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby" (now outdated URL). Press release. Originally posted online. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), March 6, 2007. Accessed March 6, 2007. Posted as "CREW Statement on Libby Conviction: No Man Is Above the Law." Citizens ^Blogging for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (blog), March 6, 2007. Accessed April 18, 2007. Also posted as "Wilsons' Attorney Statement in Response to Jury's Verdict in U.S. v. I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby". Joseph and Valerie Wilson Legal Support Trust, March 6, 2007, home page. Accessed April 18, 2007.
External links
Background on the Plame Investigation at The Washington Post.
CNN Special Reports: CIA Leak Investigation compiled by CNN Newsroom; incl. interactive timeline in Case History.
"Legal Affairs: Lewis Libby's Complete Grand Jury Testimony". Full audio clip and transcript provided by National Public Radio on npr.org,
"The Lewis Libby Case". Archive of articles concerning Libby broadcast on National Public Radio.
.
United States v. I. Lewis Libby. Photo gallery with news captions at The Washington Post.
Membership at the Council on Foreign Relations
1950 births
Jewish American attorneys
Assistants to the President of the United States
Chiefs of Staff to the Vice President of the United States
Columbia Law School alumni
Columbia University alumni
Living people
Members of the Council on Foreign Relations
Pennsylvania Democrats
Pennsylvania Republicans
People associated with the Plame affair
People from McLean, Virginia
Lawyers from New Haven, Connecticut
Lawyers from Philadelphia
Phillips Academy alumni
Reagan administration personnel
Recipients of American presidential clemency
Recipients of American presidential pardons
Yale University alumni
Hudson Institute
Conservatism in the United States | false | [
"In the United States, the trial penalty refers to the difference between the smaller sentence offered to a defendant in a plea bargain prior to a criminal trial versus the larger sentence the defendant could receive if they elect to go to trial. It sits at the center of a legal debate over whether trial penalties abridge defendants' Sixth Amendment right to trial.\n\nBackground\nIn a plea bargain, a criminal defendant waives their right to trial and agrees to plead guilty to a lesser charge than would have been brought against them at trial or agrees to plead guilty to the original charge in exchange for a sentence that is less than the maximum possible. Plea bargaining is pervasive in the United States, with most criminal defendants accepting a plea deal rather than going to trial. At the federal level, just 2% of defendants elect to go to trial. \n\nThe constitutionality of plea bargaining has been repeatedly affirmed by the United States Supreme Court (e.g. Brady v. United States), provided that the defendant enter into the plea deal voluntarily.\n\nDefinition\nThe trial penalty is the \"discrepancy between the sentence the prosecutor is willing to offer in exchange for a guilty plea and the sentence that would be imposed after a trial\". Many plea bargains require that the defendant waive certain constitutional rights, such as the right to challenge unlawfully procured evidence and the right to appeal; the loss of these rights is also sometimes considered part of the trial penalty.\n\nCriticism\n\nRight to trial\nCritics argue that the trial penalty has the effect of depriving defendants' of their Sixth Amendment right to \"a speedy and public trial\". A 2015 statistical analysis of federal cases by Andrew Chongesh Kim concluded that defendants who exercise their right to trial are penalized with sentences 64% longer than they would have received had they accepted a plea deal. Kim argues that this makes trial by jury \"less of a right and more of a trap for fools\". \n\nThe National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) has been a particularly harsh critic of the trial penalty, arguing that it is \"now so severe and pervasive that it has virtually eliminated the constitutional right to a trial\", which has had the consequence of replacing the system of trial by jury laid out in the United States Constitution with a system of plea bargains. Trial penalties, they point out, impose such harsh sanctions on choosing to go to trial—with prosecutors sometimes threatening multi-decade prison sentences if a plea deal of only a few years is not accepted—that trial penalties amount to coercing defendants to plead guilty. This coercion, they argue, renders plea bargains unconstitutional. \n\nThe lawyer Alan Dershowitz has also called the trial penalty unconstitutional. In the Wall Street Journal, he argued that trial penalties render most plea bargains unconstitutional because they amount to a punishment for exercising the right to trial, and any right is abridged \"when you're punished for exercising it\".\n\nPresumption of innocence\nThe National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) has argued that trial penalties strip defendants of their presumption of innocence, pointing out that the \"pressures defendants face in the plea bargaining process are so strong even innocent people can be convinced to plead guilty to crimes they did not commit\". The Association argues that this casts doubt \"on the assumption that defendants who plead guilty do so voluntarily\".\n\nReferences\n\nCriminal law\nEthically disputed judicial practices\nLegal terminology\nCivil liberties in the United States",
"The Women's time trial of the 2013 UCI Road World Championships took place on 24 September 2013 in the region of Tuscany, Italy. The course of the race was 22.05 km from Parco delle Cascine to the Nelson Mandela Forum in Florence.\n\nEllen van Dijk from the Netherlands lived up her expectations as main favourite and won the time trial by dominating the race, beating perennial podium finisher Linda Villumsen and the surprising American Carmen Small.\n\nQualification\nAll National Federations may enter 4 riders of whom 2 may start. Besides of that, the outgoing World Champion and the continental champions may take part in addition to this number.\n\nParticipating nations\n\n32 nations participated in the women's time trial.\n\n Australia\n Austria\n Belgium\n Belarus\n Brazil\n Canada\n Colombia\n Croatia\n Denmark\n Spain\n Finland\n France\n Germany\n Italy\n Jordan\n Japan\n Latvia\n Lithuania\n Mexico\n Mongolia\n Netherlands\n Norway\n New Zealand\n Poland\n Russia\n Slovenia\n Switzerland\n Sweden\n Thailand\n Uganda\n Ukraine\n United States\n\nPreview\nEllen van Dijk, the Dutch National time trial Champion and the number 5 in the time trial at the 2012 UCI Road World Championships was the absolute favourite. She won many time trials in the 2013 women's road season. Of the 10 time trials she rode she won eight of them including the time trial at the prestigious Giro d'Italia Femminile and a week before the championships the Chrono Champenois – Trophée Européen. Van Dijk did not win two time trials, Emma Johansson from Sweden beat her in the Emakumeen Euskal Bira and Shara Gillow from Australia in the Thüringen Rundfahrt der Frauen.\n\nHanna Solovey, a Ukrainian track cyslint, won the time trial at the European Road Championships, the only race she rode before the World Championships. With an average speed of over 47 km/h it was the fastest average speed in a time trial of the season. Linda Villumsen, who was on the podium in the last four editions, and Evelyn Stevens were other podium candidates.\n\nSchedule\n\nSource\n\nRace\nDanish mountain biker Annika Langvad, who finished 6th in the end, was the early leader after setting a time of 28' 27\" and stayed in the hot seat for a long time. German Trixi Worrack, the first of the final 10 riders to finish, took over the lead after finishing in a time of 28' 19\". The main favourites started last and showed some fast intermediate times at the two intermediate time points after and . The Dutch Ellen van Dijk was the fastest from the start by riding 20 second faster than Linda Villumsen and 24 seconds faster than Carmen Small at the first time point. At the second split the gaps were 25 and 28 seconds respectively. Van Dijk lost one second to Villumsen in the final five kilometres but her margin was large enough to win her second world title of the championship after winning the team time trial with her squad on Sunday. For Villumsen it was her fifth consecutive time on the world championship time trial podium, but never won the rainbow jersey.\n\nMedalists reactions\n\n Ellen van Dijk \nVan Dijk lived up the expectations as main favourite and won the time trial by dominating the race.\n\"I'm super happy. It's difficult to describe how I feel now,\" she said after the race. \"I'm so excited because I dreamt so long of this one and the pressure was high to finish it off. It's great to have won. My intention was to start fast but I wanted to keep going a bit longer than I did. I maybe got over excited and a went too fast, but I maintained the time difference and so it was all ok.\" This race was the seasons' main goal for Van Dijk. She had been tested on her time trial position during the season and found a better position which she was able to maintain for almost half an hour. Van Dijk told she practiced the course twice in August at 5:00am to avoid traffic and made video recordings of the course to get to know the turns. She had watched the video over and over again until she could dream it.\n\n Linda Villumsen \nVillumsen rode the New Zealand National Time Trial Championships in January before backing off until June. She rode the Giro Rosa and won La Route de France and the time trial at the Tour Cycliste Féminin International de l'Ardèche before heading to World Championships. \"It was a different year for me but a good year.\" She said in an interview. \"I started late and with a different approach. I trained more at home and then did race after race. I enjoyed it. I was still there on the podium so I can thank my team for helping me this far.\" Villumsen, a former a Danish national road race champion, switched her nationality in 2010 from Danish to New Zealand. It was her fifth straight podium at the world championships in the time trial. She took her first bronze in 2009, 2010 and 2012, and won silver in her former home country in 2011. \"It's not bad luck.\" Villumsen said. \"If someone is better, they deserve to win. Ellen van Dijk has been riding very well all throughout the year, she has won all kinds of time trials, short ones, long ones. She really deserved to win. A place on the podium is still nice. I go close every year but something is missing. I'll try to work it out and go all the way to the top perhaps next year.\"\n\n Carmen Small \nSmall, American national time trial champions, considered retirement in 2012 before signing by . She won her first medal at the World Championships.\n“I’m pretty surprised, I didn’t expect to actually podium. I thought top five would be a really good ride for me. Jim Miller (USA Cycling vice president of athletics) and I met before and I really wanted Jim in the car talking to me because he was in the car at Nationals with me when I won. I just buried myself in the last 500 meters. I knew it was going to hurt, but it hurts for everyone. With 100 meters to go I wanted to quit, but I did one more click down on my gears and I just counted the pedal strokes to get me to the finish. This hurt worse than I’ve ever hurt before.\" She also felt sorry for Evelyn Stevens who missed a place on the podium by 0.04 seconds. \"It's a very bittersweet feeling for me. Evelyn is a good friend, a teammate and a fellow countryman. We've spent a lot of time together this season and it's hard to have been beaten and have it be so close\".\n\nFinal classification\nOf the 48 riders on the starting list, 3 riders did not start.\n\nDNS = did not start\n|}\n\nReferences\n\nWomen's time trial\nUCI Road World Championships – Women's time trial\n2013 in women's road cycling"
] |
[
"Scooter Libby",
"Trial, conviction, and sentencing",
"What was his trial about",
"second charge of making false statements when interviewed by federal agents about his conversations with Time reporter Matthew Cooper.",
"What did he talk to the reporter about",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Libby retained attorney Ted Wells of the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to represent him.",
"How did the trial go",
"Libby pleaded not guilty to all five counts."
] | C_72c2173245744eeea3ae7541ba451877_0 | And what happened during the trial | 5 | what happened during Scooter Libby's trial | Scooter Libby | On March 6, 2007, the jury convicted him on four of the five counts but acquitted him on count three, the second charge of making false statements when interviewed by federal agents about his conversations with Time reporter Matthew Cooper. After being questioned by the FBI in the fall of 2003 and testifying before a Federal grand jury on March 5, 2004, and again on March 24, 2004, Libby pleaded not guilty to all five counts. According to the Associated Press, David Addington, Cheney's legal counsel, described a September 2003 meeting with Libby around the time that a criminal investigation began, saying that Libby had told him, "'I just want to tell you, I didn't do it'... I didn't ask what the 'it' was.'" Libby retained attorney Ted Wells of the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to represent him. Wells had successfully defended former Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy against a 30-count indictment and had also participated in the successful defense of former Secretary of Labor Raymond Donovan. After Judge Reggie Walton denied Libby's motion to dismiss, the press initially reported that Libby would testify at the trial. Libby's criminal trial, United States v. Libby, began on January 16, 2007. A parade of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists testified, including Bob Woodward, Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post and Judith Miller and David E. Sanger of The New York Times. Despite earlier press reports and widespread speculation, neither Libby nor Vice President Cheney testified. The jury began deliberations on February 21, 2007. CANNOTANSWER | Judge Reggie Walton denied Libby's motion to dismiss, | I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby (first name generally given as Irv, Irve or Irving; born August 22, 1950) is an American lawyer, and former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.
From 2001 to 2005, Libby held the offices of Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs, Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States, and Assistant to the President during the administration of President George W. Bush.
In October 2005, Libby resigned from all three government positions after he was indicted on five counts by a federal grand jury concerning the investigation of the leak of the covert identity of Central Intelligence Agency officer Valerie Plame Wilson. He was subsequently convicted of four counts (one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury, and one count of making false statements), making him the highest-ranking White House official convicted in a government scandal since John Poindexter, the national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan in the Iran–Contra affair.
After a failed appeal, President Bush commuted Libby's sentence of 30 months in federal prison, leaving the other parts of his sentence intact. As a consequence of his conviction in United States v. Libby, Libby's license to practice law was suspended until being reinstated in 2016. President Donald Trump fully pardoned Libby on April 13, 2018.
Personal history
Background and education
Libby was born to an affluent Jewish family in New Haven, Connecticut. His father, Irving Lewis Leibovitz, was an investment banker. His father changed his family original surname from Leibovitz to Libby.
Libby graduated from the Eaglebrook School, in Deerfield, Massachusetts, a junior boarding school, in 1965. The family lived in the Washington, D.C. region; Miami, Florida; and Connecticut prior to Libby's graduation from Phillips Academy, in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1968.
He and his elder brother, Hank, a retired tax lawyer, were the first in the family to graduate from college. Libby attended Yale University in New Haven, graduating magna cum laude in 1972. As Yale Daily News reporter Jack Mirkinson observes, "Even though he would eventually become a prominent Republican, Libby's political beginnings would not have pointed in that direction. He served as vice president of the Yale College Democrats and later campaigned for Michael Dukakis when he was running for governor of Massachusetts." According to Mirkinson: "Two particular Yale courses helped guide Libby's future endeavors. One of these was a creative writing course, which started Libby on a 20-year mission to complete a novel ... [later published as] The Apprentice ... [and] a political science class with professor and future Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. In an interview with author James Mann, Libby said Wolfowitz was one of his favorite professors, and their professional relationship did not end with the class." Wolfowitz became a significant mentor in his later professional life.
In 1975, as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, Libby received his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Columbia Law School.
Marriage and family
Libby is married to Harriet Grant, whom he met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the late 1980s, while he was a partner and she an associate in the law firm then known as Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin: When he and Harriet became serious,' Dickstein partner Kenneth Simon wrote, 'she chose to leave the firm rather than maintain the awkward situation of an associate dating a partner. Libby and Grant married in the early 1990s, have a son and a daughter, and live in McLean, Virginia.
Name
Libby has been secretive about his full name. He was prosecuted as I. Lewis Libby, also known as "Scooter Libby". National Public Radio's Day to Day reported that the 1972 Yale Banner (the yearbook of Yale) gave his name as Irve Lewis Libby Jr.; it is unclear if Irve is his given name, or if it is short for Irving, as it was for his father. CBS, the BBC, and The New York Timess John Tierney have all used this spelling of his first name. The Timess Eric Schmitt spelled it Irv, though he cited a phone interview with Libby's brother, and did not clarify if he had asked for a spelling.
At times, including in the Yale Banner, and as documented in a federal directory cited by Ron Kampeas and others, Libby has used the suffix Jr. after his name. At other times, however, as listed in his federal indictment and United States v. Libby, which give his alias as Scooter Libby, there is no Jr. after Libby's name. The Columbia Alumni Association online directory lists him as I. Lewis Libby, with a first name of "I." and birth first name of "Irve".
Libby has also been secretive about the origin of his nickname Scooter. The New York Timess Eric Schmitt, citing the aforementioned interview with Libby's brother, wrote that "His nickname 'Scooter' derives from the day [his] father watched him crawling in his crib and joked, 'He's a Scooter! In a February 2002 interview on Larry King Live, King asked Libby specifically, "Where did 'Scooter' come from?"; Libby replied: "Oh, it goes way back to when I was a kid. Some people ask me if ... [crosstalk] ... as you did earlier, if it's related to Phil Rizzuto [nicknamed 'The Scooter']. I had the range but not the arm."
The Apprentice
Libby's only novel, The Apprentice, about a group of travelers stranded in northern Japan in the winter of 1903, during a smallpox epidemic in the run-up to the Russo-Japanese War, was first published in a hardback edition by Graywolf Press in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1996, and reprinted as a trade paperback by St. Martin's Thomas Dunne Books in 2002. After Libby's indictment in the CIA leak grand jury investigation in 2005, St. Martin's Press reissued The Apprentice as a mass market paperback (Griffin imprint). An allegorical meditation on the legitimacy of concealed knowledge, The Apprentice has been described as "a thriller ... that includes references to bestiality, pedophilia and rape."
Law career
After earning his J.D. from Columbia in 1975, Libby joined the firm of Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis LLP. He was admitted to the bar of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on October 27, 1976, and to the Bar of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals on May 19, 1978.
Libby practiced law at Schnader for six years before joining the U.S. State Department policy planning staff, at the invitation of his former Yale professor, Paul Wolfowitz, in 1981. In 1985, returning to private practice, he joined the firm then known as Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin (now Dickstein Shapiro LLP), becoming a partner in 1986 and working there until 1989, when he left to work in the U.S. Defense Department, again under his former Yale professor Paul Wolfowitz, until January 1993.
In 1993, returning to private legal practice from government, Libby became the managing partner of the Washington, D.C. office of Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, Alexander & Ferdon (formerly Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, and Alexander); in 1995, along with his Mudge Rose colleague, Leonard Garment––who had replaced John Dean as acting Special Counsel to U.S. President Richard Nixon for the last two years of his presidency dominated by Watergate, and who had hired Libby at Mudge Rose twenty years later––and three other lawyers from that firm, Libby joined the Washington, D.C. office of Dechert Price & Rhoads (now part of Dechert LLP), where he was a managing partner, a member of its litigation department, and chaired its Public Policy Practice Group. His work there was well regarded, with President Clinton recognizing Libby as one of three "distinguished Republican lawyers" who worked on the Marc Rich pardon case.
In 2001 Libby left the firm to return to work again in government, as Vice President Cheney's chief of staff.
Fugitive billionaire commodities trader Marc Rich, who, along with his business partner Pincus Green, had been indicted of tax evasion and illegal trading with Iran, and who, with Green, was ultimately pardoned by President Bill Clinton, was a client whom Leonard Garment had hired Libby to help represent around the spring of 1985, after Rich and Green had first engaged Garment. Libby stopped representing Rich in the spring of 2000; early in March 2001, at a "contentious" Congressional hearing to review Clinton's pardons, Libby testified that he thought the prosecution's case against Rich "misconstrued the facts and the law". According to Jackson Hogan, Libby's roommate at Yale University, as quoted in the already-cited U.S. News & World Report article by Walsh, He is intensely partisan ... in that if he is your counsel, he'll embrace your case and try to figure a way out of whatever noose you are ensnared in. According to a House Committee on Government Reform report, however, "The arguments made by Garment, [William Bradford] Reynolds and Libby [in their testimony] focused on the claim that the SDNY was criminalizing what should have been a civil tax case. They did not make, compile, or in any other way lay the groundwork for, or make a case for a Presidential pardon. When former President Clinton stated that they 'reviewed and advocated' 'the case for the pardons,' he suggested that they were somehow involved in arguing that Rich and Green should receive pardons. This was completely untrue". (p. 162)
Bar suspension and disbarment
Before his indictment in United States v. Libby, Libby had been a licensed lawyer, admitted to the bars of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, although his Pennsylvania law license was inactive, and he had already been suspended from the Washington, D.C. Office of Bar Counsel (D.C. Bar) for non-payment of fees. The Chief Judge of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals recommended disbarment upon confirmation of his conviction, which Libby had initially indicated that he would appeal. Having suspended his license to practice law on April 3, 2007, the D.C. Bar "disbarred [him] pursuant to D.C. Code § 11-2503(a)" on legal grounds of "moral turpitude", effective April 11, 2007, and recommended to the D.C. Court of Appeals his disbarment if his conviction were not overturned on appeal. On December 10, 2007, Libby's lawyers announced his decision "to drop his appeal of his conviction in the CIA leak case". On March 20, 2008, following the dropping of his appeal of his conviction, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals disbarred Libby. As a result of the Court's ruling, "Libby will lose his license to practice or appear in court in Washington until at least 2012", and, "As is standard, he will probably lose any bar membership he holds in other states"; that is, in Pennsylvania.
Government public service and political career
In 1981, after working as a lawyer in the Philadelphia firm Schnader LLP, Libby accepted the invitation of his former Yale University political science professor and mentor Paul Wolfowitz to join the U.S. State Department's policy planning staff. From 1982 to 1985, Libby served as director of special projects in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. In 1985 he received the Foreign Affairs Award for Public Service from the United States Department of Defense, and he resigned from government to enter private legal practice at Dickstein, Shapiro, and Morin. In 1989, he went to work at the Pentagon, again under Wolfowitz, as principal deputy under-secretary for strategy and resources at the U.S. Defense Department.
During the George H. W. Bush administration, Libby was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as deputy under secretary of defense for policy, serving from 1992 to 1993. In 1992 he also served as legal adviser for the House Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China. Libby co-authored the draft of the Defense Planning Guidance for the 1994–99 fiscal years (dated February 18, 1992) with Wolfowitz for Dick Cheney, who was then Secretary of Defense. In 1993 Libby received the Distinguished Service Award from the U.S. Defense Department and the Distinguished Public Service Award from the U.S. State Department before resuming private legal practice first at Mudge Rose and then at Dechert.
Libby was part of a network of neo-conservatives known as the "Vulcans"—its other members included Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld. While he was still a managing partner of Dechert Price & Rhoads, he was a signatory to the "Statement of Principles" of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) (a document dated June 3, 1997). He joined Wolfowitz, PNAC co-founders William Kristol, Robert Kagan, and other "Project Participants" in developing the PNAC's September 2000 report entitled, "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New Century".
After becoming Cheney's chief of staff in 2001, Libby was reportedly nicknamed "Germ Boy" at the White House, for insisting on universal smallpox vaccination. He was also nicknamed "Dick Cheney's Dick Cheney" for his close working relationship with the Vice President. Mary Matalin, who worked with Libby as an adviser to Cheney during Bush's first term, said of him "He is to the vice president what the vice president is to the president."
Libby was active in the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee of the Pentagon when it was chaired by Richard Perle during the early years of the George W. Bush administration (2001–2003). At various points in his career, Libby has also held positions with the American Bar Association, been on the advisory board of the RAND Corporation's Center for Russia and Eurasia, and been a legal adviser to the United States House of Representatives, as well as served as a consultant for the defense contractor Northrop Grumman.
Libby was also actively involved in the Bush administration's efforts to negotiate the Israeli–Palestinian "road map" for peace; for example, he participated in a series of meetings with Jewish leaders in early December 2002 and a meeting with two aides of then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in mid-April 2003, culminating in the Red Sea Summit on June 4, 2004. In their highly controversial and widely contested "Working Paper" entitled "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy", University of Chicago political science professor John J. Mearsheimer and academic dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University Stephen M. Walt argue that Libby was among the Bush administration's most "fervently pro-Israel ... officials" (20).
Awards for government service
Distinguished Service Award, United States Department of Defense, 1993
Distinguished Public Service Award, United States Department of the Navy, 1993
Foreign Affairs Award for Public Service, United States Department of State, 1985
Subsequent work experience
From January 2006 until March 7, 2007, the day after his conviction in United States v. Libby, when he resigned, Libby served as a "senior adviser" at the Hudson Institute, to "focus on issues relating to the War on Terror and the future of Asia ... offer research guidance and ... advise the institute in strategic planning." His resignation was announced by the Hudson Institute in a press release dated March 8, 2007. However, he has served as Senior Vice President of the Hudson Institute at least since 2010.
Libby also serves as a member of the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense, a group that encourages and advocates changes to government policy to strengthen national biodefense. In order to address biological threats facing the nation, the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense created a 33 step initiative for the U.S. Government to implement. Headed by former Senator Joe Lieberman and former Governor Tom Ridge, the Study Panel assembled in Washington D.C. for four meetings concerning current biodefense programs. The Study Panel concluded that the federal government had little to no defense mechanisms in case of a biological event. The Study Panel's final report, The National Blueprint for Biodefense, proposes a string of solutions and recommendations for the U.S. Government to take, including items such as giving the Vice President authority over biodefense responsibilities and merging the entire biodefense budget. These solutions represent the Panel's call to action in order to increase awareness and activity for pandemic related issues.
Involvement in the Plame affair
Between 2003 and 2005, intense speculation centered on the possibility that Libby may have been the administration official who had "leaked" classified employment information about Valerie Plame, a covert Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent and the wife of Iraq War critic Joseph C. Wilson, to New York Times reporter Judith Miller and other reporters and later tried to hide his having done so.
In August 2005, as revealed in grand jury testimony audiotapes played during the trial and reported in many news accounts, Libby testified that he met with Judith Miller, a reporter with The New York Times, on July 8, 2003, and discussed Plame with her.
Although Libby signed a "blanket waiver" allowing journalists to discuss their conversations with him pursuant to the CIA leak grand jury investigation, Miller maintained that such a waiver did not serve to allow her to reveal her source to that grand jury; moreover, Miller argued that Libby's general waiver pertaining to all journalists could have been coerced and that she would only testify before that grand jury if given an individual waiver.
After refusing to testify about her July 2003 meeting with Libby, Judith Miller was jailed on July 7, 2005, for contempt of court. Months later, however, her new attorney, Robert Bennett, told her that she already had possessed a written, voluntary waiver from Libby all along. After Miller had served most of her sentence, Libby reiterated that he had indeed given her a "waiver" both "voluntarily and personally." He attached the following letter, which, when released publicly, became the subject of further speculation about Libby's possible motives in sending it:
As noted above, my lawyer confirmed my waiver to other reporters in just the way he did with your lawyer. Why? Because as I am sure will not be news to you, the public report of every other reporter's testimony makes clear that they did not discuss Ms. Plame's name or identity with me, or knew about her before our call.
After agreeing to testify, Miller was released on September 29, 2005, appearing before the grand jury the next day, but the charge against her was rescinded only after she testified again on October 12, 2005. For her second grand jury appearance, Miller produced a notebook from a previously undisclosed meeting with Libby on June 23, 2003, two weeks before Wilson's New York Times op-ed was published. In her account published in the Times on October 16, 2005, based on her notes, Miller reports:
... in an interview with me on June 23 [2003], Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, discussed Mr. Wilson's activities and placed blame for intelligence failures on the CIA. In later conversations with me, on July 8 and July 12 [2003], Mr. Libby, ... [at the time] Mr. Cheney's top aide, played down the importance of Mr. Wilson's mission and questioned his performance ... My notes indicate that well before Mr. Wilson published his critique, Mr. Libby told me that Mr. Wilson's wife may have worked on unconventional weapons at the CIA. ... My notes do not show that Mr. Libby identified Mr. Wilson's wife by name. Nor do they show that he described Valerie Wilson as a covert agent or "operative"...
Her notation on her July 8, 2003 meeting with Libby does contain the name "Valerie Flame ", which she added retrospectively. While Miller reveals publicly that she herself had misidentified the last name of Wilson's wife (aka "Valerie Plame") in her own marginal notes on their interview as "Flame" instead of "Plame", in her grand jury (and later trial testimony), she remained uncertain when, how, and why she arrived at that name and did not attribute it to Libby:
I was not permitted to take notes of what I told the grand jury, and my interview notes on Mr. Libby are sketchy in places. It is also difficult, more than two years later, to parse the meaning and context of phrases, of underlining and of parentheses. On one page of my interview notes, for example, I wrote the name "Valerie Flame." Yet, as I told Mr. Fitzgerald, I simply could not recall where that came from, when I wrote it or why the name was misspelled ... I testified that I did not believe the name came from Mr. Libby, in part because the notation does not appear in the same part of my notebook as the interview notes from him.
A year and a half later, a jury convicted Libby of obstruction of justice and perjury in his grand jury testimony and making false statements to federal investigators about when and how he learned that Plame was a CIA agent.
On April 13, 2018, Libby was pardoned by US President Donald Trump.
Indictment and resignation
On October 28, 2005, as a result of the CIA leak grand jury investigation, Special Counsel Fitzgerald indicted Libby on five counts: one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of making false statements when interviewed by agents of the FBI, and two counts of perjury in his testimony before the grand jury. Pursuant to the grand jury investigation, Libby had told FBI investigators that he first heard of Mrs. Wilson's CIA employment from Cheney, and then later heard it from journalist Tim Russert, and acted as if he did not have that information. The indictment alleges that statements to federal investigators and the grand jury were intentionally false, in that Libby had numerous conversations about Mrs. Wilson's CIA employment, including his conversations with Judith Miller (see above), before speaking to Russert; Russert did not tell Libby about Mrs. Wilson's CIA employment; prior to talking with such reporters, Libby knew with certainty that she was employed by the CIA; and Libby told reporters that she worked for the CIA without making any disclaimer that he was uncertain of that fact. The false statements counts in the Libby indictment charge that he intentionally made those false statements to the FBI; the perjury counts charge that he intentionally lied to the grand jury in repeating those false statements; and the obstruction of justice count charges that Libby intentionally made those false statements in order to mislead the grand jury, thus impeding Fitzgerald's grand jury investigation of the truth about the leaking of Mrs. Wilson's then-classified, covert CIA identity.
Trial, conviction, and sentencing
On March 6, 2007, the jury convicted him on four of the five counts: obstruction of justice, one count of making false statements when interviewed by agents of the FBI, and two counts of perjury. They acquitted him on count three, the second charge of making false statements when interviewed by federal agents about his conversations with Time reporter Matthew Cooper.
Libby retained attorney Ted Wells of the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to represent him. Wells had successfully defended former Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy against a 30-count indictment and had also participated in the successful defense of former Secretary of Labor Raymond Donovan.
After Judge Reggie Walton denied Libby's motion to dismiss, the press initially reported that Libby would testify at the trial. Libby's criminal trial, United States v. Libby, began on January 16, 2007. A parade of Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists testified, including Bob Woodward, Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post and Judith Miller and David E. Sanger of The New York Times. Despite earlier press reports and widespread speculation, neither Libby nor Vice President Cheney testified. The jury began deliberations on February 21, 2007.
Verdict
After deliberating for 10 days, the jury rendered its verdict on March 6, 2007. It convicted Libby on four of the five counts against him: two counts of perjury, one count of obstruction of justice in a grand jury investigation, and one of the two counts of making false statements to federal investigators.
After the verdict, initially, Libby's lawyers announced that he would seek a new trial, and that, if that attempt were to fail, they would appeal Libby's conviction. Libby did not speak to reporters. Libby's defense team eventually decided against seeking a new trial.
Speaking to the media outside the courtroom after the verdict, Fitzgerald said that "The jury worked very long and hard and deliberated at length ... [and] was obviously convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had lied and obstructed justice in a serious manner ... I do not expect to file any further charges." The trial confirmed that the leak came first from then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage; since Fitzgerald did not charge Armitage and did not charge anyone else, Libby's conviction effectively ended the investigation.
In his October 28, 2005, press conference about the grand jury's indictment, Fitzgerald had already explained that Libby's obstruction of justice through perjury and false statements had prevented the grand jury from determining whether the leak violated federal law.
During his media appearance outside the courtroom after the verdict in the Libby case, Fitzgerald fielded questions from the press about others involved in the Plame affair and in the CIA leak grand jury investigation, such as Armitage and Cheney, whom he had already described as under "a cloud", as already addressed in his conduct of the case and in his closing arguments in court.
Sentencing
Given current federal sentencing guidelines, which are not mandatory, the conviction could have resulted in a sentence ranging from no imprisonment to imprisonment of up to 25 years and a fine of $1,000,000; yet, as Sniffen and Apuzzo observe, "federal sentencing guidelines will probably prescribe far less." In practice, according to federal sentencing data, three-fourths of the 198 defendants found guilty of obstruction of justice in 2006 served jail time. The average length of jail time on this charge alone was 70 months.
On June 5, 2007, Judge Walton sentenced Libby to 30 months in prison and fined him $250,000, clarifying that Libby would begin his sentence immediately. According to Apuzzo and Yost, the judge also "placed him on two years probation after his prison sentence expires. There is no parole in the federal system, but Libby would be eligible for release after two years." In addition, Judge Walton required Libby to provide "400 hours of community service" during his supervised release. On June 5, 2007, after the announcement of Libby's sentencing, CNN reported that Libby still "plans to appeal the verdict".
That day, in response to the sentencing, Vice President Cheney issued a statement in Libby's defense on The White House website. The statement concluded: "Speaking as friends, we hope that our system will return a final result consistent with what we know of this fine man."
Joseph and Valerie Wilson posted their statement on Libby's sentencing in United States v. Libby on their website, "grateful that justice has been served."
Order to report to prison pending appeal of verdict
After the June 5 sentencing, Walton said he was inclined to jail Libby after the defense laid out its proposed appeal, but the judge told attorneys he was open to changing his mind"; however, on June 14, 2007, Walton ordered Libby to report to prison while his attorneys appealed the conviction. Libby's attorneys asked that the order be stayed, but Walton denied the request and told Libby that he would have 10 days to appeal the ruling. In denying Libby's request, which had questioned Fitzgerald's authority to make the charges in the first place, Walton supported Fitzgerald's authority in the case. He said: "Everyone is accountable, and if you work in the White House, and if it's perceived that somehow (you're) linked at the hip, the American public would have serious questions about the fairness of any investigation of a high-level official conducted by the attorney general." The judge was also responding to an Amicus curiae brief that he had permitted to be filed, which had not apparently convinced him to change his mind, as he subsequently denied Libby bail during his appeal. His "order grant[ing] the [legal academic] scholars permission to file their brief ..." contained a caustic footnote questioning the motivation of the legal academics and suggesting he might not give a great deal of weight to their opinion[:]
... It is an impressive show of public service when twelve prominent and distinguished current and former law professors are able to amass their collective wisdom in the course of only several days to provide their legal expertise to the court on behalf of a criminal defendant. The Court trusts that this is a reflection of these eminent academics' willingness in the future to step to the plate and provide like assistance in cases involving any of the numerous litigants, both in this Court and throughout the courts of this nation, who lack the financial means to fully and properly articulate the merits of their legal positions even in instances where failure to do so could result in monetary penalties, incarceration, or worse. The Court will certainly not hesitate to call for such assistance from these luminaries, as necessary in the interests of justice and equity, whenever similar questions arise in the cases that come before it."
Moreover, when the hearing started, "in the interest of full disclosure," Walton informed the court that he had "received a number of harassing, angry and mean-spirited phone calls and messages. Some wishing bad things on me and my family ... [T]hose types of things will have no impact ... I initially threw them away, but then there were more, some that were more hateful ... [T]hey are being kept."
New York Times reporters Neil Lewis and David Stout estimated subsequently that Libby's prison sentence could begin within "two months", explaining that
Judge Walton's decision means that the defense lawyers will probably ask a federal appeals court to block the sentence, a long-shot move. It also sharpens interest in a question being asked by Mr. Libby's supporters and critics alike: Will President Bush pardon Mr. Libby? ... So far, the president has expressed sympathy for Mr. Libby and his family but has not tipped his hand on the pardon issue. ... If the president does not pardon him, and if an appeals court refuses to second-guess Judge Walton's decision, Mr. Libby will probably be ordered to report to prison in six to eight weeks' time. Federal prison authorities will decide where. "Unless the Court of Appeals overturns my ruling, he will have to report", Judge Walton said.
Failure of Libby's appeal in order to begin prison sentence
On June 20, 2007, Libby appealed Walton's ruling in federal appeals court. The following day, Walton filed a 30-page expanded ruling, in which he explained his decision to deny Libby bail in more detail.
On July 2, 2007, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied Libby's request for a delay and release from his prison sentence, stating that Libby "has not shown that the appeal raises a substantial question under federal law that would merit letting him remain free," increasing "pressure on President George W. Bush to decide soon whether to pardon Libby ... as the former White House official's supporters have urged."
Presidential commutation
Soon after the verdict, calls for Libby to be pardoned by President George W. Bush began to appear in some newspapers; some of them were posted online by the Libby Legal Defense Trust (LLDT). U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid issued a press release about the verdict, urging Bush to pledge not to pardon Libby, and other Democratic politicians followed his lead.
Surveying "the pardon battle" and citing both pro and con publications, The Washington Post online columnist Dan Froomkin concludes that many U.S. newspapers opposed a presidential pardon for Libby. Much of this commentary obscured the fact that the clemency power provided the President with several options short of a full, unconditional pardon. In an op-ed published in The Washington Post, former federal prosecutor and conservative activist William Otis argued the sentence was too stringent and that, instead of pardoning Libby, Bush should commute his sentence.
After the sentencing, Bush stated on camera that he would "not intervene until Libby's legal team has exhausted all of its avenues of appeal ... It wouldn't be appropriate for me to discuss the case until after the legal remedies have run its course." Ultimately, less than a month later, on July 2, 2007, Bush chose Otis's 'third option' — "neither prison nor pardon" — in commuting Libby's prison sentence.
After Libby was denied bail during his appeal process on July 2, 2007, Bush commuted Libby's 30-month federal prison sentence, calling it "excessive", but he did not change the other parts of the sentence and their conditions. That presidential commutation left in place the felony conviction, the $250,000 fine, and the terms of probation. Some have criticized the move, as presidential commutations are rarely issued, but when granted they have generally occurred after the convicted person has already served a substantial portion of his or her sentence: "We can't find any cases, certainly in the last half-century, where the president commuted a sentence before it had even started to be served," said former Justice Department pardon attorney Margaret Colgate Love. Others, notably Cheney himself who argued that Libby was unfairly charged by a politically motivated prosecution, believed that the commutation fell short, as Libby would likely never practice law again.
At the time, Bush explained his "Grant of Executive Clemency" to Libby, in part, as follows:
Mr. Libby was sentenced to thirty months of prison, two years of probation, and a $250,000 fine. In making the sentencing decision, the district court rejected the advice of the probation office, which recommended a lesser sentence and the consideration of factors that could have led to a sentence of home confinement or probation.
Libby paid the required fine of "$250,400, which included a 'special assessment' of costs" that same day.
Bush's explanation was written by Fred F. Fielding, White House Counsel during the last two years of Bush's presidency. According to a Time article published six months after Bush left office, Fielding worded the commutation "in a way that would make it harder for Bush to revisit it in the future ... ; [the] language was intended to send an unmistakable message, internally as well as externally: No one is above the law." The article suggested that there was a fundamental difference between how Bush and Cheney viewed the "War on Terror", with aides close to Bush feeling that Cheney had misled the President and damaged the administration's moral character with the Plame leak.
Libby's lawyer, Theodore V. Wells, Jr. "issued a brief statement saying Mr. Libby and his family 'wished to express their gratitude for the president's decision ... We continue to believe in Mr. Libby's innocence'. ... "
Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, however, took issue with Bush's description of the sentence as 'excessive', saying it was "[i]mposed pursuant to the laws governing sentencings which occur every day throughout this country ... It is fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of justice as equals ... [T]hat principle guided the judge during both the trial and the sentencing," Fitzgerald said.
The day after the commuting of Libby's sentence, James Rowley (Bloomberg News) reported that Bush had not ruled out pardoning Libby in the future and that Bush's press spokesman, Tony Snow, denied any political motivation in the commutation. Quoting Snow, Rowley added: The president is getting pounded on the right because he didn't do a full pardon.' If Bush were 'doing the weather-vane thing' he 'would have done something differently.
Democratic politicians' responses stressed their outrage at what they called a disgraceful abrogation of justice, and, that evening CNN reported that Representative John Conyers, Jr., Democrat of Michigan, announced that there would be a formal Congressional investigation of Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence and other presidential reprieves.
The hearing on "The Use and Misuse of Presidential Clemency Power for Executive Branch Officials" was held by the United States House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Conyers, on July 11, 2007.
Just a few days later, however, Judge Walton questioned "whether ... [Libby] will face two years of probation, as [President Bush] said he would," because the supervised release time is conditioned on Libby's serving the prison sentence, and he "directed the special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, and ... [Libby's] lawyers to file arguments on the point. ... " "If Judge Walton does not impose any supervised release, it could undercut ... [Bush's] argument that ... Libby still faced stiff justice." That issue was resolved on July 10, 2007, clearing the way for Libby to begin serving the rest of his sentence, the supervised release and 400 hours of community service.
In response to Bush's justifications for clemency, liberal commentator Harlan J. Protass noted that in Rita v. United States, the case of a defendant convicted of perjury in front of a grand jury which had been decided two weeks earlier by the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. government had successfully argued that sentences that fall within Federal Sentencing Guidelines are presumed to be "reasonable", regardless of individual circumstances.
Reportedly outraged by Bush's commutation of Libby's prison sentence, on July 2, 2007, Wilson told CNN: "I have nothing to say to Scooter Libby ... I don't owe this administration. They owe my wife and my family an apology for having betrayed her. Scooter Libby is a traitor. Bush's action ... demonstrates that the White House is corrupt from top to bottom." He reiterated this perspective on the commutation in the House Judiciary Committee hearing on July 11, 2007, vehemently protesting that a Republican congressman was engaging in "yet a further smear of my wife's good name and my good name."
According to a USA Today/Gallup Poll conducted from July 6 to July 8, 2007, "most Americans disagree with President George W. Bush's decision to intervene" on Libby's behalf in the case.
Several months after Bush's action, Judge Walton commented publicly on it. He spoke in favor of applying the law equally, stating: "The downside [of the commutation] is there are a lot of people in America who think that justice is determined to a large degree by who you are and that what you have plays a large role in what kind of justice you receive. ... "
Bush took no further action with respect to Libby's conviction or sentence during his presidential term, despite entreaties from conservatives that he should be pardoned. Two days after their term expired, former Vice President Cheney expressed his regret that Bush had not pardoned Libby on his last day in office.
Press coverage of Libby's trial
Blogs played a prominent role in the press coverage of Libby's trial. Scott Shane, in his article "For Liberal Bloggers, Libby Trial Is Fun and Fodder", published in The New York Times on February 15, 2007, quotes Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, who wrote that the trial was "the first federal case for which independent bloggers have been given official credentials along with reporters from the traditional news media." The trial was followed in the mass media and engaged the interest of both professional legal experts and the general public. While awaiting the judge's ruling pertaining to supervised release and the "400 hours of community service that Judge Walton imposed", for example, bloggers discussed the legal issues involved in these non-commuted parts of Libby's sentence and their effects on Libby's future life experiences.
Criticism of investigation
On August 28, 2006, Christopher Hitchens asserted that Richard Armitage was the primary source of the Valerie Plame leak and that Fitzgerald knew this at the beginning of his investigation. This was supported a month later by Armitage himself, who stated that Fitzgerald had instructed him not to go public with this information. Investor's Business Daily questioned Fitzgerald's truthfulness in an editorial, stating "From top to bottom, this has been one of the most disgraceful abuses of prosecutorial power in this country's history ... The Plame case proves [Fitzgerald] can bend the truth with the proficiency of the slickest of pols."
In a September 2008 Wall Street Journal editorial, attorney Alan Dershowitz cited the "questionable investigation[s]" of Scooter Libby as evidence of the problems brought to the criminal justice process by "politically appointed and partisan attorney[s] general". In April 2015, also writing in The Wall Street Journal, Hoover Institution fellow Peter Berkowitz argued that statements by Judith Miller, in her recently published memoir, raised anew contentions that her testimony was inaccurate and that Fitzgerald's conduct as prosecutor was inappropriate.
The Wilsons' civil suit
On July 13, 2006, Joseph and Valerie Wilson filed a civil lawsuit against Libby, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and other unnamed senior White House officials (among whom they later added Richard Armitage) for their role in the public disclosure of Valerie Wilson's classified CIA status. Judge John D. Bates dismissed the Wilsons' lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds on July 19, 2007. The Wilsons appealed Bates's district-court decision the next day. Agreeing with the Bush administration, the Obama Justice Department argued that the Wilsons had no legitimate grounds to sue. Melanie Sloan, one of the Wilsons' attorneys, said: "We are deeply disappointed that the Obama administration has failed to recognize the grievous harm top Bush White House officials inflicted on Joe and Valerie Wilson. The government's position cannot be reconciled with President Obama's oft-stated commitment to once again make government officials accountable for their actions."
On June 21, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal.
Restoration of voting rights, law license, and presidential pardon
Libby's voting rights were restored on November 1, 2012 by then-Governor of Virginia Bob McDonnell. Libby was part of a larger group of individuals who had their voting rights restored by McDonnell, all of whom were non-violent offenders. Three years later, on November 3, 2016, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals granted Libby's petition for reinstatement to the D.C. Bar. On April 13, 2018, President Donald Trump pardoned Libby.
In media portrayals
David Andrews played Scooter Libby in the 2010 film Fair Game, which is about the Plame affair.
Justin Kirk played Libby in the 2018 film Vice.
See also
List of disbarments in the United States
Plame affair criminal investigation
Project for the New American Century
List of people pardoned or granted clemency by the president of the United States
Notes
Citations
References
. United States Department of State, February 2005. Accessed July 8, 2007.
Bromell, Nick. "Scooter Libby and Me". The American Scholar (Phi Beta Kappa) (Winter 2007). Accessed June 8, 2007.
–––. "Scooter's Tragic Innocence: Why My Friend Scooter Libby Is Loyal to Bush, Cheney and an Arrogant Administration Whose Values Are Not His Own". Salon, January 24, 2007. Accessed June 8, 2007. (Premium content; restricted access).
Dickerson, John. "Who Is Scooter Libby? The Secretive Cheney Aide at the Heart of the CIA Leak Case". Slate, October 21, 2005. Accessed June 28, 2007.
Frankel, Max. "The Washington Back Channel". The New York Times, March 25, 2007. Accessed March 23, 2008.
Garfield, Bob. "'Former New York Times Staffer Judith Miller'". On the Media from NPR, National Public Radio, WCNY-FM, November 11, 2005. Accessed March 5, 2007. (Transcript and RealAudio link.)
"I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby". Right Web (International Relations Center). Last updated March 21, 2007. Accessed July 1, 2007.
"Indictment" in United States of America vs. I. Lewis Libby, also known as "Scooter Libby". United States Department of Justice, October 28, 2005. Accessed July 5, 2007.
Libby, Lewis. The Apprentice: A Novel. Rpt. ed. 1996; New York: Griffin, 2005. (10). (13).
Markels, Alex. "Legal Affairs: I. Lewis Libby: The Plight of a Disciplined Risk-Taker". National Public Radio, October 28, 2005. Accessed March 5, 2007.
Merritt, Jeralyn, moderator. "Verdict in the Libby Trial". Transcript. The Washington Post ("Live Online" discussion), March 6, 2007, 2:00–3:00 p.m., ET. Accessed March 6, 2007. (Duration: one hour.) N.B.: "Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions. washingtonpost.com is not responsible for any content posted by third parties."
in "United States of America, v. I. Lewis Libby, Defendant". Criminal No. 05-394 (RBW). United States District Court for the District of Columbia, filed January 10, 2007. Accessed February 10, 2007. ["USA-v-Libby_Rules-of-Order.pdf".]
"President Commutes Libby's Sentence: Calls 30-month Term for Ex-Cheney Aide 'excessive'". Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, July 3, 2007. Accessed July 4, 2007.
. White House biography from 2004. Accessed February 10, 2007.
Waas, Murray. "Cheney 'Authorized' Libby to Leak Classified Information". National Journal, February 9, 2006. Accessed March 6, 2007.
–––, ed., with Jeff Lomonaco. The United States v. I. Lewis Libby. New York: Union Square Press (imprint of Sterling Publishing), 2007. (10). (13). ("Edited & with reporting by Murray Waas" and with research assistance by Jeff Lomonaco.)
Weisman, Steven. "White House Is Pressing Israelis To Take Initiatives in Peace Talks". The New York Times, April 17, 2003. Accessed March 23, 2008.
Wilson, Joseph C. "Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson's Response to Bush Spokesman Tony Snow's Comments at Today's White House Briefing". Online posting. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), July 3, 2007. Accessed July 4, 2007. Online posting. "Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson's Response ... " and "Read more", Joseph and Valerie Wilson Legal Support Trust (Home page), n.d. Accessed July 8, 2007. (Concerning Bush's commutation of Libby's prison sentence.)
–––. "Statement in Response to Jury's Verdict in U.S. v. I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby" (now outdated URL). Press release. Originally posted online. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), March 6, 2007. Accessed March 6, 2007. Posted as "CREW Statement on Libby Conviction: No Man Is Above the Law." Citizens ^Blogging for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (blog), March 6, 2007. Accessed April 18, 2007. Also posted as "Wilsons' Attorney Statement in Response to Jury's Verdict in U.S. v. I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby". Joseph and Valerie Wilson Legal Support Trust, March 6, 2007, home page. Accessed April 18, 2007.
External links
Background on the Plame Investigation at The Washington Post.
CNN Special Reports: CIA Leak Investigation compiled by CNN Newsroom; incl. interactive timeline in Case History.
"Legal Affairs: Lewis Libby's Complete Grand Jury Testimony". Full audio clip and transcript provided by National Public Radio on npr.org,
"The Lewis Libby Case". Archive of articles concerning Libby broadcast on National Public Radio.
.
United States v. I. Lewis Libby. Photo gallery with news captions at The Washington Post.
Membership at the Council on Foreign Relations
1950 births
Jewish American attorneys
Assistants to the President of the United States
Chiefs of Staff to the Vice President of the United States
Columbia Law School alumni
Columbia University alumni
Living people
Members of the Council on Foreign Relations
Pennsylvania Democrats
Pennsylvania Republicans
People associated with the Plame affair
People from McLean, Virginia
Lawyers from New Haven, Connecticut
Lawyers from Philadelphia
Phillips Academy alumni
Reagan administration personnel
Recipients of American presidential clemency
Recipients of American presidential pardons
Yale University alumni
Hudson Institute
Conservatism in the United States | true | [
"Laurien Magee (c. 1689, Islandmagee, Ireland – 1710, Islandmagee, Ireland), was an alleged witch and one of the eight supposed victims put to death during the Islandmagee Witch trial.\n\nWitch trial\nLaurien Magee was one of the eight women that Mary Dunbar claimed were the witches that had attacked her in spectral form. Laurien was found guilty of Witchcraft as the other seven women were.\n\nRecords during this time were lost during the Irish Civil War when the Public Records Office were burned, because of this exact records of what happened to Mary Dunbar and the eight women convicted were lost.\n\nSee also \nIslandmagee Witch Trial\nFlorence Newton\nAlice Kyteler\n\nReferences \n\n1689 births\n1710 deaths\nPeople executed for witchcraft\n18th-century Irish women",
"Disturbing the Peace () is a 2009 documentary film directed by the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. In the movie, Ai Weiwei and Pu Zhiqiang talk to the police and they try to find out what happened to a female colleague after a police raid during their way to Chengdu as the witnesses for the trial of the civil rights advocate Tan Zuoren.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n2009 films\nChinese documentary films\nChinese films\n2009 documentary films\nAi Weiwei"
] |
[
"Scooter Libby",
"Trial, conviction, and sentencing",
"What was his trial about",
"second charge of making false statements when interviewed by federal agents about his conversations with Time reporter Matthew Cooper.",
"What did he talk to the reporter about",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Libby retained attorney Ted Wells of the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to represent him.",
"How did the trial go",
"Libby pleaded not guilty to all five counts.",
"And what happened during the trial",
"Judge Reggie Walton denied Libby's motion to dismiss,"
] | C_72c2173245744eeea3ae7541ba451877_0 | And did he lose the trial | 6 | did Scooter Libby lose the trial | Scooter Libby | On March 6, 2007, the jury convicted him on four of the five counts but acquitted him on count three, the second charge of making false statements when interviewed by federal agents about his conversations with Time reporter Matthew Cooper. After being questioned by the FBI in the fall of 2003 and testifying before a Federal grand jury on March 5, 2004, and again on March 24, 2004, Libby pleaded not guilty to all five counts. According to the Associated Press, David Addington, Cheney's legal counsel, described a September 2003 meeting with Libby around the time that a criminal investigation began, saying that Libby had told him, "'I just want to tell you, I didn't do it'... I didn't ask what the 'it' was.'" Libby retained attorney Ted Wells of the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to represent him. Wells had successfully defended former Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy against a 30-count indictment and had also participated in the successful defense of former Secretary of Labor Raymond Donovan. After Judge Reggie Walton denied Libby's motion to dismiss, the press initially reported that Libby would testify at the trial. Libby's criminal trial, United States v. Libby, began on January 16, 2007. A parade of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists testified, including Bob Woodward, Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post and Judith Miller and David E. Sanger of The New York Times. Despite earlier press reports and widespread speculation, neither Libby nor Vice President Cheney testified. The jury began deliberations on February 21, 2007. CANNOTANSWER | the jury convicted him on four of the five counts but acquitted him on count three, | I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby (first name generally given as Irv, Irve or Irving; born August 22, 1950) is an American lawyer, and former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.
From 2001 to 2005, Libby held the offices of Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs, Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States, and Assistant to the President during the administration of President George W. Bush.
In October 2005, Libby resigned from all three government positions after he was indicted on five counts by a federal grand jury concerning the investigation of the leak of the covert identity of Central Intelligence Agency officer Valerie Plame Wilson. He was subsequently convicted of four counts (one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury, and one count of making false statements), making him the highest-ranking White House official convicted in a government scandal since John Poindexter, the national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan in the Iran–Contra affair.
After a failed appeal, President Bush commuted Libby's sentence of 30 months in federal prison, leaving the other parts of his sentence intact. As a consequence of his conviction in United States v. Libby, Libby's license to practice law was suspended until being reinstated in 2016. President Donald Trump fully pardoned Libby on April 13, 2018.
Personal history
Background and education
Libby was born to an affluent Jewish family in New Haven, Connecticut. His father, Irving Lewis Leibovitz, was an investment banker. His father changed his family original surname from Leibovitz to Libby.
Libby graduated from the Eaglebrook School, in Deerfield, Massachusetts, a junior boarding school, in 1965. The family lived in the Washington, D.C. region; Miami, Florida; and Connecticut prior to Libby's graduation from Phillips Academy, in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1968.
He and his elder brother, Hank, a retired tax lawyer, were the first in the family to graduate from college. Libby attended Yale University in New Haven, graduating magna cum laude in 1972. As Yale Daily News reporter Jack Mirkinson observes, "Even though he would eventually become a prominent Republican, Libby's political beginnings would not have pointed in that direction. He served as vice president of the Yale College Democrats and later campaigned for Michael Dukakis when he was running for governor of Massachusetts." According to Mirkinson: "Two particular Yale courses helped guide Libby's future endeavors. One of these was a creative writing course, which started Libby on a 20-year mission to complete a novel ... [later published as] The Apprentice ... [and] a political science class with professor and future Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. In an interview with author James Mann, Libby said Wolfowitz was one of his favorite professors, and their professional relationship did not end with the class." Wolfowitz became a significant mentor in his later professional life.
In 1975, as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, Libby received his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Columbia Law School.
Marriage and family
Libby is married to Harriet Grant, whom he met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the late 1980s, while he was a partner and she an associate in the law firm then known as Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin: When he and Harriet became serious,' Dickstein partner Kenneth Simon wrote, 'she chose to leave the firm rather than maintain the awkward situation of an associate dating a partner. Libby and Grant married in the early 1990s, have a son and a daughter, and live in McLean, Virginia.
Name
Libby has been secretive about his full name. He was prosecuted as I. Lewis Libby, also known as "Scooter Libby". National Public Radio's Day to Day reported that the 1972 Yale Banner (the yearbook of Yale) gave his name as Irve Lewis Libby Jr.; it is unclear if Irve is his given name, or if it is short for Irving, as it was for his father. CBS, the BBC, and The New York Timess John Tierney have all used this spelling of his first name. The Timess Eric Schmitt spelled it Irv, though he cited a phone interview with Libby's brother, and did not clarify if he had asked for a spelling.
At times, including in the Yale Banner, and as documented in a federal directory cited by Ron Kampeas and others, Libby has used the suffix Jr. after his name. At other times, however, as listed in his federal indictment and United States v. Libby, which give his alias as Scooter Libby, there is no Jr. after Libby's name. The Columbia Alumni Association online directory lists him as I. Lewis Libby, with a first name of "I." and birth first name of "Irve".
Libby has also been secretive about the origin of his nickname Scooter. The New York Timess Eric Schmitt, citing the aforementioned interview with Libby's brother, wrote that "His nickname 'Scooter' derives from the day [his] father watched him crawling in his crib and joked, 'He's a Scooter! In a February 2002 interview on Larry King Live, King asked Libby specifically, "Where did 'Scooter' come from?"; Libby replied: "Oh, it goes way back to when I was a kid. Some people ask me if ... [crosstalk] ... as you did earlier, if it's related to Phil Rizzuto [nicknamed 'The Scooter']. I had the range but not the arm."
The Apprentice
Libby's only novel, The Apprentice, about a group of travelers stranded in northern Japan in the winter of 1903, during a smallpox epidemic in the run-up to the Russo-Japanese War, was first published in a hardback edition by Graywolf Press in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1996, and reprinted as a trade paperback by St. Martin's Thomas Dunne Books in 2002. After Libby's indictment in the CIA leak grand jury investigation in 2005, St. Martin's Press reissued The Apprentice as a mass market paperback (Griffin imprint). An allegorical meditation on the legitimacy of concealed knowledge, The Apprentice has been described as "a thriller ... that includes references to bestiality, pedophilia and rape."
Law career
After earning his J.D. from Columbia in 1975, Libby joined the firm of Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis LLP. He was admitted to the bar of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on October 27, 1976, and to the Bar of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals on May 19, 1978.
Libby practiced law at Schnader for six years before joining the U.S. State Department policy planning staff, at the invitation of his former Yale professor, Paul Wolfowitz, in 1981. In 1985, returning to private practice, he joined the firm then known as Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin (now Dickstein Shapiro LLP), becoming a partner in 1986 and working there until 1989, when he left to work in the U.S. Defense Department, again under his former Yale professor Paul Wolfowitz, until January 1993.
In 1993, returning to private legal practice from government, Libby became the managing partner of the Washington, D.C. office of Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, Alexander & Ferdon (formerly Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, and Alexander); in 1995, along with his Mudge Rose colleague, Leonard Garment––who had replaced John Dean as acting Special Counsel to U.S. President Richard Nixon for the last two years of his presidency dominated by Watergate, and who had hired Libby at Mudge Rose twenty years later––and three other lawyers from that firm, Libby joined the Washington, D.C. office of Dechert Price & Rhoads (now part of Dechert LLP), where he was a managing partner, a member of its litigation department, and chaired its Public Policy Practice Group. His work there was well regarded, with President Clinton recognizing Libby as one of three "distinguished Republican lawyers" who worked on the Marc Rich pardon case.
In 2001 Libby left the firm to return to work again in government, as Vice President Cheney's chief of staff.
Fugitive billionaire commodities trader Marc Rich, who, along with his business partner Pincus Green, had been indicted of tax evasion and illegal trading with Iran, and who, with Green, was ultimately pardoned by President Bill Clinton, was a client whom Leonard Garment had hired Libby to help represent around the spring of 1985, after Rich and Green had first engaged Garment. Libby stopped representing Rich in the spring of 2000; early in March 2001, at a "contentious" Congressional hearing to review Clinton's pardons, Libby testified that he thought the prosecution's case against Rich "misconstrued the facts and the law". According to Jackson Hogan, Libby's roommate at Yale University, as quoted in the already-cited U.S. News & World Report article by Walsh, He is intensely partisan ... in that if he is your counsel, he'll embrace your case and try to figure a way out of whatever noose you are ensnared in. According to a House Committee on Government Reform report, however, "The arguments made by Garment, [William Bradford] Reynolds and Libby [in their testimony] focused on the claim that the SDNY was criminalizing what should have been a civil tax case. They did not make, compile, or in any other way lay the groundwork for, or make a case for a Presidential pardon. When former President Clinton stated that they 'reviewed and advocated' 'the case for the pardons,' he suggested that they were somehow involved in arguing that Rich and Green should receive pardons. This was completely untrue". (p. 162)
Bar suspension and disbarment
Before his indictment in United States v. Libby, Libby had been a licensed lawyer, admitted to the bars of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, although his Pennsylvania law license was inactive, and he had already been suspended from the Washington, D.C. Office of Bar Counsel (D.C. Bar) for non-payment of fees. The Chief Judge of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals recommended disbarment upon confirmation of his conviction, which Libby had initially indicated that he would appeal. Having suspended his license to practice law on April 3, 2007, the D.C. Bar "disbarred [him] pursuant to D.C. Code § 11-2503(a)" on legal grounds of "moral turpitude", effective April 11, 2007, and recommended to the D.C. Court of Appeals his disbarment if his conviction were not overturned on appeal. On December 10, 2007, Libby's lawyers announced his decision "to drop his appeal of his conviction in the CIA leak case". On March 20, 2008, following the dropping of his appeal of his conviction, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals disbarred Libby. As a result of the Court's ruling, "Libby will lose his license to practice or appear in court in Washington until at least 2012", and, "As is standard, he will probably lose any bar membership he holds in other states"; that is, in Pennsylvania.
Government public service and political career
In 1981, after working as a lawyer in the Philadelphia firm Schnader LLP, Libby accepted the invitation of his former Yale University political science professor and mentor Paul Wolfowitz to join the U.S. State Department's policy planning staff. From 1982 to 1985, Libby served as director of special projects in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. In 1985 he received the Foreign Affairs Award for Public Service from the United States Department of Defense, and he resigned from government to enter private legal practice at Dickstein, Shapiro, and Morin. In 1989, he went to work at the Pentagon, again under Wolfowitz, as principal deputy under-secretary for strategy and resources at the U.S. Defense Department.
During the George H. W. Bush administration, Libby was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as deputy under secretary of defense for policy, serving from 1992 to 1993. In 1992 he also served as legal adviser for the House Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China. Libby co-authored the draft of the Defense Planning Guidance for the 1994–99 fiscal years (dated February 18, 1992) with Wolfowitz for Dick Cheney, who was then Secretary of Defense. In 1993 Libby received the Distinguished Service Award from the U.S. Defense Department and the Distinguished Public Service Award from the U.S. State Department before resuming private legal practice first at Mudge Rose and then at Dechert.
Libby was part of a network of neo-conservatives known as the "Vulcans"—its other members included Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld. While he was still a managing partner of Dechert Price & Rhoads, he was a signatory to the "Statement of Principles" of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) (a document dated June 3, 1997). He joined Wolfowitz, PNAC co-founders William Kristol, Robert Kagan, and other "Project Participants" in developing the PNAC's September 2000 report entitled, "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New Century".
After becoming Cheney's chief of staff in 2001, Libby was reportedly nicknamed "Germ Boy" at the White House, for insisting on universal smallpox vaccination. He was also nicknamed "Dick Cheney's Dick Cheney" for his close working relationship with the Vice President. Mary Matalin, who worked with Libby as an adviser to Cheney during Bush's first term, said of him "He is to the vice president what the vice president is to the president."
Libby was active in the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee of the Pentagon when it was chaired by Richard Perle during the early years of the George W. Bush administration (2001–2003). At various points in his career, Libby has also held positions with the American Bar Association, been on the advisory board of the RAND Corporation's Center for Russia and Eurasia, and been a legal adviser to the United States House of Representatives, as well as served as a consultant for the defense contractor Northrop Grumman.
Libby was also actively involved in the Bush administration's efforts to negotiate the Israeli–Palestinian "road map" for peace; for example, he participated in a series of meetings with Jewish leaders in early December 2002 and a meeting with two aides of then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in mid-April 2003, culminating in the Red Sea Summit on June 4, 2004. In their highly controversial and widely contested "Working Paper" entitled "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy", University of Chicago political science professor John J. Mearsheimer and academic dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University Stephen M. Walt argue that Libby was among the Bush administration's most "fervently pro-Israel ... officials" (20).
Awards for government service
Distinguished Service Award, United States Department of Defense, 1993
Distinguished Public Service Award, United States Department of the Navy, 1993
Foreign Affairs Award for Public Service, United States Department of State, 1985
Subsequent work experience
From January 2006 until March 7, 2007, the day after his conviction in United States v. Libby, when he resigned, Libby served as a "senior adviser" at the Hudson Institute, to "focus on issues relating to the War on Terror and the future of Asia ... offer research guidance and ... advise the institute in strategic planning." His resignation was announced by the Hudson Institute in a press release dated March 8, 2007. However, he has served as Senior Vice President of the Hudson Institute at least since 2010.
Libby also serves as a member of the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense, a group that encourages and advocates changes to government policy to strengthen national biodefense. In order to address biological threats facing the nation, the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense created a 33 step initiative for the U.S. Government to implement. Headed by former Senator Joe Lieberman and former Governor Tom Ridge, the Study Panel assembled in Washington D.C. for four meetings concerning current biodefense programs. The Study Panel concluded that the federal government had little to no defense mechanisms in case of a biological event. The Study Panel's final report, The National Blueprint for Biodefense, proposes a string of solutions and recommendations for the U.S. Government to take, including items such as giving the Vice President authority over biodefense responsibilities and merging the entire biodefense budget. These solutions represent the Panel's call to action in order to increase awareness and activity for pandemic related issues.
Involvement in the Plame affair
Between 2003 and 2005, intense speculation centered on the possibility that Libby may have been the administration official who had "leaked" classified employment information about Valerie Plame, a covert Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent and the wife of Iraq War critic Joseph C. Wilson, to New York Times reporter Judith Miller and other reporters and later tried to hide his having done so.
In August 2005, as revealed in grand jury testimony audiotapes played during the trial and reported in many news accounts, Libby testified that he met with Judith Miller, a reporter with The New York Times, on July 8, 2003, and discussed Plame with her.
Although Libby signed a "blanket waiver" allowing journalists to discuss their conversations with him pursuant to the CIA leak grand jury investigation, Miller maintained that such a waiver did not serve to allow her to reveal her source to that grand jury; moreover, Miller argued that Libby's general waiver pertaining to all journalists could have been coerced and that she would only testify before that grand jury if given an individual waiver.
After refusing to testify about her July 2003 meeting with Libby, Judith Miller was jailed on July 7, 2005, for contempt of court. Months later, however, her new attorney, Robert Bennett, told her that she already had possessed a written, voluntary waiver from Libby all along. After Miller had served most of her sentence, Libby reiterated that he had indeed given her a "waiver" both "voluntarily and personally." He attached the following letter, which, when released publicly, became the subject of further speculation about Libby's possible motives in sending it:
As noted above, my lawyer confirmed my waiver to other reporters in just the way he did with your lawyer. Why? Because as I am sure will not be news to you, the public report of every other reporter's testimony makes clear that they did not discuss Ms. Plame's name or identity with me, or knew about her before our call.
After agreeing to testify, Miller was released on September 29, 2005, appearing before the grand jury the next day, but the charge against her was rescinded only after she testified again on October 12, 2005. For her second grand jury appearance, Miller produced a notebook from a previously undisclosed meeting with Libby on June 23, 2003, two weeks before Wilson's New York Times op-ed was published. In her account published in the Times on October 16, 2005, based on her notes, Miller reports:
... in an interview with me on June 23 [2003], Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, discussed Mr. Wilson's activities and placed blame for intelligence failures on the CIA. In later conversations with me, on July 8 and July 12 [2003], Mr. Libby, ... [at the time] Mr. Cheney's top aide, played down the importance of Mr. Wilson's mission and questioned his performance ... My notes indicate that well before Mr. Wilson published his critique, Mr. Libby told me that Mr. Wilson's wife may have worked on unconventional weapons at the CIA. ... My notes do not show that Mr. Libby identified Mr. Wilson's wife by name. Nor do they show that he described Valerie Wilson as a covert agent or "operative"...
Her notation on her July 8, 2003 meeting with Libby does contain the name "Valerie Flame ", which she added retrospectively. While Miller reveals publicly that she herself had misidentified the last name of Wilson's wife (aka "Valerie Plame") in her own marginal notes on their interview as "Flame" instead of "Plame", in her grand jury (and later trial testimony), she remained uncertain when, how, and why she arrived at that name and did not attribute it to Libby:
I was not permitted to take notes of what I told the grand jury, and my interview notes on Mr. Libby are sketchy in places. It is also difficult, more than two years later, to parse the meaning and context of phrases, of underlining and of parentheses. On one page of my interview notes, for example, I wrote the name "Valerie Flame." Yet, as I told Mr. Fitzgerald, I simply could not recall where that came from, when I wrote it or why the name was misspelled ... I testified that I did not believe the name came from Mr. Libby, in part because the notation does not appear in the same part of my notebook as the interview notes from him.
A year and a half later, a jury convicted Libby of obstruction of justice and perjury in his grand jury testimony and making false statements to federal investigators about when and how he learned that Plame was a CIA agent.
On April 13, 2018, Libby was pardoned by US President Donald Trump.
Indictment and resignation
On October 28, 2005, as a result of the CIA leak grand jury investigation, Special Counsel Fitzgerald indicted Libby on five counts: one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of making false statements when interviewed by agents of the FBI, and two counts of perjury in his testimony before the grand jury. Pursuant to the grand jury investigation, Libby had told FBI investigators that he first heard of Mrs. Wilson's CIA employment from Cheney, and then later heard it from journalist Tim Russert, and acted as if he did not have that information. The indictment alleges that statements to federal investigators and the grand jury were intentionally false, in that Libby had numerous conversations about Mrs. Wilson's CIA employment, including his conversations with Judith Miller (see above), before speaking to Russert; Russert did not tell Libby about Mrs. Wilson's CIA employment; prior to talking with such reporters, Libby knew with certainty that she was employed by the CIA; and Libby told reporters that she worked for the CIA without making any disclaimer that he was uncertain of that fact. The false statements counts in the Libby indictment charge that he intentionally made those false statements to the FBI; the perjury counts charge that he intentionally lied to the grand jury in repeating those false statements; and the obstruction of justice count charges that Libby intentionally made those false statements in order to mislead the grand jury, thus impeding Fitzgerald's grand jury investigation of the truth about the leaking of Mrs. Wilson's then-classified, covert CIA identity.
Trial, conviction, and sentencing
On March 6, 2007, the jury convicted him on four of the five counts: obstruction of justice, one count of making false statements when interviewed by agents of the FBI, and two counts of perjury. They acquitted him on count three, the second charge of making false statements when interviewed by federal agents about his conversations with Time reporter Matthew Cooper.
Libby retained attorney Ted Wells of the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to represent him. Wells had successfully defended former Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy against a 30-count indictment and had also participated in the successful defense of former Secretary of Labor Raymond Donovan.
After Judge Reggie Walton denied Libby's motion to dismiss, the press initially reported that Libby would testify at the trial. Libby's criminal trial, United States v. Libby, began on January 16, 2007. A parade of Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists testified, including Bob Woodward, Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post and Judith Miller and David E. Sanger of The New York Times. Despite earlier press reports and widespread speculation, neither Libby nor Vice President Cheney testified. The jury began deliberations on February 21, 2007.
Verdict
After deliberating for 10 days, the jury rendered its verdict on March 6, 2007. It convicted Libby on four of the five counts against him: two counts of perjury, one count of obstruction of justice in a grand jury investigation, and one of the two counts of making false statements to federal investigators.
After the verdict, initially, Libby's lawyers announced that he would seek a new trial, and that, if that attempt were to fail, they would appeal Libby's conviction. Libby did not speak to reporters. Libby's defense team eventually decided against seeking a new trial.
Speaking to the media outside the courtroom after the verdict, Fitzgerald said that "The jury worked very long and hard and deliberated at length ... [and] was obviously convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had lied and obstructed justice in a serious manner ... I do not expect to file any further charges." The trial confirmed that the leak came first from then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage; since Fitzgerald did not charge Armitage and did not charge anyone else, Libby's conviction effectively ended the investigation.
In his October 28, 2005, press conference about the grand jury's indictment, Fitzgerald had already explained that Libby's obstruction of justice through perjury and false statements had prevented the grand jury from determining whether the leak violated federal law.
During his media appearance outside the courtroom after the verdict in the Libby case, Fitzgerald fielded questions from the press about others involved in the Plame affair and in the CIA leak grand jury investigation, such as Armitage and Cheney, whom he had already described as under "a cloud", as already addressed in his conduct of the case and in his closing arguments in court.
Sentencing
Given current federal sentencing guidelines, which are not mandatory, the conviction could have resulted in a sentence ranging from no imprisonment to imprisonment of up to 25 years and a fine of $1,000,000; yet, as Sniffen and Apuzzo observe, "federal sentencing guidelines will probably prescribe far less." In practice, according to federal sentencing data, three-fourths of the 198 defendants found guilty of obstruction of justice in 2006 served jail time. The average length of jail time on this charge alone was 70 months.
On June 5, 2007, Judge Walton sentenced Libby to 30 months in prison and fined him $250,000, clarifying that Libby would begin his sentence immediately. According to Apuzzo and Yost, the judge also "placed him on two years probation after his prison sentence expires. There is no parole in the federal system, but Libby would be eligible for release after two years." In addition, Judge Walton required Libby to provide "400 hours of community service" during his supervised release. On June 5, 2007, after the announcement of Libby's sentencing, CNN reported that Libby still "plans to appeal the verdict".
That day, in response to the sentencing, Vice President Cheney issued a statement in Libby's defense on The White House website. The statement concluded: "Speaking as friends, we hope that our system will return a final result consistent with what we know of this fine man."
Joseph and Valerie Wilson posted their statement on Libby's sentencing in United States v. Libby on their website, "grateful that justice has been served."
Order to report to prison pending appeal of verdict
After the June 5 sentencing, Walton said he was inclined to jail Libby after the defense laid out its proposed appeal, but the judge told attorneys he was open to changing his mind"; however, on June 14, 2007, Walton ordered Libby to report to prison while his attorneys appealed the conviction. Libby's attorneys asked that the order be stayed, but Walton denied the request and told Libby that he would have 10 days to appeal the ruling. In denying Libby's request, which had questioned Fitzgerald's authority to make the charges in the first place, Walton supported Fitzgerald's authority in the case. He said: "Everyone is accountable, and if you work in the White House, and if it's perceived that somehow (you're) linked at the hip, the American public would have serious questions about the fairness of any investigation of a high-level official conducted by the attorney general." The judge was also responding to an Amicus curiae brief that he had permitted to be filed, which had not apparently convinced him to change his mind, as he subsequently denied Libby bail during his appeal. His "order grant[ing] the [legal academic] scholars permission to file their brief ..." contained a caustic footnote questioning the motivation of the legal academics and suggesting he might not give a great deal of weight to their opinion[:]
... It is an impressive show of public service when twelve prominent and distinguished current and former law professors are able to amass their collective wisdom in the course of only several days to provide their legal expertise to the court on behalf of a criminal defendant. The Court trusts that this is a reflection of these eminent academics' willingness in the future to step to the plate and provide like assistance in cases involving any of the numerous litigants, both in this Court and throughout the courts of this nation, who lack the financial means to fully and properly articulate the merits of their legal positions even in instances where failure to do so could result in monetary penalties, incarceration, or worse. The Court will certainly not hesitate to call for such assistance from these luminaries, as necessary in the interests of justice and equity, whenever similar questions arise in the cases that come before it."
Moreover, when the hearing started, "in the interest of full disclosure," Walton informed the court that he had "received a number of harassing, angry and mean-spirited phone calls and messages. Some wishing bad things on me and my family ... [T]hose types of things will have no impact ... I initially threw them away, but then there were more, some that were more hateful ... [T]hey are being kept."
New York Times reporters Neil Lewis and David Stout estimated subsequently that Libby's prison sentence could begin within "two months", explaining that
Judge Walton's decision means that the defense lawyers will probably ask a federal appeals court to block the sentence, a long-shot move. It also sharpens interest in a question being asked by Mr. Libby's supporters and critics alike: Will President Bush pardon Mr. Libby? ... So far, the president has expressed sympathy for Mr. Libby and his family but has not tipped his hand on the pardon issue. ... If the president does not pardon him, and if an appeals court refuses to second-guess Judge Walton's decision, Mr. Libby will probably be ordered to report to prison in six to eight weeks' time. Federal prison authorities will decide where. "Unless the Court of Appeals overturns my ruling, he will have to report", Judge Walton said.
Failure of Libby's appeal in order to begin prison sentence
On June 20, 2007, Libby appealed Walton's ruling in federal appeals court. The following day, Walton filed a 30-page expanded ruling, in which he explained his decision to deny Libby bail in more detail.
On July 2, 2007, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied Libby's request for a delay and release from his prison sentence, stating that Libby "has not shown that the appeal raises a substantial question under federal law that would merit letting him remain free," increasing "pressure on President George W. Bush to decide soon whether to pardon Libby ... as the former White House official's supporters have urged."
Presidential commutation
Soon after the verdict, calls for Libby to be pardoned by President George W. Bush began to appear in some newspapers; some of them were posted online by the Libby Legal Defense Trust (LLDT). U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid issued a press release about the verdict, urging Bush to pledge not to pardon Libby, and other Democratic politicians followed his lead.
Surveying "the pardon battle" and citing both pro and con publications, The Washington Post online columnist Dan Froomkin concludes that many U.S. newspapers opposed a presidential pardon for Libby. Much of this commentary obscured the fact that the clemency power provided the President with several options short of a full, unconditional pardon. In an op-ed published in The Washington Post, former federal prosecutor and conservative activist William Otis argued the sentence was too stringent and that, instead of pardoning Libby, Bush should commute his sentence.
After the sentencing, Bush stated on camera that he would "not intervene until Libby's legal team has exhausted all of its avenues of appeal ... It wouldn't be appropriate for me to discuss the case until after the legal remedies have run its course." Ultimately, less than a month later, on July 2, 2007, Bush chose Otis's 'third option' — "neither prison nor pardon" — in commuting Libby's prison sentence.
After Libby was denied bail during his appeal process on July 2, 2007, Bush commuted Libby's 30-month federal prison sentence, calling it "excessive", but he did not change the other parts of the sentence and their conditions. That presidential commutation left in place the felony conviction, the $250,000 fine, and the terms of probation. Some have criticized the move, as presidential commutations are rarely issued, but when granted they have generally occurred after the convicted person has already served a substantial portion of his or her sentence: "We can't find any cases, certainly in the last half-century, where the president commuted a sentence before it had even started to be served," said former Justice Department pardon attorney Margaret Colgate Love. Others, notably Cheney himself who argued that Libby was unfairly charged by a politically motivated prosecution, believed that the commutation fell short, as Libby would likely never practice law again.
At the time, Bush explained his "Grant of Executive Clemency" to Libby, in part, as follows:
Mr. Libby was sentenced to thirty months of prison, two years of probation, and a $250,000 fine. In making the sentencing decision, the district court rejected the advice of the probation office, which recommended a lesser sentence and the consideration of factors that could have led to a sentence of home confinement or probation.
Libby paid the required fine of "$250,400, which included a 'special assessment' of costs" that same day.
Bush's explanation was written by Fred F. Fielding, White House Counsel during the last two years of Bush's presidency. According to a Time article published six months after Bush left office, Fielding worded the commutation "in a way that would make it harder for Bush to revisit it in the future ... ; [the] language was intended to send an unmistakable message, internally as well as externally: No one is above the law." The article suggested that there was a fundamental difference between how Bush and Cheney viewed the "War on Terror", with aides close to Bush feeling that Cheney had misled the President and damaged the administration's moral character with the Plame leak.
Libby's lawyer, Theodore V. Wells, Jr. "issued a brief statement saying Mr. Libby and his family 'wished to express their gratitude for the president's decision ... We continue to believe in Mr. Libby's innocence'. ... "
Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, however, took issue with Bush's description of the sentence as 'excessive', saying it was "[i]mposed pursuant to the laws governing sentencings which occur every day throughout this country ... It is fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of justice as equals ... [T]hat principle guided the judge during both the trial and the sentencing," Fitzgerald said.
The day after the commuting of Libby's sentence, James Rowley (Bloomberg News) reported that Bush had not ruled out pardoning Libby in the future and that Bush's press spokesman, Tony Snow, denied any political motivation in the commutation. Quoting Snow, Rowley added: The president is getting pounded on the right because he didn't do a full pardon.' If Bush were 'doing the weather-vane thing' he 'would have done something differently.
Democratic politicians' responses stressed their outrage at what they called a disgraceful abrogation of justice, and, that evening CNN reported that Representative John Conyers, Jr., Democrat of Michigan, announced that there would be a formal Congressional investigation of Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence and other presidential reprieves.
The hearing on "The Use and Misuse of Presidential Clemency Power for Executive Branch Officials" was held by the United States House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Conyers, on July 11, 2007.
Just a few days later, however, Judge Walton questioned "whether ... [Libby] will face two years of probation, as [President Bush] said he would," because the supervised release time is conditioned on Libby's serving the prison sentence, and he "directed the special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, and ... [Libby's] lawyers to file arguments on the point. ... " "If Judge Walton does not impose any supervised release, it could undercut ... [Bush's] argument that ... Libby still faced stiff justice." That issue was resolved on July 10, 2007, clearing the way for Libby to begin serving the rest of his sentence, the supervised release and 400 hours of community service.
In response to Bush's justifications for clemency, liberal commentator Harlan J. Protass noted that in Rita v. United States, the case of a defendant convicted of perjury in front of a grand jury which had been decided two weeks earlier by the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. government had successfully argued that sentences that fall within Federal Sentencing Guidelines are presumed to be "reasonable", regardless of individual circumstances.
Reportedly outraged by Bush's commutation of Libby's prison sentence, on July 2, 2007, Wilson told CNN: "I have nothing to say to Scooter Libby ... I don't owe this administration. They owe my wife and my family an apology for having betrayed her. Scooter Libby is a traitor. Bush's action ... demonstrates that the White House is corrupt from top to bottom." He reiterated this perspective on the commutation in the House Judiciary Committee hearing on July 11, 2007, vehemently protesting that a Republican congressman was engaging in "yet a further smear of my wife's good name and my good name."
According to a USA Today/Gallup Poll conducted from July 6 to July 8, 2007, "most Americans disagree with President George W. Bush's decision to intervene" on Libby's behalf in the case.
Several months after Bush's action, Judge Walton commented publicly on it. He spoke in favor of applying the law equally, stating: "The downside [of the commutation] is there are a lot of people in America who think that justice is determined to a large degree by who you are and that what you have plays a large role in what kind of justice you receive. ... "
Bush took no further action with respect to Libby's conviction or sentence during his presidential term, despite entreaties from conservatives that he should be pardoned. Two days after their term expired, former Vice President Cheney expressed his regret that Bush had not pardoned Libby on his last day in office.
Press coverage of Libby's trial
Blogs played a prominent role in the press coverage of Libby's trial. Scott Shane, in his article "For Liberal Bloggers, Libby Trial Is Fun and Fodder", published in The New York Times on February 15, 2007, quotes Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, who wrote that the trial was "the first federal case for which independent bloggers have been given official credentials along with reporters from the traditional news media." The trial was followed in the mass media and engaged the interest of both professional legal experts and the general public. While awaiting the judge's ruling pertaining to supervised release and the "400 hours of community service that Judge Walton imposed", for example, bloggers discussed the legal issues involved in these non-commuted parts of Libby's sentence and their effects on Libby's future life experiences.
Criticism of investigation
On August 28, 2006, Christopher Hitchens asserted that Richard Armitage was the primary source of the Valerie Plame leak and that Fitzgerald knew this at the beginning of his investigation. This was supported a month later by Armitage himself, who stated that Fitzgerald had instructed him not to go public with this information. Investor's Business Daily questioned Fitzgerald's truthfulness in an editorial, stating "From top to bottom, this has been one of the most disgraceful abuses of prosecutorial power in this country's history ... The Plame case proves [Fitzgerald] can bend the truth with the proficiency of the slickest of pols."
In a September 2008 Wall Street Journal editorial, attorney Alan Dershowitz cited the "questionable investigation[s]" of Scooter Libby as evidence of the problems brought to the criminal justice process by "politically appointed and partisan attorney[s] general". In April 2015, also writing in The Wall Street Journal, Hoover Institution fellow Peter Berkowitz argued that statements by Judith Miller, in her recently published memoir, raised anew contentions that her testimony was inaccurate and that Fitzgerald's conduct as prosecutor was inappropriate.
The Wilsons' civil suit
On July 13, 2006, Joseph and Valerie Wilson filed a civil lawsuit against Libby, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and other unnamed senior White House officials (among whom they later added Richard Armitage) for their role in the public disclosure of Valerie Wilson's classified CIA status. Judge John D. Bates dismissed the Wilsons' lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds on July 19, 2007. The Wilsons appealed Bates's district-court decision the next day. Agreeing with the Bush administration, the Obama Justice Department argued that the Wilsons had no legitimate grounds to sue. Melanie Sloan, one of the Wilsons' attorneys, said: "We are deeply disappointed that the Obama administration has failed to recognize the grievous harm top Bush White House officials inflicted on Joe and Valerie Wilson. The government's position cannot be reconciled with President Obama's oft-stated commitment to once again make government officials accountable for their actions."
On June 21, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal.
Restoration of voting rights, law license, and presidential pardon
Libby's voting rights were restored on November 1, 2012 by then-Governor of Virginia Bob McDonnell. Libby was part of a larger group of individuals who had their voting rights restored by McDonnell, all of whom were non-violent offenders. Three years later, on November 3, 2016, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals granted Libby's petition for reinstatement to the D.C. Bar. On April 13, 2018, President Donald Trump pardoned Libby.
In media portrayals
David Andrews played Scooter Libby in the 2010 film Fair Game, which is about the Plame affair.
Justin Kirk played Libby in the 2018 film Vice.
See also
List of disbarments in the United States
Plame affair criminal investigation
Project for the New American Century
List of people pardoned or granted clemency by the president of the United States
Notes
Citations
References
. United States Department of State, February 2005. Accessed July 8, 2007.
Bromell, Nick. "Scooter Libby and Me". The American Scholar (Phi Beta Kappa) (Winter 2007). Accessed June 8, 2007.
–––. "Scooter's Tragic Innocence: Why My Friend Scooter Libby Is Loyal to Bush, Cheney and an Arrogant Administration Whose Values Are Not His Own". Salon, January 24, 2007. Accessed June 8, 2007. (Premium content; restricted access).
Dickerson, John. "Who Is Scooter Libby? The Secretive Cheney Aide at the Heart of the CIA Leak Case". Slate, October 21, 2005. Accessed June 28, 2007.
Frankel, Max. "The Washington Back Channel". The New York Times, March 25, 2007. Accessed March 23, 2008.
Garfield, Bob. "'Former New York Times Staffer Judith Miller'". On the Media from NPR, National Public Radio, WCNY-FM, November 11, 2005. Accessed March 5, 2007. (Transcript and RealAudio link.)
"I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby". Right Web (International Relations Center). Last updated March 21, 2007. Accessed July 1, 2007.
"Indictment" in United States of America vs. I. Lewis Libby, also known as "Scooter Libby". United States Department of Justice, October 28, 2005. Accessed July 5, 2007.
Libby, Lewis. The Apprentice: A Novel. Rpt. ed. 1996; New York: Griffin, 2005. (10). (13).
Markels, Alex. "Legal Affairs: I. Lewis Libby: The Plight of a Disciplined Risk-Taker". National Public Radio, October 28, 2005. Accessed March 5, 2007.
Merritt, Jeralyn, moderator. "Verdict in the Libby Trial". Transcript. The Washington Post ("Live Online" discussion), March 6, 2007, 2:00–3:00 p.m., ET. Accessed March 6, 2007. (Duration: one hour.) N.B.: "Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions. washingtonpost.com is not responsible for any content posted by third parties."
in "United States of America, v. I. Lewis Libby, Defendant". Criminal No. 05-394 (RBW). United States District Court for the District of Columbia, filed January 10, 2007. Accessed February 10, 2007. ["USA-v-Libby_Rules-of-Order.pdf".]
"President Commutes Libby's Sentence: Calls 30-month Term for Ex-Cheney Aide 'excessive'". Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, July 3, 2007. Accessed July 4, 2007.
. White House biography from 2004. Accessed February 10, 2007.
Waas, Murray. "Cheney 'Authorized' Libby to Leak Classified Information". National Journal, February 9, 2006. Accessed March 6, 2007.
–––, ed., with Jeff Lomonaco. The United States v. I. Lewis Libby. New York: Union Square Press (imprint of Sterling Publishing), 2007. (10). (13). ("Edited & with reporting by Murray Waas" and with research assistance by Jeff Lomonaco.)
Weisman, Steven. "White House Is Pressing Israelis To Take Initiatives in Peace Talks". The New York Times, April 17, 2003. Accessed March 23, 2008.
Wilson, Joseph C. "Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson's Response to Bush Spokesman Tony Snow's Comments at Today's White House Briefing". Online posting. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), July 3, 2007. Accessed July 4, 2007. Online posting. "Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson's Response ... " and "Read more", Joseph and Valerie Wilson Legal Support Trust (Home page), n.d. Accessed July 8, 2007. (Concerning Bush's commutation of Libby's prison sentence.)
–––. "Statement in Response to Jury's Verdict in U.S. v. I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby" (now outdated URL). Press release. Originally posted online. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), March 6, 2007. Accessed March 6, 2007. Posted as "CREW Statement on Libby Conviction: No Man Is Above the Law." Citizens ^Blogging for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (blog), March 6, 2007. Accessed April 18, 2007. Also posted as "Wilsons' Attorney Statement in Response to Jury's Verdict in U.S. v. I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby". Joseph and Valerie Wilson Legal Support Trust, March 6, 2007, home page. Accessed April 18, 2007.
External links
Background on the Plame Investigation at The Washington Post.
CNN Special Reports: CIA Leak Investigation compiled by CNN Newsroom; incl. interactive timeline in Case History.
"Legal Affairs: Lewis Libby's Complete Grand Jury Testimony". Full audio clip and transcript provided by National Public Radio on npr.org,
"The Lewis Libby Case". Archive of articles concerning Libby broadcast on National Public Radio.
.
United States v. I. Lewis Libby. Photo gallery with news captions at The Washington Post.
Membership at the Council on Foreign Relations
1950 births
Jewish American attorneys
Assistants to the President of the United States
Chiefs of Staff to the Vice President of the United States
Columbia Law School alumni
Columbia University alumni
Living people
Members of the Council on Foreign Relations
Pennsylvania Democrats
Pennsylvania Republicans
People associated with the Plame affair
People from McLean, Virginia
Lawyers from New Haven, Connecticut
Lawyers from Philadelphia
Phillips Academy alumni
Reagan administration personnel
Recipients of American presidential clemency
Recipients of American presidential pardons
Yale University alumni
Hudson Institute
Conservatism in the United States | false | [
"The women's 100 metres at the 2014 World Junior Championships in Athletics was held at Hayward Field on 22 and 23 July.\n\nMedalists\n\nRecords\n\nResults\n\nHeats\nQualification: The first 3 of each heat (Q) and the 3 fastest times (q) qualified\n\n Tenorio was originally disqualified for a false start, but was reinstated and allowed to effectively run a solo time trial. As her time would have been sufficient to merit a non-automatic qualifying spot, an extra slot was created to ensure Abreu, the slowest of the existing 'non-automatic' qualifiers did not lose out.\n\nSemifinals\nQualification: The first 2 of each heat (Q) and the 2 fastest times (q) qualified\n\nFinal\nWind: -1.0 m/s\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n 100 metres schedule\n\n100 metres\n100 metres at the World Athletics U20 Championships\n2014 in women's athletics",
"40 Days and 40 Nights: Darwin, Intelligent Design, God, OxyContin, and Other Oddities on Trial in Pennsylvania is a 2007 non-fiction book about the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial of 2005. Author Matthew Chapman, a journalist, screenwriter and director (and the great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin) reported on the trial for Harper's magazine.\n\nReception \nAustin Cline of About.com gave the book four-and-a-half-stars-out-of-five rating, stating: \"There are bound to be many books written about this trial and I don't know if Chapman's will be the best source of information — either about the trial itself or the larger issues involved. It will, however, almost certainly stand out as one of the most enjoyable and entertaining to read.\"\n\nJohn Dupuis of ScienceBlogs gave the book a positive review, saying that \"Chapman uses some of the same strategies in the Dover as he did in the first book on the Scopes Trial. He tells the story of the trial as a story about people: the lawyers, the defendants, the townspeople, the media. And a colourful lot they were, making those aspects of the book very entertaining and compelling. The weakness of the book is related to those colourful characters — the chronicle of the trial itself never really seemed to come alive for me in the same way that his telling of the Scopes trial did.\"\n\nReferences \n\n2007 non-fiction books\nCriticism of intelligent design\nEnglish-language books\nUnited States creationism and evolution case law\nEducation in York County, Pennsylvania"
] |
[
"Scooter Libby",
"Trial, conviction, and sentencing",
"What was his trial about",
"second charge of making false statements when interviewed by federal agents about his conversations with Time reporter Matthew Cooper.",
"What did he talk to the reporter about",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Libby retained attorney Ted Wells of the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to represent him.",
"How did the trial go",
"Libby pleaded not guilty to all five counts.",
"And what happened during the trial",
"Judge Reggie Walton denied Libby's motion to dismiss,",
"And did he lose the trial",
"the jury convicted him on four of the five counts but acquitted him on count three,"
] | C_72c2173245744eeea3ae7541ba451877_0 | What was count 3 | 7 | What was count 3 that Scooter Libby was acquitted of | Scooter Libby | On March 6, 2007, the jury convicted him on four of the five counts but acquitted him on count three, the second charge of making false statements when interviewed by federal agents about his conversations with Time reporter Matthew Cooper. After being questioned by the FBI in the fall of 2003 and testifying before a Federal grand jury on March 5, 2004, and again on March 24, 2004, Libby pleaded not guilty to all five counts. According to the Associated Press, David Addington, Cheney's legal counsel, described a September 2003 meeting with Libby around the time that a criminal investigation began, saying that Libby had told him, "'I just want to tell you, I didn't do it'... I didn't ask what the 'it' was.'" Libby retained attorney Ted Wells of the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to represent him. Wells had successfully defended former Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy against a 30-count indictment and had also participated in the successful defense of former Secretary of Labor Raymond Donovan. After Judge Reggie Walton denied Libby's motion to dismiss, the press initially reported that Libby would testify at the trial. Libby's criminal trial, United States v. Libby, began on January 16, 2007. A parade of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists testified, including Bob Woodward, Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post and Judith Miller and David E. Sanger of The New York Times. Despite earlier press reports and widespread speculation, neither Libby nor Vice President Cheney testified. The jury began deliberations on February 21, 2007. CANNOTANSWER | the second charge of making false statements when interviewed by federal agents about his conversations with Time reporter Matthew Cooper. | I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby (first name generally given as Irv, Irve or Irving; born August 22, 1950) is an American lawyer, and former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.
From 2001 to 2005, Libby held the offices of Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs, Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States, and Assistant to the President during the administration of President George W. Bush.
In October 2005, Libby resigned from all three government positions after he was indicted on five counts by a federal grand jury concerning the investigation of the leak of the covert identity of Central Intelligence Agency officer Valerie Plame Wilson. He was subsequently convicted of four counts (one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury, and one count of making false statements), making him the highest-ranking White House official convicted in a government scandal since John Poindexter, the national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan in the Iran–Contra affair.
After a failed appeal, President Bush commuted Libby's sentence of 30 months in federal prison, leaving the other parts of his sentence intact. As a consequence of his conviction in United States v. Libby, Libby's license to practice law was suspended until being reinstated in 2016. President Donald Trump fully pardoned Libby on April 13, 2018.
Personal history
Background and education
Libby was born to an affluent Jewish family in New Haven, Connecticut. His father, Irving Lewis Leibovitz, was an investment banker. His father changed his family original surname from Leibovitz to Libby.
Libby graduated from the Eaglebrook School, in Deerfield, Massachusetts, a junior boarding school, in 1965. The family lived in the Washington, D.C. region; Miami, Florida; and Connecticut prior to Libby's graduation from Phillips Academy, in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1968.
He and his elder brother, Hank, a retired tax lawyer, were the first in the family to graduate from college. Libby attended Yale University in New Haven, graduating magna cum laude in 1972. As Yale Daily News reporter Jack Mirkinson observes, "Even though he would eventually become a prominent Republican, Libby's political beginnings would not have pointed in that direction. He served as vice president of the Yale College Democrats and later campaigned for Michael Dukakis when he was running for governor of Massachusetts." According to Mirkinson: "Two particular Yale courses helped guide Libby's future endeavors. One of these was a creative writing course, which started Libby on a 20-year mission to complete a novel ... [later published as] The Apprentice ... [and] a political science class with professor and future Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. In an interview with author James Mann, Libby said Wolfowitz was one of his favorite professors, and their professional relationship did not end with the class." Wolfowitz became a significant mentor in his later professional life.
In 1975, as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, Libby received his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Columbia Law School.
Marriage and family
Libby is married to Harriet Grant, whom he met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the late 1980s, while he was a partner and she an associate in the law firm then known as Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin: When he and Harriet became serious,' Dickstein partner Kenneth Simon wrote, 'she chose to leave the firm rather than maintain the awkward situation of an associate dating a partner. Libby and Grant married in the early 1990s, have a son and a daughter, and live in McLean, Virginia.
Name
Libby has been secretive about his full name. He was prosecuted as I. Lewis Libby, also known as "Scooter Libby". National Public Radio's Day to Day reported that the 1972 Yale Banner (the yearbook of Yale) gave his name as Irve Lewis Libby Jr.; it is unclear if Irve is his given name, or if it is short for Irving, as it was for his father. CBS, the BBC, and The New York Timess John Tierney have all used this spelling of his first name. The Timess Eric Schmitt spelled it Irv, though he cited a phone interview with Libby's brother, and did not clarify if he had asked for a spelling.
At times, including in the Yale Banner, and as documented in a federal directory cited by Ron Kampeas and others, Libby has used the suffix Jr. after his name. At other times, however, as listed in his federal indictment and United States v. Libby, which give his alias as Scooter Libby, there is no Jr. after Libby's name. The Columbia Alumni Association online directory lists him as I. Lewis Libby, with a first name of "I." and birth first name of "Irve".
Libby has also been secretive about the origin of his nickname Scooter. The New York Timess Eric Schmitt, citing the aforementioned interview with Libby's brother, wrote that "His nickname 'Scooter' derives from the day [his] father watched him crawling in his crib and joked, 'He's a Scooter! In a February 2002 interview on Larry King Live, King asked Libby specifically, "Where did 'Scooter' come from?"; Libby replied: "Oh, it goes way back to when I was a kid. Some people ask me if ... [crosstalk] ... as you did earlier, if it's related to Phil Rizzuto [nicknamed 'The Scooter']. I had the range but not the arm."
The Apprentice
Libby's only novel, The Apprentice, about a group of travelers stranded in northern Japan in the winter of 1903, during a smallpox epidemic in the run-up to the Russo-Japanese War, was first published in a hardback edition by Graywolf Press in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1996, and reprinted as a trade paperback by St. Martin's Thomas Dunne Books in 2002. After Libby's indictment in the CIA leak grand jury investigation in 2005, St. Martin's Press reissued The Apprentice as a mass market paperback (Griffin imprint). An allegorical meditation on the legitimacy of concealed knowledge, The Apprentice has been described as "a thriller ... that includes references to bestiality, pedophilia and rape."
Law career
After earning his J.D. from Columbia in 1975, Libby joined the firm of Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis LLP. He was admitted to the bar of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on October 27, 1976, and to the Bar of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals on May 19, 1978.
Libby practiced law at Schnader for six years before joining the U.S. State Department policy planning staff, at the invitation of his former Yale professor, Paul Wolfowitz, in 1981. In 1985, returning to private practice, he joined the firm then known as Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin (now Dickstein Shapiro LLP), becoming a partner in 1986 and working there until 1989, when he left to work in the U.S. Defense Department, again under his former Yale professor Paul Wolfowitz, until January 1993.
In 1993, returning to private legal practice from government, Libby became the managing partner of the Washington, D.C. office of Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, Alexander & Ferdon (formerly Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, and Alexander); in 1995, along with his Mudge Rose colleague, Leonard Garment––who had replaced John Dean as acting Special Counsel to U.S. President Richard Nixon for the last two years of his presidency dominated by Watergate, and who had hired Libby at Mudge Rose twenty years later––and three other lawyers from that firm, Libby joined the Washington, D.C. office of Dechert Price & Rhoads (now part of Dechert LLP), where he was a managing partner, a member of its litigation department, and chaired its Public Policy Practice Group. His work there was well regarded, with President Clinton recognizing Libby as one of three "distinguished Republican lawyers" who worked on the Marc Rich pardon case.
In 2001 Libby left the firm to return to work again in government, as Vice President Cheney's chief of staff.
Fugitive billionaire commodities trader Marc Rich, who, along with his business partner Pincus Green, had been indicted of tax evasion and illegal trading with Iran, and who, with Green, was ultimately pardoned by President Bill Clinton, was a client whom Leonard Garment had hired Libby to help represent around the spring of 1985, after Rich and Green had first engaged Garment. Libby stopped representing Rich in the spring of 2000; early in March 2001, at a "contentious" Congressional hearing to review Clinton's pardons, Libby testified that he thought the prosecution's case against Rich "misconstrued the facts and the law". According to Jackson Hogan, Libby's roommate at Yale University, as quoted in the already-cited U.S. News & World Report article by Walsh, He is intensely partisan ... in that if he is your counsel, he'll embrace your case and try to figure a way out of whatever noose you are ensnared in. According to a House Committee on Government Reform report, however, "The arguments made by Garment, [William Bradford] Reynolds and Libby [in their testimony] focused on the claim that the SDNY was criminalizing what should have been a civil tax case. They did not make, compile, or in any other way lay the groundwork for, or make a case for a Presidential pardon. When former President Clinton stated that they 'reviewed and advocated' 'the case for the pardons,' he suggested that they were somehow involved in arguing that Rich and Green should receive pardons. This was completely untrue". (p. 162)
Bar suspension and disbarment
Before his indictment in United States v. Libby, Libby had been a licensed lawyer, admitted to the bars of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, although his Pennsylvania law license was inactive, and he had already been suspended from the Washington, D.C. Office of Bar Counsel (D.C. Bar) for non-payment of fees. The Chief Judge of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals recommended disbarment upon confirmation of his conviction, which Libby had initially indicated that he would appeal. Having suspended his license to practice law on April 3, 2007, the D.C. Bar "disbarred [him] pursuant to D.C. Code § 11-2503(a)" on legal grounds of "moral turpitude", effective April 11, 2007, and recommended to the D.C. Court of Appeals his disbarment if his conviction were not overturned on appeal. On December 10, 2007, Libby's lawyers announced his decision "to drop his appeal of his conviction in the CIA leak case". On March 20, 2008, following the dropping of his appeal of his conviction, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals disbarred Libby. As a result of the Court's ruling, "Libby will lose his license to practice or appear in court in Washington until at least 2012", and, "As is standard, he will probably lose any bar membership he holds in other states"; that is, in Pennsylvania.
Government public service and political career
In 1981, after working as a lawyer in the Philadelphia firm Schnader LLP, Libby accepted the invitation of his former Yale University political science professor and mentor Paul Wolfowitz to join the U.S. State Department's policy planning staff. From 1982 to 1985, Libby served as director of special projects in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. In 1985 he received the Foreign Affairs Award for Public Service from the United States Department of Defense, and he resigned from government to enter private legal practice at Dickstein, Shapiro, and Morin. In 1989, he went to work at the Pentagon, again under Wolfowitz, as principal deputy under-secretary for strategy and resources at the U.S. Defense Department.
During the George H. W. Bush administration, Libby was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as deputy under secretary of defense for policy, serving from 1992 to 1993. In 1992 he also served as legal adviser for the House Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China. Libby co-authored the draft of the Defense Planning Guidance for the 1994–99 fiscal years (dated February 18, 1992) with Wolfowitz for Dick Cheney, who was then Secretary of Defense. In 1993 Libby received the Distinguished Service Award from the U.S. Defense Department and the Distinguished Public Service Award from the U.S. State Department before resuming private legal practice first at Mudge Rose and then at Dechert.
Libby was part of a network of neo-conservatives known as the "Vulcans"—its other members included Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld. While he was still a managing partner of Dechert Price & Rhoads, he was a signatory to the "Statement of Principles" of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) (a document dated June 3, 1997). He joined Wolfowitz, PNAC co-founders William Kristol, Robert Kagan, and other "Project Participants" in developing the PNAC's September 2000 report entitled, "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New Century".
After becoming Cheney's chief of staff in 2001, Libby was reportedly nicknamed "Germ Boy" at the White House, for insisting on universal smallpox vaccination. He was also nicknamed "Dick Cheney's Dick Cheney" for his close working relationship with the Vice President. Mary Matalin, who worked with Libby as an adviser to Cheney during Bush's first term, said of him "He is to the vice president what the vice president is to the president."
Libby was active in the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee of the Pentagon when it was chaired by Richard Perle during the early years of the George W. Bush administration (2001–2003). At various points in his career, Libby has also held positions with the American Bar Association, been on the advisory board of the RAND Corporation's Center for Russia and Eurasia, and been a legal adviser to the United States House of Representatives, as well as served as a consultant for the defense contractor Northrop Grumman.
Libby was also actively involved in the Bush administration's efforts to negotiate the Israeli–Palestinian "road map" for peace; for example, he participated in a series of meetings with Jewish leaders in early December 2002 and a meeting with two aides of then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in mid-April 2003, culminating in the Red Sea Summit on June 4, 2004. In their highly controversial and widely contested "Working Paper" entitled "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy", University of Chicago political science professor John J. Mearsheimer and academic dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University Stephen M. Walt argue that Libby was among the Bush administration's most "fervently pro-Israel ... officials" (20).
Awards for government service
Distinguished Service Award, United States Department of Defense, 1993
Distinguished Public Service Award, United States Department of the Navy, 1993
Foreign Affairs Award for Public Service, United States Department of State, 1985
Subsequent work experience
From January 2006 until March 7, 2007, the day after his conviction in United States v. Libby, when he resigned, Libby served as a "senior adviser" at the Hudson Institute, to "focus on issues relating to the War on Terror and the future of Asia ... offer research guidance and ... advise the institute in strategic planning." His resignation was announced by the Hudson Institute in a press release dated March 8, 2007. However, he has served as Senior Vice President of the Hudson Institute at least since 2010.
Libby also serves as a member of the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense, a group that encourages and advocates changes to government policy to strengthen national biodefense. In order to address biological threats facing the nation, the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense created a 33 step initiative for the U.S. Government to implement. Headed by former Senator Joe Lieberman and former Governor Tom Ridge, the Study Panel assembled in Washington D.C. for four meetings concerning current biodefense programs. The Study Panel concluded that the federal government had little to no defense mechanisms in case of a biological event. The Study Panel's final report, The National Blueprint for Biodefense, proposes a string of solutions and recommendations for the U.S. Government to take, including items such as giving the Vice President authority over biodefense responsibilities and merging the entire biodefense budget. These solutions represent the Panel's call to action in order to increase awareness and activity for pandemic related issues.
Involvement in the Plame affair
Between 2003 and 2005, intense speculation centered on the possibility that Libby may have been the administration official who had "leaked" classified employment information about Valerie Plame, a covert Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent and the wife of Iraq War critic Joseph C. Wilson, to New York Times reporter Judith Miller and other reporters and later tried to hide his having done so.
In August 2005, as revealed in grand jury testimony audiotapes played during the trial and reported in many news accounts, Libby testified that he met with Judith Miller, a reporter with The New York Times, on July 8, 2003, and discussed Plame with her.
Although Libby signed a "blanket waiver" allowing journalists to discuss their conversations with him pursuant to the CIA leak grand jury investigation, Miller maintained that such a waiver did not serve to allow her to reveal her source to that grand jury; moreover, Miller argued that Libby's general waiver pertaining to all journalists could have been coerced and that she would only testify before that grand jury if given an individual waiver.
After refusing to testify about her July 2003 meeting with Libby, Judith Miller was jailed on July 7, 2005, for contempt of court. Months later, however, her new attorney, Robert Bennett, told her that she already had possessed a written, voluntary waiver from Libby all along. After Miller had served most of her sentence, Libby reiterated that he had indeed given her a "waiver" both "voluntarily and personally." He attached the following letter, which, when released publicly, became the subject of further speculation about Libby's possible motives in sending it:
As noted above, my lawyer confirmed my waiver to other reporters in just the way he did with your lawyer. Why? Because as I am sure will not be news to you, the public report of every other reporter's testimony makes clear that they did not discuss Ms. Plame's name or identity with me, or knew about her before our call.
After agreeing to testify, Miller was released on September 29, 2005, appearing before the grand jury the next day, but the charge against her was rescinded only after she testified again on October 12, 2005. For her second grand jury appearance, Miller produced a notebook from a previously undisclosed meeting with Libby on June 23, 2003, two weeks before Wilson's New York Times op-ed was published. In her account published in the Times on October 16, 2005, based on her notes, Miller reports:
... in an interview with me on June 23 [2003], Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, discussed Mr. Wilson's activities and placed blame for intelligence failures on the CIA. In later conversations with me, on July 8 and July 12 [2003], Mr. Libby, ... [at the time] Mr. Cheney's top aide, played down the importance of Mr. Wilson's mission and questioned his performance ... My notes indicate that well before Mr. Wilson published his critique, Mr. Libby told me that Mr. Wilson's wife may have worked on unconventional weapons at the CIA. ... My notes do not show that Mr. Libby identified Mr. Wilson's wife by name. Nor do they show that he described Valerie Wilson as a covert agent or "operative"...
Her notation on her July 8, 2003 meeting with Libby does contain the name "Valerie Flame ", which she added retrospectively. While Miller reveals publicly that she herself had misidentified the last name of Wilson's wife (aka "Valerie Plame") in her own marginal notes on their interview as "Flame" instead of "Plame", in her grand jury (and later trial testimony), she remained uncertain when, how, and why she arrived at that name and did not attribute it to Libby:
I was not permitted to take notes of what I told the grand jury, and my interview notes on Mr. Libby are sketchy in places. It is also difficult, more than two years later, to parse the meaning and context of phrases, of underlining and of parentheses. On one page of my interview notes, for example, I wrote the name "Valerie Flame." Yet, as I told Mr. Fitzgerald, I simply could not recall where that came from, when I wrote it or why the name was misspelled ... I testified that I did not believe the name came from Mr. Libby, in part because the notation does not appear in the same part of my notebook as the interview notes from him.
A year and a half later, a jury convicted Libby of obstruction of justice and perjury in his grand jury testimony and making false statements to federal investigators about when and how he learned that Plame was a CIA agent.
On April 13, 2018, Libby was pardoned by US President Donald Trump.
Indictment and resignation
On October 28, 2005, as a result of the CIA leak grand jury investigation, Special Counsel Fitzgerald indicted Libby on five counts: one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of making false statements when interviewed by agents of the FBI, and two counts of perjury in his testimony before the grand jury. Pursuant to the grand jury investigation, Libby had told FBI investigators that he first heard of Mrs. Wilson's CIA employment from Cheney, and then later heard it from journalist Tim Russert, and acted as if he did not have that information. The indictment alleges that statements to federal investigators and the grand jury were intentionally false, in that Libby had numerous conversations about Mrs. Wilson's CIA employment, including his conversations with Judith Miller (see above), before speaking to Russert; Russert did not tell Libby about Mrs. Wilson's CIA employment; prior to talking with such reporters, Libby knew with certainty that she was employed by the CIA; and Libby told reporters that she worked for the CIA without making any disclaimer that he was uncertain of that fact. The false statements counts in the Libby indictment charge that he intentionally made those false statements to the FBI; the perjury counts charge that he intentionally lied to the grand jury in repeating those false statements; and the obstruction of justice count charges that Libby intentionally made those false statements in order to mislead the grand jury, thus impeding Fitzgerald's grand jury investigation of the truth about the leaking of Mrs. Wilson's then-classified, covert CIA identity.
Trial, conviction, and sentencing
On March 6, 2007, the jury convicted him on four of the five counts: obstruction of justice, one count of making false statements when interviewed by agents of the FBI, and two counts of perjury. They acquitted him on count three, the second charge of making false statements when interviewed by federal agents about his conversations with Time reporter Matthew Cooper.
Libby retained attorney Ted Wells of the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to represent him. Wells had successfully defended former Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy against a 30-count indictment and had also participated in the successful defense of former Secretary of Labor Raymond Donovan.
After Judge Reggie Walton denied Libby's motion to dismiss, the press initially reported that Libby would testify at the trial. Libby's criminal trial, United States v. Libby, began on January 16, 2007. A parade of Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists testified, including Bob Woodward, Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post and Judith Miller and David E. Sanger of The New York Times. Despite earlier press reports and widespread speculation, neither Libby nor Vice President Cheney testified. The jury began deliberations on February 21, 2007.
Verdict
After deliberating for 10 days, the jury rendered its verdict on March 6, 2007. It convicted Libby on four of the five counts against him: two counts of perjury, one count of obstruction of justice in a grand jury investigation, and one of the two counts of making false statements to federal investigators.
After the verdict, initially, Libby's lawyers announced that he would seek a new trial, and that, if that attempt were to fail, they would appeal Libby's conviction. Libby did not speak to reporters. Libby's defense team eventually decided against seeking a new trial.
Speaking to the media outside the courtroom after the verdict, Fitzgerald said that "The jury worked very long and hard and deliberated at length ... [and] was obviously convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had lied and obstructed justice in a serious manner ... I do not expect to file any further charges." The trial confirmed that the leak came first from then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage; since Fitzgerald did not charge Armitage and did not charge anyone else, Libby's conviction effectively ended the investigation.
In his October 28, 2005, press conference about the grand jury's indictment, Fitzgerald had already explained that Libby's obstruction of justice through perjury and false statements had prevented the grand jury from determining whether the leak violated federal law.
During his media appearance outside the courtroom after the verdict in the Libby case, Fitzgerald fielded questions from the press about others involved in the Plame affair and in the CIA leak grand jury investigation, such as Armitage and Cheney, whom he had already described as under "a cloud", as already addressed in his conduct of the case and in his closing arguments in court.
Sentencing
Given current federal sentencing guidelines, which are not mandatory, the conviction could have resulted in a sentence ranging from no imprisonment to imprisonment of up to 25 years and a fine of $1,000,000; yet, as Sniffen and Apuzzo observe, "federal sentencing guidelines will probably prescribe far less." In practice, according to federal sentencing data, three-fourths of the 198 defendants found guilty of obstruction of justice in 2006 served jail time. The average length of jail time on this charge alone was 70 months.
On June 5, 2007, Judge Walton sentenced Libby to 30 months in prison and fined him $250,000, clarifying that Libby would begin his sentence immediately. According to Apuzzo and Yost, the judge also "placed him on two years probation after his prison sentence expires. There is no parole in the federal system, but Libby would be eligible for release after two years." In addition, Judge Walton required Libby to provide "400 hours of community service" during his supervised release. On June 5, 2007, after the announcement of Libby's sentencing, CNN reported that Libby still "plans to appeal the verdict".
That day, in response to the sentencing, Vice President Cheney issued a statement in Libby's defense on The White House website. The statement concluded: "Speaking as friends, we hope that our system will return a final result consistent with what we know of this fine man."
Joseph and Valerie Wilson posted their statement on Libby's sentencing in United States v. Libby on their website, "grateful that justice has been served."
Order to report to prison pending appeal of verdict
After the June 5 sentencing, Walton said he was inclined to jail Libby after the defense laid out its proposed appeal, but the judge told attorneys he was open to changing his mind"; however, on June 14, 2007, Walton ordered Libby to report to prison while his attorneys appealed the conviction. Libby's attorneys asked that the order be stayed, but Walton denied the request and told Libby that he would have 10 days to appeal the ruling. In denying Libby's request, which had questioned Fitzgerald's authority to make the charges in the first place, Walton supported Fitzgerald's authority in the case. He said: "Everyone is accountable, and if you work in the White House, and if it's perceived that somehow (you're) linked at the hip, the American public would have serious questions about the fairness of any investigation of a high-level official conducted by the attorney general." The judge was also responding to an Amicus curiae brief that he had permitted to be filed, which had not apparently convinced him to change his mind, as he subsequently denied Libby bail during his appeal. His "order grant[ing] the [legal academic] scholars permission to file their brief ..." contained a caustic footnote questioning the motivation of the legal academics and suggesting he might not give a great deal of weight to their opinion[:]
... It is an impressive show of public service when twelve prominent and distinguished current and former law professors are able to amass their collective wisdom in the course of only several days to provide their legal expertise to the court on behalf of a criminal defendant. The Court trusts that this is a reflection of these eminent academics' willingness in the future to step to the plate and provide like assistance in cases involving any of the numerous litigants, both in this Court and throughout the courts of this nation, who lack the financial means to fully and properly articulate the merits of their legal positions even in instances where failure to do so could result in monetary penalties, incarceration, or worse. The Court will certainly not hesitate to call for such assistance from these luminaries, as necessary in the interests of justice and equity, whenever similar questions arise in the cases that come before it."
Moreover, when the hearing started, "in the interest of full disclosure," Walton informed the court that he had "received a number of harassing, angry and mean-spirited phone calls and messages. Some wishing bad things on me and my family ... [T]hose types of things will have no impact ... I initially threw them away, but then there were more, some that were more hateful ... [T]hey are being kept."
New York Times reporters Neil Lewis and David Stout estimated subsequently that Libby's prison sentence could begin within "two months", explaining that
Judge Walton's decision means that the defense lawyers will probably ask a federal appeals court to block the sentence, a long-shot move. It also sharpens interest in a question being asked by Mr. Libby's supporters and critics alike: Will President Bush pardon Mr. Libby? ... So far, the president has expressed sympathy for Mr. Libby and his family but has not tipped his hand on the pardon issue. ... If the president does not pardon him, and if an appeals court refuses to second-guess Judge Walton's decision, Mr. Libby will probably be ordered to report to prison in six to eight weeks' time. Federal prison authorities will decide where. "Unless the Court of Appeals overturns my ruling, he will have to report", Judge Walton said.
Failure of Libby's appeal in order to begin prison sentence
On June 20, 2007, Libby appealed Walton's ruling in federal appeals court. The following day, Walton filed a 30-page expanded ruling, in which he explained his decision to deny Libby bail in more detail.
On July 2, 2007, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied Libby's request for a delay and release from his prison sentence, stating that Libby "has not shown that the appeal raises a substantial question under federal law that would merit letting him remain free," increasing "pressure on President George W. Bush to decide soon whether to pardon Libby ... as the former White House official's supporters have urged."
Presidential commutation
Soon after the verdict, calls for Libby to be pardoned by President George W. Bush began to appear in some newspapers; some of them were posted online by the Libby Legal Defense Trust (LLDT). U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid issued a press release about the verdict, urging Bush to pledge not to pardon Libby, and other Democratic politicians followed his lead.
Surveying "the pardon battle" and citing both pro and con publications, The Washington Post online columnist Dan Froomkin concludes that many U.S. newspapers opposed a presidential pardon for Libby. Much of this commentary obscured the fact that the clemency power provided the President with several options short of a full, unconditional pardon. In an op-ed published in The Washington Post, former federal prosecutor and conservative activist William Otis argued the sentence was too stringent and that, instead of pardoning Libby, Bush should commute his sentence.
After the sentencing, Bush stated on camera that he would "not intervene until Libby's legal team has exhausted all of its avenues of appeal ... It wouldn't be appropriate for me to discuss the case until after the legal remedies have run its course." Ultimately, less than a month later, on July 2, 2007, Bush chose Otis's 'third option' — "neither prison nor pardon" — in commuting Libby's prison sentence.
After Libby was denied bail during his appeal process on July 2, 2007, Bush commuted Libby's 30-month federal prison sentence, calling it "excessive", but he did not change the other parts of the sentence and their conditions. That presidential commutation left in place the felony conviction, the $250,000 fine, and the terms of probation. Some have criticized the move, as presidential commutations are rarely issued, but when granted they have generally occurred after the convicted person has already served a substantial portion of his or her sentence: "We can't find any cases, certainly in the last half-century, where the president commuted a sentence before it had even started to be served," said former Justice Department pardon attorney Margaret Colgate Love. Others, notably Cheney himself who argued that Libby was unfairly charged by a politically motivated prosecution, believed that the commutation fell short, as Libby would likely never practice law again.
At the time, Bush explained his "Grant of Executive Clemency" to Libby, in part, as follows:
Mr. Libby was sentenced to thirty months of prison, two years of probation, and a $250,000 fine. In making the sentencing decision, the district court rejected the advice of the probation office, which recommended a lesser sentence and the consideration of factors that could have led to a sentence of home confinement or probation.
Libby paid the required fine of "$250,400, which included a 'special assessment' of costs" that same day.
Bush's explanation was written by Fred F. Fielding, White House Counsel during the last two years of Bush's presidency. According to a Time article published six months after Bush left office, Fielding worded the commutation "in a way that would make it harder for Bush to revisit it in the future ... ; [the] language was intended to send an unmistakable message, internally as well as externally: No one is above the law." The article suggested that there was a fundamental difference between how Bush and Cheney viewed the "War on Terror", with aides close to Bush feeling that Cheney had misled the President and damaged the administration's moral character with the Plame leak.
Libby's lawyer, Theodore V. Wells, Jr. "issued a brief statement saying Mr. Libby and his family 'wished to express their gratitude for the president's decision ... We continue to believe in Mr. Libby's innocence'. ... "
Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, however, took issue with Bush's description of the sentence as 'excessive', saying it was "[i]mposed pursuant to the laws governing sentencings which occur every day throughout this country ... It is fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of justice as equals ... [T]hat principle guided the judge during both the trial and the sentencing," Fitzgerald said.
The day after the commuting of Libby's sentence, James Rowley (Bloomberg News) reported that Bush had not ruled out pardoning Libby in the future and that Bush's press spokesman, Tony Snow, denied any political motivation in the commutation. Quoting Snow, Rowley added: The president is getting pounded on the right because he didn't do a full pardon.' If Bush were 'doing the weather-vane thing' he 'would have done something differently.
Democratic politicians' responses stressed their outrage at what they called a disgraceful abrogation of justice, and, that evening CNN reported that Representative John Conyers, Jr., Democrat of Michigan, announced that there would be a formal Congressional investigation of Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence and other presidential reprieves.
The hearing on "The Use and Misuse of Presidential Clemency Power for Executive Branch Officials" was held by the United States House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Conyers, on July 11, 2007.
Just a few days later, however, Judge Walton questioned "whether ... [Libby] will face two years of probation, as [President Bush] said he would," because the supervised release time is conditioned on Libby's serving the prison sentence, and he "directed the special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, and ... [Libby's] lawyers to file arguments on the point. ... " "If Judge Walton does not impose any supervised release, it could undercut ... [Bush's] argument that ... Libby still faced stiff justice." That issue was resolved on July 10, 2007, clearing the way for Libby to begin serving the rest of his sentence, the supervised release and 400 hours of community service.
In response to Bush's justifications for clemency, liberal commentator Harlan J. Protass noted that in Rita v. United States, the case of a defendant convicted of perjury in front of a grand jury which had been decided two weeks earlier by the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. government had successfully argued that sentences that fall within Federal Sentencing Guidelines are presumed to be "reasonable", regardless of individual circumstances.
Reportedly outraged by Bush's commutation of Libby's prison sentence, on July 2, 2007, Wilson told CNN: "I have nothing to say to Scooter Libby ... I don't owe this administration. They owe my wife and my family an apology for having betrayed her. Scooter Libby is a traitor. Bush's action ... demonstrates that the White House is corrupt from top to bottom." He reiterated this perspective on the commutation in the House Judiciary Committee hearing on July 11, 2007, vehemently protesting that a Republican congressman was engaging in "yet a further smear of my wife's good name and my good name."
According to a USA Today/Gallup Poll conducted from July 6 to July 8, 2007, "most Americans disagree with President George W. Bush's decision to intervene" on Libby's behalf in the case.
Several months after Bush's action, Judge Walton commented publicly on it. He spoke in favor of applying the law equally, stating: "The downside [of the commutation] is there are a lot of people in America who think that justice is determined to a large degree by who you are and that what you have plays a large role in what kind of justice you receive. ... "
Bush took no further action with respect to Libby's conviction or sentence during his presidential term, despite entreaties from conservatives that he should be pardoned. Two days after their term expired, former Vice President Cheney expressed his regret that Bush had not pardoned Libby on his last day in office.
Press coverage of Libby's trial
Blogs played a prominent role in the press coverage of Libby's trial. Scott Shane, in his article "For Liberal Bloggers, Libby Trial Is Fun and Fodder", published in The New York Times on February 15, 2007, quotes Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, who wrote that the trial was "the first federal case for which independent bloggers have been given official credentials along with reporters from the traditional news media." The trial was followed in the mass media and engaged the interest of both professional legal experts and the general public. While awaiting the judge's ruling pertaining to supervised release and the "400 hours of community service that Judge Walton imposed", for example, bloggers discussed the legal issues involved in these non-commuted parts of Libby's sentence and their effects on Libby's future life experiences.
Criticism of investigation
On August 28, 2006, Christopher Hitchens asserted that Richard Armitage was the primary source of the Valerie Plame leak and that Fitzgerald knew this at the beginning of his investigation. This was supported a month later by Armitage himself, who stated that Fitzgerald had instructed him not to go public with this information. Investor's Business Daily questioned Fitzgerald's truthfulness in an editorial, stating "From top to bottom, this has been one of the most disgraceful abuses of prosecutorial power in this country's history ... The Plame case proves [Fitzgerald] can bend the truth with the proficiency of the slickest of pols."
In a September 2008 Wall Street Journal editorial, attorney Alan Dershowitz cited the "questionable investigation[s]" of Scooter Libby as evidence of the problems brought to the criminal justice process by "politically appointed and partisan attorney[s] general". In April 2015, also writing in The Wall Street Journal, Hoover Institution fellow Peter Berkowitz argued that statements by Judith Miller, in her recently published memoir, raised anew contentions that her testimony was inaccurate and that Fitzgerald's conduct as prosecutor was inappropriate.
The Wilsons' civil suit
On July 13, 2006, Joseph and Valerie Wilson filed a civil lawsuit against Libby, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and other unnamed senior White House officials (among whom they later added Richard Armitage) for their role in the public disclosure of Valerie Wilson's classified CIA status. Judge John D. Bates dismissed the Wilsons' lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds on July 19, 2007. The Wilsons appealed Bates's district-court decision the next day. Agreeing with the Bush administration, the Obama Justice Department argued that the Wilsons had no legitimate grounds to sue. Melanie Sloan, one of the Wilsons' attorneys, said: "We are deeply disappointed that the Obama administration has failed to recognize the grievous harm top Bush White House officials inflicted on Joe and Valerie Wilson. The government's position cannot be reconciled with President Obama's oft-stated commitment to once again make government officials accountable for their actions."
On June 21, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal.
Restoration of voting rights, law license, and presidential pardon
Libby's voting rights were restored on November 1, 2012 by then-Governor of Virginia Bob McDonnell. Libby was part of a larger group of individuals who had their voting rights restored by McDonnell, all of whom were non-violent offenders. Three years later, on November 3, 2016, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals granted Libby's petition for reinstatement to the D.C. Bar. On April 13, 2018, President Donald Trump pardoned Libby.
In media portrayals
David Andrews played Scooter Libby in the 2010 film Fair Game, which is about the Plame affair.
Justin Kirk played Libby in the 2018 film Vice.
See also
List of disbarments in the United States
Plame affair criminal investigation
Project for the New American Century
List of people pardoned or granted clemency by the president of the United States
Notes
Citations
References
. United States Department of State, February 2005. Accessed July 8, 2007.
Bromell, Nick. "Scooter Libby and Me". The American Scholar (Phi Beta Kappa) (Winter 2007). Accessed June 8, 2007.
–––. "Scooter's Tragic Innocence: Why My Friend Scooter Libby Is Loyal to Bush, Cheney and an Arrogant Administration Whose Values Are Not His Own". Salon, January 24, 2007. Accessed June 8, 2007. (Premium content; restricted access).
Dickerson, John. "Who Is Scooter Libby? The Secretive Cheney Aide at the Heart of the CIA Leak Case". Slate, October 21, 2005. Accessed June 28, 2007.
Frankel, Max. "The Washington Back Channel". The New York Times, March 25, 2007. Accessed March 23, 2008.
Garfield, Bob. "'Former New York Times Staffer Judith Miller'". On the Media from NPR, National Public Radio, WCNY-FM, November 11, 2005. Accessed March 5, 2007. (Transcript and RealAudio link.)
"I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby". Right Web (International Relations Center). Last updated March 21, 2007. Accessed July 1, 2007.
"Indictment" in United States of America vs. I. Lewis Libby, also known as "Scooter Libby". United States Department of Justice, October 28, 2005. Accessed July 5, 2007.
Libby, Lewis. The Apprentice: A Novel. Rpt. ed. 1996; New York: Griffin, 2005. (10). (13).
Markels, Alex. "Legal Affairs: I. Lewis Libby: The Plight of a Disciplined Risk-Taker". National Public Radio, October 28, 2005. Accessed March 5, 2007.
Merritt, Jeralyn, moderator. "Verdict in the Libby Trial". Transcript. The Washington Post ("Live Online" discussion), March 6, 2007, 2:00–3:00 p.m., ET. Accessed March 6, 2007. (Duration: one hour.) N.B.: "Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions. washingtonpost.com is not responsible for any content posted by third parties."
in "United States of America, v. I. Lewis Libby, Defendant". Criminal No. 05-394 (RBW). United States District Court for the District of Columbia, filed January 10, 2007. Accessed February 10, 2007. ["USA-v-Libby_Rules-of-Order.pdf".]
"President Commutes Libby's Sentence: Calls 30-month Term for Ex-Cheney Aide 'excessive'". Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, July 3, 2007. Accessed July 4, 2007.
. White House biography from 2004. Accessed February 10, 2007.
Waas, Murray. "Cheney 'Authorized' Libby to Leak Classified Information". National Journal, February 9, 2006. Accessed March 6, 2007.
–––, ed., with Jeff Lomonaco. The United States v. I. Lewis Libby. New York: Union Square Press (imprint of Sterling Publishing), 2007. (10). (13). ("Edited & with reporting by Murray Waas" and with research assistance by Jeff Lomonaco.)
Weisman, Steven. "White House Is Pressing Israelis To Take Initiatives in Peace Talks". The New York Times, April 17, 2003. Accessed March 23, 2008.
Wilson, Joseph C. "Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson's Response to Bush Spokesman Tony Snow's Comments at Today's White House Briefing". Online posting. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), July 3, 2007. Accessed July 4, 2007. Online posting. "Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson's Response ... " and "Read more", Joseph and Valerie Wilson Legal Support Trust (Home page), n.d. Accessed July 8, 2007. (Concerning Bush's commutation of Libby's prison sentence.)
–––. "Statement in Response to Jury's Verdict in U.S. v. I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby" (now outdated URL). Press release. Originally posted online. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), March 6, 2007. Accessed March 6, 2007. Posted as "CREW Statement on Libby Conviction: No Man Is Above the Law." Citizens ^Blogging for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (blog), March 6, 2007. Accessed April 18, 2007. Also posted as "Wilsons' Attorney Statement in Response to Jury's Verdict in U.S. v. I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby". Joseph and Valerie Wilson Legal Support Trust, March 6, 2007, home page. Accessed April 18, 2007.
External links
Background on the Plame Investigation at The Washington Post.
CNN Special Reports: CIA Leak Investigation compiled by CNN Newsroom; incl. interactive timeline in Case History.
"Legal Affairs: Lewis Libby's Complete Grand Jury Testimony". Full audio clip and transcript provided by National Public Radio on npr.org,
"The Lewis Libby Case". Archive of articles concerning Libby broadcast on National Public Radio.
.
United States v. I. Lewis Libby. Photo gallery with news captions at The Washington Post.
Membership at the Council on Foreign Relations
1950 births
Jewish American attorneys
Assistants to the President of the United States
Chiefs of Staff to the Vice President of the United States
Columbia Law School alumni
Columbia University alumni
Living people
Members of the Council on Foreign Relations
Pennsylvania Democrats
Pennsylvania Republicans
People associated with the Plame affair
People from McLean, Virginia
Lawyers from New Haven, Connecticut
Lawyers from Philadelphia
Phillips Academy alumni
Reagan administration personnel
Recipients of American presidential clemency
Recipients of American presidential pardons
Yale University alumni
Hudson Institute
Conservatism in the United States | true | [
"Dado (or Dodon) (died 980) was the Count of Pombia from 967. The comitatus of Pombia, in what is now Northern Italy, included Novara at the time.\n\nHe was possibly the son of Adalbert, Count of Pombia, or possibly of Berengar II or his half-brother Anscar of Spoleto. He was the father of Guibert, Count of Biandrate; Arduin (955-1015), Margrave of Ivrea (990-1015) and King of Italy (1002-1014); and Amadeus, Count of Pombia.\n\nHe was married to the granddaughter of Arduin Glaber and was a nephew of King Berengar II.\n\nReferences\n\nSources\nChaume, M. Les origines du duché de Bourgogne.\n\nAnscarids\n980 deaths\n10th-century Italian nobility\nYear of birth unknown",
"Solms-Braunfels was a County with Imperial immediacy in what is today the federal Land of Hesse in Germany.\n\nSolms-Braunfels was a partition of Solms, ruled by the House of Solms, and was raised to a Principality of the Holy Roman Empire in 1742. Solms-Braunfels was partitioned between: itself and Solms-Ottenstein in 1325; itself and Solms-Lich in 1409; and itself, Solms-Greifenstein and Solms-Hungen in 1592. Solms-Braunfels was mediatised to Austria, Hesse-Darmstadt, Prussia and Württemberg in 1806.\n\nRulers\n\nCounts of Solms-Braunfels (1258–1742) \n\n Henry III, Count 1258–1312 (died 1312), elder son of Henry II, Count of Solms\n Bernhard I, Count 1312–49 (died 1349), second son of Henry III\n Otto I, Count 1349–1410 (died 1410)\n Bernhard II, Count 1409–59 (died 1459)\n Otto II, Count 1459–1504 (1426–1504)\n Bernhard III, Count 1504–47 (1468–1547)\n Philipp, Count 1547–81 (1494–1581)\n Konrad, Count 1581–92 (1540–1592)\n Johann Albrecht I, Count 1592–1623 (1563–1623); his third daughter was Amalia, wife of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange \n Konrad Ludwig, Count 1623–35 (1595–1635)\n Johann Albrecht II, Count 1635–48 (1599–1647)\n Heinrich Trajectinus, Count 1648–93 (1639–1693)\n Wilhelm I, Count of Solms-Greifenstein (1570–1635)\n Wilhelm II, Count of Solms-Greifenstein (1609–1676)\n Wilhelm Moritz, Count of Solms-Greifenstein 1676–1720, and of Solms-Braunfels 1693–1720 (1651–1720)\n Friedrich Wilhelm, Count 1720–42 (1696–1761), created Reichsfürst 1742\n\nPrinces of Solms-Braunfels (1742–1806) \n\n Friedrich Wilhelm, 1st Prince 1742–61 (1696–1761)\n Ferdinand Wilhelm Ernst, 2nd Prince 1761–83 (1721–1783)\n Wilhelm Christian Karl, 3rd Prince 1783–1837, mediatized 1806 (1759–1837)\n\nMediatized Princes of Solms-Braunfels \n\n Ferdinand Wilhelm Ernst, 2nd Prince of Solms-Braunfels 1761–83 (1721–1783)\n Wilhelm Christian Karl, 3rd Prince 1783–1837, mediatized 1806 (1759–1837)\n Friedrich Wilhelm Ferdinand, 4th Prince 1837–73 (1797–1873)\n Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Solms-Braunfels (1770–1814)\n Prince Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich of Solms-Braunfels (1801–1868)\n Ernst Friedrich Wilhelm, 5th Prince 1873–80 (1835–1880)\n Georg Friedrich Bernhard, 6th Prince 1880–91 (1836–1891)\n Georg Friedrich Victor, 7th Prince 1891–1970 (1890–1970)\nThe main branch of the princely House of Solms-Braunfels became extinct with Georg Friedrich Victor in 1970. Braunfels Castle was inherited by the last Prince's son-in-law, the Count of Oppersdorff who changed the family name in 1969 to Oppersdorff-Solms-Braunfels. An Austrian side branch continues to exist.\n\nReferences\n\n \nFormer states and territories of Hesse"
] |
[
"Scooter Libby",
"Trial, conviction, and sentencing",
"What was his trial about",
"second charge of making false statements when interviewed by federal agents about his conversations with Time reporter Matthew Cooper.",
"What did he talk to the reporter about",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Libby retained attorney Ted Wells of the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to represent him.",
"How did the trial go",
"Libby pleaded not guilty to all five counts.",
"And what happened during the trial",
"Judge Reggie Walton denied Libby's motion to dismiss,",
"And did he lose the trial",
"the jury convicted him on four of the five counts but acquitted him on count three,",
"What was count 3",
"the second charge of making false statements when interviewed by federal agents about his conversations with Time reporter Matthew Cooper."
] | C_72c2173245744eeea3ae7541ba451877_0 | What was his sentence | 8 | What was Scooter Libby's sentence | Scooter Libby | On March 6, 2007, the jury convicted him on four of the five counts but acquitted him on count three, the second charge of making false statements when interviewed by federal agents about his conversations with Time reporter Matthew Cooper. After being questioned by the FBI in the fall of 2003 and testifying before a Federal grand jury on March 5, 2004, and again on March 24, 2004, Libby pleaded not guilty to all five counts. According to the Associated Press, David Addington, Cheney's legal counsel, described a September 2003 meeting with Libby around the time that a criminal investigation began, saying that Libby had told him, "'I just want to tell you, I didn't do it'... I didn't ask what the 'it' was.'" Libby retained attorney Ted Wells of the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to represent him. Wells had successfully defended former Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy against a 30-count indictment and had also participated in the successful defense of former Secretary of Labor Raymond Donovan. After Judge Reggie Walton denied Libby's motion to dismiss, the press initially reported that Libby would testify at the trial. Libby's criminal trial, United States v. Libby, began on January 16, 2007. A parade of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists testified, including Bob Woodward, Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post and Judith Miller and David E. Sanger of The New York Times. Despite earlier press reports and widespread speculation, neither Libby nor Vice President Cheney testified. The jury began deliberations on February 21, 2007. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby (first name generally given as Irv, Irve or Irving; born August 22, 1950) is an American lawyer, and former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.
From 2001 to 2005, Libby held the offices of Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs, Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States, and Assistant to the President during the administration of President George W. Bush.
In October 2005, Libby resigned from all three government positions after he was indicted on five counts by a federal grand jury concerning the investigation of the leak of the covert identity of Central Intelligence Agency officer Valerie Plame Wilson. He was subsequently convicted of four counts (one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury, and one count of making false statements), making him the highest-ranking White House official convicted in a government scandal since John Poindexter, the national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan in the Iran–Contra affair.
After a failed appeal, President Bush commuted Libby's sentence of 30 months in federal prison, leaving the other parts of his sentence intact. As a consequence of his conviction in United States v. Libby, Libby's license to practice law was suspended until being reinstated in 2016. President Donald Trump fully pardoned Libby on April 13, 2018.
Personal history
Background and education
Libby was born to an affluent Jewish family in New Haven, Connecticut. His father, Irving Lewis Leibovitz, was an investment banker. His father changed his family original surname from Leibovitz to Libby.
Libby graduated from the Eaglebrook School, in Deerfield, Massachusetts, a junior boarding school, in 1965. The family lived in the Washington, D.C. region; Miami, Florida; and Connecticut prior to Libby's graduation from Phillips Academy, in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1968.
He and his elder brother, Hank, a retired tax lawyer, were the first in the family to graduate from college. Libby attended Yale University in New Haven, graduating magna cum laude in 1972. As Yale Daily News reporter Jack Mirkinson observes, "Even though he would eventually become a prominent Republican, Libby's political beginnings would not have pointed in that direction. He served as vice president of the Yale College Democrats and later campaigned for Michael Dukakis when he was running for governor of Massachusetts." According to Mirkinson: "Two particular Yale courses helped guide Libby's future endeavors. One of these was a creative writing course, which started Libby on a 20-year mission to complete a novel ... [later published as] The Apprentice ... [and] a political science class with professor and future Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. In an interview with author James Mann, Libby said Wolfowitz was one of his favorite professors, and their professional relationship did not end with the class." Wolfowitz became a significant mentor in his later professional life.
In 1975, as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, Libby received his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Columbia Law School.
Marriage and family
Libby is married to Harriet Grant, whom he met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the late 1980s, while he was a partner and she an associate in the law firm then known as Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin: When he and Harriet became serious,' Dickstein partner Kenneth Simon wrote, 'she chose to leave the firm rather than maintain the awkward situation of an associate dating a partner. Libby and Grant married in the early 1990s, have a son and a daughter, and live in McLean, Virginia.
Name
Libby has been secretive about his full name. He was prosecuted as I. Lewis Libby, also known as "Scooter Libby". National Public Radio's Day to Day reported that the 1972 Yale Banner (the yearbook of Yale) gave his name as Irve Lewis Libby Jr.; it is unclear if Irve is his given name, or if it is short for Irving, as it was for his father. CBS, the BBC, and The New York Timess John Tierney have all used this spelling of his first name. The Timess Eric Schmitt spelled it Irv, though he cited a phone interview with Libby's brother, and did not clarify if he had asked for a spelling.
At times, including in the Yale Banner, and as documented in a federal directory cited by Ron Kampeas and others, Libby has used the suffix Jr. after his name. At other times, however, as listed in his federal indictment and United States v. Libby, which give his alias as Scooter Libby, there is no Jr. after Libby's name. The Columbia Alumni Association online directory lists him as I. Lewis Libby, with a first name of "I." and birth first name of "Irve".
Libby has also been secretive about the origin of his nickname Scooter. The New York Timess Eric Schmitt, citing the aforementioned interview with Libby's brother, wrote that "His nickname 'Scooter' derives from the day [his] father watched him crawling in his crib and joked, 'He's a Scooter! In a February 2002 interview on Larry King Live, King asked Libby specifically, "Where did 'Scooter' come from?"; Libby replied: "Oh, it goes way back to when I was a kid. Some people ask me if ... [crosstalk] ... as you did earlier, if it's related to Phil Rizzuto [nicknamed 'The Scooter']. I had the range but not the arm."
The Apprentice
Libby's only novel, The Apprentice, about a group of travelers stranded in northern Japan in the winter of 1903, during a smallpox epidemic in the run-up to the Russo-Japanese War, was first published in a hardback edition by Graywolf Press in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1996, and reprinted as a trade paperback by St. Martin's Thomas Dunne Books in 2002. After Libby's indictment in the CIA leak grand jury investigation in 2005, St. Martin's Press reissued The Apprentice as a mass market paperback (Griffin imprint). An allegorical meditation on the legitimacy of concealed knowledge, The Apprentice has been described as "a thriller ... that includes references to bestiality, pedophilia and rape."
Law career
After earning his J.D. from Columbia in 1975, Libby joined the firm of Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis LLP. He was admitted to the bar of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on October 27, 1976, and to the Bar of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals on May 19, 1978.
Libby practiced law at Schnader for six years before joining the U.S. State Department policy planning staff, at the invitation of his former Yale professor, Paul Wolfowitz, in 1981. In 1985, returning to private practice, he joined the firm then known as Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin (now Dickstein Shapiro LLP), becoming a partner in 1986 and working there until 1989, when he left to work in the U.S. Defense Department, again under his former Yale professor Paul Wolfowitz, until January 1993.
In 1993, returning to private legal practice from government, Libby became the managing partner of the Washington, D.C. office of Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, Alexander & Ferdon (formerly Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, and Alexander); in 1995, along with his Mudge Rose colleague, Leonard Garment––who had replaced John Dean as acting Special Counsel to U.S. President Richard Nixon for the last two years of his presidency dominated by Watergate, and who had hired Libby at Mudge Rose twenty years later––and three other lawyers from that firm, Libby joined the Washington, D.C. office of Dechert Price & Rhoads (now part of Dechert LLP), where he was a managing partner, a member of its litigation department, and chaired its Public Policy Practice Group. His work there was well regarded, with President Clinton recognizing Libby as one of three "distinguished Republican lawyers" who worked on the Marc Rich pardon case.
In 2001 Libby left the firm to return to work again in government, as Vice President Cheney's chief of staff.
Fugitive billionaire commodities trader Marc Rich, who, along with his business partner Pincus Green, had been indicted of tax evasion and illegal trading with Iran, and who, with Green, was ultimately pardoned by President Bill Clinton, was a client whom Leonard Garment had hired Libby to help represent around the spring of 1985, after Rich and Green had first engaged Garment. Libby stopped representing Rich in the spring of 2000; early in March 2001, at a "contentious" Congressional hearing to review Clinton's pardons, Libby testified that he thought the prosecution's case against Rich "misconstrued the facts and the law". According to Jackson Hogan, Libby's roommate at Yale University, as quoted in the already-cited U.S. News & World Report article by Walsh, He is intensely partisan ... in that if he is your counsel, he'll embrace your case and try to figure a way out of whatever noose you are ensnared in. According to a House Committee on Government Reform report, however, "The arguments made by Garment, [William Bradford] Reynolds and Libby [in their testimony] focused on the claim that the SDNY was criminalizing what should have been a civil tax case. They did not make, compile, or in any other way lay the groundwork for, or make a case for a Presidential pardon. When former President Clinton stated that they 'reviewed and advocated' 'the case for the pardons,' he suggested that they were somehow involved in arguing that Rich and Green should receive pardons. This was completely untrue". (p. 162)
Bar suspension and disbarment
Before his indictment in United States v. Libby, Libby had been a licensed lawyer, admitted to the bars of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, although his Pennsylvania law license was inactive, and he had already been suspended from the Washington, D.C. Office of Bar Counsel (D.C. Bar) for non-payment of fees. The Chief Judge of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals recommended disbarment upon confirmation of his conviction, which Libby had initially indicated that he would appeal. Having suspended his license to practice law on April 3, 2007, the D.C. Bar "disbarred [him] pursuant to D.C. Code § 11-2503(a)" on legal grounds of "moral turpitude", effective April 11, 2007, and recommended to the D.C. Court of Appeals his disbarment if his conviction were not overturned on appeal. On December 10, 2007, Libby's lawyers announced his decision "to drop his appeal of his conviction in the CIA leak case". On March 20, 2008, following the dropping of his appeal of his conviction, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals disbarred Libby. As a result of the Court's ruling, "Libby will lose his license to practice or appear in court in Washington until at least 2012", and, "As is standard, he will probably lose any bar membership he holds in other states"; that is, in Pennsylvania.
Government public service and political career
In 1981, after working as a lawyer in the Philadelphia firm Schnader LLP, Libby accepted the invitation of his former Yale University political science professor and mentor Paul Wolfowitz to join the U.S. State Department's policy planning staff. From 1982 to 1985, Libby served as director of special projects in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. In 1985 he received the Foreign Affairs Award for Public Service from the United States Department of Defense, and he resigned from government to enter private legal practice at Dickstein, Shapiro, and Morin. In 1989, he went to work at the Pentagon, again under Wolfowitz, as principal deputy under-secretary for strategy and resources at the U.S. Defense Department.
During the George H. W. Bush administration, Libby was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as deputy under secretary of defense for policy, serving from 1992 to 1993. In 1992 he also served as legal adviser for the House Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China. Libby co-authored the draft of the Defense Planning Guidance for the 1994–99 fiscal years (dated February 18, 1992) with Wolfowitz for Dick Cheney, who was then Secretary of Defense. In 1993 Libby received the Distinguished Service Award from the U.S. Defense Department and the Distinguished Public Service Award from the U.S. State Department before resuming private legal practice first at Mudge Rose and then at Dechert.
Libby was part of a network of neo-conservatives known as the "Vulcans"—its other members included Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld. While he was still a managing partner of Dechert Price & Rhoads, he was a signatory to the "Statement of Principles" of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) (a document dated June 3, 1997). He joined Wolfowitz, PNAC co-founders William Kristol, Robert Kagan, and other "Project Participants" in developing the PNAC's September 2000 report entitled, "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New Century".
After becoming Cheney's chief of staff in 2001, Libby was reportedly nicknamed "Germ Boy" at the White House, for insisting on universal smallpox vaccination. He was also nicknamed "Dick Cheney's Dick Cheney" for his close working relationship with the Vice President. Mary Matalin, who worked with Libby as an adviser to Cheney during Bush's first term, said of him "He is to the vice president what the vice president is to the president."
Libby was active in the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee of the Pentagon when it was chaired by Richard Perle during the early years of the George W. Bush administration (2001–2003). At various points in his career, Libby has also held positions with the American Bar Association, been on the advisory board of the RAND Corporation's Center for Russia and Eurasia, and been a legal adviser to the United States House of Representatives, as well as served as a consultant for the defense contractor Northrop Grumman.
Libby was also actively involved in the Bush administration's efforts to negotiate the Israeli–Palestinian "road map" for peace; for example, he participated in a series of meetings with Jewish leaders in early December 2002 and a meeting with two aides of then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in mid-April 2003, culminating in the Red Sea Summit on June 4, 2004. In their highly controversial and widely contested "Working Paper" entitled "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy", University of Chicago political science professor John J. Mearsheimer and academic dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University Stephen M. Walt argue that Libby was among the Bush administration's most "fervently pro-Israel ... officials" (20).
Awards for government service
Distinguished Service Award, United States Department of Defense, 1993
Distinguished Public Service Award, United States Department of the Navy, 1993
Foreign Affairs Award for Public Service, United States Department of State, 1985
Subsequent work experience
From January 2006 until March 7, 2007, the day after his conviction in United States v. Libby, when he resigned, Libby served as a "senior adviser" at the Hudson Institute, to "focus on issues relating to the War on Terror and the future of Asia ... offer research guidance and ... advise the institute in strategic planning." His resignation was announced by the Hudson Institute in a press release dated March 8, 2007. However, he has served as Senior Vice President of the Hudson Institute at least since 2010.
Libby also serves as a member of the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense, a group that encourages and advocates changes to government policy to strengthen national biodefense. In order to address biological threats facing the nation, the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense created a 33 step initiative for the U.S. Government to implement. Headed by former Senator Joe Lieberman and former Governor Tom Ridge, the Study Panel assembled in Washington D.C. for four meetings concerning current biodefense programs. The Study Panel concluded that the federal government had little to no defense mechanisms in case of a biological event. The Study Panel's final report, The National Blueprint for Biodefense, proposes a string of solutions and recommendations for the U.S. Government to take, including items such as giving the Vice President authority over biodefense responsibilities and merging the entire biodefense budget. These solutions represent the Panel's call to action in order to increase awareness and activity for pandemic related issues.
Involvement in the Plame affair
Between 2003 and 2005, intense speculation centered on the possibility that Libby may have been the administration official who had "leaked" classified employment information about Valerie Plame, a covert Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent and the wife of Iraq War critic Joseph C. Wilson, to New York Times reporter Judith Miller and other reporters and later tried to hide his having done so.
In August 2005, as revealed in grand jury testimony audiotapes played during the trial and reported in many news accounts, Libby testified that he met with Judith Miller, a reporter with The New York Times, on July 8, 2003, and discussed Plame with her.
Although Libby signed a "blanket waiver" allowing journalists to discuss their conversations with him pursuant to the CIA leak grand jury investigation, Miller maintained that such a waiver did not serve to allow her to reveal her source to that grand jury; moreover, Miller argued that Libby's general waiver pertaining to all journalists could have been coerced and that she would only testify before that grand jury if given an individual waiver.
After refusing to testify about her July 2003 meeting with Libby, Judith Miller was jailed on July 7, 2005, for contempt of court. Months later, however, her new attorney, Robert Bennett, told her that she already had possessed a written, voluntary waiver from Libby all along. After Miller had served most of her sentence, Libby reiterated that he had indeed given her a "waiver" both "voluntarily and personally." He attached the following letter, which, when released publicly, became the subject of further speculation about Libby's possible motives in sending it:
As noted above, my lawyer confirmed my waiver to other reporters in just the way he did with your lawyer. Why? Because as I am sure will not be news to you, the public report of every other reporter's testimony makes clear that they did not discuss Ms. Plame's name or identity with me, or knew about her before our call.
After agreeing to testify, Miller was released on September 29, 2005, appearing before the grand jury the next day, but the charge against her was rescinded only after she testified again on October 12, 2005. For her second grand jury appearance, Miller produced a notebook from a previously undisclosed meeting with Libby on June 23, 2003, two weeks before Wilson's New York Times op-ed was published. In her account published in the Times on October 16, 2005, based on her notes, Miller reports:
... in an interview with me on June 23 [2003], Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, discussed Mr. Wilson's activities and placed blame for intelligence failures on the CIA. In later conversations with me, on July 8 and July 12 [2003], Mr. Libby, ... [at the time] Mr. Cheney's top aide, played down the importance of Mr. Wilson's mission and questioned his performance ... My notes indicate that well before Mr. Wilson published his critique, Mr. Libby told me that Mr. Wilson's wife may have worked on unconventional weapons at the CIA. ... My notes do not show that Mr. Libby identified Mr. Wilson's wife by name. Nor do they show that he described Valerie Wilson as a covert agent or "operative"...
Her notation on her July 8, 2003 meeting with Libby does contain the name "Valerie Flame ", which she added retrospectively. While Miller reveals publicly that she herself had misidentified the last name of Wilson's wife (aka "Valerie Plame") in her own marginal notes on their interview as "Flame" instead of "Plame", in her grand jury (and later trial testimony), she remained uncertain when, how, and why she arrived at that name and did not attribute it to Libby:
I was not permitted to take notes of what I told the grand jury, and my interview notes on Mr. Libby are sketchy in places. It is also difficult, more than two years later, to parse the meaning and context of phrases, of underlining and of parentheses. On one page of my interview notes, for example, I wrote the name "Valerie Flame." Yet, as I told Mr. Fitzgerald, I simply could not recall where that came from, when I wrote it or why the name was misspelled ... I testified that I did not believe the name came from Mr. Libby, in part because the notation does not appear in the same part of my notebook as the interview notes from him.
A year and a half later, a jury convicted Libby of obstruction of justice and perjury in his grand jury testimony and making false statements to federal investigators about when and how he learned that Plame was a CIA agent.
On April 13, 2018, Libby was pardoned by US President Donald Trump.
Indictment and resignation
On October 28, 2005, as a result of the CIA leak grand jury investigation, Special Counsel Fitzgerald indicted Libby on five counts: one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of making false statements when interviewed by agents of the FBI, and two counts of perjury in his testimony before the grand jury. Pursuant to the grand jury investigation, Libby had told FBI investigators that he first heard of Mrs. Wilson's CIA employment from Cheney, and then later heard it from journalist Tim Russert, and acted as if he did not have that information. The indictment alleges that statements to federal investigators and the grand jury were intentionally false, in that Libby had numerous conversations about Mrs. Wilson's CIA employment, including his conversations with Judith Miller (see above), before speaking to Russert; Russert did not tell Libby about Mrs. Wilson's CIA employment; prior to talking with such reporters, Libby knew with certainty that she was employed by the CIA; and Libby told reporters that she worked for the CIA without making any disclaimer that he was uncertain of that fact. The false statements counts in the Libby indictment charge that he intentionally made those false statements to the FBI; the perjury counts charge that he intentionally lied to the grand jury in repeating those false statements; and the obstruction of justice count charges that Libby intentionally made those false statements in order to mislead the grand jury, thus impeding Fitzgerald's grand jury investigation of the truth about the leaking of Mrs. Wilson's then-classified, covert CIA identity.
Trial, conviction, and sentencing
On March 6, 2007, the jury convicted him on four of the five counts: obstruction of justice, one count of making false statements when interviewed by agents of the FBI, and two counts of perjury. They acquitted him on count three, the second charge of making false statements when interviewed by federal agents about his conversations with Time reporter Matthew Cooper.
Libby retained attorney Ted Wells of the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to represent him. Wells had successfully defended former Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy against a 30-count indictment and had also participated in the successful defense of former Secretary of Labor Raymond Donovan.
After Judge Reggie Walton denied Libby's motion to dismiss, the press initially reported that Libby would testify at the trial. Libby's criminal trial, United States v. Libby, began on January 16, 2007. A parade of Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists testified, including Bob Woodward, Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post and Judith Miller and David E. Sanger of The New York Times. Despite earlier press reports and widespread speculation, neither Libby nor Vice President Cheney testified. The jury began deliberations on February 21, 2007.
Verdict
After deliberating for 10 days, the jury rendered its verdict on March 6, 2007. It convicted Libby on four of the five counts against him: two counts of perjury, one count of obstruction of justice in a grand jury investigation, and one of the two counts of making false statements to federal investigators.
After the verdict, initially, Libby's lawyers announced that he would seek a new trial, and that, if that attempt were to fail, they would appeal Libby's conviction. Libby did not speak to reporters. Libby's defense team eventually decided against seeking a new trial.
Speaking to the media outside the courtroom after the verdict, Fitzgerald said that "The jury worked very long and hard and deliberated at length ... [and] was obviously convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had lied and obstructed justice in a serious manner ... I do not expect to file any further charges." The trial confirmed that the leak came first from then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage; since Fitzgerald did not charge Armitage and did not charge anyone else, Libby's conviction effectively ended the investigation.
In his October 28, 2005, press conference about the grand jury's indictment, Fitzgerald had already explained that Libby's obstruction of justice through perjury and false statements had prevented the grand jury from determining whether the leak violated federal law.
During his media appearance outside the courtroom after the verdict in the Libby case, Fitzgerald fielded questions from the press about others involved in the Plame affair and in the CIA leak grand jury investigation, such as Armitage and Cheney, whom he had already described as under "a cloud", as already addressed in his conduct of the case and in his closing arguments in court.
Sentencing
Given current federal sentencing guidelines, which are not mandatory, the conviction could have resulted in a sentence ranging from no imprisonment to imprisonment of up to 25 years and a fine of $1,000,000; yet, as Sniffen and Apuzzo observe, "federal sentencing guidelines will probably prescribe far less." In practice, according to federal sentencing data, three-fourths of the 198 defendants found guilty of obstruction of justice in 2006 served jail time. The average length of jail time on this charge alone was 70 months.
On June 5, 2007, Judge Walton sentenced Libby to 30 months in prison and fined him $250,000, clarifying that Libby would begin his sentence immediately. According to Apuzzo and Yost, the judge also "placed him on two years probation after his prison sentence expires. There is no parole in the federal system, but Libby would be eligible for release after two years." In addition, Judge Walton required Libby to provide "400 hours of community service" during his supervised release. On June 5, 2007, after the announcement of Libby's sentencing, CNN reported that Libby still "plans to appeal the verdict".
That day, in response to the sentencing, Vice President Cheney issued a statement in Libby's defense on The White House website. The statement concluded: "Speaking as friends, we hope that our system will return a final result consistent with what we know of this fine man."
Joseph and Valerie Wilson posted their statement on Libby's sentencing in United States v. Libby on their website, "grateful that justice has been served."
Order to report to prison pending appeal of verdict
After the June 5 sentencing, Walton said he was inclined to jail Libby after the defense laid out its proposed appeal, but the judge told attorneys he was open to changing his mind"; however, on June 14, 2007, Walton ordered Libby to report to prison while his attorneys appealed the conviction. Libby's attorneys asked that the order be stayed, but Walton denied the request and told Libby that he would have 10 days to appeal the ruling. In denying Libby's request, which had questioned Fitzgerald's authority to make the charges in the first place, Walton supported Fitzgerald's authority in the case. He said: "Everyone is accountable, and if you work in the White House, and if it's perceived that somehow (you're) linked at the hip, the American public would have serious questions about the fairness of any investigation of a high-level official conducted by the attorney general." The judge was also responding to an Amicus curiae brief that he had permitted to be filed, which had not apparently convinced him to change his mind, as he subsequently denied Libby bail during his appeal. His "order grant[ing] the [legal academic] scholars permission to file their brief ..." contained a caustic footnote questioning the motivation of the legal academics and suggesting he might not give a great deal of weight to their opinion[:]
... It is an impressive show of public service when twelve prominent and distinguished current and former law professors are able to amass their collective wisdom in the course of only several days to provide their legal expertise to the court on behalf of a criminal defendant. The Court trusts that this is a reflection of these eminent academics' willingness in the future to step to the plate and provide like assistance in cases involving any of the numerous litigants, both in this Court and throughout the courts of this nation, who lack the financial means to fully and properly articulate the merits of their legal positions even in instances where failure to do so could result in monetary penalties, incarceration, or worse. The Court will certainly not hesitate to call for such assistance from these luminaries, as necessary in the interests of justice and equity, whenever similar questions arise in the cases that come before it."
Moreover, when the hearing started, "in the interest of full disclosure," Walton informed the court that he had "received a number of harassing, angry and mean-spirited phone calls and messages. Some wishing bad things on me and my family ... [T]hose types of things will have no impact ... I initially threw them away, but then there were more, some that were more hateful ... [T]hey are being kept."
New York Times reporters Neil Lewis and David Stout estimated subsequently that Libby's prison sentence could begin within "two months", explaining that
Judge Walton's decision means that the defense lawyers will probably ask a federal appeals court to block the sentence, a long-shot move. It also sharpens interest in a question being asked by Mr. Libby's supporters and critics alike: Will President Bush pardon Mr. Libby? ... So far, the president has expressed sympathy for Mr. Libby and his family but has not tipped his hand on the pardon issue. ... If the president does not pardon him, and if an appeals court refuses to second-guess Judge Walton's decision, Mr. Libby will probably be ordered to report to prison in six to eight weeks' time. Federal prison authorities will decide where. "Unless the Court of Appeals overturns my ruling, he will have to report", Judge Walton said.
Failure of Libby's appeal in order to begin prison sentence
On June 20, 2007, Libby appealed Walton's ruling in federal appeals court. The following day, Walton filed a 30-page expanded ruling, in which he explained his decision to deny Libby bail in more detail.
On July 2, 2007, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied Libby's request for a delay and release from his prison sentence, stating that Libby "has not shown that the appeal raises a substantial question under federal law that would merit letting him remain free," increasing "pressure on President George W. Bush to decide soon whether to pardon Libby ... as the former White House official's supporters have urged."
Presidential commutation
Soon after the verdict, calls for Libby to be pardoned by President George W. Bush began to appear in some newspapers; some of them were posted online by the Libby Legal Defense Trust (LLDT). U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid issued a press release about the verdict, urging Bush to pledge not to pardon Libby, and other Democratic politicians followed his lead.
Surveying "the pardon battle" and citing both pro and con publications, The Washington Post online columnist Dan Froomkin concludes that many U.S. newspapers opposed a presidential pardon for Libby. Much of this commentary obscured the fact that the clemency power provided the President with several options short of a full, unconditional pardon. In an op-ed published in The Washington Post, former federal prosecutor and conservative activist William Otis argued the sentence was too stringent and that, instead of pardoning Libby, Bush should commute his sentence.
After the sentencing, Bush stated on camera that he would "not intervene until Libby's legal team has exhausted all of its avenues of appeal ... It wouldn't be appropriate for me to discuss the case until after the legal remedies have run its course." Ultimately, less than a month later, on July 2, 2007, Bush chose Otis's 'third option' — "neither prison nor pardon" — in commuting Libby's prison sentence.
After Libby was denied bail during his appeal process on July 2, 2007, Bush commuted Libby's 30-month federal prison sentence, calling it "excessive", but he did not change the other parts of the sentence and their conditions. That presidential commutation left in place the felony conviction, the $250,000 fine, and the terms of probation. Some have criticized the move, as presidential commutations are rarely issued, but when granted they have generally occurred after the convicted person has already served a substantial portion of his or her sentence: "We can't find any cases, certainly in the last half-century, where the president commuted a sentence before it had even started to be served," said former Justice Department pardon attorney Margaret Colgate Love. Others, notably Cheney himself who argued that Libby was unfairly charged by a politically motivated prosecution, believed that the commutation fell short, as Libby would likely never practice law again.
At the time, Bush explained his "Grant of Executive Clemency" to Libby, in part, as follows:
Mr. Libby was sentenced to thirty months of prison, two years of probation, and a $250,000 fine. In making the sentencing decision, the district court rejected the advice of the probation office, which recommended a lesser sentence and the consideration of factors that could have led to a sentence of home confinement or probation.
Libby paid the required fine of "$250,400, which included a 'special assessment' of costs" that same day.
Bush's explanation was written by Fred F. Fielding, White House Counsel during the last two years of Bush's presidency. According to a Time article published six months after Bush left office, Fielding worded the commutation "in a way that would make it harder for Bush to revisit it in the future ... ; [the] language was intended to send an unmistakable message, internally as well as externally: No one is above the law." The article suggested that there was a fundamental difference between how Bush and Cheney viewed the "War on Terror", with aides close to Bush feeling that Cheney had misled the President and damaged the administration's moral character with the Plame leak.
Libby's lawyer, Theodore V. Wells, Jr. "issued a brief statement saying Mr. Libby and his family 'wished to express their gratitude for the president's decision ... We continue to believe in Mr. Libby's innocence'. ... "
Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, however, took issue with Bush's description of the sentence as 'excessive', saying it was "[i]mposed pursuant to the laws governing sentencings which occur every day throughout this country ... It is fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of justice as equals ... [T]hat principle guided the judge during both the trial and the sentencing," Fitzgerald said.
The day after the commuting of Libby's sentence, James Rowley (Bloomberg News) reported that Bush had not ruled out pardoning Libby in the future and that Bush's press spokesman, Tony Snow, denied any political motivation in the commutation. Quoting Snow, Rowley added: The president is getting pounded on the right because he didn't do a full pardon.' If Bush were 'doing the weather-vane thing' he 'would have done something differently.
Democratic politicians' responses stressed their outrage at what they called a disgraceful abrogation of justice, and, that evening CNN reported that Representative John Conyers, Jr., Democrat of Michigan, announced that there would be a formal Congressional investigation of Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence and other presidential reprieves.
The hearing on "The Use and Misuse of Presidential Clemency Power for Executive Branch Officials" was held by the United States House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Conyers, on July 11, 2007.
Just a few days later, however, Judge Walton questioned "whether ... [Libby] will face two years of probation, as [President Bush] said he would," because the supervised release time is conditioned on Libby's serving the prison sentence, and he "directed the special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, and ... [Libby's] lawyers to file arguments on the point. ... " "If Judge Walton does not impose any supervised release, it could undercut ... [Bush's] argument that ... Libby still faced stiff justice." That issue was resolved on July 10, 2007, clearing the way for Libby to begin serving the rest of his sentence, the supervised release and 400 hours of community service.
In response to Bush's justifications for clemency, liberal commentator Harlan J. Protass noted that in Rita v. United States, the case of a defendant convicted of perjury in front of a grand jury which had been decided two weeks earlier by the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. government had successfully argued that sentences that fall within Federal Sentencing Guidelines are presumed to be "reasonable", regardless of individual circumstances.
Reportedly outraged by Bush's commutation of Libby's prison sentence, on July 2, 2007, Wilson told CNN: "I have nothing to say to Scooter Libby ... I don't owe this administration. They owe my wife and my family an apology for having betrayed her. Scooter Libby is a traitor. Bush's action ... demonstrates that the White House is corrupt from top to bottom." He reiterated this perspective on the commutation in the House Judiciary Committee hearing on July 11, 2007, vehemently protesting that a Republican congressman was engaging in "yet a further smear of my wife's good name and my good name."
According to a USA Today/Gallup Poll conducted from July 6 to July 8, 2007, "most Americans disagree with President George W. Bush's decision to intervene" on Libby's behalf in the case.
Several months after Bush's action, Judge Walton commented publicly on it. He spoke in favor of applying the law equally, stating: "The downside [of the commutation] is there are a lot of people in America who think that justice is determined to a large degree by who you are and that what you have plays a large role in what kind of justice you receive. ... "
Bush took no further action with respect to Libby's conviction or sentence during his presidential term, despite entreaties from conservatives that he should be pardoned. Two days after their term expired, former Vice President Cheney expressed his regret that Bush had not pardoned Libby on his last day in office.
Press coverage of Libby's trial
Blogs played a prominent role in the press coverage of Libby's trial. Scott Shane, in his article "For Liberal Bloggers, Libby Trial Is Fun and Fodder", published in The New York Times on February 15, 2007, quotes Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, who wrote that the trial was "the first federal case for which independent bloggers have been given official credentials along with reporters from the traditional news media." The trial was followed in the mass media and engaged the interest of both professional legal experts and the general public. While awaiting the judge's ruling pertaining to supervised release and the "400 hours of community service that Judge Walton imposed", for example, bloggers discussed the legal issues involved in these non-commuted parts of Libby's sentence and their effects on Libby's future life experiences.
Criticism of investigation
On August 28, 2006, Christopher Hitchens asserted that Richard Armitage was the primary source of the Valerie Plame leak and that Fitzgerald knew this at the beginning of his investigation. This was supported a month later by Armitage himself, who stated that Fitzgerald had instructed him not to go public with this information. Investor's Business Daily questioned Fitzgerald's truthfulness in an editorial, stating "From top to bottom, this has been one of the most disgraceful abuses of prosecutorial power in this country's history ... The Plame case proves [Fitzgerald] can bend the truth with the proficiency of the slickest of pols."
In a September 2008 Wall Street Journal editorial, attorney Alan Dershowitz cited the "questionable investigation[s]" of Scooter Libby as evidence of the problems brought to the criminal justice process by "politically appointed and partisan attorney[s] general". In April 2015, also writing in The Wall Street Journal, Hoover Institution fellow Peter Berkowitz argued that statements by Judith Miller, in her recently published memoir, raised anew contentions that her testimony was inaccurate and that Fitzgerald's conduct as prosecutor was inappropriate.
The Wilsons' civil suit
On July 13, 2006, Joseph and Valerie Wilson filed a civil lawsuit against Libby, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and other unnamed senior White House officials (among whom they later added Richard Armitage) for their role in the public disclosure of Valerie Wilson's classified CIA status. Judge John D. Bates dismissed the Wilsons' lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds on July 19, 2007. The Wilsons appealed Bates's district-court decision the next day. Agreeing with the Bush administration, the Obama Justice Department argued that the Wilsons had no legitimate grounds to sue. Melanie Sloan, one of the Wilsons' attorneys, said: "We are deeply disappointed that the Obama administration has failed to recognize the grievous harm top Bush White House officials inflicted on Joe and Valerie Wilson. The government's position cannot be reconciled with President Obama's oft-stated commitment to once again make government officials accountable for their actions."
On June 21, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal.
Restoration of voting rights, law license, and presidential pardon
Libby's voting rights were restored on November 1, 2012 by then-Governor of Virginia Bob McDonnell. Libby was part of a larger group of individuals who had their voting rights restored by McDonnell, all of whom were non-violent offenders. Three years later, on November 3, 2016, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals granted Libby's petition for reinstatement to the D.C. Bar. On April 13, 2018, President Donald Trump pardoned Libby.
In media portrayals
David Andrews played Scooter Libby in the 2010 film Fair Game, which is about the Plame affair.
Justin Kirk played Libby in the 2018 film Vice.
See also
List of disbarments in the United States
Plame affair criminal investigation
Project for the New American Century
List of people pardoned or granted clemency by the president of the United States
Notes
Citations
References
. United States Department of State, February 2005. Accessed July 8, 2007.
Bromell, Nick. "Scooter Libby and Me". The American Scholar (Phi Beta Kappa) (Winter 2007). Accessed June 8, 2007.
–––. "Scooter's Tragic Innocence: Why My Friend Scooter Libby Is Loyal to Bush, Cheney and an Arrogant Administration Whose Values Are Not His Own". Salon, January 24, 2007. Accessed June 8, 2007. (Premium content; restricted access).
Dickerson, John. "Who Is Scooter Libby? The Secretive Cheney Aide at the Heart of the CIA Leak Case". Slate, October 21, 2005. Accessed June 28, 2007.
Frankel, Max. "The Washington Back Channel". The New York Times, March 25, 2007. Accessed March 23, 2008.
Garfield, Bob. "'Former New York Times Staffer Judith Miller'". On the Media from NPR, National Public Radio, WCNY-FM, November 11, 2005. Accessed March 5, 2007. (Transcript and RealAudio link.)
"I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby". Right Web (International Relations Center). Last updated March 21, 2007. Accessed July 1, 2007.
"Indictment" in United States of America vs. I. Lewis Libby, also known as "Scooter Libby". United States Department of Justice, October 28, 2005. Accessed July 5, 2007.
Libby, Lewis. The Apprentice: A Novel. Rpt. ed. 1996; New York: Griffin, 2005. (10). (13).
Markels, Alex. "Legal Affairs: I. Lewis Libby: The Plight of a Disciplined Risk-Taker". National Public Radio, October 28, 2005. Accessed March 5, 2007.
Merritt, Jeralyn, moderator. "Verdict in the Libby Trial". Transcript. The Washington Post ("Live Online" discussion), March 6, 2007, 2:00–3:00 p.m., ET. Accessed March 6, 2007. (Duration: one hour.) N.B.: "Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions. washingtonpost.com is not responsible for any content posted by third parties."
in "United States of America, v. I. Lewis Libby, Defendant". Criminal No. 05-394 (RBW). United States District Court for the District of Columbia, filed January 10, 2007. Accessed February 10, 2007. ["USA-v-Libby_Rules-of-Order.pdf".]
"President Commutes Libby's Sentence: Calls 30-month Term for Ex-Cheney Aide 'excessive'". Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, July 3, 2007. Accessed July 4, 2007.
. White House biography from 2004. Accessed February 10, 2007.
Waas, Murray. "Cheney 'Authorized' Libby to Leak Classified Information". National Journal, February 9, 2006. Accessed March 6, 2007.
–––, ed., with Jeff Lomonaco. The United States v. I. Lewis Libby. New York: Union Square Press (imprint of Sterling Publishing), 2007. (10). (13). ("Edited & with reporting by Murray Waas" and with research assistance by Jeff Lomonaco.)
Weisman, Steven. "White House Is Pressing Israelis To Take Initiatives in Peace Talks". The New York Times, April 17, 2003. Accessed March 23, 2008.
Wilson, Joseph C. "Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson's Response to Bush Spokesman Tony Snow's Comments at Today's White House Briefing". Online posting. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), July 3, 2007. Accessed July 4, 2007. Online posting. "Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson's Response ... " and "Read more", Joseph and Valerie Wilson Legal Support Trust (Home page), n.d. Accessed July 8, 2007. (Concerning Bush's commutation of Libby's prison sentence.)
–––. "Statement in Response to Jury's Verdict in U.S. v. I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby" (now outdated URL). Press release. Originally posted online. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), March 6, 2007. Accessed March 6, 2007. Posted as "CREW Statement on Libby Conviction: No Man Is Above the Law." Citizens ^Blogging for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (blog), March 6, 2007. Accessed April 18, 2007. Also posted as "Wilsons' Attorney Statement in Response to Jury's Verdict in U.S. v. I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby". Joseph and Valerie Wilson Legal Support Trust, March 6, 2007, home page. Accessed April 18, 2007.
External links
Background on the Plame Investigation at The Washington Post.
CNN Special Reports: CIA Leak Investigation compiled by CNN Newsroom; incl. interactive timeline in Case History.
"Legal Affairs: Lewis Libby's Complete Grand Jury Testimony". Full audio clip and transcript provided by National Public Radio on npr.org,
"The Lewis Libby Case". Archive of articles concerning Libby broadcast on National Public Radio.
.
United States v. I. Lewis Libby. Photo gallery with news captions at The Washington Post.
Membership at the Council on Foreign Relations
1950 births
Jewish American attorneys
Assistants to the President of the United States
Chiefs of Staff to the Vice President of the United States
Columbia Law School alumni
Columbia University alumni
Living people
Members of the Council on Foreign Relations
Pennsylvania Democrats
Pennsylvania Republicans
People associated with the Plame affair
People from McLean, Virginia
Lawyers from New Haven, Connecticut
Lawyers from Philadelphia
Phillips Academy alumni
Reagan administration personnel
Recipients of American presidential clemency
Recipients of American presidential pardons
Yale University alumni
Hudson Institute
Conservatism in the United States | false | [
"Word guessing refers to a method of reading where a beginner reader doesn't know what a word is in a sentence, so he/she guesses what the word is and reads the rest of the sentence to confirm their guess, e.g. The fox jumped over the dog. If you didn't know the word \"jumped\" then you might read it as: \"joo-mp-ed\" then you would read the rest of the sentence and realise that it was actually \"jumped\".\n\nReferences\n\nReading (process)",
"Noura Hussein Hammad () is a Sudanese woman who was sentenced to death by hanging on 10 May 2018 for killing her husband after he raped her. Hussein's legal team was given two weeks to appeal the sentence. In June 2018, Sudan commuted her sentence to five years in prison and a restitution payment of 337,000 Sudanese pounds (US $18,700).\n\nShe was forced into marriage at age 16; the marriage was arranged when she was 15. The defendant claimed the rape occurred while she was restrained by her husband's family members immediately after her marriage. The husband's family declined opportunities to pardon Hussein or accept financial compensation in lieu of her execution. The case caused worldwide outrage.\n\nProtests against her sentence \nMore than a million people, as of 24 May 2018, signed a petition \"Justice for Noura\" against her execution. Amnesty International issued a statement, according to which Noura is a victim and the sentence \"an intolerable act of cruelty\". The death penalty highlights the failure of the Sudanese authorities to tackle child marriage, forced marriage and marital rape, AI said. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Women, the United Nations Population Fund and the UN Office of the Special Adviser on Africa have all called for clemency while Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres voiced his opposition to the sentence through a spokesman. More recently, the court in Sudan overturned Noura's death sentence, instead subjecting her to a 5 year prison sentence and a fine.\n\nIn Literature:\nThis issue was written about by Emtithal Mahmoud in her chapter 'Sharia state (of mind)' in the book 'Feminists don't wear pink and other lies' by Scarlett Curtis. She described in a poem that what Hussein did was \"an act of bravery of self-defence of desperation\".\n\nReferences\n\nSudanese women\nLiving people\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nWomen sentenced to death\nForced marriage\nMarital rape\nViolence against women in Africa\nVictims of human rights abuses\nHuman rights abuses in Sudan\nSudanese prisoners sentenced to death"
] |
[
"Corazon Aquino",
"Constitutional and political reforms"
] | C_f8034af6cb1943cdaf0ba462a242c299_1 | What constitutional reforms did Aquino carry out? | 1 | What constitutional reforms did Aquino carry out? | Corazon Aquino | Immediately after assuming the presidency, President Aquino issued Proclamation No. 3, which established a revolutionary government. She abolished the 1973 Constitution that was in force during Martial Law, and by decree issued the provisional 1986 Freedom Constitution pending the ratification of a more formal, comprehensive charter. This allowed her to exercise both executive and legislative powers until the ratification of the 1987 Constitution and the restoration of Congress in 1987. Aquino promulgated two landmark legal codes, namely, the Family Code of 1987, which reformed the civil law on family relations, and the Administrative Code of 1987, which reorganized the structure of the executive branch of government. Another landmark law that was enacted during her tenure was the 1991 Local Government Code, which devolved national government powers to local government units (LGUs). The new Code enhanced the power of LGUs to enact local taxation measures and assured them of a share in the national revenue. Aquino closed down the Marcos-dominated Batasang Pambansa to prevent the new Marcos loyalist opposition from undermining her democratic reforms and reorganized the membership of the Supreme Court to restore its independence. In May 1986, the reorganized Supreme Court declared the Aquino government as "not merely a de facto government but in fact and law a de jure government", whose legitimacy had been affirmed by the community of nations. This Supreme Court decision affirmed the status of Aquino as the rightful leader of the Philippines. To fast-track the restoration of a full constitutional government and the writing of a new charter, she appointed 48 members of the 1986 Constitutional Commission ("Con-Com"), led by retired activist Supreme Court Associate Justice Cecilia Munoz-Palma. The Con-Com completed its final draft in October 1986. On February 2, 1987, the new Constitution of the Philippines, which put strong emphasis on civil liberties, human rights and social justice, was overwhelmingly approved by the Filipino people. The ratification of the new Constitution was followed by the election of senators and congress that same year and the holding of local elections in 1988. CANNOTANSWER | Immediately after assuming the presidency, President Aquino issued Proclamation No. 3, which established a revolutionary government. | Maria Corazon "Cory" Sumulong Cojuangco Aquino (, 25 January 1933 – 1 August 2009) was a Filipina politician who served as the 11th president of the Philippines from 1986 to 1992. She was the most prominent figure of the 1986 People Power Revolution, which ended the two-decade rule of President Ferdinand Marcos and led to the establishment of the current democratic Fifth Philippine Republic.
Corazon Aquino was married to Senator Benigno Aquino Jr., who was one of the most prominent critics of President Marcos. After the assassination of her husband on 21 August 1983, she emerged as leader of the opposition against the president. In late 1985, Marcos called for a snap election, and Aquino ran for president with former Senator Salvador Laurel as her running mate for vice president. After the election held on 7 February 1986, the Batasang Pambansa proclaimed Marcos and his running mate Arturo Tolentino as the winners, which prompted allegations of electoral fraud and Aquino's call for massive civil disobedience actions. Subsequently, the People Power Revolution, a non-violent mass demonstration movement, took place from 22 February to 25 February. The People Power Revolution, along with defections from the Armed Forces of the Philippines and support from the Philippine Catholic Church, successfully ousted Marcos and secured Aquino's accession to the presidency on 25 February 1986. Prior to her election as president, Aquino had not held any elected office. She was the first female president of the Philippines.
As president, Aquino oversaw the drafting of the 1987 Constitution, which limited the powers of the presidency and re-established the bicameral Congress, successfully removing the previous dictatorial government structure. Her economic policies focused on forging good economic standing amongst the international community as well as disestablishing Marcos-era crony capitalist monopolies, emphasizing the free market and responsible economy. Her administration conducted peace talks to resolve the Moro conflict, and the result of these talks was creation of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. Aquino was also criticized for the Mendiola Massacre, which resulted in the shooting deaths of at least 12 peaceful protesters by Philippine state security forces. The Philippines faced various natural calamities in the latter part of Aquino's administration, such as the 1990 Luzon earthquake and Tropical Storm Thelma. Several coup attempts were made against her government. She was succeeded as president by Fidel V. Ramos and returned to civilian life.
Aquino was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 2008 and died on 1 August 2009. Her son Benigno Aquino III served as president of the Philippines from 2010 to 2016. After her passing, monuments were established and public landmarks were named in honor of Corazon Aquino all around the Philippines. She is continually highly regarded by her native country, where she is called the Mother of Democracy.
Early life and education
Aquino was born Maria Corazon Sumulong Cojuangco on 25 January 1933 in Paniqui, Tarlac. Her father was José Cojuangco, a prominent Tarlac businessman and former congressman, and her mother was Demetria Sumulong, a pharmacist. Both of Aquino's parents were from prominent political families. Aquino's grandfather from her father's side, Melecio Cojuangco, was a member of the historic Malolos Congress, and Aquino's mother belonged to the politically influential Sumulong family of Rizal province, which included Juan Sumulong, who ran against Commonwealth President Manuel L. Quezon in 1941. Aquino was the sixth of eight children, two of whom died in infancy. Her siblings were Pedro, Josephine, Teresita, Jose Jr., and Maria Paz.
Aquino spent her elementary school days at St. Scholastica's College in Manila, where she graduated at the top of her class as valedictorian. She transferred to Assumption Convent to pursue high school studies. After her family moved to the United States, she attended the Assumption-run Ravenhill Academy in Philadelphia. She then transferred to Notre Dame Convent School in New York City, where she graduated from in 1949. During her high school years in the United States, Aquino volunteered for the campaign of U.S. Republican presidential candidate Thomas Dewey against Democratic incumbent U.S. President Harry S. Truman during the 1948 United States presidential election. After graduating from high school, she pursued her college education at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in New York, graduating in 1953 with a major in French and minor in mathematics.
After graduating from college, she returned to the Philippines and studied law at Far Eastern University in 1953. While attending, she met Benigno "Ninoy" S. Aquino Jr., who was the son of the late Speaker Benigno S. Aquino Sr. and a grandson of General Servillano Aquino. She discontinued her law education and married Benigno in Our Lady of Sorrows Parish in Pasay on 11 October 1954. The couple raised five children: Maria Elena ("Ballsy"; born 1955), Aurora Corazon ("Pinky"; born 1957), Benigno Simeon III ("Noynoy"; 1960–2021), Victoria Elisa ("Viel"; born 1961) and Kristina Bernadette ("Kris"; born 1971).
Aquino had initially had difficulty adjusting to provincial life when she and her husband moved to Concepcion, Tarlac, in 1955. Aquino found herself bored in Concepcion, and welcomed the opportunity to have dinner with her husband inside the American military facility at nearby Clark Field. Afterwards, the Aquino family moved to a bungalow in suburban Quezon City.
Throughout her life, Aquino was known to be a devout Roman Catholic.
Corazon Aquino was fluent in French, Japanese, Spanish, and English aside from her native Tagalog and Kapampangan.
Wife of Benigno Aquino Jr.
Corazon Aquino's husband Benigno Aquino Jr., a member of the Liberal Party, rose to become the youngest governor in the country in 1961 and then the youngest senator ever elected to the Senate of the Philippines in 1967. For most of her husband's political career, Aquino remained a housewife who raised their children and hosted her spouse's political allies who would visit their Quezon City home. She would decline to join her husband on stage during campaign rallies, instead preferring to be in the back of the audience and listen to him. Unbeknownst to many at the time, Corazon Aquino sold some of her prized inheritance to fund the candidacy of her husband.
As Benigno Aquino Jr. emerged as a leading critic of the government of President Ferdinand Marcos, he became seen as a strong candidate for president to succeed Marcos in the 1973 elections. However, Marcos, who was barred by the 1935 Constitution to seek a third term, declared martial law on 21 September 1972 and later abolished the constitution, thereby allowing him to remain in office. Benigno Aquino Jr. was among the first to be arrested at the onset of martial law, and was later sentenced to death. During her husband's incarceration, Corazon Aquino stopped going to beauty salons or buying new clothes and prohibited her children from attending parties, until a priest advised her and her children to try to live as normal lives as possible.
Despite Corazon's initial opposition, Benigno Aquino Jr. decided to run in the 1978 Batasang Pambansa elections from his prison cell as party leader of the newly created LABAN. Corazon Aquino campaigned on behalf of her husband and delivered a political speech for the first time in her life during this political campaign. In 1980 Benigno Aquino Jr. suffered a heart attack, and Marcos allowed Senator Aquino and his family to leave for exile in the United States upon intervention from U.S. President Jimmy Carter so that Aquino could seek medical treatment. The family settled in Boston, and Corazon Aquino would later recall the next three years as the happiest days of her marriage and family life. On 21 August 1983, Benigno Aquino Jr. ended his stay in the United States and returned without his family to the Philippines, where he was immediately assassinated on a staircase leading to the tarmac of Manila International Airport. The airport is now named Ninoy Aquino International Airport, renamed by the Congress in his honor in 1987. Corazon Aquino returned to the Philippines a few days later and led her husband's funeral procession, in which more than two million people participated.
1986 presidential campaign
Following her husband's assassination in 1983, Corazon Aquino became active in various demonstrations held against the Marcos regime. She began to assume the mantle of leadership left by her husband and became a figurehead of the anti-Marcos political opposition. On 3 November 1985, during an interview with American journalist David Brinkley on This Week with David Brinkley, Marcos suddenly announced snap elections that would be held within three months to dispel doubt against his regime's legitimate authority, an action that surprised the nation. The election was later scheduled to be held on 7 February 1986. A petition was organized to urge Aquino to run for president, headed by former newspaper publisher Joaquin Roces. On 1 December, the petition of 1.2 million signatures was publicly presented to Aquino in an event attended by 15,000 people, and on 3 December, Aquino officially declared her candidacy. United Opposition (UNIDO) party leader Salvador Laurel was chosen as Aquino's running mate as candidate for vice president.
During the campaign, Marcos attacked Corazon Aquino on her husband's previous ties to communists, characterizing the election as a fight "between democracy and communism." Aquino refuted Marcos' charge and stated that she would not appoint a single communist to her cabinet. Marcos also accused Aquino of playing "political football" with the United States in regards to the continued United States military presence in the Philippines at Clark Air Base and Subic Naval Base. Another point of attack for Marcos was Aquino's inexperience in public office. Marcos' campaign was characterized by sexist attacks, such as remarks by Marcos that Aquino was "just a woman" and that a woman's remarks should be limited to the bedroom.
The snap election was held on 7 February 1986, and was marred by massive electoral fraud, violence, intimidation, coercion, and disenfranchisement of voters. On 11 February, while votes were still being tabulated, former Antique Governor and director of Aquino's campaign in Antique Evelio Javier was assassinated. During the tallying of votes conducted by the Commission on Elections (COMELEC), 30 poll computer technicians walked out to contest the alleged election-rigging being done in favor of Marcos. Years later it was claimed that the walkout of computer technicians was led by Linda Kapunan, wife of Lt Col Eduardo Kapunan, a leader of Reform the Armed Forces Movement that plotted to attack the Malacañang Palace and kill Marcos and his family, leading to a partial reevaluation of the walkout event.
On 15 February 1986, the Batasang Pambansa, which was dominated by Marcos' ruling party and its allies, declared President Marcos as the winner of the election. However, NAMFREL's electoral count showed that Corazon Aquino had won. Aquino claimed victory according to NAMFREL's electoral count and called for a rally dubbed "Tagumpay ng Bayan" (People's Victory Rally) the following day to protest the declaration by the Batasang Pambansa. Aquino also called for boycotts against products and services from companies controlled or owned by individuals closely allied with Marcos. The rally was held at the historic Rizal Park in Luneta, Manila and drew a pro-Aquino crowd of around two million people. The dubious election results drew condemnation from both domestic and foreign powers. The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines issued a statement strongly criticizing the conduct of the election, describing the election as violent and fraudulent. The United States Senate likewise condemned the election. Aquino rejected a power-sharing agreement proposed by the American diplomat Philip Habib, who had been sent as an emissary by U.S. President Ronald Reagan to help defuse the tension.
Accession as president
On 22 February 1986, disgruntled and reformist military officers led by Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and General Fidel V. Ramos surprised the nation and the international community by the announcement of their defection from the Marcos government, citing a strong belief that Aquino was the real winner in the contested presidential election. Enrile, Ramos, and the rebel soldiers then set up operations in Camp Aguinaldo, the headquarters of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, and Camp Crame, the headquarters of the Philippine Constabulary, across Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA). Cardinal Sin appealed to the public in a broadcast over Church-run Radyo Veritas, and millions of Filipinos gathered to the part of Epifanio De Los Santos Avenue between the two camps to give their support and prayers to the rebels. At that time, Aquino was meditating in a Carmelite convent in Cebu. Upon learning of the defection, Aquino and Cardinal Sin appeared on Radyo Vertias to rally behind Enrile and Ramos. Aquino then flew back to Manila to prepare for the takeover of the government.
After three days of peaceful mass protests primarily centered at EDSA called the People Power Revolution, Aquino was sworn in as the eleventh president of the Philippines on 25 February 1986. An hour after Aquino's inauguration, Marcos held his own inauguration ceremony at the Malacañang Palace. Later that same day, Ferdinand E. Marcos fled the Philippines to Hawaii.
Presidency
Corazon Aquino's accession to the presidency marked the end of authoritarian rule in the Philippines. Aquino is the first female president of the Philippines and is still the only president of the Philippines to have never held any prior political position. Aquino is regarded as the first female president in Asia.
Transitional government and creation of new constitution
On 25 February 1986, the first day of her administration, Aquino issued Proclamation No. 1, which announced an intention to reorganize the government and called on all officials appointed by Marcos to resign, starting with members of the Supreme Court. On 25 March 1986, President Aquino issued Proclamation No. 3, which announced a transitional government into a democratic system. She abolished the 1973 Constitution that was in force during the martial law era, and by decree issued the provisional 1986 Freedom Constitution, pending the ratification of a more formal and comprehensive charter. This constitutional allowed her to exercise both executive and legislative powers during the period of transitional government.
After the issuance of Proclamation No. 1, all 15 members of the Supreme Court submitted their resignations. Aquino then reorganized the membership of the Supreme Court with the stated purpose of restoring its judicial independence. On 22 May 1986, in the case Lawyers League v. President Aquino, the reorganized Supreme Court declared the Aquino government as "not merely a de facto government but in fact and law a de jure government", and affirmed its legitimacy.
Aquino appointed all 48 members of the 1986 Constitutional Commission ("Con-Com"), led by retired activist and former Supreme Court Associate Justice Cecilia Muñoz-Palma, which was tasked with writing a new constitution. The Commission completed its final draft of the Constitution in October 1986.
On 2 February 1987, the Constitution of the Philippines was ratified by nationwide plebiscite. It remains the constitution of the Philippines to the present day. The Constitution established a bill of rights and a three-branch government consisting of the executive department, the legislative department, and the judicial department. The Constitution restored the bicameral Congress, which in 1973 had been abolished by Marcos and replaced with first the Batasang Bayan and later the Batasang Pambansa. The ratification of the new Constitution was soon followed by the election of senators and the election of House of Representatives members on 11 May 1987, as well as local elections on 18 January 1988.
Legal reforms
After the ratification of the constitution, Aquino promulgated two landmark legal codes, namely, the Family Code of 1987, which reformed the civil law on family relations, and the Administrative Code of 1987, which reorganized the structure of the executive department of government. Another landmark law that was enacted during her tenure was the 1991 Local Government Code, which devolved national government powers to local government units (LGUs). The new Code enhanced the power of LGUs to enact local taxation measures and assured them of a share in the national revenue.
During Aquino's tenure, vital economic laws such as the Built-Operate-Transfer Law, Foreign Investments Act, and the Consumer Protection and Welfare Act were also enacted.
Socio-economic policies
The economy posted a positive growth of 3.4% during Aquino's first year in office, and continued to grow at an overall positive rate throughout her tenure for an average rate of 3.4% from 1986 to 1992. Real GDP growth suffered a 0.4% decrease in 1991 in the aftermath of the 1989 coup attempt by the Reform the Armed Forces Movement, which shook international confidence in the Philippine economy and hindered foreign investment.
Aquino made fighting inflation one of her priorities after the nation suffered from skyrocketing prices during the last years of the Marcos administration. The last six years of the Marcos administration recorded an average annual inflation rate of 20.9%, which peaked in 1984 at 50.3%. From 1986 to 1992, the Philippines recorded an average annual inflation rate of 9.2%. During the Aquino administration, the annual inflation rate peaked at 18.1% in 1991; a stated reason for this increase was panic buying during the Gulf War. Overall, the economy under Aquino had an average growth of 3.8% from 1986 to 1992.
De-monopolization
One of Aquino's first actions as president was to seize Marcos' multi-billion dollar fortune of ill-gotten wealth. On 28 February 1986, four days into her presidency, Aquino formed the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), which was tasked with retrieving Marcos' domestic and international fortune.
After his declaration of martial law in 1972 and his consolidation of authoritarian power, President Ferdinand Marcos issued various government decrees that awarded monopoly or oligopoly power over entire industries to various close associates, in a scheme later regarded as crony capitalism. President Aquino pursued a market liberalization agenda to combat this problem. President Aquino particularly targeted the sugar industry and the coconut industry for de-monopolization.
Debt
Throughout the tenure of President Ferdinand Marcos, government foreign debt had ballooned from less than $3 billion in 1970 to $28 billion by the end of his administration, through privatization of bad government assets and deregulation of many vital industries. The debt had badly tarnished the international credit standing and economic reputation of the country.
President Aquino inherited the debt of the Marcos administration and weighed all options on what to do with the debt, including not paying the debt. Aquino eventually chose to honor all the debts that were previously incurred in order to clear the country's economic reputation. Her decision proved to be unpopular but Aquino defended it, saying that was the most practical move. Beginning in 1986, the Aquino administration paid off $4 billion of the country's outstanding debts to improve its international credit ratings and attract the attention of foreign investors. This move also ensured lower interest rates and longer payment terms for future loans. During the Aquino administration, the Philippines acquired an additional $9 billion debt, increasing the net national debt by $5 billion within six years due to the need to infuse capital and money into the economy. The Aquino administration was able to reduce the Philippines' external debt-to-GDP ratio by 30.1 percent, from 87.9 percent at the start of the administration to 67.8 percent in 1991.
Agrarian reform
President Aquino envisioned agrarian and land reform as the centerpiece of her administration's social legislative agenda. However, her family background and social class as a privileged daughter of a wealthy and landed clan became a lightning rod of criticisms against her land reform agenda.
After the Mendiola Massacre and in response to calls for agrarian reform, President Aquino issued Presidential Proclamation 131 and Executive Order 229 on 22 July 1987, which outlined her land reform program, including sugar lands. In 1988, with the backing of Aquino, the new Congress of the Philippines passed Republic Act No. 6657, more popularly known as the "Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law" (CARP), which paved the way for the redistribution of agricultural lands from landowners to tenant-farmers. Landowners were paid in exchange by the government through just compensation, and were also not allowed to retain more than five hectares of land. The law also allowed corporate landowners to "voluntarily divest a proportion of their capital stock, equity or participation in favor of their workers or other qualified beneficiaries", in lieu of turning over their land to the government for redistribution. Despite the flaws in the law, the Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality in 1989, declaring that the implementation of CARP was "a revolutionary kind of expropriation."
Corazon Aquino herself was subject to a controversy that centered on Hacienda Luisita, a 6,453-hectare estate located in the province of Tarlac which she and her siblings inherited from her father José Cojuangco. Instead of land distribution, Hacienda Luisita reorganized itself into a corporation and distributed stock. As such, ownership of agricultural portions of the hacienda was transferred to the corporation, which in turn, gave its shares of stocks to farmers. Critics argued that Aquino bowed to pressure from relatives by allowing stock redistribution in lieu of land redistribution under CARP.
The stock redistribution scheme was revoked in 2006, when the Department of Agrarian Reform ordered the mandatory redistribution of land to tenant-farmers of Hacienda Luisita. The Department of Agrarian Reform had looked into its revocation since 2004, when violence erupted in the hacienda over the retrenchment of workers, leaving seven people dead.
Coup attempts on Aquino government
From 1986 to 1990 numerous coup attempts were enacted on the Aquino administration and the new Philippine government. Many of these attempts were conducted by the Reform the Armed Forces Movement, who attempted to establish a military government, while other attempts were conducted by loyalists to former President Marcos.
Mendiola massacre and cabinet infighting
On 22 January 1987, during the era of transition government and shortly before the nationwide plebiscite to ratify the Constitution, 12 citizens were killed and 51 were injured in the Mendiola Massacre. The incident was initially a peaceful protest by agrarian workers and farmers who had marched to the historic Mendiola Street near the Malacañan Palace to demand genuine land reform. The massacre occurred when Marines fired at farmers who tried to go beyond the designated demarcation line set by the police. The massacre resulted in several resignations from Aquino's cabinet, including Jose Diokno, head of the Presidential Committee on Human Rights, chairman of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), and chairman of the government panel in charge of negotiations with rebel forces resigned from his government posts. His daughter Maris said, "It was the only time we saw him near tears."
In September 1987, Vice President Doy Laurel resigned as secretary of foreign affairs. In his resignation letter to Aquino, Laurel stated, "...the past years of Marcos are now beginning to look no worse than your first two years in office. And the reported controversies and scandals involving your closest relatives have become the object of our people's outrage. From 16,500 NPA regular when Marcos fell, the communists now claim an armed strength of 25,200. From city to countryside, anarchy has spread. There is anarchy within the government, anarchy within the ruling coalesced parties and anarchy in the streets."
Finance Minister Jaime Ongpin, who had successfully advocated for paying external debt incurred during Marcos' administration, was dismissed by Aquino in September 1987 and later died in an apparent suicide in December 1987. His widow stated that he had been depressed due to infighting in Aquino's cabinet and lack of significant change since the People Power Revolution.
Soon after the Mendiola Massacre, the Aquino administration and Congress worked to pass significant agrarian reform, which culminated in the passage of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARP).
Peace talks with Moro and communist insurgencies
President Aquino conducted peace talks with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), an armed Moro Muslim insurgency group that sought to establish an independent Moro state within Mindanao. Aquino met with MNLF leader Nur Misuari and various MNLF groups in Sulu. In 1989, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) was created under Republic Act No. 6734 or the ARMM Organic Act, which established the Moro majority areas in the Mindanao island group as an autonomous region with its own government. The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao lasted from 1989 to 2019, after which it was succeeded by the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
The establishment of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao was opposed by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a militant splinter group from the MNLF that sought to secede from the Philippines to establish an Islamic state in Mindanao. Peace talks with MILF began in 1997 under President Fidel Ramos and violent insurgency officially continued until 2014, when peace accords were formally signed between MILF and the administration of President Benigno Aquino III that would lead to the creation of the BARMM.
The establishment of the ARMM also led to the establishment of Abu Sayyaf, a terrorist group founded in 1989 by Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani and composed of radical former members of the MNLF. Terrorist attacks by Abu Sayyaf would start in 1995 and continue to the present day, including the 2004 bombing of the MV Superferry 14 that resulted in the deaths of 116 people.
Shortly after becoming president, Aquino ordered the release of hundreds of political prisoners imprisoned during the Marcos era, including communist insurgents belonging to the Communist Party of the Philippines. These releases included leaders such as Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison and New People's Army founder Bernabe Buscayno. Preliminary peace talks with the CPP ended after the Mendiola Massacre on 22 January 1987, during which at least 12 farmers were killed at a protest rally.
Closing of United States military bases
Soon after Aquino took office, several Philippine senators declared that the presence of U.S. military forces in the Philippines was an affront to national sovereignty. The senators called for the United States military to vacate U.S. Naval Base Subic Bay and Clark Air Base, and Aquino opposed their demand. The United States objected by stating that they had leased the property and that the leases were still in effect. The United States stated that the facilities at Subic Bay were unequaled anywhere in Southeast Asia and a U.S. pullout could make all of that region of the world vulnerable to an incursion by the Soviet Union or by a resurgent Japan. Another issue with the demand was that thousands of Filipinos worked at these military facilities and they would lose their jobs if the U.S. military moved out. Aquino opposed the Senate's demand and believed that the bases should have remained. Aquino organized a protest against the pullout, which only gathered between 100,000 and 150,000 supporters, far short of the 500,000 to 1 million that had been originally expected.
The matter was still being debated when Mount Pinatubo erupted in June 1991, covering the entire area with volcanic ash. Despite attempts to continue the Subic Base, Aquino finally conceded. In December 1991, the government served notice that the U.S. had to close the base by the end of 1992.
Natural disasters and calamities
On 20 December 1987, the MV Doña Paz sank after a collision with the oil tanker MV Vector. The final death toll exceeded 4,300 people, and the sinking has been called the deadliest peacetime maritime disaster of the 20th century. In the aftermath, Aquino addressed the incident as "a national tragedy of harrowing proportions."
The 1990 Luzon earthquake was a 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck the island of Luzon. It left an estimate of 1,621 people dead and massive property damage.
In 1991, a volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo, then thought to be dormant, killed around 800 people and caused widespread long-term devastation of agricultural lands in Central Luzon. Around 20,000 residents had to be evacuated and around 10,000 people were left homeless by the event. It was the second largest terrestrial eruption of the 20th century.
On 1 November 1991 Tropical Storm Thelma (also known as Typhoon Uring) caused massive flooding in Ormoc City, leaving around 5,000 dead in what was then considered to be the deadliest typhoon in Philippine history. On 8 November, Aquino declared all of Leyte a disaster area.
Electrical power grid inadequacy
During Aquino's presidency, electric blackouts became common in Manila. The city experienced 7–12 hours-long blackouts, which severely affected its businesses. By the departure of Aquino in June 1992, businesses in Manila and nearby provinces had lost nearly $800 million since the preceding March.
Corazon Aquino's decision to deactivate the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP), which was built during the Marcos administration, contributed to further electricity crises in the 1990s, as the 620 megawatts capacity of the plant would have been enough to cover the shortfall at that time. Critics of the BNPP had stated that the power plant was unsafe, and cited the millions of dollars in bribes paid to President Marcos to allow its construction. The administration had failed to provide for an adequate replacement for the plant before her term had completed, and President Corazon Aquino ended her term in 1992 with the country reeling under a severe power shortage crisis.
Influence in 1992 presidential election
The 1987 Constitution limited the president to a single six-year term with no possibility of re-election. As the end of her presidency drew near, close advisers and friends told Aquino that since she was not inaugurated under the 1987 Constitution, she was still eligible to seek the presidency again in the upcoming 1992 elections, the first presidential elections held under normal and peaceful circumstances since 1965. However, Aquino firmly declined the requests for her to seek reelection, citing her strong belief that the presidency was not a lifetime position.
Initially, she named Ramon V. Mitra, Speaker of the Philippine House of Representatives who had been a friend of her husband, as her preferred candidate for the 1992 presidential elections. However, she later backtracked and instead supported the candidacy of General Fidel V. Ramos, who was her defense secretary and a key figure in the EDSA Revolution. Ramos had consistently stood by her government during the various coup attempts that were launched against her administration. Her sudden change of mind and withdrawal of support from Mitra drew criticism from her supporters in the liberal and social democratic sectors. Her decision also drew criticism from the Catholic Church, which questioned her support of Ramos due to his being a Protestant. General Ramos won the 1992 elections with 23.58% of the total votes in a wide-open campaign.
On 30 June 1992, Corazon Aquino formally and peacefully handed over power to Fidel Ramos. On that day, Fidel V. Ramos was inaugurated as the twelfth president of the Philippines. After the inauguration, Aquino left the ceremony in a simple white Toyota Crown she had purchased, rather than the lavish government-issued Mercedes Benz in which she and Ramos had ridden on the way to the ceremonies, to make the point that she was once again an ordinary citizen.
Post-presidency
Domestic
During Aquino's retirement and stay as a private citizen, she remained active in the Philippine political scene. Aquino would voice her dissent to government actions and policies that she deemed threats to the democratic foundations of the country.
In 1997, Aquino, together with Cardinal Jaime Sin, led a rally opposing President Fidel Ramos' attempt to extend his term through his proposal to amend the 1987 Constitution's restriction on presidential term limits. Ramos' proposed charter change would fail, leaving term limits and the presidential system in place.
During the 1998 Philippine presidential election, Aquino endorsed the candidacy of former police general and Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim from the Liberal Party for president. Lim would lose to Vice President Joseph Estrada, who won by a landslide. In 1999, Aquino and Cardinal Jaime Sin again worked together to oppose a second plan to amend the Constitution to remove term limits, this time under President Estrada. President Estrada stated that his plan to amend the Constitution was intended to lift provisions that 'restrict' economic activities and investments, and Estrada denied that it was an attempt to extend his stay in office. Estrada's proposed charter change would also fail.
In 2000, Aquino joined the mounting calls for Estrada to resign from office, amid a series of corruption scandals, including strong allegations of bribery charges and gambling kickbacks. Estrada was impeached by the House of Representatives in November 2000 but acquitted by the Senate in December, which in January 2001 led to the Second EDSA Revolution, which ousted Estrada. During the Second EDSA Revolution, Aquino enthusiastically supported the ascendancy of Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to the position of president. In the subsequent trial of Joseph Estrada, Estrada was acquitted of perjury but found guilty of plunder and sentenced to reclusion perpetua with the accessory penalties of perpetual disqualification from public office and forfeiture of ill-gotten wealth on 12 September 2007. Estrada was pardoned by President Macapagal-Arroyo on 26 October 2007.
In 2005, after a series of revelations and exposes that implicated President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in rigging the 2004 presidential elections, Aquino called on Arroyo to resign in order to prevent bloodshed, violence and further political deterioration. Aquino once again led massive street-level demonstrations, this time demanding the resignation of President Arroyo.
During the 2007 senatorial elections, Aquino actively campaigned for her only son, Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III, who went on to win his race. Less than a year after Corazon Aquino's death in 2009, Benigno Aquino III won the 2010 Philippine presidential election and served as the 15th president of the Philippines from 2010 to 2016.
In December 2008, Corazon Aquino publicly expressed regret for her participation in the 2001 Second EDSA Revolution, which installed Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as president. She apologized to former President Joseph Estrada for the role she played in his ouster in 2001. Aquino's apology drew criticisms from numerous politicians. In June 2009, two months before her death, Aquino issued a public statement in which she strongly denounced and condemned the Arroyo administration's plans of amending the 1987 Constitution, calling it a "shameless abuse of power."
International
Shortly after leaving the presidency, Aquino traveled abroad, giving speeches and lectures on issues of democracy, development, human rights, and women empowerment. At the 1994 meeting of the UNESCO World Commission on Culture and Development in Manila, Aquino delivered a speech urging the unconditional release of Burmese democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi from detention. Until her death in 2009, Aquino would continue to petition for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Aquino was a member of the Council of Women World Leaders, an international organization of former and current female heads of state, from the group's inception in 1996 to her death.
In 1997, Aquino attended the wake and funeral of Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta, whom she met during the latter's visit in Manila in 1989. In 2005, Aquino joined the international community in mourning the death of Pope John Paul II.
In 2002, Aquino became the first woman named to the Board of Governors at the Asian Institute of Management, a leading graduate business school and think tank in the Asia Pacific region. She served on the Board until 2006.
Charitable and social initiatives
After her term as president, Aquino was involved in several charitable activities and socio-economic initiatives. From 1992 until her death, Aquino was chairperson of the Benigno S. Aquino, Jr. Foundation, which she set up in her husband's honor after his assassination in 1983. Aquino supported the Gawad Kalinga social housing project for the poor and homeless. In 2007, Aquino helped establish the PinoyME Foundation, a non-profit organization that aims to provide microfinancing programs and projects for the poor. Aquino also painted, and would occasionally give away her paintings to friends and family or auction her paintings and donate the proceeds to charity. She never sold her art for her own profit.
Illness and death
On 24 March 2008, Aquino's family announced that the former president had been diagnosed with colorectal cancer. Upon her being earlier informed by her doctors that she had only three months to live, she pursued medical treatment and chemotherapy. A series of healing Masses for Aquino, who was a devout Catholic, were held throughout the country for her recovery. In a public statement during one healing Mass on 13 May 2008, Aquino said that her blood tests indicated that she was responding well to treatment, although her hair and appetite loss were apparent.
By July 2009, Aquino was reported to be suffering from loss of appetite and in very serious condition. At that time she was confined to Makati Medical Center. It was later announced that Aquino and her family had decided to stop chemotherapy and other medical interventions for her.
Aquino died in the Makati Medical Center at 3:18 a.m. on 1 August 2009 due to cardiorespiratory arrest at the age of 76.
Wake and funeral
On the day of Aquino's passing, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo announced a 10-day mourning period for the former president and issued Administrative Order No. 269 detailing the necessary arrangements for a state funeral. Arroyo was on a state visit to the United States at the time of Aquino's passing and returned to the Philippines on 5 August, cutting her visit short to pay her last respects to Aquino. Aquino's children declined Arroyo's offer of a state funeral for their mother.
All churches in the Philippines celebrated requiem masses simultaneously throughout the country and all government offices flew the Philippine flag at half-mast. Hours after her death, Aquino's body lay in repose for public viewing at the La Salle Green Hills campus in Mandaluyong. On 3 August 2009, Aquino's body was transferred from La Salle Greenhills to the Manila Cathedral in Intramuros, during which hundreds of thousands of Filipinos lined the streets to view and escort the former leader's body. On the way to the cathedral, Aquino's funeral cortege passed along Ayala Avenue in Makati, stopping in front of the monument to her husband Ninoy, where throngs of mourners gathered and sang the patriotic protest anthem "Bayan Ko. Aquino's casket was brought inside the cathedral by mid-afternoon that day. Following her death, all Roman Catholic dioceses in the country held Requiem Masses.
On 4 August 2009, Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr. and Imee Marcos, two prominent children of late former President Ferdinand Marcos, paid their last respects to Aquino in spite of the two families' longstanding feud. The Marcos siblings were received by Aquino's daughters María Elena, Aurora Corazon, and Victoria Elisa.
A final Requiem Mass was held on the morning of 5 August 2009, with Archbishop of Manila Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales, Bishop of Balanga Socrates B. Villegas, and other high-ranking clergymen concelebrating. Aquino's daughter Kris spoke on behalf of her family towards the end of the Mass. Aquino's flag-draped casket was escorted from the cathedral to Manila Memorial Park in Parañaque, where she was interred beside her husband in her family mausoleum. Aquino's funeral procession took more than eight hours to reach the burial site, as tens of thousands of civilians lined the route to pay their respects. Philippine Air Force UH-1 helicopters showered the procession with yellow confetti and ships docked at Manila's harbor blared their sirens to salute the late president.
Reaction
Both local and international leaders showed respect for Aquino's achievements in the process of democratization in the Philippines.
Local reaction
Various politicians across the political spectrum expressed their grief and praise for the former Philippine leader. President Arroyo, once an ally of Aquino, remembered the sacrifices she made for the country and called her a "national treasure." Former President Estrada said that the country had lost its mother and guiding voice with her sudden death. He also described Aquino as the "Philippines' most loved woman." Although they were at one time political foes, Aquino and Estrada had reconciled and joined forces in opposing President Arroyo.
Former Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, who had been Aquino's defense minister and later a fierce critic of Aquino, asked the public to pray for her eternal repose. Although former Aquino interior minister and Senate minority floor leader Aquilino Pimentel, Jr. revealed that he had "mixed feelings" about Aquino's death, he also said that the country "shall be forever indebted to Cory for rallying the nation behind the campaign to topple dictatorial rule and restore democracy".
Filipino citizens throughout the country wore either yellow shirts or held masses to pay tribute to Aquino. Yellow ribbons, which were a symbol of support for Aquino after the 1986 election and during the People Power Revolution, were tied along major national roads as a sign of solidarity and support for Aquino and her grieving family. On popular social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, Filipinos posted yellow ribbons on their accounts as tribute. Following her death, Filipino Catholics called on the Church to have Aquino canonized and declared as a saint. Days after her funeral, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) announced that it supported calls to put the former president on the 500-Peso banknote alongside Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino, Jr., her deceased husband. The bill had previously featured a portrait of only Benigno Aquino, Jr. since 1987.
International reaction
Messages of sympathy were sent by various national heads of state and international leaders.
Pope Benedict XVI, in his letter to Archbishop Rosales, recalled Aquino's "courageous commitment to the freedom of the Filipino people, her firm rejection of violence and intolerance" and called her a woman of courage and faith.
U.S. President Barack Obama, through White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, said that "her courage, determination, and moral leadership are an inspiration to us all and exemplify the best in the Filipino nation". U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed sadness over the passing of Aquino, to whom she had sent a personal letter of best wishes for recovery while she was still in hospital in July 2009. Clinton said that Aquino was "admired by the world for her extraordinary courage" in leading the fight against dictatorship.
South African President Jacob Zuma called Aquino "a great leader who set a shining example of peaceful transition to democracy in her country".
Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, through the British Ambassador in Manila, sent a message to the Filipino people which read: "I am saddened to hear of the death of Corazon 'Cory' Aquino the former president of the Republic of the Philippines". She also added, "I send my sincere condolences to her family and to the people of the Philippines. Signed, Elizabeth R".
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev stated in a telegram to President Arroyo that "the name of Corazon Aquino is associated with a period of profound reforms and the democratic transformation of Filipino society". Medvedev also lauded Aquino's sympathy to Russian people and her contribution to the improvement of Russian-Filipino relations.
Timor-Leste President José Ramos-Horta and Wan Azizah, wife of Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, came to the Philippines to express their sympathies and attend Aquino's funeral.
Soon after her 2010 release from her two-decade prison sentence, Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar publicly cited Aquino as one of her inspirations. She also expressed her good wishes for Aquino's son, then-incumbent president of the Philippines Benigno S. Aquino III.
Honors
After her peaceful accession to the presidency and the ousting of President Marcos, Aquino was named Time magazine's Woman of the Year in 1986. In August 1999, Aquino was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 20 Most Influential Asians of the 20th century. Time also cited her as one of 65 great Asian Heroes in November 2006.
In 1994, Aquino was cited as one of 100 Women Who Shaped World History in a reference book written by Gail Meyer Rolka.
In 1996, she received the J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding from the Fulbright Association.
In 1998, she was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award in recognition of her role in peaceful revolution to attain democracy.
Since her passing in 2009, the legacy of Corazon Aquino has prompted various namings of public landmarks and creations of memorials. Among these are as follows:
On 1 August 2010, the first anniversary of her death, a 200 ft by 250 ft photo mosaic of Aquino was unveiled near the Quirino Grandstand at the Luneta Park in the presence of her son, President Benigno Aquino III, and her supporters. It was submitted to Guinness World Records to be certified as the largest photo mosaic in the world, and the record was later certified by the World Record Academy (which is not affiliated with Guinness).
On 9 October 2010, Manila Mayor Alfredo S. Lim inaugurated a public market in Baseco, Port Area known as the President Corazon C. Aquino Public Market.
On 16 December 2010, President Benigno Aquino III and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (Central Bank of the Philippines) announced the release of newly designed 500-peso banknotes that feature both Senator Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr. and Corazon Aquino. The previous design featured only Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr. and had been in circulation since 1987.
On 13 February 2013, the Corazon Aquino Democratic Space was launched at the De La Salle University, alongside the formal inauguration of the new Henry Sy, Sr. Hall.
On 28 July 2014, the Republic Act No. 10663, which named a circumferential road in Iloilo City to President Corazon C. Aquino Avenue, was signed into law by President Benigno Aquino III.
In 2015, the new Corazon C. Aquino Hospital in Barangay Biasong, Dipolog City was opened to the public.
On 10 December 2015, the Republic Act No. 10176, which renamed Batasan Hills High School (BHES) into "President Corazon C. Aquino Elementary School" (PCCAES) in Batasan Hills, Quezon City, was signed into law by President Benigno Aquino III.
On 29 June 2018, the Republic Act No. 11045, which renamed the Kay Tikling-Antipolo-Teresa-Morong National Road to Corazon C. Aquino Avenue, was signed into law by President Rodrigo Duterte. Corazon C. Aquino Avenue is a road traversing from Taytay to Morong in Rizal (including the segment of Ortigas Avenue Extension from Taytay to Antipolo).
In popular culture
In 2008, a musical play about Aquino entitled Cory, the Musical was staged at the Meralco Theater. It was written and directed by Nestor Torre Jr. and starred Isay Alvarez as Aquino. The musical featured a libretto of 19 original songs composed by Lourdes Pimentel, wife of Senator Aquilino Pimentel, Jr.
Awards and achievements
Philippines
Foreign Awards
1986 Time Woman of the Year
1986 Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award
1986 United Nations Silver Medal
1986 Canadian International Prize for Freedom
1986 International Democracy Award from the International Association of Political Consultants
1987 Prize For Freedom Award from Liberal International
1993 Special Peace Award from the Aurora Aragon Quezon Peace Awards Foundation and Concerned Women of the Philippines
1995 Path to Peace Award
1996 J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding from the U.S. Department of State
1998 Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding
1998 Pearl S. Buck Award
1999 One of Time Magazine's 20 Most Influential Asians of the 20th Century
2001 World Citizenship Award
2005 David Rockefeller Bridging Leadership Awards
2005 One of the World's Elite Women Who Make a Difference by the International Women's Forum Hall of Fame
2006 One of Time Magazine's 65 Asian Heroes
2008 One of A Different View's 15 Champions of World Democracy
EWC Asia Pacific Community Building Award
Women's International Center International Leadership Living Legacy Award
Martin Luther King, Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize
United Nations Development Fund for Women Noel Foundation Life Award
Honorary doctorates
Doctor of International Relations, honoris causa, from:
Boston University in Boston
Eastern University in St. David, Pennsylvania
Fordham University in New York
Waseda University in Tokyo
Doctor of Civil Law, honoris causa, from:
Far Eastern University (59th Commencement Exercises, March 1987)
Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, from:
University of the Philippines Diliman in Quezon City
University of Santo Tomas in Manila
University of Hong Kong in Hong Kong
Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, from:
Ateneo de Manila University
College of Mount Saint Vincent in New York
Xavier University – Ateneo de Cagayan in Cagayan de Oro
Doctor of Humanities, honoris causa, from:
Bicol University (Posthumous) in Legazpi
San Beda College in Manila
Seattle University
Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts
University of Oregon
Doctor of Public Administration, honoris causa, from:
Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila (University of the City of Manila)
References
Bibliography
External links
Official website of Corazon Aquino – maintained by the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation
Time Woman of the Year: Corazon "Cory" Aquino
New York Times obituary
President Aquino in Time Magazine's Year ender
World Socialist Web Site obituary: part one and part two
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Women members of the Cabinet of the Philippines
Women presidents | false | [
"A constitutional plebiscite was held in the Philippines on 2 February 1987. The plebiscite is pursuant to Presidential Proclamation No. 3 which was issued on 25 March 1986 by President Corazon Aquino. It abolished the Office of the Prime Minister and the Regular Batasang Pambansa (English: National Assembly). Multi-party elections were held accordingly in 1987.\n\nBackground of the new constitution\nIn 1986, following the People Power Revolution which ousted Ferdinand Marcos as president, and following her own inauguration, Corazon Aquino issued Proclamation No. 3, declaring a national policy to implement the reforms mandated by the people, protecting their basic rights, adopting a provisional constitution, and providing for an orderly transition to a government under a new constitution.\nPresident Aquino later issued Proclamation No. 9, creating a Constitutional Commission (popularly abbreviated as \"ConCom\" in the Philippines) to frame a new constitution to replace the 1973 Constitution, which took effect during the martial law regime of her predecessor. President Aquino appointed 50 members to the Commission. The members of the Commission were drawn from varied backgrounds, including several former senators and congressmen, a former Supreme Court Chief Justice (Roberto Concepcion), a Catholic bishop (Teodoro Bacani), and a noted film director (Lino Brocka). President Aquino also deliberately appointed five members, including former Labor Minister Blas Ople, who had been allied with President Marcos until the latter's ouster. After the Commission had convened, it elected as its president Cecilia Muñoz-Palma, who had emerged as a leading figure in the anti-Marcos opposition following her retirement as the first female Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.\n\nThe Commission finished the draft charter within four months after it was convened. Several issues were heatedly debated during the sessions, including on the form of government to adopt, the abolition of the death penalty, the continued retention of the Clark and Subic American military bases, and the integration of economic policies into the Constitution. Brocka walked out of the Commission before its completion (formally resigning on August 28, 1986), and two other delegates dissented from the final draft. The ConCom completed their task on October 12, 1986 and presented the draft constitution to President Aquino on October 15, 1986. After a period of nationwide information campaign, a plebiscite for its ratification was held on February 2, 1987. More than three-fourths of all votes cast were for ratification. Thus, it was on February 2, 1987 that the 1987 Constitution took effect. On February 11, 1987, President Aquino, other government officials, and the Armed Forces of the Philippines, pledged allegiance to the Constitution. Since then, February 2 has been celebrated as Constitution Day, the date of the plebiscite.\n\nResults\n\nSee also\nCommission on Elections\nPolitics of the Philippines\nPhilippine elections\nPhilippine Constitution\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official website of the Commission on Elections\n Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines\n\n1987 elections in the Philippines\n1987 referendums\nConstitutional referendums in the Philippines\nPresidency of Corazon Aquino",
"Since 2017, a series of protests against judiciary reforms have occurred in Poland. Since Law and Justice took power in Poland in 2015, its influence rapidly extended to the judicial branch, through contended nominations that produced the 2015 Polish Constitutional Court crisis. The Law and Justice party argues that the reforms are needed to improve the efficiency of the judiciary, but the opposition, supported by a significant number of members of the judiciary, has been very critical of the reforms. The reforms have also been criticized by a number of international bodies. The European Commission invokes the Article 7 of the European Treaty against E.U. member Poland, denouncing recent judiciary reforms putting it under the political control of the ruling majority and citing \"serious risk [to] the independence of the judiciary and the separation of powers\".\n\nThe Polish judicial disciplinary panel law, approved by the Sejm on 20 December 2019. The bill empowers the Disciplinary Chamber at the Supreme Court of Poland to punish judges who engage in \"political activity\", including questioning the political independence of the panel. Punishment of judges may be a fine, reduction of salary, or termination from their position. The bill also changes the manner in which the head of the Supreme Court of Poland is appointed. Giving the government, in effect, the ability to control and sack judges the legislation violates EU judicial system legislation. Donald Tusk warned the bill might force Poland out of the EU. The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights and the Committee for the Defence of Democracy organized protests throughout Poland against the bill.\n\nIn February 2020, former Constitutional Tribunal judges, including former Constitutional Tribunal presidents Andrzej Rzepliński (2010-2016), , , , and Andrzej Zoll described the tribunal as having \"virtually been abolished\".\n\nBy 2020, fourteen out of the fifteen judges had been appointed to the Constitutional Tribunal by the Sejm since the return in power of PiS in 2015, which was seen by the former tribunal presidents and judges as one of the signs of a lack of checks and balances against PiS' domination of three branches of government power.\n\nSee also\n2015–present Polish constitutional crisis\n2015 Polish Constitutional Court crisis\nPolish judicial disciplinary panel law\n2020 Polish protests (disambiguation)\nMedia Without Choice\n\nReferences\n\nLegal history of Poland\nControversies in Poland\nProtests in Poland"
] |
[
"Corazon Aquino",
"Constitutional and political reforms",
"What constitutional reforms did Aquino carry out?",
"Immediately after assuming the presidency, President Aquino issued Proclamation No. 3, which established a revolutionary government."
] | C_f8034af6cb1943cdaf0ba462a242c299_1 | How were her attempts at political reform received? | 2 | How were Corazon Aquino attempts at political reform received? | Corazon Aquino | Immediately after assuming the presidency, President Aquino issued Proclamation No. 3, which established a revolutionary government. She abolished the 1973 Constitution that was in force during Martial Law, and by decree issued the provisional 1986 Freedom Constitution pending the ratification of a more formal, comprehensive charter. This allowed her to exercise both executive and legislative powers until the ratification of the 1987 Constitution and the restoration of Congress in 1987. Aquino promulgated two landmark legal codes, namely, the Family Code of 1987, which reformed the civil law on family relations, and the Administrative Code of 1987, which reorganized the structure of the executive branch of government. Another landmark law that was enacted during her tenure was the 1991 Local Government Code, which devolved national government powers to local government units (LGUs). The new Code enhanced the power of LGUs to enact local taxation measures and assured them of a share in the national revenue. Aquino closed down the Marcos-dominated Batasang Pambansa to prevent the new Marcos loyalist opposition from undermining her democratic reforms and reorganized the membership of the Supreme Court to restore its independence. In May 1986, the reorganized Supreme Court declared the Aquino government as "not merely a de facto government but in fact and law a de jure government", whose legitimacy had been affirmed by the community of nations. This Supreme Court decision affirmed the status of Aquino as the rightful leader of the Philippines. To fast-track the restoration of a full constitutional government and the writing of a new charter, she appointed 48 members of the 1986 Constitutional Commission ("Con-Com"), led by retired activist Supreme Court Associate Justice Cecilia Munoz-Palma. The Con-Com completed its final draft in October 1986. On February 2, 1987, the new Constitution of the Philippines, which put strong emphasis on civil liberties, human rights and social justice, was overwhelmingly approved by the Filipino people. The ratification of the new Constitution was followed by the election of senators and congress that same year and the holding of local elections in 1988. CANNOTANSWER | the new Constitution of the Philippines, which put strong emphasis on civil liberties, human rights and social justice, was overwhelmingly approved by the Filipino people. | Maria Corazon "Cory" Sumulong Cojuangco Aquino (, 25 January 1933 – 1 August 2009) was a Filipina politician who served as the 11th president of the Philippines from 1986 to 1992. She was the most prominent figure of the 1986 People Power Revolution, which ended the two-decade rule of President Ferdinand Marcos and led to the establishment of the current democratic Fifth Philippine Republic.
Corazon Aquino was married to Senator Benigno Aquino Jr., who was one of the most prominent critics of President Marcos. After the assassination of her husband on 21 August 1983, she emerged as leader of the opposition against the president. In late 1985, Marcos called for a snap election, and Aquino ran for president with former Senator Salvador Laurel as her running mate for vice president. After the election held on 7 February 1986, the Batasang Pambansa proclaimed Marcos and his running mate Arturo Tolentino as the winners, which prompted allegations of electoral fraud and Aquino's call for massive civil disobedience actions. Subsequently, the People Power Revolution, a non-violent mass demonstration movement, took place from 22 February to 25 February. The People Power Revolution, along with defections from the Armed Forces of the Philippines and support from the Philippine Catholic Church, successfully ousted Marcos and secured Aquino's accession to the presidency on 25 February 1986. Prior to her election as president, Aquino had not held any elected office. She was the first female president of the Philippines.
As president, Aquino oversaw the drafting of the 1987 Constitution, which limited the powers of the presidency and re-established the bicameral Congress, successfully removing the previous dictatorial government structure. Her economic policies focused on forging good economic standing amongst the international community as well as disestablishing Marcos-era crony capitalist monopolies, emphasizing the free market and responsible economy. Her administration conducted peace talks to resolve the Moro conflict, and the result of these talks was creation of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. Aquino was also criticized for the Mendiola Massacre, which resulted in the shooting deaths of at least 12 peaceful protesters by Philippine state security forces. The Philippines faced various natural calamities in the latter part of Aquino's administration, such as the 1990 Luzon earthquake and Tropical Storm Thelma. Several coup attempts were made against her government. She was succeeded as president by Fidel V. Ramos and returned to civilian life.
Aquino was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 2008 and died on 1 August 2009. Her son Benigno Aquino III served as president of the Philippines from 2010 to 2016. After her passing, monuments were established and public landmarks were named in honor of Corazon Aquino all around the Philippines. She is continually highly regarded by her native country, where she is called the Mother of Democracy.
Early life and education
Aquino was born Maria Corazon Sumulong Cojuangco on 25 January 1933 in Paniqui, Tarlac. Her father was José Cojuangco, a prominent Tarlac businessman and former congressman, and her mother was Demetria Sumulong, a pharmacist. Both of Aquino's parents were from prominent political families. Aquino's grandfather from her father's side, Melecio Cojuangco, was a member of the historic Malolos Congress, and Aquino's mother belonged to the politically influential Sumulong family of Rizal province, which included Juan Sumulong, who ran against Commonwealth President Manuel L. Quezon in 1941. Aquino was the sixth of eight children, two of whom died in infancy. Her siblings were Pedro, Josephine, Teresita, Jose Jr., and Maria Paz.
Aquino spent her elementary school days at St. Scholastica's College in Manila, where she graduated at the top of her class as valedictorian. She transferred to Assumption Convent to pursue high school studies. After her family moved to the United States, she attended the Assumption-run Ravenhill Academy in Philadelphia. She then transferred to Notre Dame Convent School in New York City, where she graduated from in 1949. During her high school years in the United States, Aquino volunteered for the campaign of U.S. Republican presidential candidate Thomas Dewey against Democratic incumbent U.S. President Harry S. Truman during the 1948 United States presidential election. After graduating from high school, she pursued her college education at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in New York, graduating in 1953 with a major in French and minor in mathematics.
After graduating from college, she returned to the Philippines and studied law at Far Eastern University in 1953. While attending, she met Benigno "Ninoy" S. Aquino Jr., who was the son of the late Speaker Benigno S. Aquino Sr. and a grandson of General Servillano Aquino. She discontinued her law education and married Benigno in Our Lady of Sorrows Parish in Pasay on 11 October 1954. The couple raised five children: Maria Elena ("Ballsy"; born 1955), Aurora Corazon ("Pinky"; born 1957), Benigno Simeon III ("Noynoy"; 1960–2021), Victoria Elisa ("Viel"; born 1961) and Kristina Bernadette ("Kris"; born 1971).
Aquino had initially had difficulty adjusting to provincial life when she and her husband moved to Concepcion, Tarlac, in 1955. Aquino found herself bored in Concepcion, and welcomed the opportunity to have dinner with her husband inside the American military facility at nearby Clark Field. Afterwards, the Aquino family moved to a bungalow in suburban Quezon City.
Throughout her life, Aquino was known to be a devout Roman Catholic.
Corazon Aquino was fluent in French, Japanese, Spanish, and English aside from her native Tagalog and Kapampangan.
Wife of Benigno Aquino Jr.
Corazon Aquino's husband Benigno Aquino Jr., a member of the Liberal Party, rose to become the youngest governor in the country in 1961 and then the youngest senator ever elected to the Senate of the Philippines in 1967. For most of her husband's political career, Aquino remained a housewife who raised their children and hosted her spouse's political allies who would visit their Quezon City home. She would decline to join her husband on stage during campaign rallies, instead preferring to be in the back of the audience and listen to him. Unbeknownst to many at the time, Corazon Aquino sold some of her prized inheritance to fund the candidacy of her husband.
As Benigno Aquino Jr. emerged as a leading critic of the government of President Ferdinand Marcos, he became seen as a strong candidate for president to succeed Marcos in the 1973 elections. However, Marcos, who was barred by the 1935 Constitution to seek a third term, declared martial law on 21 September 1972 and later abolished the constitution, thereby allowing him to remain in office. Benigno Aquino Jr. was among the first to be arrested at the onset of martial law, and was later sentenced to death. During her husband's incarceration, Corazon Aquino stopped going to beauty salons or buying new clothes and prohibited her children from attending parties, until a priest advised her and her children to try to live as normal lives as possible.
Despite Corazon's initial opposition, Benigno Aquino Jr. decided to run in the 1978 Batasang Pambansa elections from his prison cell as party leader of the newly created LABAN. Corazon Aquino campaigned on behalf of her husband and delivered a political speech for the first time in her life during this political campaign. In 1980 Benigno Aquino Jr. suffered a heart attack, and Marcos allowed Senator Aquino and his family to leave for exile in the United States upon intervention from U.S. President Jimmy Carter so that Aquino could seek medical treatment. The family settled in Boston, and Corazon Aquino would later recall the next three years as the happiest days of her marriage and family life. On 21 August 1983, Benigno Aquino Jr. ended his stay in the United States and returned without his family to the Philippines, where he was immediately assassinated on a staircase leading to the tarmac of Manila International Airport. The airport is now named Ninoy Aquino International Airport, renamed by the Congress in his honor in 1987. Corazon Aquino returned to the Philippines a few days later and led her husband's funeral procession, in which more than two million people participated.
1986 presidential campaign
Following her husband's assassination in 1983, Corazon Aquino became active in various demonstrations held against the Marcos regime. She began to assume the mantle of leadership left by her husband and became a figurehead of the anti-Marcos political opposition. On 3 November 1985, during an interview with American journalist David Brinkley on This Week with David Brinkley, Marcos suddenly announced snap elections that would be held within three months to dispel doubt against his regime's legitimate authority, an action that surprised the nation. The election was later scheduled to be held on 7 February 1986. A petition was organized to urge Aquino to run for president, headed by former newspaper publisher Joaquin Roces. On 1 December, the petition of 1.2 million signatures was publicly presented to Aquino in an event attended by 15,000 people, and on 3 December, Aquino officially declared her candidacy. United Opposition (UNIDO) party leader Salvador Laurel was chosen as Aquino's running mate as candidate for vice president.
During the campaign, Marcos attacked Corazon Aquino on her husband's previous ties to communists, characterizing the election as a fight "between democracy and communism." Aquino refuted Marcos' charge and stated that she would not appoint a single communist to her cabinet. Marcos also accused Aquino of playing "political football" with the United States in regards to the continued United States military presence in the Philippines at Clark Air Base and Subic Naval Base. Another point of attack for Marcos was Aquino's inexperience in public office. Marcos' campaign was characterized by sexist attacks, such as remarks by Marcos that Aquino was "just a woman" and that a woman's remarks should be limited to the bedroom.
The snap election was held on 7 February 1986, and was marred by massive electoral fraud, violence, intimidation, coercion, and disenfranchisement of voters. On 11 February, while votes were still being tabulated, former Antique Governor and director of Aquino's campaign in Antique Evelio Javier was assassinated. During the tallying of votes conducted by the Commission on Elections (COMELEC), 30 poll computer technicians walked out to contest the alleged election-rigging being done in favor of Marcos. Years later it was claimed that the walkout of computer technicians was led by Linda Kapunan, wife of Lt Col Eduardo Kapunan, a leader of Reform the Armed Forces Movement that plotted to attack the Malacañang Palace and kill Marcos and his family, leading to a partial reevaluation of the walkout event.
On 15 February 1986, the Batasang Pambansa, which was dominated by Marcos' ruling party and its allies, declared President Marcos as the winner of the election. However, NAMFREL's electoral count showed that Corazon Aquino had won. Aquino claimed victory according to NAMFREL's electoral count and called for a rally dubbed "Tagumpay ng Bayan" (People's Victory Rally) the following day to protest the declaration by the Batasang Pambansa. Aquino also called for boycotts against products and services from companies controlled or owned by individuals closely allied with Marcos. The rally was held at the historic Rizal Park in Luneta, Manila and drew a pro-Aquino crowd of around two million people. The dubious election results drew condemnation from both domestic and foreign powers. The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines issued a statement strongly criticizing the conduct of the election, describing the election as violent and fraudulent. The United States Senate likewise condemned the election. Aquino rejected a power-sharing agreement proposed by the American diplomat Philip Habib, who had been sent as an emissary by U.S. President Ronald Reagan to help defuse the tension.
Accession as president
On 22 February 1986, disgruntled and reformist military officers led by Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and General Fidel V. Ramos surprised the nation and the international community by the announcement of their defection from the Marcos government, citing a strong belief that Aquino was the real winner in the contested presidential election. Enrile, Ramos, and the rebel soldiers then set up operations in Camp Aguinaldo, the headquarters of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, and Camp Crame, the headquarters of the Philippine Constabulary, across Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA). Cardinal Sin appealed to the public in a broadcast over Church-run Radyo Veritas, and millions of Filipinos gathered to the part of Epifanio De Los Santos Avenue between the two camps to give their support and prayers to the rebels. At that time, Aquino was meditating in a Carmelite convent in Cebu. Upon learning of the defection, Aquino and Cardinal Sin appeared on Radyo Vertias to rally behind Enrile and Ramos. Aquino then flew back to Manila to prepare for the takeover of the government.
After three days of peaceful mass protests primarily centered at EDSA called the People Power Revolution, Aquino was sworn in as the eleventh president of the Philippines on 25 February 1986. An hour after Aquino's inauguration, Marcos held his own inauguration ceremony at the Malacañang Palace. Later that same day, Ferdinand E. Marcos fled the Philippines to Hawaii.
Presidency
Corazon Aquino's accession to the presidency marked the end of authoritarian rule in the Philippines. Aquino is the first female president of the Philippines and is still the only president of the Philippines to have never held any prior political position. Aquino is regarded as the first female president in Asia.
Transitional government and creation of new constitution
On 25 February 1986, the first day of her administration, Aquino issued Proclamation No. 1, which announced an intention to reorganize the government and called on all officials appointed by Marcos to resign, starting with members of the Supreme Court. On 25 March 1986, President Aquino issued Proclamation No. 3, which announced a transitional government into a democratic system. She abolished the 1973 Constitution that was in force during the martial law era, and by decree issued the provisional 1986 Freedom Constitution, pending the ratification of a more formal and comprehensive charter. This constitutional allowed her to exercise both executive and legislative powers during the period of transitional government.
After the issuance of Proclamation No. 1, all 15 members of the Supreme Court submitted their resignations. Aquino then reorganized the membership of the Supreme Court with the stated purpose of restoring its judicial independence. On 22 May 1986, in the case Lawyers League v. President Aquino, the reorganized Supreme Court declared the Aquino government as "not merely a de facto government but in fact and law a de jure government", and affirmed its legitimacy.
Aquino appointed all 48 members of the 1986 Constitutional Commission ("Con-Com"), led by retired activist and former Supreme Court Associate Justice Cecilia Muñoz-Palma, which was tasked with writing a new constitution. The Commission completed its final draft of the Constitution in October 1986.
On 2 February 1987, the Constitution of the Philippines was ratified by nationwide plebiscite. It remains the constitution of the Philippines to the present day. The Constitution established a bill of rights and a three-branch government consisting of the executive department, the legislative department, and the judicial department. The Constitution restored the bicameral Congress, which in 1973 had been abolished by Marcos and replaced with first the Batasang Bayan and later the Batasang Pambansa. The ratification of the new Constitution was soon followed by the election of senators and the election of House of Representatives members on 11 May 1987, as well as local elections on 18 January 1988.
Legal reforms
After the ratification of the constitution, Aquino promulgated two landmark legal codes, namely, the Family Code of 1987, which reformed the civil law on family relations, and the Administrative Code of 1987, which reorganized the structure of the executive department of government. Another landmark law that was enacted during her tenure was the 1991 Local Government Code, which devolved national government powers to local government units (LGUs). The new Code enhanced the power of LGUs to enact local taxation measures and assured them of a share in the national revenue.
During Aquino's tenure, vital economic laws such as the Built-Operate-Transfer Law, Foreign Investments Act, and the Consumer Protection and Welfare Act were also enacted.
Socio-economic policies
The economy posted a positive growth of 3.4% during Aquino's first year in office, and continued to grow at an overall positive rate throughout her tenure for an average rate of 3.4% from 1986 to 1992. Real GDP growth suffered a 0.4% decrease in 1991 in the aftermath of the 1989 coup attempt by the Reform the Armed Forces Movement, which shook international confidence in the Philippine economy and hindered foreign investment.
Aquino made fighting inflation one of her priorities after the nation suffered from skyrocketing prices during the last years of the Marcos administration. The last six years of the Marcos administration recorded an average annual inflation rate of 20.9%, which peaked in 1984 at 50.3%. From 1986 to 1992, the Philippines recorded an average annual inflation rate of 9.2%. During the Aquino administration, the annual inflation rate peaked at 18.1% in 1991; a stated reason for this increase was panic buying during the Gulf War. Overall, the economy under Aquino had an average growth of 3.8% from 1986 to 1992.
De-monopolization
One of Aquino's first actions as president was to seize Marcos' multi-billion dollar fortune of ill-gotten wealth. On 28 February 1986, four days into her presidency, Aquino formed the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), which was tasked with retrieving Marcos' domestic and international fortune.
After his declaration of martial law in 1972 and his consolidation of authoritarian power, President Ferdinand Marcos issued various government decrees that awarded monopoly or oligopoly power over entire industries to various close associates, in a scheme later regarded as crony capitalism. President Aquino pursued a market liberalization agenda to combat this problem. President Aquino particularly targeted the sugar industry and the coconut industry for de-monopolization.
Debt
Throughout the tenure of President Ferdinand Marcos, government foreign debt had ballooned from less than $3 billion in 1970 to $28 billion by the end of his administration, through privatization of bad government assets and deregulation of many vital industries. The debt had badly tarnished the international credit standing and economic reputation of the country.
President Aquino inherited the debt of the Marcos administration and weighed all options on what to do with the debt, including not paying the debt. Aquino eventually chose to honor all the debts that were previously incurred in order to clear the country's economic reputation. Her decision proved to be unpopular but Aquino defended it, saying that was the most practical move. Beginning in 1986, the Aquino administration paid off $4 billion of the country's outstanding debts to improve its international credit ratings and attract the attention of foreign investors. This move also ensured lower interest rates and longer payment terms for future loans. During the Aquino administration, the Philippines acquired an additional $9 billion debt, increasing the net national debt by $5 billion within six years due to the need to infuse capital and money into the economy. The Aquino administration was able to reduce the Philippines' external debt-to-GDP ratio by 30.1 percent, from 87.9 percent at the start of the administration to 67.8 percent in 1991.
Agrarian reform
President Aquino envisioned agrarian and land reform as the centerpiece of her administration's social legislative agenda. However, her family background and social class as a privileged daughter of a wealthy and landed clan became a lightning rod of criticisms against her land reform agenda.
After the Mendiola Massacre and in response to calls for agrarian reform, President Aquino issued Presidential Proclamation 131 and Executive Order 229 on 22 July 1987, which outlined her land reform program, including sugar lands. In 1988, with the backing of Aquino, the new Congress of the Philippines passed Republic Act No. 6657, more popularly known as the "Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law" (CARP), which paved the way for the redistribution of agricultural lands from landowners to tenant-farmers. Landowners were paid in exchange by the government through just compensation, and were also not allowed to retain more than five hectares of land. The law also allowed corporate landowners to "voluntarily divest a proportion of their capital stock, equity or participation in favor of their workers or other qualified beneficiaries", in lieu of turning over their land to the government for redistribution. Despite the flaws in the law, the Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality in 1989, declaring that the implementation of CARP was "a revolutionary kind of expropriation."
Corazon Aquino herself was subject to a controversy that centered on Hacienda Luisita, a 6,453-hectare estate located in the province of Tarlac which she and her siblings inherited from her father José Cojuangco. Instead of land distribution, Hacienda Luisita reorganized itself into a corporation and distributed stock. As such, ownership of agricultural portions of the hacienda was transferred to the corporation, which in turn, gave its shares of stocks to farmers. Critics argued that Aquino bowed to pressure from relatives by allowing stock redistribution in lieu of land redistribution under CARP.
The stock redistribution scheme was revoked in 2006, when the Department of Agrarian Reform ordered the mandatory redistribution of land to tenant-farmers of Hacienda Luisita. The Department of Agrarian Reform had looked into its revocation since 2004, when violence erupted in the hacienda over the retrenchment of workers, leaving seven people dead.
Coup attempts on Aquino government
From 1986 to 1990 numerous coup attempts were enacted on the Aquino administration and the new Philippine government. Many of these attempts were conducted by the Reform the Armed Forces Movement, who attempted to establish a military government, while other attempts were conducted by loyalists to former President Marcos.
Mendiola massacre and cabinet infighting
On 22 January 1987, during the era of transition government and shortly before the nationwide plebiscite to ratify the Constitution, 12 citizens were killed and 51 were injured in the Mendiola Massacre. The incident was initially a peaceful protest by agrarian workers and farmers who had marched to the historic Mendiola Street near the Malacañan Palace to demand genuine land reform. The massacre occurred when Marines fired at farmers who tried to go beyond the designated demarcation line set by the police. The massacre resulted in several resignations from Aquino's cabinet, including Jose Diokno, head of the Presidential Committee on Human Rights, chairman of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), and chairman of the government panel in charge of negotiations with rebel forces resigned from his government posts. His daughter Maris said, "It was the only time we saw him near tears."
In September 1987, Vice President Doy Laurel resigned as secretary of foreign affairs. In his resignation letter to Aquino, Laurel stated, "...the past years of Marcos are now beginning to look no worse than your first two years in office. And the reported controversies and scandals involving your closest relatives have become the object of our people's outrage. From 16,500 NPA regular when Marcos fell, the communists now claim an armed strength of 25,200. From city to countryside, anarchy has spread. There is anarchy within the government, anarchy within the ruling coalesced parties and anarchy in the streets."
Finance Minister Jaime Ongpin, who had successfully advocated for paying external debt incurred during Marcos' administration, was dismissed by Aquino in September 1987 and later died in an apparent suicide in December 1987. His widow stated that he had been depressed due to infighting in Aquino's cabinet and lack of significant change since the People Power Revolution.
Soon after the Mendiola Massacre, the Aquino administration and Congress worked to pass significant agrarian reform, which culminated in the passage of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARP).
Peace talks with Moro and communist insurgencies
President Aquino conducted peace talks with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), an armed Moro Muslim insurgency group that sought to establish an independent Moro state within Mindanao. Aquino met with MNLF leader Nur Misuari and various MNLF groups in Sulu. In 1989, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) was created under Republic Act No. 6734 or the ARMM Organic Act, which established the Moro majority areas in the Mindanao island group as an autonomous region with its own government. The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao lasted from 1989 to 2019, after which it was succeeded by the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
The establishment of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao was opposed by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a militant splinter group from the MNLF that sought to secede from the Philippines to establish an Islamic state in Mindanao. Peace talks with MILF began in 1997 under President Fidel Ramos and violent insurgency officially continued until 2014, when peace accords were formally signed between MILF and the administration of President Benigno Aquino III that would lead to the creation of the BARMM.
The establishment of the ARMM also led to the establishment of Abu Sayyaf, a terrorist group founded in 1989 by Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani and composed of radical former members of the MNLF. Terrorist attacks by Abu Sayyaf would start in 1995 and continue to the present day, including the 2004 bombing of the MV Superferry 14 that resulted in the deaths of 116 people.
Shortly after becoming president, Aquino ordered the release of hundreds of political prisoners imprisoned during the Marcos era, including communist insurgents belonging to the Communist Party of the Philippines. These releases included leaders such as Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison and New People's Army founder Bernabe Buscayno. Preliminary peace talks with the CPP ended after the Mendiola Massacre on 22 January 1987, during which at least 12 farmers were killed at a protest rally.
Closing of United States military bases
Soon after Aquino took office, several Philippine senators declared that the presence of U.S. military forces in the Philippines was an affront to national sovereignty. The senators called for the United States military to vacate U.S. Naval Base Subic Bay and Clark Air Base, and Aquino opposed their demand. The United States objected by stating that they had leased the property and that the leases were still in effect. The United States stated that the facilities at Subic Bay were unequaled anywhere in Southeast Asia and a U.S. pullout could make all of that region of the world vulnerable to an incursion by the Soviet Union or by a resurgent Japan. Another issue with the demand was that thousands of Filipinos worked at these military facilities and they would lose their jobs if the U.S. military moved out. Aquino opposed the Senate's demand and believed that the bases should have remained. Aquino organized a protest against the pullout, which only gathered between 100,000 and 150,000 supporters, far short of the 500,000 to 1 million that had been originally expected.
The matter was still being debated when Mount Pinatubo erupted in June 1991, covering the entire area with volcanic ash. Despite attempts to continue the Subic Base, Aquino finally conceded. In December 1991, the government served notice that the U.S. had to close the base by the end of 1992.
Natural disasters and calamities
On 20 December 1987, the MV Doña Paz sank after a collision with the oil tanker MV Vector. The final death toll exceeded 4,300 people, and the sinking has been called the deadliest peacetime maritime disaster of the 20th century. In the aftermath, Aquino addressed the incident as "a national tragedy of harrowing proportions."
The 1990 Luzon earthquake was a 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck the island of Luzon. It left an estimate of 1,621 people dead and massive property damage.
In 1991, a volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo, then thought to be dormant, killed around 800 people and caused widespread long-term devastation of agricultural lands in Central Luzon. Around 20,000 residents had to be evacuated and around 10,000 people were left homeless by the event. It was the second largest terrestrial eruption of the 20th century.
On 1 November 1991 Tropical Storm Thelma (also known as Typhoon Uring) caused massive flooding in Ormoc City, leaving around 5,000 dead in what was then considered to be the deadliest typhoon in Philippine history. On 8 November, Aquino declared all of Leyte a disaster area.
Electrical power grid inadequacy
During Aquino's presidency, electric blackouts became common in Manila. The city experienced 7–12 hours-long blackouts, which severely affected its businesses. By the departure of Aquino in June 1992, businesses in Manila and nearby provinces had lost nearly $800 million since the preceding March.
Corazon Aquino's decision to deactivate the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP), which was built during the Marcos administration, contributed to further electricity crises in the 1990s, as the 620 megawatts capacity of the plant would have been enough to cover the shortfall at that time. Critics of the BNPP had stated that the power plant was unsafe, and cited the millions of dollars in bribes paid to President Marcos to allow its construction. The administration had failed to provide for an adequate replacement for the plant before her term had completed, and President Corazon Aquino ended her term in 1992 with the country reeling under a severe power shortage crisis.
Influence in 1992 presidential election
The 1987 Constitution limited the president to a single six-year term with no possibility of re-election. As the end of her presidency drew near, close advisers and friends told Aquino that since she was not inaugurated under the 1987 Constitution, she was still eligible to seek the presidency again in the upcoming 1992 elections, the first presidential elections held under normal and peaceful circumstances since 1965. However, Aquino firmly declined the requests for her to seek reelection, citing her strong belief that the presidency was not a lifetime position.
Initially, she named Ramon V. Mitra, Speaker of the Philippine House of Representatives who had been a friend of her husband, as her preferred candidate for the 1992 presidential elections. However, she later backtracked and instead supported the candidacy of General Fidel V. Ramos, who was her defense secretary and a key figure in the EDSA Revolution. Ramos had consistently stood by her government during the various coup attempts that were launched against her administration. Her sudden change of mind and withdrawal of support from Mitra drew criticism from her supporters in the liberal and social democratic sectors. Her decision also drew criticism from the Catholic Church, which questioned her support of Ramos due to his being a Protestant. General Ramos won the 1992 elections with 23.58% of the total votes in a wide-open campaign.
On 30 June 1992, Corazon Aquino formally and peacefully handed over power to Fidel Ramos. On that day, Fidel V. Ramos was inaugurated as the twelfth president of the Philippines. After the inauguration, Aquino left the ceremony in a simple white Toyota Crown she had purchased, rather than the lavish government-issued Mercedes Benz in which she and Ramos had ridden on the way to the ceremonies, to make the point that she was once again an ordinary citizen.
Post-presidency
Domestic
During Aquino's retirement and stay as a private citizen, she remained active in the Philippine political scene. Aquino would voice her dissent to government actions and policies that she deemed threats to the democratic foundations of the country.
In 1997, Aquino, together with Cardinal Jaime Sin, led a rally opposing President Fidel Ramos' attempt to extend his term through his proposal to amend the 1987 Constitution's restriction on presidential term limits. Ramos' proposed charter change would fail, leaving term limits and the presidential system in place.
During the 1998 Philippine presidential election, Aquino endorsed the candidacy of former police general and Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim from the Liberal Party for president. Lim would lose to Vice President Joseph Estrada, who won by a landslide. In 1999, Aquino and Cardinal Jaime Sin again worked together to oppose a second plan to amend the Constitution to remove term limits, this time under President Estrada. President Estrada stated that his plan to amend the Constitution was intended to lift provisions that 'restrict' economic activities and investments, and Estrada denied that it was an attempt to extend his stay in office. Estrada's proposed charter change would also fail.
In 2000, Aquino joined the mounting calls for Estrada to resign from office, amid a series of corruption scandals, including strong allegations of bribery charges and gambling kickbacks. Estrada was impeached by the House of Representatives in November 2000 but acquitted by the Senate in December, which in January 2001 led to the Second EDSA Revolution, which ousted Estrada. During the Second EDSA Revolution, Aquino enthusiastically supported the ascendancy of Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to the position of president. In the subsequent trial of Joseph Estrada, Estrada was acquitted of perjury but found guilty of plunder and sentenced to reclusion perpetua with the accessory penalties of perpetual disqualification from public office and forfeiture of ill-gotten wealth on 12 September 2007. Estrada was pardoned by President Macapagal-Arroyo on 26 October 2007.
In 2005, after a series of revelations and exposes that implicated President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in rigging the 2004 presidential elections, Aquino called on Arroyo to resign in order to prevent bloodshed, violence and further political deterioration. Aquino once again led massive street-level demonstrations, this time demanding the resignation of President Arroyo.
During the 2007 senatorial elections, Aquino actively campaigned for her only son, Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III, who went on to win his race. Less than a year after Corazon Aquino's death in 2009, Benigno Aquino III won the 2010 Philippine presidential election and served as the 15th president of the Philippines from 2010 to 2016.
In December 2008, Corazon Aquino publicly expressed regret for her participation in the 2001 Second EDSA Revolution, which installed Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as president. She apologized to former President Joseph Estrada for the role she played in his ouster in 2001. Aquino's apology drew criticisms from numerous politicians. In June 2009, two months before her death, Aquino issued a public statement in which she strongly denounced and condemned the Arroyo administration's plans of amending the 1987 Constitution, calling it a "shameless abuse of power."
International
Shortly after leaving the presidency, Aquino traveled abroad, giving speeches and lectures on issues of democracy, development, human rights, and women empowerment. At the 1994 meeting of the UNESCO World Commission on Culture and Development in Manila, Aquino delivered a speech urging the unconditional release of Burmese democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi from detention. Until her death in 2009, Aquino would continue to petition for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Aquino was a member of the Council of Women World Leaders, an international organization of former and current female heads of state, from the group's inception in 1996 to her death.
In 1997, Aquino attended the wake and funeral of Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta, whom she met during the latter's visit in Manila in 1989. In 2005, Aquino joined the international community in mourning the death of Pope John Paul II.
In 2002, Aquino became the first woman named to the Board of Governors at the Asian Institute of Management, a leading graduate business school and think tank in the Asia Pacific region. She served on the Board until 2006.
Charitable and social initiatives
After her term as president, Aquino was involved in several charitable activities and socio-economic initiatives. From 1992 until her death, Aquino was chairperson of the Benigno S. Aquino, Jr. Foundation, which she set up in her husband's honor after his assassination in 1983. Aquino supported the Gawad Kalinga social housing project for the poor and homeless. In 2007, Aquino helped establish the PinoyME Foundation, a non-profit organization that aims to provide microfinancing programs and projects for the poor. Aquino also painted, and would occasionally give away her paintings to friends and family or auction her paintings and donate the proceeds to charity. She never sold her art for her own profit.
Illness and death
On 24 March 2008, Aquino's family announced that the former president had been diagnosed with colorectal cancer. Upon her being earlier informed by her doctors that she had only three months to live, she pursued medical treatment and chemotherapy. A series of healing Masses for Aquino, who was a devout Catholic, were held throughout the country for her recovery. In a public statement during one healing Mass on 13 May 2008, Aquino said that her blood tests indicated that she was responding well to treatment, although her hair and appetite loss were apparent.
By July 2009, Aquino was reported to be suffering from loss of appetite and in very serious condition. At that time she was confined to Makati Medical Center. It was later announced that Aquino and her family had decided to stop chemotherapy and other medical interventions for her.
Aquino died in the Makati Medical Center at 3:18 a.m. on 1 August 2009 due to cardiorespiratory arrest at the age of 76.
Wake and funeral
On the day of Aquino's passing, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo announced a 10-day mourning period for the former president and issued Administrative Order No. 269 detailing the necessary arrangements for a state funeral. Arroyo was on a state visit to the United States at the time of Aquino's passing and returned to the Philippines on 5 August, cutting her visit short to pay her last respects to Aquino. Aquino's children declined Arroyo's offer of a state funeral for their mother.
All churches in the Philippines celebrated requiem masses simultaneously throughout the country and all government offices flew the Philippine flag at half-mast. Hours after her death, Aquino's body lay in repose for public viewing at the La Salle Green Hills campus in Mandaluyong. On 3 August 2009, Aquino's body was transferred from La Salle Greenhills to the Manila Cathedral in Intramuros, during which hundreds of thousands of Filipinos lined the streets to view and escort the former leader's body. On the way to the cathedral, Aquino's funeral cortege passed along Ayala Avenue in Makati, stopping in front of the monument to her husband Ninoy, where throngs of mourners gathered and sang the patriotic protest anthem "Bayan Ko. Aquino's casket was brought inside the cathedral by mid-afternoon that day. Following her death, all Roman Catholic dioceses in the country held Requiem Masses.
On 4 August 2009, Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr. and Imee Marcos, two prominent children of late former President Ferdinand Marcos, paid their last respects to Aquino in spite of the two families' longstanding feud. The Marcos siblings were received by Aquino's daughters María Elena, Aurora Corazon, and Victoria Elisa.
A final Requiem Mass was held on the morning of 5 August 2009, with Archbishop of Manila Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales, Bishop of Balanga Socrates B. Villegas, and other high-ranking clergymen concelebrating. Aquino's daughter Kris spoke on behalf of her family towards the end of the Mass. Aquino's flag-draped casket was escorted from the cathedral to Manila Memorial Park in Parañaque, where she was interred beside her husband in her family mausoleum. Aquino's funeral procession took more than eight hours to reach the burial site, as tens of thousands of civilians lined the route to pay their respects. Philippine Air Force UH-1 helicopters showered the procession with yellow confetti and ships docked at Manila's harbor blared their sirens to salute the late president.
Reaction
Both local and international leaders showed respect for Aquino's achievements in the process of democratization in the Philippines.
Local reaction
Various politicians across the political spectrum expressed their grief and praise for the former Philippine leader. President Arroyo, once an ally of Aquino, remembered the sacrifices she made for the country and called her a "national treasure." Former President Estrada said that the country had lost its mother and guiding voice with her sudden death. He also described Aquino as the "Philippines' most loved woman." Although they were at one time political foes, Aquino and Estrada had reconciled and joined forces in opposing President Arroyo.
Former Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, who had been Aquino's defense minister and later a fierce critic of Aquino, asked the public to pray for her eternal repose. Although former Aquino interior minister and Senate minority floor leader Aquilino Pimentel, Jr. revealed that he had "mixed feelings" about Aquino's death, he also said that the country "shall be forever indebted to Cory for rallying the nation behind the campaign to topple dictatorial rule and restore democracy".
Filipino citizens throughout the country wore either yellow shirts or held masses to pay tribute to Aquino. Yellow ribbons, which were a symbol of support for Aquino after the 1986 election and during the People Power Revolution, were tied along major national roads as a sign of solidarity and support for Aquino and her grieving family. On popular social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, Filipinos posted yellow ribbons on their accounts as tribute. Following her death, Filipino Catholics called on the Church to have Aquino canonized and declared as a saint. Days after her funeral, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) announced that it supported calls to put the former president on the 500-Peso banknote alongside Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino, Jr., her deceased husband. The bill had previously featured a portrait of only Benigno Aquino, Jr. since 1987.
International reaction
Messages of sympathy were sent by various national heads of state and international leaders.
Pope Benedict XVI, in his letter to Archbishop Rosales, recalled Aquino's "courageous commitment to the freedom of the Filipino people, her firm rejection of violence and intolerance" and called her a woman of courage and faith.
U.S. President Barack Obama, through White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, said that "her courage, determination, and moral leadership are an inspiration to us all and exemplify the best in the Filipino nation". U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed sadness over the passing of Aquino, to whom she had sent a personal letter of best wishes for recovery while she was still in hospital in July 2009. Clinton said that Aquino was "admired by the world for her extraordinary courage" in leading the fight against dictatorship.
South African President Jacob Zuma called Aquino "a great leader who set a shining example of peaceful transition to democracy in her country".
Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, through the British Ambassador in Manila, sent a message to the Filipino people which read: "I am saddened to hear of the death of Corazon 'Cory' Aquino the former president of the Republic of the Philippines". She also added, "I send my sincere condolences to her family and to the people of the Philippines. Signed, Elizabeth R".
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev stated in a telegram to President Arroyo that "the name of Corazon Aquino is associated with a period of profound reforms and the democratic transformation of Filipino society". Medvedev also lauded Aquino's sympathy to Russian people and her contribution to the improvement of Russian-Filipino relations.
Timor-Leste President José Ramos-Horta and Wan Azizah, wife of Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, came to the Philippines to express their sympathies and attend Aquino's funeral.
Soon after her 2010 release from her two-decade prison sentence, Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar publicly cited Aquino as one of her inspirations. She also expressed her good wishes for Aquino's son, then-incumbent president of the Philippines Benigno S. Aquino III.
Honors
After her peaceful accession to the presidency and the ousting of President Marcos, Aquino was named Time magazine's Woman of the Year in 1986. In August 1999, Aquino was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 20 Most Influential Asians of the 20th century. Time also cited her as one of 65 great Asian Heroes in November 2006.
In 1994, Aquino was cited as one of 100 Women Who Shaped World History in a reference book written by Gail Meyer Rolka.
In 1996, she received the J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding from the Fulbright Association.
In 1998, she was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award in recognition of her role in peaceful revolution to attain democracy.
Since her passing in 2009, the legacy of Corazon Aquino has prompted various namings of public landmarks and creations of memorials. Among these are as follows:
On 1 August 2010, the first anniversary of her death, a 200 ft by 250 ft photo mosaic of Aquino was unveiled near the Quirino Grandstand at the Luneta Park in the presence of her son, President Benigno Aquino III, and her supporters. It was submitted to Guinness World Records to be certified as the largest photo mosaic in the world, and the record was later certified by the World Record Academy (which is not affiliated with Guinness).
On 9 October 2010, Manila Mayor Alfredo S. Lim inaugurated a public market in Baseco, Port Area known as the President Corazon C. Aquino Public Market.
On 16 December 2010, President Benigno Aquino III and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (Central Bank of the Philippines) announced the release of newly designed 500-peso banknotes that feature both Senator Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr. and Corazon Aquino. The previous design featured only Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr. and had been in circulation since 1987.
On 13 February 2013, the Corazon Aquino Democratic Space was launched at the De La Salle University, alongside the formal inauguration of the new Henry Sy, Sr. Hall.
On 28 July 2014, the Republic Act No. 10663, which named a circumferential road in Iloilo City to President Corazon C. Aquino Avenue, was signed into law by President Benigno Aquino III.
In 2015, the new Corazon C. Aquino Hospital in Barangay Biasong, Dipolog City was opened to the public.
On 10 December 2015, the Republic Act No. 10176, which renamed Batasan Hills High School (BHES) into "President Corazon C. Aquino Elementary School" (PCCAES) in Batasan Hills, Quezon City, was signed into law by President Benigno Aquino III.
On 29 June 2018, the Republic Act No. 11045, which renamed the Kay Tikling-Antipolo-Teresa-Morong National Road to Corazon C. Aquino Avenue, was signed into law by President Rodrigo Duterte. Corazon C. Aquino Avenue is a road traversing from Taytay to Morong in Rizal (including the segment of Ortigas Avenue Extension from Taytay to Antipolo).
In popular culture
In 2008, a musical play about Aquino entitled Cory, the Musical was staged at the Meralco Theater. It was written and directed by Nestor Torre Jr. and starred Isay Alvarez as Aquino. The musical featured a libretto of 19 original songs composed by Lourdes Pimentel, wife of Senator Aquilino Pimentel, Jr.
Awards and achievements
Philippines
Foreign Awards
1986 Time Woman of the Year
1986 Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award
1986 United Nations Silver Medal
1986 Canadian International Prize for Freedom
1986 International Democracy Award from the International Association of Political Consultants
1987 Prize For Freedom Award from Liberal International
1993 Special Peace Award from the Aurora Aragon Quezon Peace Awards Foundation and Concerned Women of the Philippines
1995 Path to Peace Award
1996 J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding from the U.S. Department of State
1998 Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding
1998 Pearl S. Buck Award
1999 One of Time Magazine's 20 Most Influential Asians of the 20th Century
2001 World Citizenship Award
2005 David Rockefeller Bridging Leadership Awards
2005 One of the World's Elite Women Who Make a Difference by the International Women's Forum Hall of Fame
2006 One of Time Magazine's 65 Asian Heroes
2008 One of A Different View's 15 Champions of World Democracy
EWC Asia Pacific Community Building Award
Women's International Center International Leadership Living Legacy Award
Martin Luther King, Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize
United Nations Development Fund for Women Noel Foundation Life Award
Honorary doctorates
Doctor of International Relations, honoris causa, from:
Boston University in Boston
Eastern University in St. David, Pennsylvania
Fordham University in New York
Waseda University in Tokyo
Doctor of Civil Law, honoris causa, from:
Far Eastern University (59th Commencement Exercises, March 1987)
Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, from:
University of the Philippines Diliman in Quezon City
University of Santo Tomas in Manila
University of Hong Kong in Hong Kong
Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, from:
Ateneo de Manila University
College of Mount Saint Vincent in New York
Xavier University – Ateneo de Cagayan in Cagayan de Oro
Doctor of Humanities, honoris causa, from:
Bicol University (Posthumous) in Legazpi
San Beda College in Manila
Seattle University
Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts
University of Oregon
Doctor of Public Administration, honoris causa, from:
Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila (University of the City of Manila)
References
Bibliography
External links
Official website of Corazon Aquino – maintained by the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation
Time Woman of the Year: Corazon "Cory" Aquino
New York Times obituary
President Aquino in Time Magazine's Year ender
World Socialist Web Site obituary: part one and part two
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1933 births
2009 deaths
20th-century Filipino politicians
20th-century Filipino women politicians
20th-century women rulers
Corazon
Ateneo de Manila University alumni
Burials at the Manila Memorial Park – Sucat
Candidates in the 1986 Philippine presidential election
Cojuangco family
College of Mount Saint Vincent alumni
Deaths from cancer in the Philippines
Deaths from colorectal cancer
Female heads of government
Female heads of state
Filipino democracy activists
Filipino human rights activists
Filipino politicians of Chinese descent
Filipino Roman Catholics
Kapampangan people
Liberal Party (Philippines) politicians
Nonviolence advocates
Order of the Precious Crown members
PDP–Laban politicians
People from Intramuros
People from Tarlac
People of the People Power Revolution
Presidents of the Philippines
Ramon Magsaysay Award winners
Recipients of the Order of the Liberator General San Martin
Time Person of the Year
Women members of the Cabinet of the Philippines
Women presidents | false | [
"How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee is a short story by Owen Wister that was published in book form in 1907. It is a satire about spelling reform efforts of the time, which also humorously and in a good-natured manner pokes fun at academia in general, and the folly of typical professors' endeavors.\n\nPlot\nThe story's protagonist is Chickle University professor Masticator B. Fellow, and is about his efforts to enlist the story narrator's support for spelling reform. Fellow advocates spelling all English words in a simpler, phonetic manner in order to make spelling easier for children and foreigners. Debates quickly ensue regarding whose pronunciation should be considered standard for phonetic spelling.\n\nThe story then changes focus to a couple who are attending the convention for spelling reform. This couple is much more interested in their blossoming romance than they are spelling reform. The narrator finds the woman of this couple attractive, attempts to woo her, and a love triangle ensues, forming some basis of suspense for the plot. The book ends with neither Fellow's attempts at spelling reform nor the narrator's attempts to win a woman's esteem proving the least bit successful.\n\nBackground\nIn August 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt ordered that all federal publications use revised spellings of 300 words based on the work of the Simplified Spelling Board. Wister's story lampooned the change with his story, implying that these spelling changes went too far.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nEntire book, How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee, (1907) complete with illustrations at Google Books\n\n1907 American novels\nNovels by Owen Wister",
"Susan L. Shirk (born 1945) is an expert on Chinese politics and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State during the Clinton administration. She was in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs (with responsibility for People's Republic of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mongolia). She is currently a professor at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego. She is also a Senior Director of Albright Stonebridge Group, a global strategy firm, where she assists clients with issues related to East Asia. She is married to Samuel L. Popkin, another prominent UCSD professor.\n\nEarly life\nSusan Shirk was born circa 1945. She received her B.A. in political science from Mount Holyoke College in 1967, her M.A. in Asian studies at the University of California, Berkeley in 1968, and her Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1974. She first traveled to China in 1971 as a member of the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars.\n\nCareer\nShirk is the Ho Miu Lam Endowed Chair of China and Pacific Relations in the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego and Director of the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC). She heads the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue, a track II diplomatic initiative.\n\nSelected books\nChina: Fragile Superpower: How China's Internal Politics Could Derail Its Peaceful Rise, 2007\nHow China Opened Its Door: The Political Success of the PRC's Foreign Trade and Investment Reform, 1994\nThe Political Logic of Economic Reform in China, 1993\nThe Challenge of China and Japan: Politics and Development in East Asia, 1985\n Competitive Comrades, 1982\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n - Albright Stonebridge Group Bio\nBiography - National Committee on North Korea\nChina and the United States: Conversation with Susan Shirk\nSusan Shirk to Speak on North Korea - Mount Holyoke College.\nThe Body Politic: North Korea - interview with University of California\n\nUnited States Department of State officials\nAmerican women diplomats\nAmerican diplomats\nUniversity of California, San Diego faculty\nMount Holyoke College alumni\nMIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences alumni\nUniversity of California, Berkeley alumni\n1945 births\nLiving people\nAmerican women political scientists\nAmerican political scientists\n21st-century American women"
] |
[
"Corazon Aquino",
"Constitutional and political reforms",
"What constitutional reforms did Aquino carry out?",
"Immediately after assuming the presidency, President Aquino issued Proclamation No. 3, which established a revolutionary government.",
"How were her attempts at political reform received?",
"the new Constitution of the Philippines, which put strong emphasis on civil liberties, human rights and social justice, was overwhelmingly approved by the Filipino people."
] | C_f8034af6cb1943cdaf0ba462a242c299_1 | What other political reforms did Aquino attempt? | 3 | What other political reforms besides the new Constitution of the Philippines did Aquino attempt ? | Corazon Aquino | Immediately after assuming the presidency, President Aquino issued Proclamation No. 3, which established a revolutionary government. She abolished the 1973 Constitution that was in force during Martial Law, and by decree issued the provisional 1986 Freedom Constitution pending the ratification of a more formal, comprehensive charter. This allowed her to exercise both executive and legislative powers until the ratification of the 1987 Constitution and the restoration of Congress in 1987. Aquino promulgated two landmark legal codes, namely, the Family Code of 1987, which reformed the civil law on family relations, and the Administrative Code of 1987, which reorganized the structure of the executive branch of government. Another landmark law that was enacted during her tenure was the 1991 Local Government Code, which devolved national government powers to local government units (LGUs). The new Code enhanced the power of LGUs to enact local taxation measures and assured them of a share in the national revenue. Aquino closed down the Marcos-dominated Batasang Pambansa to prevent the new Marcos loyalist opposition from undermining her democratic reforms and reorganized the membership of the Supreme Court to restore its independence. In May 1986, the reorganized Supreme Court declared the Aquino government as "not merely a de facto government but in fact and law a de jure government", whose legitimacy had been affirmed by the community of nations. This Supreme Court decision affirmed the status of Aquino as the rightful leader of the Philippines. To fast-track the restoration of a full constitutional government and the writing of a new charter, she appointed 48 members of the 1986 Constitutional Commission ("Con-Com"), led by retired activist Supreme Court Associate Justice Cecilia Munoz-Palma. The Con-Com completed its final draft in October 1986. On February 2, 1987, the new Constitution of the Philippines, which put strong emphasis on civil liberties, human rights and social justice, was overwhelmingly approved by the Filipino people. The ratification of the new Constitution was followed by the election of senators and congress that same year and the holding of local elections in 1988. CANNOTANSWER | She abolished the 1973 Constitution that was in force during Martial Law, and by decree issued the provisional 1986 Freedom Constitution | Maria Corazon "Cory" Sumulong Cojuangco Aquino (, 25 January 1933 – 1 August 2009) was a Filipina politician who served as the 11th president of the Philippines from 1986 to 1992. She was the most prominent figure of the 1986 People Power Revolution, which ended the two-decade rule of President Ferdinand Marcos and led to the establishment of the current democratic Fifth Philippine Republic.
Corazon Aquino was married to Senator Benigno Aquino Jr., who was one of the most prominent critics of President Marcos. After the assassination of her husband on 21 August 1983, she emerged as leader of the opposition against the president. In late 1985, Marcos called for a snap election, and Aquino ran for president with former Senator Salvador Laurel as her running mate for vice president. After the election held on 7 February 1986, the Batasang Pambansa proclaimed Marcos and his running mate Arturo Tolentino as the winners, which prompted allegations of electoral fraud and Aquino's call for massive civil disobedience actions. Subsequently, the People Power Revolution, a non-violent mass demonstration movement, took place from 22 February to 25 February. The People Power Revolution, along with defections from the Armed Forces of the Philippines and support from the Philippine Catholic Church, successfully ousted Marcos and secured Aquino's accession to the presidency on 25 February 1986. Prior to her election as president, Aquino had not held any elected office. She was the first female president of the Philippines.
As president, Aquino oversaw the drafting of the 1987 Constitution, which limited the powers of the presidency and re-established the bicameral Congress, successfully removing the previous dictatorial government structure. Her economic policies focused on forging good economic standing amongst the international community as well as disestablishing Marcos-era crony capitalist monopolies, emphasizing the free market and responsible economy. Her administration conducted peace talks to resolve the Moro conflict, and the result of these talks was creation of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. Aquino was also criticized for the Mendiola Massacre, which resulted in the shooting deaths of at least 12 peaceful protesters by Philippine state security forces. The Philippines faced various natural calamities in the latter part of Aquino's administration, such as the 1990 Luzon earthquake and Tropical Storm Thelma. Several coup attempts were made against her government. She was succeeded as president by Fidel V. Ramos and returned to civilian life.
Aquino was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 2008 and died on 1 August 2009. Her son Benigno Aquino III served as president of the Philippines from 2010 to 2016. After her passing, monuments were established and public landmarks were named in honor of Corazon Aquino all around the Philippines. She is continually highly regarded by her native country, where she is called the Mother of Democracy.
Early life and education
Aquino was born Maria Corazon Sumulong Cojuangco on 25 January 1933 in Paniqui, Tarlac. Her father was José Cojuangco, a prominent Tarlac businessman and former congressman, and her mother was Demetria Sumulong, a pharmacist. Both of Aquino's parents were from prominent political families. Aquino's grandfather from her father's side, Melecio Cojuangco, was a member of the historic Malolos Congress, and Aquino's mother belonged to the politically influential Sumulong family of Rizal province, which included Juan Sumulong, who ran against Commonwealth President Manuel L. Quezon in 1941. Aquino was the sixth of eight children, two of whom died in infancy. Her siblings were Pedro, Josephine, Teresita, Jose Jr., and Maria Paz.
Aquino spent her elementary school days at St. Scholastica's College in Manila, where she graduated at the top of her class as valedictorian. She transferred to Assumption Convent to pursue high school studies. After her family moved to the United States, she attended the Assumption-run Ravenhill Academy in Philadelphia. She then transferred to Notre Dame Convent School in New York City, where she graduated from in 1949. During her high school years in the United States, Aquino volunteered for the campaign of U.S. Republican presidential candidate Thomas Dewey against Democratic incumbent U.S. President Harry S. Truman during the 1948 United States presidential election. After graduating from high school, she pursued her college education at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in New York, graduating in 1953 with a major in French and minor in mathematics.
After graduating from college, she returned to the Philippines and studied law at Far Eastern University in 1953. While attending, she met Benigno "Ninoy" S. Aquino Jr., who was the son of the late Speaker Benigno S. Aquino Sr. and a grandson of General Servillano Aquino. She discontinued her law education and married Benigno in Our Lady of Sorrows Parish in Pasay on 11 October 1954. The couple raised five children: Maria Elena ("Ballsy"; born 1955), Aurora Corazon ("Pinky"; born 1957), Benigno Simeon III ("Noynoy"; 1960–2021), Victoria Elisa ("Viel"; born 1961) and Kristina Bernadette ("Kris"; born 1971).
Aquino had initially had difficulty adjusting to provincial life when she and her husband moved to Concepcion, Tarlac, in 1955. Aquino found herself bored in Concepcion, and welcomed the opportunity to have dinner with her husband inside the American military facility at nearby Clark Field. Afterwards, the Aquino family moved to a bungalow in suburban Quezon City.
Throughout her life, Aquino was known to be a devout Roman Catholic.
Corazon Aquino was fluent in French, Japanese, Spanish, and English aside from her native Tagalog and Kapampangan.
Wife of Benigno Aquino Jr.
Corazon Aquino's husband Benigno Aquino Jr., a member of the Liberal Party, rose to become the youngest governor in the country in 1961 and then the youngest senator ever elected to the Senate of the Philippines in 1967. For most of her husband's political career, Aquino remained a housewife who raised their children and hosted her spouse's political allies who would visit their Quezon City home. She would decline to join her husband on stage during campaign rallies, instead preferring to be in the back of the audience and listen to him. Unbeknownst to many at the time, Corazon Aquino sold some of her prized inheritance to fund the candidacy of her husband.
As Benigno Aquino Jr. emerged as a leading critic of the government of President Ferdinand Marcos, he became seen as a strong candidate for president to succeed Marcos in the 1973 elections. However, Marcos, who was barred by the 1935 Constitution to seek a third term, declared martial law on 21 September 1972 and later abolished the constitution, thereby allowing him to remain in office. Benigno Aquino Jr. was among the first to be arrested at the onset of martial law, and was later sentenced to death. During her husband's incarceration, Corazon Aquino stopped going to beauty salons or buying new clothes and prohibited her children from attending parties, until a priest advised her and her children to try to live as normal lives as possible.
Despite Corazon's initial opposition, Benigno Aquino Jr. decided to run in the 1978 Batasang Pambansa elections from his prison cell as party leader of the newly created LABAN. Corazon Aquino campaigned on behalf of her husband and delivered a political speech for the first time in her life during this political campaign. In 1980 Benigno Aquino Jr. suffered a heart attack, and Marcos allowed Senator Aquino and his family to leave for exile in the United States upon intervention from U.S. President Jimmy Carter so that Aquino could seek medical treatment. The family settled in Boston, and Corazon Aquino would later recall the next three years as the happiest days of her marriage and family life. On 21 August 1983, Benigno Aquino Jr. ended his stay in the United States and returned without his family to the Philippines, where he was immediately assassinated on a staircase leading to the tarmac of Manila International Airport. The airport is now named Ninoy Aquino International Airport, renamed by the Congress in his honor in 1987. Corazon Aquino returned to the Philippines a few days later and led her husband's funeral procession, in which more than two million people participated.
1986 presidential campaign
Following her husband's assassination in 1983, Corazon Aquino became active in various demonstrations held against the Marcos regime. She began to assume the mantle of leadership left by her husband and became a figurehead of the anti-Marcos political opposition. On 3 November 1985, during an interview with American journalist David Brinkley on This Week with David Brinkley, Marcos suddenly announced snap elections that would be held within three months to dispel doubt against his regime's legitimate authority, an action that surprised the nation. The election was later scheduled to be held on 7 February 1986. A petition was organized to urge Aquino to run for president, headed by former newspaper publisher Joaquin Roces. On 1 December, the petition of 1.2 million signatures was publicly presented to Aquino in an event attended by 15,000 people, and on 3 December, Aquino officially declared her candidacy. United Opposition (UNIDO) party leader Salvador Laurel was chosen as Aquino's running mate as candidate for vice president.
During the campaign, Marcos attacked Corazon Aquino on her husband's previous ties to communists, characterizing the election as a fight "between democracy and communism." Aquino refuted Marcos' charge and stated that she would not appoint a single communist to her cabinet. Marcos also accused Aquino of playing "political football" with the United States in regards to the continued United States military presence in the Philippines at Clark Air Base and Subic Naval Base. Another point of attack for Marcos was Aquino's inexperience in public office. Marcos' campaign was characterized by sexist attacks, such as remarks by Marcos that Aquino was "just a woman" and that a woman's remarks should be limited to the bedroom.
The snap election was held on 7 February 1986, and was marred by massive electoral fraud, violence, intimidation, coercion, and disenfranchisement of voters. On 11 February, while votes were still being tabulated, former Antique Governor and director of Aquino's campaign in Antique Evelio Javier was assassinated. During the tallying of votes conducted by the Commission on Elections (COMELEC), 30 poll computer technicians walked out to contest the alleged election-rigging being done in favor of Marcos. Years later it was claimed that the walkout of computer technicians was led by Linda Kapunan, wife of Lt Col Eduardo Kapunan, a leader of Reform the Armed Forces Movement that plotted to attack the Malacañang Palace and kill Marcos and his family, leading to a partial reevaluation of the walkout event.
On 15 February 1986, the Batasang Pambansa, which was dominated by Marcos' ruling party and its allies, declared President Marcos as the winner of the election. However, NAMFREL's electoral count showed that Corazon Aquino had won. Aquino claimed victory according to NAMFREL's electoral count and called for a rally dubbed "Tagumpay ng Bayan" (People's Victory Rally) the following day to protest the declaration by the Batasang Pambansa. Aquino also called for boycotts against products and services from companies controlled or owned by individuals closely allied with Marcos. The rally was held at the historic Rizal Park in Luneta, Manila and drew a pro-Aquino crowd of around two million people. The dubious election results drew condemnation from both domestic and foreign powers. The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines issued a statement strongly criticizing the conduct of the election, describing the election as violent and fraudulent. The United States Senate likewise condemned the election. Aquino rejected a power-sharing agreement proposed by the American diplomat Philip Habib, who had been sent as an emissary by U.S. President Ronald Reagan to help defuse the tension.
Accession as president
On 22 February 1986, disgruntled and reformist military officers led by Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and General Fidel V. Ramos surprised the nation and the international community by the announcement of their defection from the Marcos government, citing a strong belief that Aquino was the real winner in the contested presidential election. Enrile, Ramos, and the rebel soldiers then set up operations in Camp Aguinaldo, the headquarters of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, and Camp Crame, the headquarters of the Philippine Constabulary, across Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA). Cardinal Sin appealed to the public in a broadcast over Church-run Radyo Veritas, and millions of Filipinos gathered to the part of Epifanio De Los Santos Avenue between the two camps to give their support and prayers to the rebels. At that time, Aquino was meditating in a Carmelite convent in Cebu. Upon learning of the defection, Aquino and Cardinal Sin appeared on Radyo Vertias to rally behind Enrile and Ramos. Aquino then flew back to Manila to prepare for the takeover of the government.
After three days of peaceful mass protests primarily centered at EDSA called the People Power Revolution, Aquino was sworn in as the eleventh president of the Philippines on 25 February 1986. An hour after Aquino's inauguration, Marcos held his own inauguration ceremony at the Malacañang Palace. Later that same day, Ferdinand E. Marcos fled the Philippines to Hawaii.
Presidency
Corazon Aquino's accession to the presidency marked the end of authoritarian rule in the Philippines. Aquino is the first female president of the Philippines and is still the only president of the Philippines to have never held any prior political position. Aquino is regarded as the first female president in Asia.
Transitional government and creation of new constitution
On 25 February 1986, the first day of her administration, Aquino issued Proclamation No. 1, which announced an intention to reorganize the government and called on all officials appointed by Marcos to resign, starting with members of the Supreme Court. On 25 March 1986, President Aquino issued Proclamation No. 3, which announced a transitional government into a democratic system. She abolished the 1973 Constitution that was in force during the martial law era, and by decree issued the provisional 1986 Freedom Constitution, pending the ratification of a more formal and comprehensive charter. This constitutional allowed her to exercise both executive and legislative powers during the period of transitional government.
After the issuance of Proclamation No. 1, all 15 members of the Supreme Court submitted their resignations. Aquino then reorganized the membership of the Supreme Court with the stated purpose of restoring its judicial independence. On 22 May 1986, in the case Lawyers League v. President Aquino, the reorganized Supreme Court declared the Aquino government as "not merely a de facto government but in fact and law a de jure government", and affirmed its legitimacy.
Aquino appointed all 48 members of the 1986 Constitutional Commission ("Con-Com"), led by retired activist and former Supreme Court Associate Justice Cecilia Muñoz-Palma, which was tasked with writing a new constitution. The Commission completed its final draft of the Constitution in October 1986.
On 2 February 1987, the Constitution of the Philippines was ratified by nationwide plebiscite. It remains the constitution of the Philippines to the present day. The Constitution established a bill of rights and a three-branch government consisting of the executive department, the legislative department, and the judicial department. The Constitution restored the bicameral Congress, which in 1973 had been abolished by Marcos and replaced with first the Batasang Bayan and later the Batasang Pambansa. The ratification of the new Constitution was soon followed by the election of senators and the election of House of Representatives members on 11 May 1987, as well as local elections on 18 January 1988.
Legal reforms
After the ratification of the constitution, Aquino promulgated two landmark legal codes, namely, the Family Code of 1987, which reformed the civil law on family relations, and the Administrative Code of 1987, which reorganized the structure of the executive department of government. Another landmark law that was enacted during her tenure was the 1991 Local Government Code, which devolved national government powers to local government units (LGUs). The new Code enhanced the power of LGUs to enact local taxation measures and assured them of a share in the national revenue.
During Aquino's tenure, vital economic laws such as the Built-Operate-Transfer Law, Foreign Investments Act, and the Consumer Protection and Welfare Act were also enacted.
Socio-economic policies
The economy posted a positive growth of 3.4% during Aquino's first year in office, and continued to grow at an overall positive rate throughout her tenure for an average rate of 3.4% from 1986 to 1992. Real GDP growth suffered a 0.4% decrease in 1991 in the aftermath of the 1989 coup attempt by the Reform the Armed Forces Movement, which shook international confidence in the Philippine economy and hindered foreign investment.
Aquino made fighting inflation one of her priorities after the nation suffered from skyrocketing prices during the last years of the Marcos administration. The last six years of the Marcos administration recorded an average annual inflation rate of 20.9%, which peaked in 1984 at 50.3%. From 1986 to 1992, the Philippines recorded an average annual inflation rate of 9.2%. During the Aquino administration, the annual inflation rate peaked at 18.1% in 1991; a stated reason for this increase was panic buying during the Gulf War. Overall, the economy under Aquino had an average growth of 3.8% from 1986 to 1992.
De-monopolization
One of Aquino's first actions as president was to seize Marcos' multi-billion dollar fortune of ill-gotten wealth. On 28 February 1986, four days into her presidency, Aquino formed the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), which was tasked with retrieving Marcos' domestic and international fortune.
After his declaration of martial law in 1972 and his consolidation of authoritarian power, President Ferdinand Marcos issued various government decrees that awarded monopoly or oligopoly power over entire industries to various close associates, in a scheme later regarded as crony capitalism. President Aquino pursued a market liberalization agenda to combat this problem. President Aquino particularly targeted the sugar industry and the coconut industry for de-monopolization.
Debt
Throughout the tenure of President Ferdinand Marcos, government foreign debt had ballooned from less than $3 billion in 1970 to $28 billion by the end of his administration, through privatization of bad government assets and deregulation of many vital industries. The debt had badly tarnished the international credit standing and economic reputation of the country.
President Aquino inherited the debt of the Marcos administration and weighed all options on what to do with the debt, including not paying the debt. Aquino eventually chose to honor all the debts that were previously incurred in order to clear the country's economic reputation. Her decision proved to be unpopular but Aquino defended it, saying that was the most practical move. Beginning in 1986, the Aquino administration paid off $4 billion of the country's outstanding debts to improve its international credit ratings and attract the attention of foreign investors. This move also ensured lower interest rates and longer payment terms for future loans. During the Aquino administration, the Philippines acquired an additional $9 billion debt, increasing the net national debt by $5 billion within six years due to the need to infuse capital and money into the economy. The Aquino administration was able to reduce the Philippines' external debt-to-GDP ratio by 30.1 percent, from 87.9 percent at the start of the administration to 67.8 percent in 1991.
Agrarian reform
President Aquino envisioned agrarian and land reform as the centerpiece of her administration's social legislative agenda. However, her family background and social class as a privileged daughter of a wealthy and landed clan became a lightning rod of criticisms against her land reform agenda.
After the Mendiola Massacre and in response to calls for agrarian reform, President Aquino issued Presidential Proclamation 131 and Executive Order 229 on 22 July 1987, which outlined her land reform program, including sugar lands. In 1988, with the backing of Aquino, the new Congress of the Philippines passed Republic Act No. 6657, more popularly known as the "Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law" (CARP), which paved the way for the redistribution of agricultural lands from landowners to tenant-farmers. Landowners were paid in exchange by the government through just compensation, and were also not allowed to retain more than five hectares of land. The law also allowed corporate landowners to "voluntarily divest a proportion of their capital stock, equity or participation in favor of their workers or other qualified beneficiaries", in lieu of turning over their land to the government for redistribution. Despite the flaws in the law, the Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality in 1989, declaring that the implementation of CARP was "a revolutionary kind of expropriation."
Corazon Aquino herself was subject to a controversy that centered on Hacienda Luisita, a 6,453-hectare estate located in the province of Tarlac which she and her siblings inherited from her father José Cojuangco. Instead of land distribution, Hacienda Luisita reorganized itself into a corporation and distributed stock. As such, ownership of agricultural portions of the hacienda was transferred to the corporation, which in turn, gave its shares of stocks to farmers. Critics argued that Aquino bowed to pressure from relatives by allowing stock redistribution in lieu of land redistribution under CARP.
The stock redistribution scheme was revoked in 2006, when the Department of Agrarian Reform ordered the mandatory redistribution of land to tenant-farmers of Hacienda Luisita. The Department of Agrarian Reform had looked into its revocation since 2004, when violence erupted in the hacienda over the retrenchment of workers, leaving seven people dead.
Coup attempts on Aquino government
From 1986 to 1990 numerous coup attempts were enacted on the Aquino administration and the new Philippine government. Many of these attempts were conducted by the Reform the Armed Forces Movement, who attempted to establish a military government, while other attempts were conducted by loyalists to former President Marcos.
Mendiola massacre and cabinet infighting
On 22 January 1987, during the era of transition government and shortly before the nationwide plebiscite to ratify the Constitution, 12 citizens were killed and 51 were injured in the Mendiola Massacre. The incident was initially a peaceful protest by agrarian workers and farmers who had marched to the historic Mendiola Street near the Malacañan Palace to demand genuine land reform. The massacre occurred when Marines fired at farmers who tried to go beyond the designated demarcation line set by the police. The massacre resulted in several resignations from Aquino's cabinet, including Jose Diokno, head of the Presidential Committee on Human Rights, chairman of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), and chairman of the government panel in charge of negotiations with rebel forces resigned from his government posts. His daughter Maris said, "It was the only time we saw him near tears."
In September 1987, Vice President Doy Laurel resigned as secretary of foreign affairs. In his resignation letter to Aquino, Laurel stated, "...the past years of Marcos are now beginning to look no worse than your first two years in office. And the reported controversies and scandals involving your closest relatives have become the object of our people's outrage. From 16,500 NPA regular when Marcos fell, the communists now claim an armed strength of 25,200. From city to countryside, anarchy has spread. There is anarchy within the government, anarchy within the ruling coalesced parties and anarchy in the streets."
Finance Minister Jaime Ongpin, who had successfully advocated for paying external debt incurred during Marcos' administration, was dismissed by Aquino in September 1987 and later died in an apparent suicide in December 1987. His widow stated that he had been depressed due to infighting in Aquino's cabinet and lack of significant change since the People Power Revolution.
Soon after the Mendiola Massacre, the Aquino administration and Congress worked to pass significant agrarian reform, which culminated in the passage of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARP).
Peace talks with Moro and communist insurgencies
President Aquino conducted peace talks with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), an armed Moro Muslim insurgency group that sought to establish an independent Moro state within Mindanao. Aquino met with MNLF leader Nur Misuari and various MNLF groups in Sulu. In 1989, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) was created under Republic Act No. 6734 or the ARMM Organic Act, which established the Moro majority areas in the Mindanao island group as an autonomous region with its own government. The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao lasted from 1989 to 2019, after which it was succeeded by the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
The establishment of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao was opposed by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a militant splinter group from the MNLF that sought to secede from the Philippines to establish an Islamic state in Mindanao. Peace talks with MILF began in 1997 under President Fidel Ramos and violent insurgency officially continued until 2014, when peace accords were formally signed between MILF and the administration of President Benigno Aquino III that would lead to the creation of the BARMM.
The establishment of the ARMM also led to the establishment of Abu Sayyaf, a terrorist group founded in 1989 by Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani and composed of radical former members of the MNLF. Terrorist attacks by Abu Sayyaf would start in 1995 and continue to the present day, including the 2004 bombing of the MV Superferry 14 that resulted in the deaths of 116 people.
Shortly after becoming president, Aquino ordered the release of hundreds of political prisoners imprisoned during the Marcos era, including communist insurgents belonging to the Communist Party of the Philippines. These releases included leaders such as Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison and New People's Army founder Bernabe Buscayno. Preliminary peace talks with the CPP ended after the Mendiola Massacre on 22 January 1987, during which at least 12 farmers were killed at a protest rally.
Closing of United States military bases
Soon after Aquino took office, several Philippine senators declared that the presence of U.S. military forces in the Philippines was an affront to national sovereignty. The senators called for the United States military to vacate U.S. Naval Base Subic Bay and Clark Air Base, and Aquino opposed their demand. The United States objected by stating that they had leased the property and that the leases were still in effect. The United States stated that the facilities at Subic Bay were unequaled anywhere in Southeast Asia and a U.S. pullout could make all of that region of the world vulnerable to an incursion by the Soviet Union or by a resurgent Japan. Another issue with the demand was that thousands of Filipinos worked at these military facilities and they would lose their jobs if the U.S. military moved out. Aquino opposed the Senate's demand and believed that the bases should have remained. Aquino organized a protest against the pullout, which only gathered between 100,000 and 150,000 supporters, far short of the 500,000 to 1 million that had been originally expected.
The matter was still being debated when Mount Pinatubo erupted in June 1991, covering the entire area with volcanic ash. Despite attempts to continue the Subic Base, Aquino finally conceded. In December 1991, the government served notice that the U.S. had to close the base by the end of 1992.
Natural disasters and calamities
On 20 December 1987, the MV Doña Paz sank after a collision with the oil tanker MV Vector. The final death toll exceeded 4,300 people, and the sinking has been called the deadliest peacetime maritime disaster of the 20th century. In the aftermath, Aquino addressed the incident as "a national tragedy of harrowing proportions."
The 1990 Luzon earthquake was a 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck the island of Luzon. It left an estimate of 1,621 people dead and massive property damage.
In 1991, a volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo, then thought to be dormant, killed around 800 people and caused widespread long-term devastation of agricultural lands in Central Luzon. Around 20,000 residents had to be evacuated and around 10,000 people were left homeless by the event. It was the second largest terrestrial eruption of the 20th century.
On 1 November 1991 Tropical Storm Thelma (also known as Typhoon Uring) caused massive flooding in Ormoc City, leaving around 5,000 dead in what was then considered to be the deadliest typhoon in Philippine history. On 8 November, Aquino declared all of Leyte a disaster area.
Electrical power grid inadequacy
During Aquino's presidency, electric blackouts became common in Manila. The city experienced 7–12 hours-long blackouts, which severely affected its businesses. By the departure of Aquino in June 1992, businesses in Manila and nearby provinces had lost nearly $800 million since the preceding March.
Corazon Aquino's decision to deactivate the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP), which was built during the Marcos administration, contributed to further electricity crises in the 1990s, as the 620 megawatts capacity of the plant would have been enough to cover the shortfall at that time. Critics of the BNPP had stated that the power plant was unsafe, and cited the millions of dollars in bribes paid to President Marcos to allow its construction. The administration had failed to provide for an adequate replacement for the plant before her term had completed, and President Corazon Aquino ended her term in 1992 with the country reeling under a severe power shortage crisis.
Influence in 1992 presidential election
The 1987 Constitution limited the president to a single six-year term with no possibility of re-election. As the end of her presidency drew near, close advisers and friends told Aquino that since she was not inaugurated under the 1987 Constitution, she was still eligible to seek the presidency again in the upcoming 1992 elections, the first presidential elections held under normal and peaceful circumstances since 1965. However, Aquino firmly declined the requests for her to seek reelection, citing her strong belief that the presidency was not a lifetime position.
Initially, she named Ramon V. Mitra, Speaker of the Philippine House of Representatives who had been a friend of her husband, as her preferred candidate for the 1992 presidential elections. However, she later backtracked and instead supported the candidacy of General Fidel V. Ramos, who was her defense secretary and a key figure in the EDSA Revolution. Ramos had consistently stood by her government during the various coup attempts that were launched against her administration. Her sudden change of mind and withdrawal of support from Mitra drew criticism from her supporters in the liberal and social democratic sectors. Her decision also drew criticism from the Catholic Church, which questioned her support of Ramos due to his being a Protestant. General Ramos won the 1992 elections with 23.58% of the total votes in a wide-open campaign.
On 30 June 1992, Corazon Aquino formally and peacefully handed over power to Fidel Ramos. On that day, Fidel V. Ramos was inaugurated as the twelfth president of the Philippines. After the inauguration, Aquino left the ceremony in a simple white Toyota Crown she had purchased, rather than the lavish government-issued Mercedes Benz in which she and Ramos had ridden on the way to the ceremonies, to make the point that she was once again an ordinary citizen.
Post-presidency
Domestic
During Aquino's retirement and stay as a private citizen, she remained active in the Philippine political scene. Aquino would voice her dissent to government actions and policies that she deemed threats to the democratic foundations of the country.
In 1997, Aquino, together with Cardinal Jaime Sin, led a rally opposing President Fidel Ramos' attempt to extend his term through his proposal to amend the 1987 Constitution's restriction on presidential term limits. Ramos' proposed charter change would fail, leaving term limits and the presidential system in place.
During the 1998 Philippine presidential election, Aquino endorsed the candidacy of former police general and Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim from the Liberal Party for president. Lim would lose to Vice President Joseph Estrada, who won by a landslide. In 1999, Aquino and Cardinal Jaime Sin again worked together to oppose a second plan to amend the Constitution to remove term limits, this time under President Estrada. President Estrada stated that his plan to amend the Constitution was intended to lift provisions that 'restrict' economic activities and investments, and Estrada denied that it was an attempt to extend his stay in office. Estrada's proposed charter change would also fail.
In 2000, Aquino joined the mounting calls for Estrada to resign from office, amid a series of corruption scandals, including strong allegations of bribery charges and gambling kickbacks. Estrada was impeached by the House of Representatives in November 2000 but acquitted by the Senate in December, which in January 2001 led to the Second EDSA Revolution, which ousted Estrada. During the Second EDSA Revolution, Aquino enthusiastically supported the ascendancy of Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to the position of president. In the subsequent trial of Joseph Estrada, Estrada was acquitted of perjury but found guilty of plunder and sentenced to reclusion perpetua with the accessory penalties of perpetual disqualification from public office and forfeiture of ill-gotten wealth on 12 September 2007. Estrada was pardoned by President Macapagal-Arroyo on 26 October 2007.
In 2005, after a series of revelations and exposes that implicated President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in rigging the 2004 presidential elections, Aquino called on Arroyo to resign in order to prevent bloodshed, violence and further political deterioration. Aquino once again led massive street-level demonstrations, this time demanding the resignation of President Arroyo.
During the 2007 senatorial elections, Aquino actively campaigned for her only son, Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III, who went on to win his race. Less than a year after Corazon Aquino's death in 2009, Benigno Aquino III won the 2010 Philippine presidential election and served as the 15th president of the Philippines from 2010 to 2016.
In December 2008, Corazon Aquino publicly expressed regret for her participation in the 2001 Second EDSA Revolution, which installed Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as president. She apologized to former President Joseph Estrada for the role she played in his ouster in 2001. Aquino's apology drew criticisms from numerous politicians. In June 2009, two months before her death, Aquino issued a public statement in which she strongly denounced and condemned the Arroyo administration's plans of amending the 1987 Constitution, calling it a "shameless abuse of power."
International
Shortly after leaving the presidency, Aquino traveled abroad, giving speeches and lectures on issues of democracy, development, human rights, and women empowerment. At the 1994 meeting of the UNESCO World Commission on Culture and Development in Manila, Aquino delivered a speech urging the unconditional release of Burmese democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi from detention. Until her death in 2009, Aquino would continue to petition for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Aquino was a member of the Council of Women World Leaders, an international organization of former and current female heads of state, from the group's inception in 1996 to her death.
In 1997, Aquino attended the wake and funeral of Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta, whom she met during the latter's visit in Manila in 1989. In 2005, Aquino joined the international community in mourning the death of Pope John Paul II.
In 2002, Aquino became the first woman named to the Board of Governors at the Asian Institute of Management, a leading graduate business school and think tank in the Asia Pacific region. She served on the Board until 2006.
Charitable and social initiatives
After her term as president, Aquino was involved in several charitable activities and socio-economic initiatives. From 1992 until her death, Aquino was chairperson of the Benigno S. Aquino, Jr. Foundation, which she set up in her husband's honor after his assassination in 1983. Aquino supported the Gawad Kalinga social housing project for the poor and homeless. In 2007, Aquino helped establish the PinoyME Foundation, a non-profit organization that aims to provide microfinancing programs and projects for the poor. Aquino also painted, and would occasionally give away her paintings to friends and family or auction her paintings and donate the proceeds to charity. She never sold her art for her own profit.
Illness and death
On 24 March 2008, Aquino's family announced that the former president had been diagnosed with colorectal cancer. Upon her being earlier informed by her doctors that she had only three months to live, she pursued medical treatment and chemotherapy. A series of healing Masses for Aquino, who was a devout Catholic, were held throughout the country for her recovery. In a public statement during one healing Mass on 13 May 2008, Aquino said that her blood tests indicated that she was responding well to treatment, although her hair and appetite loss were apparent.
By July 2009, Aquino was reported to be suffering from loss of appetite and in very serious condition. At that time she was confined to Makati Medical Center. It was later announced that Aquino and her family had decided to stop chemotherapy and other medical interventions for her.
Aquino died in the Makati Medical Center at 3:18 a.m. on 1 August 2009 due to cardiorespiratory arrest at the age of 76.
Wake and funeral
On the day of Aquino's passing, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo announced a 10-day mourning period for the former president and issued Administrative Order No. 269 detailing the necessary arrangements for a state funeral. Arroyo was on a state visit to the United States at the time of Aquino's passing and returned to the Philippines on 5 August, cutting her visit short to pay her last respects to Aquino. Aquino's children declined Arroyo's offer of a state funeral for their mother.
All churches in the Philippines celebrated requiem masses simultaneously throughout the country and all government offices flew the Philippine flag at half-mast. Hours after her death, Aquino's body lay in repose for public viewing at the La Salle Green Hills campus in Mandaluyong. On 3 August 2009, Aquino's body was transferred from La Salle Greenhills to the Manila Cathedral in Intramuros, during which hundreds of thousands of Filipinos lined the streets to view and escort the former leader's body. On the way to the cathedral, Aquino's funeral cortege passed along Ayala Avenue in Makati, stopping in front of the monument to her husband Ninoy, where throngs of mourners gathered and sang the patriotic protest anthem "Bayan Ko. Aquino's casket was brought inside the cathedral by mid-afternoon that day. Following her death, all Roman Catholic dioceses in the country held Requiem Masses.
On 4 August 2009, Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr. and Imee Marcos, two prominent children of late former President Ferdinand Marcos, paid their last respects to Aquino in spite of the two families' longstanding feud. The Marcos siblings were received by Aquino's daughters María Elena, Aurora Corazon, and Victoria Elisa.
A final Requiem Mass was held on the morning of 5 August 2009, with Archbishop of Manila Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales, Bishop of Balanga Socrates B. Villegas, and other high-ranking clergymen concelebrating. Aquino's daughter Kris spoke on behalf of her family towards the end of the Mass. Aquino's flag-draped casket was escorted from the cathedral to Manila Memorial Park in Parañaque, where she was interred beside her husband in her family mausoleum. Aquino's funeral procession took more than eight hours to reach the burial site, as tens of thousands of civilians lined the route to pay their respects. Philippine Air Force UH-1 helicopters showered the procession with yellow confetti and ships docked at Manila's harbor blared their sirens to salute the late president.
Reaction
Both local and international leaders showed respect for Aquino's achievements in the process of democratization in the Philippines.
Local reaction
Various politicians across the political spectrum expressed their grief and praise for the former Philippine leader. President Arroyo, once an ally of Aquino, remembered the sacrifices she made for the country and called her a "national treasure." Former President Estrada said that the country had lost its mother and guiding voice with her sudden death. He also described Aquino as the "Philippines' most loved woman." Although they were at one time political foes, Aquino and Estrada had reconciled and joined forces in opposing President Arroyo.
Former Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, who had been Aquino's defense minister and later a fierce critic of Aquino, asked the public to pray for her eternal repose. Although former Aquino interior minister and Senate minority floor leader Aquilino Pimentel, Jr. revealed that he had "mixed feelings" about Aquino's death, he also said that the country "shall be forever indebted to Cory for rallying the nation behind the campaign to topple dictatorial rule and restore democracy".
Filipino citizens throughout the country wore either yellow shirts or held masses to pay tribute to Aquino. Yellow ribbons, which were a symbol of support for Aquino after the 1986 election and during the People Power Revolution, were tied along major national roads as a sign of solidarity and support for Aquino and her grieving family. On popular social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, Filipinos posted yellow ribbons on their accounts as tribute. Following her death, Filipino Catholics called on the Church to have Aquino canonized and declared as a saint. Days after her funeral, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) announced that it supported calls to put the former president on the 500-Peso banknote alongside Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino, Jr., her deceased husband. The bill had previously featured a portrait of only Benigno Aquino, Jr. since 1987.
International reaction
Messages of sympathy were sent by various national heads of state and international leaders.
Pope Benedict XVI, in his letter to Archbishop Rosales, recalled Aquino's "courageous commitment to the freedom of the Filipino people, her firm rejection of violence and intolerance" and called her a woman of courage and faith.
U.S. President Barack Obama, through White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, said that "her courage, determination, and moral leadership are an inspiration to us all and exemplify the best in the Filipino nation". U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed sadness over the passing of Aquino, to whom she had sent a personal letter of best wishes for recovery while she was still in hospital in July 2009. Clinton said that Aquino was "admired by the world for her extraordinary courage" in leading the fight against dictatorship.
South African President Jacob Zuma called Aquino "a great leader who set a shining example of peaceful transition to democracy in her country".
Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, through the British Ambassador in Manila, sent a message to the Filipino people which read: "I am saddened to hear of the death of Corazon 'Cory' Aquino the former president of the Republic of the Philippines". She also added, "I send my sincere condolences to her family and to the people of the Philippines. Signed, Elizabeth R".
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev stated in a telegram to President Arroyo that "the name of Corazon Aquino is associated with a period of profound reforms and the democratic transformation of Filipino society". Medvedev also lauded Aquino's sympathy to Russian people and her contribution to the improvement of Russian-Filipino relations.
Timor-Leste President José Ramos-Horta and Wan Azizah, wife of Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, came to the Philippines to express their sympathies and attend Aquino's funeral.
Soon after her 2010 release from her two-decade prison sentence, Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar publicly cited Aquino as one of her inspirations. She also expressed her good wishes for Aquino's son, then-incumbent president of the Philippines Benigno S. Aquino III.
Honors
After her peaceful accession to the presidency and the ousting of President Marcos, Aquino was named Time magazine's Woman of the Year in 1986. In August 1999, Aquino was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 20 Most Influential Asians of the 20th century. Time also cited her as one of 65 great Asian Heroes in November 2006.
In 1994, Aquino was cited as one of 100 Women Who Shaped World History in a reference book written by Gail Meyer Rolka.
In 1996, she received the J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding from the Fulbright Association.
In 1998, she was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award in recognition of her role in peaceful revolution to attain democracy.
Since her passing in 2009, the legacy of Corazon Aquino has prompted various namings of public landmarks and creations of memorials. Among these are as follows:
On 1 August 2010, the first anniversary of her death, a 200 ft by 250 ft photo mosaic of Aquino was unveiled near the Quirino Grandstand at the Luneta Park in the presence of her son, President Benigno Aquino III, and her supporters. It was submitted to Guinness World Records to be certified as the largest photo mosaic in the world, and the record was later certified by the World Record Academy (which is not affiliated with Guinness).
On 9 October 2010, Manila Mayor Alfredo S. Lim inaugurated a public market in Baseco, Port Area known as the President Corazon C. Aquino Public Market.
On 16 December 2010, President Benigno Aquino III and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (Central Bank of the Philippines) announced the release of newly designed 500-peso banknotes that feature both Senator Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr. and Corazon Aquino. The previous design featured only Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr. and had been in circulation since 1987.
On 13 February 2013, the Corazon Aquino Democratic Space was launched at the De La Salle University, alongside the formal inauguration of the new Henry Sy, Sr. Hall.
On 28 July 2014, the Republic Act No. 10663, which named a circumferential road in Iloilo City to President Corazon C. Aquino Avenue, was signed into law by President Benigno Aquino III.
In 2015, the new Corazon C. Aquino Hospital in Barangay Biasong, Dipolog City was opened to the public.
On 10 December 2015, the Republic Act No. 10176, which renamed Batasan Hills High School (BHES) into "President Corazon C. Aquino Elementary School" (PCCAES) in Batasan Hills, Quezon City, was signed into law by President Benigno Aquino III.
On 29 June 2018, the Republic Act No. 11045, which renamed the Kay Tikling-Antipolo-Teresa-Morong National Road to Corazon C. Aquino Avenue, was signed into law by President Rodrigo Duterte. Corazon C. Aquino Avenue is a road traversing from Taytay to Morong in Rizal (including the segment of Ortigas Avenue Extension from Taytay to Antipolo).
In popular culture
In 2008, a musical play about Aquino entitled Cory, the Musical was staged at the Meralco Theater. It was written and directed by Nestor Torre Jr. and starred Isay Alvarez as Aquino. The musical featured a libretto of 19 original songs composed by Lourdes Pimentel, wife of Senator Aquilino Pimentel, Jr.
Awards and achievements
Philippines
Foreign Awards
1986 Time Woman of the Year
1986 Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award
1986 United Nations Silver Medal
1986 Canadian International Prize for Freedom
1986 International Democracy Award from the International Association of Political Consultants
1987 Prize For Freedom Award from Liberal International
1993 Special Peace Award from the Aurora Aragon Quezon Peace Awards Foundation and Concerned Women of the Philippines
1995 Path to Peace Award
1996 J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding from the U.S. Department of State
1998 Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding
1998 Pearl S. Buck Award
1999 One of Time Magazine's 20 Most Influential Asians of the 20th Century
2001 World Citizenship Award
2005 David Rockefeller Bridging Leadership Awards
2005 One of the World's Elite Women Who Make a Difference by the International Women's Forum Hall of Fame
2006 One of Time Magazine's 65 Asian Heroes
2008 One of A Different View's 15 Champions of World Democracy
EWC Asia Pacific Community Building Award
Women's International Center International Leadership Living Legacy Award
Martin Luther King, Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize
United Nations Development Fund for Women Noel Foundation Life Award
Honorary doctorates
Doctor of International Relations, honoris causa, from:
Boston University in Boston
Eastern University in St. David, Pennsylvania
Fordham University in New York
Waseda University in Tokyo
Doctor of Civil Law, honoris causa, from:
Far Eastern University (59th Commencement Exercises, March 1987)
Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, from:
University of the Philippines Diliman in Quezon City
University of Santo Tomas in Manila
University of Hong Kong in Hong Kong
Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, from:
Ateneo de Manila University
College of Mount Saint Vincent in New York
Xavier University – Ateneo de Cagayan in Cagayan de Oro
Doctor of Humanities, honoris causa, from:
Bicol University (Posthumous) in Legazpi
San Beda College in Manila
Seattle University
Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts
University of Oregon
Doctor of Public Administration, honoris causa, from:
Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila (University of the City of Manila)
References
Bibliography
External links
Official website of Corazon Aquino – maintained by the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation
Time Woman of the Year: Corazon "Cory" Aquino
New York Times obituary
President Aquino in Time Magazine's Year ender
World Socialist Web Site obituary: part one and part two
|-
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1933 births
2009 deaths
20th-century Filipino politicians
20th-century Filipino women politicians
20th-century women rulers
Corazon
Ateneo de Manila University alumni
Burials at the Manila Memorial Park – Sucat
Candidates in the 1986 Philippine presidential election
Cojuangco family
College of Mount Saint Vincent alumni
Deaths from cancer in the Philippines
Deaths from colorectal cancer
Female heads of government
Female heads of state
Filipino democracy activists
Filipino human rights activists
Filipino politicians of Chinese descent
Filipino Roman Catholics
Kapampangan people
Liberal Party (Philippines) politicians
Nonviolence advocates
Order of the Precious Crown members
PDP–Laban politicians
People from Intramuros
People from Tarlac
People of the People Power Revolution
Presidents of the Philippines
Ramon Magsaysay Award winners
Recipients of the Order of the Liberator General San Martin
Time Person of the Year
Women members of the Cabinet of the Philippines
Women presidents | false | [
"The most serious attempted coup d'état against the government of Philippine President Corazon Aquino was staged beginning December 1, 1989, by members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines belonging to the Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM) and soldiers loyal to former President Ferdinand Marcos. Metro Manila was shaken by this Christmas-time coup, which almost seized the Malacañang Palace. It was completely defeated by the Philippine government by December 9, 1989.\n\nBackground \nPhilippine politics between 1986 and 1991 was punctuated by Aquino's desperate struggle to survive physically and politically a succession of coup attempts, culminating in a large, bloody, and well-financed attempt in December 1989. This attempt involved upwards of 3,000 troops, including elite Scout Rangers and marines, in a coordinated series of attacks on Camp Crame and Camp Aquinaldo, Fort Bonifacio, Cavite Naval Base, Villamor Air Base, and on Malacañan Palace itself, which was dive-bombed by vintage T-28 aircraft. Although Aquino was not hurt in this raid, the situation appeared desperate, for not only were military commanders around the country waiting to see which side would triumph in Manila, but the people of Manila, who had poured into the streets to protect Aquino in February 1986, stayed home this time.\n\nCoup \nThe coup was led by military officers, including Lt. Colonel Gregorio Honasan, General Edgardo Abenina, and retired General Jose Ma. Zumel, and staged by an alliance of the RAM, led by Honasan, and Zumel. At the onset of the coup, the rebels seized Villamor Airbase, Fort Bonifacio, Sangley Airbase, Mactan Airbase in Cebu, and portions of Camp Aguinaldo. The rebels set patrols around the runway of Ninoy Aquino International Airport effectively shutting it down. From Sangley Airbase, the rebels launched planes and helicopters which bombarded and strafed Malacañan Palace, Camp Crame and Camp Aguinaldo. Three hours after the fall of Villamor Air Base, Aquino went on air to address her people, and said that \"We shall smash this naked attempt once more\". At that point the government counterattack began. Seven army trucks headed for Channel 4, and fierce fighting occurred there. Ramos and Renato de Villa monitored the crises from Camp Crame, the Constabulary headquarters. With loyal forces hard-pressed by the rebels, Aquino requested U.S. military assistance, at the behest of her military commanders, and it was granted. 120 marines, part of an 800-strong U.S. contingent stationed at Subic Naval Base, were deployed at the grounds of the U.S. Embassy as a defensive measure. President Aquino stated that the loyal forces lacked the ability to contain the rebel forces. American help was crucial to the Aquino cause, clearing the skies of rebel aircraft and allowing loyalists to consolidate their forces. While many mutineers surrendered, Aquino declared: \"We leave them two choices; Surrender or die\". Government F-5 jets sortied and challenged rebel planes culminating in the destruction of the rebel T-28 Trojans. Government forces recaptured all military bases save for Mactan Airbase by December 3, but rebel forces retreating from Fort Bonifacio occupied 22 high-rise buildings along the Ayala business area in Makati. The government claimed the coup was crushed, but fierce fighting continued through the weekend, with Camp Aguinaldo set ablaze by the rebel howitzers. The occupation of Makati lasted until December 7, while the rebels surrendered Mactan Airbase on December 9. The official casualty toll was 99 dead (including 50 civilians) and 570 wounded.\n\nThe United States military supported the Aquino government during this coup. Operation \"Classic Resolve\" involved the use of US airpower from the aircraft carriers and and F-4 Phantom II fighters from Clark Air Base. The United States Air Force jets retook the skies for Aquino. The US planes had clearance to \"...buzz the rebel planes at their base, fire in front of them if any attempted to take off, and shoot them down if they did\".\n\nAmerican involvement \nAquino found it necessary to request United States support to put down this uprising. Then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell recalled Aquino calling the White House and asking for the USAF to bomb a nearby air base to prevent the aircraft from attack the Malacañang Palace. Powell and Admiral Huntington Hardisty instead decided to instruct US F-4 pilots to take off from Clark Air Base and buzz the mutinous air base in a manner that demonstrated \"extreme hostile intent,\" with further instructions to shoot down any planes that did takeoff. In November–December 1989 US forces moved to evacuate Americans during the coup attempt, and generally protect US interests in the Philippines. During this operation, a large special operations force was formed, USAF fighter aircraft patrolled above rebel air bases, and two aircraft carriers were positioned off the Philippines.\n\nIn early December 1989, participated in Operation Classic Resolve, President Bush's response to Philippine President Corazon Aquino's request for air support during the rebel coup attempt. Bush approved the use of US F-4 fighter jets stationed at Clark Air Base on Luzon to buzz the rebel planes at their base, fire in front of them if any attempted to take off, and shoot them down if they did. The buzzing by US planes soon caused the coup to collapse. On 2 December 1989 President Bush reported that on 1 December US fighter planes from Clark Air Base in the Philippines had assisted the Aquino government to repel a coup attempt. In addition, 100 marines were sent from the US Navy base at Subic Bay to protect the US Embassy in Manila. Meanwhile, USS Enterprise remained on station while conducting flight operations in the waters outside Manila Bay.\n\nCIA documents suggested that Aquino asked for assistance for air strikes against RAM positions, but Washington declined since it was a \"political risk\".\n\nEffects\n\nPolitical and economic fallout \nPolitically this coup was a disaster for Aquino. Her vice president, Salvador Laurel, openly allied himself with the coup plotters and called for her to resign. Even Aquino's staunchest supporters saw her need for United States air support as a devastating sign of weakness. Most damaging of all, when the last rebels finally surrendered, they did so in a triumphant televised parade and with a promise from the government that they would be treated \"humanely, justly, and fairly.\" One of the devastating results of this insurrection was that just when the economy had finally seemed to turn around, investors were frightened off, especially since much of the combat took place in the business haven of Makati. Tourism, a major foreign-exchange earner, came to a halt. Business leaders estimated that the mutiny cost the economy US$1.5 billion.\n\nDavide Commission \nFollowing the failure of this coup, President Aquino established a fact-finding commission headed by COMELEC chair Hilario Davide Jr. to investigate and provide a full report on the series of coup attempts against her government. The report became known as the Davide Commission Report.\n\nParticipants of the December 1989 coup later blamed perceived deficiencies in the Aquino government in areas such as graft and corruption, bureaucratic inefficiency, and lenient treatment of communist insurgents as the reasons for the coup. In response, the Davide Commission recommended several short-term and long-term countermeasures, including the establishment of a civilian national police force, a crackdown on corruption in the military, a performance review of appointive government officials, reforms in the process of military promotions, a review of election laws in time for the 1992 presidential elections, and a definitive statement on the part of Aquino on whether she intended to run for re-election in 1992.\n\nLater coups d'état \nIn 1990, there were other coup attempts in March and October. The Hotel Delfino siege happened on March 4, when suspended Cagayan governor Rodolfo Aguinaldo directed his private army estimated at 300 men to seize the Hotel Delfino in Tuguegarao, Cagayan. This incident followed Aguinaldo's indictment on charges of rebellion and murder relating to his support for the failed Dec. 1-9 coup attempt. Brig. Gen. Oscar Florendo, armed forces chief of Civil Military Relations, was dispatched by President Aquino to serve Aguinaldo with an arrest warrant. Florendo was taken hostage in the hotel along with more than 50 other guests. After hours of standoff between the two sides, nearly 1,000 government troops launched an attack to dislodge Aguinaldo's forces from the hotel; the government prevailed when more than 100 of Aguinaldo's men surrendered and about 90 were captured. Florendo was shot at the Delfino by one of Aguinaldo's men and later died of his wounds. At least a dozen others were killed in or around the hotel; scores of civilian supporters of Aguinaldo were arrested; and a truck with assault rifles, mortars, and crates of ammunition was captured. During this melee, Aguinaldo fled with about 90 fighters for mountains in the north.\n\nSeven months later on October 4, the tenth and last coup attempt happened in an army base in Mindanao where Col. Alexander Noble and 21 others mutinied for two days until they surrendered on October 6 as it failed.\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography \n\n \n\nRebellions in the Philippines\nPolitical history of the Philippines\nPhilippine Coup Attempt, 1989\nPhilippines\nAttempted coups in the Philippines\nPresidency of Corazon Aquino\nDecember 1989 events in Asia",
"Aquino may refer to:\n\n Aquino, Italy, a small town in Frosinone, Italy\n Aquino (surname), including a list of people\nAquino family, a political family in the Philippines \nAquino, a book about Benigno Aquino, Jr. and Corazon Aquino by author Mel White"
] |
[
"Corazon Aquino",
"Constitutional and political reforms",
"What constitutional reforms did Aquino carry out?",
"Immediately after assuming the presidency, President Aquino issued Proclamation No. 3, which established a revolutionary government.",
"How were her attempts at political reform received?",
"the new Constitution of the Philippines, which put strong emphasis on civil liberties, human rights and social justice, was overwhelmingly approved by the Filipino people.",
"What other political reforms did Aquino attempt?",
"She abolished the 1973 Constitution that was in force during Martial Law, and by decree issued the provisional 1986 Freedom Constitution"
] | C_f8034af6cb1943cdaf0ba462a242c299_1 | What are the details of the 1986 Freedom Constitution? | 4 | What are the details of the 1986 Philippines Freedom Constitution? | Corazon Aquino | Immediately after assuming the presidency, President Aquino issued Proclamation No. 3, which established a revolutionary government. She abolished the 1973 Constitution that was in force during Martial Law, and by decree issued the provisional 1986 Freedom Constitution pending the ratification of a more formal, comprehensive charter. This allowed her to exercise both executive and legislative powers until the ratification of the 1987 Constitution and the restoration of Congress in 1987. Aquino promulgated two landmark legal codes, namely, the Family Code of 1987, which reformed the civil law on family relations, and the Administrative Code of 1987, which reorganized the structure of the executive branch of government. Another landmark law that was enacted during her tenure was the 1991 Local Government Code, which devolved national government powers to local government units (LGUs). The new Code enhanced the power of LGUs to enact local taxation measures and assured them of a share in the national revenue. Aquino closed down the Marcos-dominated Batasang Pambansa to prevent the new Marcos loyalist opposition from undermining her democratic reforms and reorganized the membership of the Supreme Court to restore its independence. In May 1986, the reorganized Supreme Court declared the Aquino government as "not merely a de facto government but in fact and law a de jure government", whose legitimacy had been affirmed by the community of nations. This Supreme Court decision affirmed the status of Aquino as the rightful leader of the Philippines. To fast-track the restoration of a full constitutional government and the writing of a new charter, she appointed 48 members of the 1986 Constitutional Commission ("Con-Com"), led by retired activist Supreme Court Associate Justice Cecilia Munoz-Palma. The Con-Com completed its final draft in October 1986. On February 2, 1987, the new Constitution of the Philippines, which put strong emphasis on civil liberties, human rights and social justice, was overwhelmingly approved by the Filipino people. The ratification of the new Constitution was followed by the election of senators and congress that same year and the holding of local elections in 1988. CANNOTANSWER | This allowed her to exercise both executive and legislative powers until the ratification of the 1987 Constitution | Maria Corazon "Cory" Sumulong Cojuangco Aquino (, 25 January 1933 – 1 August 2009) was a Filipina politician who served as the 11th president of the Philippines from 1986 to 1992. She was the most prominent figure of the 1986 People Power Revolution, which ended the two-decade rule of President Ferdinand Marcos and led to the establishment of the current democratic Fifth Philippine Republic.
Corazon Aquino was married to Senator Benigno Aquino Jr., who was one of the most prominent critics of President Marcos. After the assassination of her husband on 21 August 1983, she emerged as leader of the opposition against the president. In late 1985, Marcos called for a snap election, and Aquino ran for president with former Senator Salvador Laurel as her running mate for vice president. After the election held on 7 February 1986, the Batasang Pambansa proclaimed Marcos and his running mate Arturo Tolentino as the winners, which prompted allegations of electoral fraud and Aquino's call for massive civil disobedience actions. Subsequently, the People Power Revolution, a non-violent mass demonstration movement, took place from 22 February to 25 February. The People Power Revolution, along with defections from the Armed Forces of the Philippines and support from the Philippine Catholic Church, successfully ousted Marcos and secured Aquino's accession to the presidency on 25 February 1986. Prior to her election as president, Aquino had not held any elected office. She was the first female president of the Philippines.
As president, Aquino oversaw the drafting of the 1987 Constitution, which limited the powers of the presidency and re-established the bicameral Congress, successfully removing the previous dictatorial government structure. Her economic policies focused on forging good economic standing amongst the international community as well as disestablishing Marcos-era crony capitalist monopolies, emphasizing the free market and responsible economy. Her administration conducted peace talks to resolve the Moro conflict, and the result of these talks was creation of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. Aquino was also criticized for the Mendiola Massacre, which resulted in the shooting deaths of at least 12 peaceful protesters by Philippine state security forces. The Philippines faced various natural calamities in the latter part of Aquino's administration, such as the 1990 Luzon earthquake and Tropical Storm Thelma. Several coup attempts were made against her government. She was succeeded as president by Fidel V. Ramos and returned to civilian life.
Aquino was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 2008 and died on 1 August 2009. Her son Benigno Aquino III served as president of the Philippines from 2010 to 2016. After her passing, monuments were established and public landmarks were named in honor of Corazon Aquino all around the Philippines. She is continually highly regarded by her native country, where she is called the Mother of Democracy.
Early life and education
Aquino was born Maria Corazon Sumulong Cojuangco on 25 January 1933 in Paniqui, Tarlac. Her father was José Cojuangco, a prominent Tarlac businessman and former congressman, and her mother was Demetria Sumulong, a pharmacist. Both of Aquino's parents were from prominent political families. Aquino's grandfather from her father's side, Melecio Cojuangco, was a member of the historic Malolos Congress, and Aquino's mother belonged to the politically influential Sumulong family of Rizal province, which included Juan Sumulong, who ran against Commonwealth President Manuel L. Quezon in 1941. Aquino was the sixth of eight children, two of whom died in infancy. Her siblings were Pedro, Josephine, Teresita, Jose Jr., and Maria Paz.
Aquino spent her elementary school days at St. Scholastica's College in Manila, where she graduated at the top of her class as valedictorian. She transferred to Assumption Convent to pursue high school studies. After her family moved to the United States, she attended the Assumption-run Ravenhill Academy in Philadelphia. She then transferred to Notre Dame Convent School in New York City, where she graduated from in 1949. During her high school years in the United States, Aquino volunteered for the campaign of U.S. Republican presidential candidate Thomas Dewey against Democratic incumbent U.S. President Harry S. Truman during the 1948 United States presidential election. After graduating from high school, she pursued her college education at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in New York, graduating in 1953 with a major in French and minor in mathematics.
After graduating from college, she returned to the Philippines and studied law at Far Eastern University in 1953. While attending, she met Benigno "Ninoy" S. Aquino Jr., who was the son of the late Speaker Benigno S. Aquino Sr. and a grandson of General Servillano Aquino. She discontinued her law education and married Benigno in Our Lady of Sorrows Parish in Pasay on 11 October 1954. The couple raised five children: Maria Elena ("Ballsy"; born 1955), Aurora Corazon ("Pinky"; born 1957), Benigno Simeon III ("Noynoy"; 1960–2021), Victoria Elisa ("Viel"; born 1961) and Kristina Bernadette ("Kris"; born 1971).
Aquino had initially had difficulty adjusting to provincial life when she and her husband moved to Concepcion, Tarlac, in 1955. Aquino found herself bored in Concepcion, and welcomed the opportunity to have dinner with her husband inside the American military facility at nearby Clark Field. Afterwards, the Aquino family moved to a bungalow in suburban Quezon City.
Throughout her life, Aquino was known to be a devout Roman Catholic.
Corazon Aquino was fluent in French, Japanese, Spanish, and English aside from her native Tagalog and Kapampangan.
Wife of Benigno Aquino Jr.
Corazon Aquino's husband Benigno Aquino Jr., a member of the Liberal Party, rose to become the youngest governor in the country in 1961 and then the youngest senator ever elected to the Senate of the Philippines in 1967. For most of her husband's political career, Aquino remained a housewife who raised their children and hosted her spouse's political allies who would visit their Quezon City home. She would decline to join her husband on stage during campaign rallies, instead preferring to be in the back of the audience and listen to him. Unbeknownst to many at the time, Corazon Aquino sold some of her prized inheritance to fund the candidacy of her husband.
As Benigno Aquino Jr. emerged as a leading critic of the government of President Ferdinand Marcos, he became seen as a strong candidate for president to succeed Marcos in the 1973 elections. However, Marcos, who was barred by the 1935 Constitution to seek a third term, declared martial law on 21 September 1972 and later abolished the constitution, thereby allowing him to remain in office. Benigno Aquino Jr. was among the first to be arrested at the onset of martial law, and was later sentenced to death. During her husband's incarceration, Corazon Aquino stopped going to beauty salons or buying new clothes and prohibited her children from attending parties, until a priest advised her and her children to try to live as normal lives as possible.
Despite Corazon's initial opposition, Benigno Aquino Jr. decided to run in the 1978 Batasang Pambansa elections from his prison cell as party leader of the newly created LABAN. Corazon Aquino campaigned on behalf of her husband and delivered a political speech for the first time in her life during this political campaign. In 1980 Benigno Aquino Jr. suffered a heart attack, and Marcos allowed Senator Aquino and his family to leave for exile in the United States upon intervention from U.S. President Jimmy Carter so that Aquino could seek medical treatment. The family settled in Boston, and Corazon Aquino would later recall the next three years as the happiest days of her marriage and family life. On 21 August 1983, Benigno Aquino Jr. ended his stay in the United States and returned without his family to the Philippines, where he was immediately assassinated on a staircase leading to the tarmac of Manila International Airport. The airport is now named Ninoy Aquino International Airport, renamed by the Congress in his honor in 1987. Corazon Aquino returned to the Philippines a few days later and led her husband's funeral procession, in which more than two million people participated.
1986 presidential campaign
Following her husband's assassination in 1983, Corazon Aquino became active in various demonstrations held against the Marcos regime. She began to assume the mantle of leadership left by her husband and became a figurehead of the anti-Marcos political opposition. On 3 November 1985, during an interview with American journalist David Brinkley on This Week with David Brinkley, Marcos suddenly announced snap elections that would be held within three months to dispel doubt against his regime's legitimate authority, an action that surprised the nation. The election was later scheduled to be held on 7 February 1986. A petition was organized to urge Aquino to run for president, headed by former newspaper publisher Joaquin Roces. On 1 December, the petition of 1.2 million signatures was publicly presented to Aquino in an event attended by 15,000 people, and on 3 December, Aquino officially declared her candidacy. United Opposition (UNIDO) party leader Salvador Laurel was chosen as Aquino's running mate as candidate for vice president.
During the campaign, Marcos attacked Corazon Aquino on her husband's previous ties to communists, characterizing the election as a fight "between democracy and communism." Aquino refuted Marcos' charge and stated that she would not appoint a single communist to her cabinet. Marcos also accused Aquino of playing "political football" with the United States in regards to the continued United States military presence in the Philippines at Clark Air Base and Subic Naval Base. Another point of attack for Marcos was Aquino's inexperience in public office. Marcos' campaign was characterized by sexist attacks, such as remarks by Marcos that Aquino was "just a woman" and that a woman's remarks should be limited to the bedroom.
The snap election was held on 7 February 1986, and was marred by massive electoral fraud, violence, intimidation, coercion, and disenfranchisement of voters. On 11 February, while votes were still being tabulated, former Antique Governor and director of Aquino's campaign in Antique Evelio Javier was assassinated. During the tallying of votes conducted by the Commission on Elections (COMELEC), 30 poll computer technicians walked out to contest the alleged election-rigging being done in favor of Marcos. Years later it was claimed that the walkout of computer technicians was led by Linda Kapunan, wife of Lt Col Eduardo Kapunan, a leader of Reform the Armed Forces Movement that plotted to attack the Malacañang Palace and kill Marcos and his family, leading to a partial reevaluation of the walkout event.
On 15 February 1986, the Batasang Pambansa, which was dominated by Marcos' ruling party and its allies, declared President Marcos as the winner of the election. However, NAMFREL's electoral count showed that Corazon Aquino had won. Aquino claimed victory according to NAMFREL's electoral count and called for a rally dubbed "Tagumpay ng Bayan" (People's Victory Rally) the following day to protest the declaration by the Batasang Pambansa. Aquino also called for boycotts against products and services from companies controlled or owned by individuals closely allied with Marcos. The rally was held at the historic Rizal Park in Luneta, Manila and drew a pro-Aquino crowd of around two million people. The dubious election results drew condemnation from both domestic and foreign powers. The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines issued a statement strongly criticizing the conduct of the election, describing the election as violent and fraudulent. The United States Senate likewise condemned the election. Aquino rejected a power-sharing agreement proposed by the American diplomat Philip Habib, who had been sent as an emissary by U.S. President Ronald Reagan to help defuse the tension.
Accession as president
On 22 February 1986, disgruntled and reformist military officers led by Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and General Fidel V. Ramos surprised the nation and the international community by the announcement of their defection from the Marcos government, citing a strong belief that Aquino was the real winner in the contested presidential election. Enrile, Ramos, and the rebel soldiers then set up operations in Camp Aguinaldo, the headquarters of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, and Camp Crame, the headquarters of the Philippine Constabulary, across Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA). Cardinal Sin appealed to the public in a broadcast over Church-run Radyo Veritas, and millions of Filipinos gathered to the part of Epifanio De Los Santos Avenue between the two camps to give their support and prayers to the rebels. At that time, Aquino was meditating in a Carmelite convent in Cebu. Upon learning of the defection, Aquino and Cardinal Sin appeared on Radyo Vertias to rally behind Enrile and Ramos. Aquino then flew back to Manila to prepare for the takeover of the government.
After three days of peaceful mass protests primarily centered at EDSA called the People Power Revolution, Aquino was sworn in as the eleventh president of the Philippines on 25 February 1986. An hour after Aquino's inauguration, Marcos held his own inauguration ceremony at the Malacañang Palace. Later that same day, Ferdinand E. Marcos fled the Philippines to Hawaii.
Presidency
Corazon Aquino's accession to the presidency marked the end of authoritarian rule in the Philippines. Aquino is the first female president of the Philippines and is still the only president of the Philippines to have never held any prior political position. Aquino is regarded as the first female president in Asia.
Transitional government and creation of new constitution
On 25 February 1986, the first day of her administration, Aquino issued Proclamation No. 1, which announced an intention to reorganize the government and called on all officials appointed by Marcos to resign, starting with members of the Supreme Court. On 25 March 1986, President Aquino issued Proclamation No. 3, which announced a transitional government into a democratic system. She abolished the 1973 Constitution that was in force during the martial law era, and by decree issued the provisional 1986 Freedom Constitution, pending the ratification of a more formal and comprehensive charter. This constitutional allowed her to exercise both executive and legislative powers during the period of transitional government.
After the issuance of Proclamation No. 1, all 15 members of the Supreme Court submitted their resignations. Aquino then reorganized the membership of the Supreme Court with the stated purpose of restoring its judicial independence. On 22 May 1986, in the case Lawyers League v. President Aquino, the reorganized Supreme Court declared the Aquino government as "not merely a de facto government but in fact and law a de jure government", and affirmed its legitimacy.
Aquino appointed all 48 members of the 1986 Constitutional Commission ("Con-Com"), led by retired activist and former Supreme Court Associate Justice Cecilia Muñoz-Palma, which was tasked with writing a new constitution. The Commission completed its final draft of the Constitution in October 1986.
On 2 February 1987, the Constitution of the Philippines was ratified by nationwide plebiscite. It remains the constitution of the Philippines to the present day. The Constitution established a bill of rights and a three-branch government consisting of the executive department, the legislative department, and the judicial department. The Constitution restored the bicameral Congress, which in 1973 had been abolished by Marcos and replaced with first the Batasang Bayan and later the Batasang Pambansa. The ratification of the new Constitution was soon followed by the election of senators and the election of House of Representatives members on 11 May 1987, as well as local elections on 18 January 1988.
Legal reforms
After the ratification of the constitution, Aquino promulgated two landmark legal codes, namely, the Family Code of 1987, which reformed the civil law on family relations, and the Administrative Code of 1987, which reorganized the structure of the executive department of government. Another landmark law that was enacted during her tenure was the 1991 Local Government Code, which devolved national government powers to local government units (LGUs). The new Code enhanced the power of LGUs to enact local taxation measures and assured them of a share in the national revenue.
During Aquino's tenure, vital economic laws such as the Built-Operate-Transfer Law, Foreign Investments Act, and the Consumer Protection and Welfare Act were also enacted.
Socio-economic policies
The economy posted a positive growth of 3.4% during Aquino's first year in office, and continued to grow at an overall positive rate throughout her tenure for an average rate of 3.4% from 1986 to 1992. Real GDP growth suffered a 0.4% decrease in 1991 in the aftermath of the 1989 coup attempt by the Reform the Armed Forces Movement, which shook international confidence in the Philippine economy and hindered foreign investment.
Aquino made fighting inflation one of her priorities after the nation suffered from skyrocketing prices during the last years of the Marcos administration. The last six years of the Marcos administration recorded an average annual inflation rate of 20.9%, which peaked in 1984 at 50.3%. From 1986 to 1992, the Philippines recorded an average annual inflation rate of 9.2%. During the Aquino administration, the annual inflation rate peaked at 18.1% in 1991; a stated reason for this increase was panic buying during the Gulf War. Overall, the economy under Aquino had an average growth of 3.8% from 1986 to 1992.
De-monopolization
One of Aquino's first actions as president was to seize Marcos' multi-billion dollar fortune of ill-gotten wealth. On 28 February 1986, four days into her presidency, Aquino formed the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), which was tasked with retrieving Marcos' domestic and international fortune.
After his declaration of martial law in 1972 and his consolidation of authoritarian power, President Ferdinand Marcos issued various government decrees that awarded monopoly or oligopoly power over entire industries to various close associates, in a scheme later regarded as crony capitalism. President Aquino pursued a market liberalization agenda to combat this problem. President Aquino particularly targeted the sugar industry and the coconut industry for de-monopolization.
Debt
Throughout the tenure of President Ferdinand Marcos, government foreign debt had ballooned from less than $3 billion in 1970 to $28 billion by the end of his administration, through privatization of bad government assets and deregulation of many vital industries. The debt had badly tarnished the international credit standing and economic reputation of the country.
President Aquino inherited the debt of the Marcos administration and weighed all options on what to do with the debt, including not paying the debt. Aquino eventually chose to honor all the debts that were previously incurred in order to clear the country's economic reputation. Her decision proved to be unpopular but Aquino defended it, saying that was the most practical move. Beginning in 1986, the Aquino administration paid off $4 billion of the country's outstanding debts to improve its international credit ratings and attract the attention of foreign investors. This move also ensured lower interest rates and longer payment terms for future loans. During the Aquino administration, the Philippines acquired an additional $9 billion debt, increasing the net national debt by $5 billion within six years due to the need to infuse capital and money into the economy. The Aquino administration was able to reduce the Philippines' external debt-to-GDP ratio by 30.1 percent, from 87.9 percent at the start of the administration to 67.8 percent in 1991.
Agrarian reform
President Aquino envisioned agrarian and land reform as the centerpiece of her administration's social legislative agenda. However, her family background and social class as a privileged daughter of a wealthy and landed clan became a lightning rod of criticisms against her land reform agenda.
After the Mendiola Massacre and in response to calls for agrarian reform, President Aquino issued Presidential Proclamation 131 and Executive Order 229 on 22 July 1987, which outlined her land reform program, including sugar lands. In 1988, with the backing of Aquino, the new Congress of the Philippines passed Republic Act No. 6657, more popularly known as the "Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law" (CARP), which paved the way for the redistribution of agricultural lands from landowners to tenant-farmers. Landowners were paid in exchange by the government through just compensation, and were also not allowed to retain more than five hectares of land. The law also allowed corporate landowners to "voluntarily divest a proportion of their capital stock, equity or participation in favor of their workers or other qualified beneficiaries", in lieu of turning over their land to the government for redistribution. Despite the flaws in the law, the Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality in 1989, declaring that the implementation of CARP was "a revolutionary kind of expropriation."
Corazon Aquino herself was subject to a controversy that centered on Hacienda Luisita, a 6,453-hectare estate located in the province of Tarlac which she and her siblings inherited from her father José Cojuangco. Instead of land distribution, Hacienda Luisita reorganized itself into a corporation and distributed stock. As such, ownership of agricultural portions of the hacienda was transferred to the corporation, which in turn, gave its shares of stocks to farmers. Critics argued that Aquino bowed to pressure from relatives by allowing stock redistribution in lieu of land redistribution under CARP.
The stock redistribution scheme was revoked in 2006, when the Department of Agrarian Reform ordered the mandatory redistribution of land to tenant-farmers of Hacienda Luisita. The Department of Agrarian Reform had looked into its revocation since 2004, when violence erupted in the hacienda over the retrenchment of workers, leaving seven people dead.
Coup attempts on Aquino government
From 1986 to 1990 numerous coup attempts were enacted on the Aquino administration and the new Philippine government. Many of these attempts were conducted by the Reform the Armed Forces Movement, who attempted to establish a military government, while other attempts were conducted by loyalists to former President Marcos.
Mendiola massacre and cabinet infighting
On 22 January 1987, during the era of transition government and shortly before the nationwide plebiscite to ratify the Constitution, 12 citizens were killed and 51 were injured in the Mendiola Massacre. The incident was initially a peaceful protest by agrarian workers and farmers who had marched to the historic Mendiola Street near the Malacañan Palace to demand genuine land reform. The massacre occurred when Marines fired at farmers who tried to go beyond the designated demarcation line set by the police. The massacre resulted in several resignations from Aquino's cabinet, including Jose Diokno, head of the Presidential Committee on Human Rights, chairman of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), and chairman of the government panel in charge of negotiations with rebel forces resigned from his government posts. His daughter Maris said, "It was the only time we saw him near tears."
In September 1987, Vice President Doy Laurel resigned as secretary of foreign affairs. In his resignation letter to Aquino, Laurel stated, "...the past years of Marcos are now beginning to look no worse than your first two years in office. And the reported controversies and scandals involving your closest relatives have become the object of our people's outrage. From 16,500 NPA regular when Marcos fell, the communists now claim an armed strength of 25,200. From city to countryside, anarchy has spread. There is anarchy within the government, anarchy within the ruling coalesced parties and anarchy in the streets."
Finance Minister Jaime Ongpin, who had successfully advocated for paying external debt incurred during Marcos' administration, was dismissed by Aquino in September 1987 and later died in an apparent suicide in December 1987. His widow stated that he had been depressed due to infighting in Aquino's cabinet and lack of significant change since the People Power Revolution.
Soon after the Mendiola Massacre, the Aquino administration and Congress worked to pass significant agrarian reform, which culminated in the passage of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARP).
Peace talks with Moro and communist insurgencies
President Aquino conducted peace talks with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), an armed Moro Muslim insurgency group that sought to establish an independent Moro state within Mindanao. Aquino met with MNLF leader Nur Misuari and various MNLF groups in Sulu. In 1989, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) was created under Republic Act No. 6734 or the ARMM Organic Act, which established the Moro majority areas in the Mindanao island group as an autonomous region with its own government. The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao lasted from 1989 to 2019, after which it was succeeded by the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
The establishment of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao was opposed by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a militant splinter group from the MNLF that sought to secede from the Philippines to establish an Islamic state in Mindanao. Peace talks with MILF began in 1997 under President Fidel Ramos and violent insurgency officially continued until 2014, when peace accords were formally signed between MILF and the administration of President Benigno Aquino III that would lead to the creation of the BARMM.
The establishment of the ARMM also led to the establishment of Abu Sayyaf, a terrorist group founded in 1989 by Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani and composed of radical former members of the MNLF. Terrorist attacks by Abu Sayyaf would start in 1995 and continue to the present day, including the 2004 bombing of the MV Superferry 14 that resulted in the deaths of 116 people.
Shortly after becoming president, Aquino ordered the release of hundreds of political prisoners imprisoned during the Marcos era, including communist insurgents belonging to the Communist Party of the Philippines. These releases included leaders such as Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison and New People's Army founder Bernabe Buscayno. Preliminary peace talks with the CPP ended after the Mendiola Massacre on 22 January 1987, during which at least 12 farmers were killed at a protest rally.
Closing of United States military bases
Soon after Aquino took office, several Philippine senators declared that the presence of U.S. military forces in the Philippines was an affront to national sovereignty. The senators called for the United States military to vacate U.S. Naval Base Subic Bay and Clark Air Base, and Aquino opposed their demand. The United States objected by stating that they had leased the property and that the leases were still in effect. The United States stated that the facilities at Subic Bay were unequaled anywhere in Southeast Asia and a U.S. pullout could make all of that region of the world vulnerable to an incursion by the Soviet Union or by a resurgent Japan. Another issue with the demand was that thousands of Filipinos worked at these military facilities and they would lose their jobs if the U.S. military moved out. Aquino opposed the Senate's demand and believed that the bases should have remained. Aquino organized a protest against the pullout, which only gathered between 100,000 and 150,000 supporters, far short of the 500,000 to 1 million that had been originally expected.
The matter was still being debated when Mount Pinatubo erupted in June 1991, covering the entire area with volcanic ash. Despite attempts to continue the Subic Base, Aquino finally conceded. In December 1991, the government served notice that the U.S. had to close the base by the end of 1992.
Natural disasters and calamities
On 20 December 1987, the MV Doña Paz sank after a collision with the oil tanker MV Vector. The final death toll exceeded 4,300 people, and the sinking has been called the deadliest peacetime maritime disaster of the 20th century. In the aftermath, Aquino addressed the incident as "a national tragedy of harrowing proportions."
The 1990 Luzon earthquake was a 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck the island of Luzon. It left an estimate of 1,621 people dead and massive property damage.
In 1991, a volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo, then thought to be dormant, killed around 800 people and caused widespread long-term devastation of agricultural lands in Central Luzon. Around 20,000 residents had to be evacuated and around 10,000 people were left homeless by the event. It was the second largest terrestrial eruption of the 20th century.
On 1 November 1991 Tropical Storm Thelma (also known as Typhoon Uring) caused massive flooding in Ormoc City, leaving around 5,000 dead in what was then considered to be the deadliest typhoon in Philippine history. On 8 November, Aquino declared all of Leyte a disaster area.
Electrical power grid inadequacy
During Aquino's presidency, electric blackouts became common in Manila. The city experienced 7–12 hours-long blackouts, which severely affected its businesses. By the departure of Aquino in June 1992, businesses in Manila and nearby provinces had lost nearly $800 million since the preceding March.
Corazon Aquino's decision to deactivate the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP), which was built during the Marcos administration, contributed to further electricity crises in the 1990s, as the 620 megawatts capacity of the plant would have been enough to cover the shortfall at that time. Critics of the BNPP had stated that the power plant was unsafe, and cited the millions of dollars in bribes paid to President Marcos to allow its construction. The administration had failed to provide for an adequate replacement for the plant before her term had completed, and President Corazon Aquino ended her term in 1992 with the country reeling under a severe power shortage crisis.
Influence in 1992 presidential election
The 1987 Constitution limited the president to a single six-year term with no possibility of re-election. As the end of her presidency drew near, close advisers and friends told Aquino that since she was not inaugurated under the 1987 Constitution, she was still eligible to seek the presidency again in the upcoming 1992 elections, the first presidential elections held under normal and peaceful circumstances since 1965. However, Aquino firmly declined the requests for her to seek reelection, citing her strong belief that the presidency was not a lifetime position.
Initially, she named Ramon V. Mitra, Speaker of the Philippine House of Representatives who had been a friend of her husband, as her preferred candidate for the 1992 presidential elections. However, she later backtracked and instead supported the candidacy of General Fidel V. Ramos, who was her defense secretary and a key figure in the EDSA Revolution. Ramos had consistently stood by her government during the various coup attempts that were launched against her administration. Her sudden change of mind and withdrawal of support from Mitra drew criticism from her supporters in the liberal and social democratic sectors. Her decision also drew criticism from the Catholic Church, which questioned her support of Ramos due to his being a Protestant. General Ramos won the 1992 elections with 23.58% of the total votes in a wide-open campaign.
On 30 June 1992, Corazon Aquino formally and peacefully handed over power to Fidel Ramos. On that day, Fidel V. Ramos was inaugurated as the twelfth president of the Philippines. After the inauguration, Aquino left the ceremony in a simple white Toyota Crown she had purchased, rather than the lavish government-issued Mercedes Benz in which she and Ramos had ridden on the way to the ceremonies, to make the point that she was once again an ordinary citizen.
Post-presidency
Domestic
During Aquino's retirement and stay as a private citizen, she remained active in the Philippine political scene. Aquino would voice her dissent to government actions and policies that she deemed threats to the democratic foundations of the country.
In 1997, Aquino, together with Cardinal Jaime Sin, led a rally opposing President Fidel Ramos' attempt to extend his term through his proposal to amend the 1987 Constitution's restriction on presidential term limits. Ramos' proposed charter change would fail, leaving term limits and the presidential system in place.
During the 1998 Philippine presidential election, Aquino endorsed the candidacy of former police general and Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim from the Liberal Party for president. Lim would lose to Vice President Joseph Estrada, who won by a landslide. In 1999, Aquino and Cardinal Jaime Sin again worked together to oppose a second plan to amend the Constitution to remove term limits, this time under President Estrada. President Estrada stated that his plan to amend the Constitution was intended to lift provisions that 'restrict' economic activities and investments, and Estrada denied that it was an attempt to extend his stay in office. Estrada's proposed charter change would also fail.
In 2000, Aquino joined the mounting calls for Estrada to resign from office, amid a series of corruption scandals, including strong allegations of bribery charges and gambling kickbacks. Estrada was impeached by the House of Representatives in November 2000 but acquitted by the Senate in December, which in January 2001 led to the Second EDSA Revolution, which ousted Estrada. During the Second EDSA Revolution, Aquino enthusiastically supported the ascendancy of Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to the position of president. In the subsequent trial of Joseph Estrada, Estrada was acquitted of perjury but found guilty of plunder and sentenced to reclusion perpetua with the accessory penalties of perpetual disqualification from public office and forfeiture of ill-gotten wealth on 12 September 2007. Estrada was pardoned by President Macapagal-Arroyo on 26 October 2007.
In 2005, after a series of revelations and exposes that implicated President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in rigging the 2004 presidential elections, Aquino called on Arroyo to resign in order to prevent bloodshed, violence and further political deterioration. Aquino once again led massive street-level demonstrations, this time demanding the resignation of President Arroyo.
During the 2007 senatorial elections, Aquino actively campaigned for her only son, Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III, who went on to win his race. Less than a year after Corazon Aquino's death in 2009, Benigno Aquino III won the 2010 Philippine presidential election and served as the 15th president of the Philippines from 2010 to 2016.
In December 2008, Corazon Aquino publicly expressed regret for her participation in the 2001 Second EDSA Revolution, which installed Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as president. She apologized to former President Joseph Estrada for the role she played in his ouster in 2001. Aquino's apology drew criticisms from numerous politicians. In June 2009, two months before her death, Aquino issued a public statement in which she strongly denounced and condemned the Arroyo administration's plans of amending the 1987 Constitution, calling it a "shameless abuse of power."
International
Shortly after leaving the presidency, Aquino traveled abroad, giving speeches and lectures on issues of democracy, development, human rights, and women empowerment. At the 1994 meeting of the UNESCO World Commission on Culture and Development in Manila, Aquino delivered a speech urging the unconditional release of Burmese democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi from detention. Until her death in 2009, Aquino would continue to petition for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Aquino was a member of the Council of Women World Leaders, an international organization of former and current female heads of state, from the group's inception in 1996 to her death.
In 1997, Aquino attended the wake and funeral of Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta, whom she met during the latter's visit in Manila in 1989. In 2005, Aquino joined the international community in mourning the death of Pope John Paul II.
In 2002, Aquino became the first woman named to the Board of Governors at the Asian Institute of Management, a leading graduate business school and think tank in the Asia Pacific region. She served on the Board until 2006.
Charitable and social initiatives
After her term as president, Aquino was involved in several charitable activities and socio-economic initiatives. From 1992 until her death, Aquino was chairperson of the Benigno S. Aquino, Jr. Foundation, which she set up in her husband's honor after his assassination in 1983. Aquino supported the Gawad Kalinga social housing project for the poor and homeless. In 2007, Aquino helped establish the PinoyME Foundation, a non-profit organization that aims to provide microfinancing programs and projects for the poor. Aquino also painted, and would occasionally give away her paintings to friends and family or auction her paintings and donate the proceeds to charity. She never sold her art for her own profit.
Illness and death
On 24 March 2008, Aquino's family announced that the former president had been diagnosed with colorectal cancer. Upon her being earlier informed by her doctors that she had only three months to live, she pursued medical treatment and chemotherapy. A series of healing Masses for Aquino, who was a devout Catholic, were held throughout the country for her recovery. In a public statement during one healing Mass on 13 May 2008, Aquino said that her blood tests indicated that she was responding well to treatment, although her hair and appetite loss were apparent.
By July 2009, Aquino was reported to be suffering from loss of appetite and in very serious condition. At that time she was confined to Makati Medical Center. It was later announced that Aquino and her family had decided to stop chemotherapy and other medical interventions for her.
Aquino died in the Makati Medical Center at 3:18 a.m. on 1 August 2009 due to cardiorespiratory arrest at the age of 76.
Wake and funeral
On the day of Aquino's passing, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo announced a 10-day mourning period for the former president and issued Administrative Order No. 269 detailing the necessary arrangements for a state funeral. Arroyo was on a state visit to the United States at the time of Aquino's passing and returned to the Philippines on 5 August, cutting her visit short to pay her last respects to Aquino. Aquino's children declined Arroyo's offer of a state funeral for their mother.
All churches in the Philippines celebrated requiem masses simultaneously throughout the country and all government offices flew the Philippine flag at half-mast. Hours after her death, Aquino's body lay in repose for public viewing at the La Salle Green Hills campus in Mandaluyong. On 3 August 2009, Aquino's body was transferred from La Salle Greenhills to the Manila Cathedral in Intramuros, during which hundreds of thousands of Filipinos lined the streets to view and escort the former leader's body. On the way to the cathedral, Aquino's funeral cortege passed along Ayala Avenue in Makati, stopping in front of the monument to her husband Ninoy, where throngs of mourners gathered and sang the patriotic protest anthem "Bayan Ko. Aquino's casket was brought inside the cathedral by mid-afternoon that day. Following her death, all Roman Catholic dioceses in the country held Requiem Masses.
On 4 August 2009, Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr. and Imee Marcos, two prominent children of late former President Ferdinand Marcos, paid their last respects to Aquino in spite of the two families' longstanding feud. The Marcos siblings were received by Aquino's daughters María Elena, Aurora Corazon, and Victoria Elisa.
A final Requiem Mass was held on the morning of 5 August 2009, with Archbishop of Manila Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales, Bishop of Balanga Socrates B. Villegas, and other high-ranking clergymen concelebrating. Aquino's daughter Kris spoke on behalf of her family towards the end of the Mass. Aquino's flag-draped casket was escorted from the cathedral to Manila Memorial Park in Parañaque, where she was interred beside her husband in her family mausoleum. Aquino's funeral procession took more than eight hours to reach the burial site, as tens of thousands of civilians lined the route to pay their respects. Philippine Air Force UH-1 helicopters showered the procession with yellow confetti and ships docked at Manila's harbor blared their sirens to salute the late president.
Reaction
Both local and international leaders showed respect for Aquino's achievements in the process of democratization in the Philippines.
Local reaction
Various politicians across the political spectrum expressed their grief and praise for the former Philippine leader. President Arroyo, once an ally of Aquino, remembered the sacrifices she made for the country and called her a "national treasure." Former President Estrada said that the country had lost its mother and guiding voice with her sudden death. He also described Aquino as the "Philippines' most loved woman." Although they were at one time political foes, Aquino and Estrada had reconciled and joined forces in opposing President Arroyo.
Former Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, who had been Aquino's defense minister and later a fierce critic of Aquino, asked the public to pray for her eternal repose. Although former Aquino interior minister and Senate minority floor leader Aquilino Pimentel, Jr. revealed that he had "mixed feelings" about Aquino's death, he also said that the country "shall be forever indebted to Cory for rallying the nation behind the campaign to topple dictatorial rule and restore democracy".
Filipino citizens throughout the country wore either yellow shirts or held masses to pay tribute to Aquino. Yellow ribbons, which were a symbol of support for Aquino after the 1986 election and during the People Power Revolution, were tied along major national roads as a sign of solidarity and support for Aquino and her grieving family. On popular social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, Filipinos posted yellow ribbons on their accounts as tribute. Following her death, Filipino Catholics called on the Church to have Aquino canonized and declared as a saint. Days after her funeral, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) announced that it supported calls to put the former president on the 500-Peso banknote alongside Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino, Jr., her deceased husband. The bill had previously featured a portrait of only Benigno Aquino, Jr. since 1987.
International reaction
Messages of sympathy were sent by various national heads of state and international leaders.
Pope Benedict XVI, in his letter to Archbishop Rosales, recalled Aquino's "courageous commitment to the freedom of the Filipino people, her firm rejection of violence and intolerance" and called her a woman of courage and faith.
U.S. President Barack Obama, through White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, said that "her courage, determination, and moral leadership are an inspiration to us all and exemplify the best in the Filipino nation". U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed sadness over the passing of Aquino, to whom she had sent a personal letter of best wishes for recovery while she was still in hospital in July 2009. Clinton said that Aquino was "admired by the world for her extraordinary courage" in leading the fight against dictatorship.
South African President Jacob Zuma called Aquino "a great leader who set a shining example of peaceful transition to democracy in her country".
Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, through the British Ambassador in Manila, sent a message to the Filipino people which read: "I am saddened to hear of the death of Corazon 'Cory' Aquino the former president of the Republic of the Philippines". She also added, "I send my sincere condolences to her family and to the people of the Philippines. Signed, Elizabeth R".
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev stated in a telegram to President Arroyo that "the name of Corazon Aquino is associated with a period of profound reforms and the democratic transformation of Filipino society". Medvedev also lauded Aquino's sympathy to Russian people and her contribution to the improvement of Russian-Filipino relations.
Timor-Leste President José Ramos-Horta and Wan Azizah, wife of Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, came to the Philippines to express their sympathies and attend Aquino's funeral.
Soon after her 2010 release from her two-decade prison sentence, Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar publicly cited Aquino as one of her inspirations. She also expressed her good wishes for Aquino's son, then-incumbent president of the Philippines Benigno S. Aquino III.
Honors
After her peaceful accession to the presidency and the ousting of President Marcos, Aquino was named Time magazine's Woman of the Year in 1986. In August 1999, Aquino was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 20 Most Influential Asians of the 20th century. Time also cited her as one of 65 great Asian Heroes in November 2006.
In 1994, Aquino was cited as one of 100 Women Who Shaped World History in a reference book written by Gail Meyer Rolka.
In 1996, she received the J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding from the Fulbright Association.
In 1998, she was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award in recognition of her role in peaceful revolution to attain democracy.
Since her passing in 2009, the legacy of Corazon Aquino has prompted various namings of public landmarks and creations of memorials. Among these are as follows:
On 1 August 2010, the first anniversary of her death, a 200 ft by 250 ft photo mosaic of Aquino was unveiled near the Quirino Grandstand at the Luneta Park in the presence of her son, President Benigno Aquino III, and her supporters. It was submitted to Guinness World Records to be certified as the largest photo mosaic in the world, and the record was later certified by the World Record Academy (which is not affiliated with Guinness).
On 9 October 2010, Manila Mayor Alfredo S. Lim inaugurated a public market in Baseco, Port Area known as the President Corazon C. Aquino Public Market.
On 16 December 2010, President Benigno Aquino III and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (Central Bank of the Philippines) announced the release of newly designed 500-peso banknotes that feature both Senator Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr. and Corazon Aquino. The previous design featured only Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr. and had been in circulation since 1987.
On 13 February 2013, the Corazon Aquino Democratic Space was launched at the De La Salle University, alongside the formal inauguration of the new Henry Sy, Sr. Hall.
On 28 July 2014, the Republic Act No. 10663, which named a circumferential road in Iloilo City to President Corazon C. Aquino Avenue, was signed into law by President Benigno Aquino III.
In 2015, the new Corazon C. Aquino Hospital in Barangay Biasong, Dipolog City was opened to the public.
On 10 December 2015, the Republic Act No. 10176, which renamed Batasan Hills High School (BHES) into "President Corazon C. Aquino Elementary School" (PCCAES) in Batasan Hills, Quezon City, was signed into law by President Benigno Aquino III.
On 29 June 2018, the Republic Act No. 11045, which renamed the Kay Tikling-Antipolo-Teresa-Morong National Road to Corazon C. Aquino Avenue, was signed into law by President Rodrigo Duterte. Corazon C. Aquino Avenue is a road traversing from Taytay to Morong in Rizal (including the segment of Ortigas Avenue Extension from Taytay to Antipolo).
In popular culture
In 2008, a musical play about Aquino entitled Cory, the Musical was staged at the Meralco Theater. It was written and directed by Nestor Torre Jr. and starred Isay Alvarez as Aquino. The musical featured a libretto of 19 original songs composed by Lourdes Pimentel, wife of Senator Aquilino Pimentel, Jr.
Awards and achievements
Philippines
Foreign Awards
1986 Time Woman of the Year
1986 Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award
1986 United Nations Silver Medal
1986 Canadian International Prize for Freedom
1986 International Democracy Award from the International Association of Political Consultants
1987 Prize For Freedom Award from Liberal International
1993 Special Peace Award from the Aurora Aragon Quezon Peace Awards Foundation and Concerned Women of the Philippines
1995 Path to Peace Award
1996 J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding from the U.S. Department of State
1998 Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding
1998 Pearl S. Buck Award
1999 One of Time Magazine's 20 Most Influential Asians of the 20th Century
2001 World Citizenship Award
2005 David Rockefeller Bridging Leadership Awards
2005 One of the World's Elite Women Who Make a Difference by the International Women's Forum Hall of Fame
2006 One of Time Magazine's 65 Asian Heroes
2008 One of A Different View's 15 Champions of World Democracy
EWC Asia Pacific Community Building Award
Women's International Center International Leadership Living Legacy Award
Martin Luther King, Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize
United Nations Development Fund for Women Noel Foundation Life Award
Honorary doctorates
Doctor of International Relations, honoris causa, from:
Boston University in Boston
Eastern University in St. David, Pennsylvania
Fordham University in New York
Waseda University in Tokyo
Doctor of Civil Law, honoris causa, from:
Far Eastern University (59th Commencement Exercises, March 1987)
Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, from:
University of the Philippines Diliman in Quezon City
University of Santo Tomas in Manila
University of Hong Kong in Hong Kong
Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, from:
Ateneo de Manila University
College of Mount Saint Vincent in New York
Xavier University – Ateneo de Cagayan in Cagayan de Oro
Doctor of Humanities, honoris causa, from:
Bicol University (Posthumous) in Legazpi
San Beda College in Manila
Seattle University
Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts
University of Oregon
Doctor of Public Administration, honoris causa, from:
Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila (University of the City of Manila)
References
Bibliography
External links
Official website of Corazon Aquino – maintained by the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation
Time Woman of the Year: Corazon "Cory" Aquino
New York Times obituary
President Aquino in Time Magazine's Year ender
World Socialist Web Site obituary: part one and part two
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1933 births
2009 deaths
20th-century Filipino politicians
20th-century Filipino women politicians
20th-century women rulers
Corazon
Ateneo de Manila University alumni
Burials at the Manila Memorial Park – Sucat
Candidates in the 1986 Philippine presidential election
Cojuangco family
College of Mount Saint Vincent alumni
Deaths from cancer in the Philippines
Deaths from colorectal cancer
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Nonviolence advocates
Order of the Precious Crown members
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People from Tarlac
People of the People Power Revolution
Presidents of the Philippines
Ramon Magsaysay Award winners
Recipients of the Order of the Liberator General San Martin
Time Person of the Year
Women members of the Cabinet of the Philippines
Women presidents | false | [
"Freedom of peaceful assembly, sometimes used interchangeably with the freedom of association, is the individual right or ability of people to come together and collectively express, promote, pursue, and defend their collective or shared ideas. The right to freedom of association is recognized as a human right, a political right and a civil liberty.\n\nThe terms freedom of assembly and freedom of association may be used to distinguish between the freedom to assemble in public places and the freedom to join an association. Freedom of assembly is often used in the context of the right to protest, while freedom of association is used in the context of labor rights and in the Constitution of the United States is interpreted to mean both the freedom to assemble and the freedom to join an association.\n\nHuman rights instruments\nFreedom of assembly is included in, among others, the following human rights instruments:\n Universal Declaration of Human Rights – Article 20\n International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – Article 21\n European Convention on Human Rights – Article 11\n American Convention on Human Rights – Article 15\n\nNational and regional constitutions that recognize freedom of assembly include:\n Bangladesh – Articles 37 and 38 of the Constitution of Bangladesh guarantee the freedom of association and assembly.\n Brazil – Article 5 of the Constitution of Brazil\n Canada – S. 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms which forms part of the Constitution Act, 1982\n France – Article 431-1 of the Nouveau Code Pénal\n Germany – Article 8 GG (Grundgesetz, Basic Law)\n Hungary – Article VIII (1) of the Fundamental Law\n India – Fundamental Rights in India\nIndonesia – Article 28E(3) of the Constitution of Indonesia\n Ireland – Article 40.6.1° of the Constitution, as enumerated under the heading \"Fundamental Rights\"\n Italy – Article 17 of the Constitution\n Japan – Article 21 of the Constitution of Japan\n Macau Basic Law - Article 27\n Malaysia – Article 10 of the Constitution of Malaysia\n Mexico – Article 9 of the Constitution of Mexico\n New Zealand – Section 16 New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990\n Norway – Section 101 of the Constitution of Norway \n Pakistan - Article 16 of the Constitution of Pakistan, 1973\n Philippines – Article III, Section 4 of the Constitution of the Philippines\n Poland – Article 57 of the Constitution of Poland\n Russia – Articles 30 and 31 of the Constitution of Russia guarantee the freedom of association and peaceful assembly.\n South Africa Bill of Rights – Article 17\n Spain – Article 21 of the Spanish Constitution of 1978\n Sweden – Chapter 2 of The Instrument of Government\n Taiwan (Republic of China) – Article 14 guarantees freedom of assembly and association.\n Turkey – Articles 33 and 34 of the Constitution of Turkey guarantee the freedom of association and assembly.\n UAE – The UAE Constitution protects freedom of peaceful assembly.\n United States – First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States\n\nSee also\n\n Free speech zone\n Right to protest\n Strategy-31\n Unlawful assembly\n United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n Guidelines on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly OSCE/ODIHR, 2007\n Guidelines on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly (2nd edition) Venice Commission and OSCE/ODIHR, 2010\n\n \nHuman rights by issue",
"The Constitution of the Republic of Mauritius () is the supreme law of Mauritius, according to Chapter I, Section 2 of the constitution, if any other law is inconsistent with this Constitution, that other law shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be void. The current Constitution was adopted in 1968. It defines Mauritius as a sovereign democratic State which shall be known as the Republic of Mauritius. The Constitution guarantees to the citizen his fundamental rights: right to liberty and protection of the law, freedom of conscience, freedom of association, of movement and of opinion, freedom of expression, freedom of creed and of religious belief as well as the right to private property. The individual rights protected in the Constitution are mainly negatively rights, as opposed to positive rights. The Constitution establishes clearly the separation of powers between the legislative, the executive and the judiciary. The Constitution establishes a Supreme Court with unlimited jurisdiction to hear all cases, as well as two courts of appeal, divisions of the Supreme Court, to hear intermediate civil and criminal cases.\n\nSee also\n Constitution of Mauritius (1885) The Constitution of Mauritius in PDF\n Supreme Court of Mauritius\n Politics of Mauritius\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Constitution of Mauritius\n Attorney General of Mauritius"
] |
[
"Mr. Children",
"1998-2000"
] | C_cc47c7df2d994d02b905ef7002dc163a_0 | What happened in 1998? | 1 | What happened to Mr. Children in 1998? | Mr. Children | On February 11, 1998, they released their 14th single "Nishi e Higashi e" (nishiehigashie), theme song to the Japanese drama Kira kira Hikaru (kirakirahikaru). The group was still on hiatus during this time and made no live performances to promote the single and did not appear in the music video for the song. Finally on October 21, 1998, Mr. Children officially re-grouped and released their 15th single, "Owarinaki Tabi" (Zhong warinakiLu ) with the Japanese drama Naguru Onna (Ou ruNu ) using it as their theme song. The song remains a public favorite in voting polls, Oricon citing its inspirational lyrics as the reason. On January 13, 1999, "Hikari no Sasu Hou E" (Guang noShe suFang he), their 16th single, was released, followed by their seventh album, Discovery, on February 3, 1999. Sakurai compared his approach to the songwriting for the record to surfing: Eleven days later they began the Discovery Tour '99, from February 14 to July 12, where the group visited 16 cities and held 42 shows. During the tour, Mr. Children released their 17th single "I'll Be" on May 12, which was used in Shiseido's (Zi Sheng Tang ) Sea Breeze commercials. Though originally released on the Discovery album, the song was re-released as a single with a lighter beat. The single was not a success and became Mr. Children's lowest selling single since "Cross Road". During the Discovery Tour '99, an idea for a live album was brought up. It was released as a 500,000 copy limited edition on September 8, 1999 and called 1/42 (referring to one of the 42 shows in the tour). Most of the tracks were recorded on June 16, 1999 at the Makomanai ice arena, while the bonus track "Dakishimetai" was recorded at the Okinawa Ginowan-Shi seaside park. At the beginning of a new century "Kuchibue" (Kou Di ), released on January 13, 2000 became the group's 18th single. While "I'll Be" failed to be a success, "Kuchibue" proved to be a hit selling 724,070 copies. On August 9, 2000, their 19th single "Not Found" was also used as the theme song to the Japanese drama Bus Stop (basusutotsupu), followed a month later by their 9th original album Q on September 27, 2000. The band went to New York to record this album, where they re-recorded some of their old indie material and for the first time, producer Takeshi Kobayashi performed with the band on a recording. The cover for the album was shot bought Size, Inc. at the Bonneville Salt Flats in the United States. The album was not a favorite amongst fans for various reasons and became their first album since Atomic Heart to not sell over one million copies. 'Concert tour Q' started, visiting 13 cities and holding 35 concerts between October 15, 2000 and February 24, 2001. CANNOTANSWER | On February 11, 1998, they released their 14th single "Nishi e Higashi e" (nishiehigashie), | , commonly referred to by their contracted nickname , are a Japanese pop rock band formed in 1989. Consisting of Kazutoshi Sakurai, Kenichi Tahara, Keisuke Nakagawa, and Hideya Suzuki, they made their major label debut in 1992. They are one of the best selling artists in Japan and one of the most successful Japanese rock artists, having sold over 75 million records and creating the in the mid-1990s in Japan. They held the record for the highest first week sales of a single in Japan for 15 years, with 1.2 million copies of their 10th single , have 30 consecutive number 1 singles, replaced Glay as the all-male band (with 3 or more members) to have the most number 1 albums on the Oricon charts, and won the Japan Record Award in 1994 for "Innocent World" and in 2004 for "Sign". As of 2012, Mr. Children has published fifteen original studio albums and 34 physical singles, along with five compilations, a live album, and fifteen home video releases.
The band's music is mainly composed and written by lead singer Sakurai, with the exception of the Suzuki-penned songs "Asia" and "#2601" from the albums Atomic Heart and Discovery, and occasional collaborative song writing with producer Takeshi Kobayashi.
In 2012 they celebrated their 20th debut anniversary by releasing dual best album titled Mr. Children 2001–2005 <micro> and Mr. Children 2005–2010 <macro>. Both albums dominated the best-selling album category in the 2012 Oricon yearly chart, selling over 2.5 million copies. Mr.Children has become the third artists who achieved TOP 2 spots on the yearly album ranking, and this is the first time in 14 years for any artist to achieve this. Moreover, [(An Imitation) Blood Orange], an album of new material released in November 2012, debuted No.1 on the Oricon Chart—at the end of the year, all three albums released that year were in the Top 10 best selling albums of 2012.
In 2015, Mr. Children was named No.1 Concert Mobilization Power Ranking based on the overall number of people whom attended their performances during 2015 in Japan, mobilizing 1,119,000 fans (36 concerts).
History
1987–1992
The group's members first met in the year of 1987, when Sakurai, Tahara and Nakagawa were in The Walls, which was originally influenced by the band Echoes. The frontman of Echoes, Jinsei Tsuji, was a political activist, and because of this, The Walls too became a political band. Drummer Hideya Suzuki was not an original member of The Walls. When the original drummer departed, the band recruited Suzuki, who went to the same school as the other members. In late 1988, The Walls disintegrated, while the remaining members formed Mr. Children in early 1989. The name of Mr. Children supposedly came about during a talk in a dinner, in which the group thought the word "children" had a nice ring to it, but because they were no longer children themselves, they decided to add Mr. in front of it. They credit this change as a new way they started to look at the group.
After changing their name and overall sound, Mr. Children auditioned at a music club called La Mama, failing to pass the first time, but passing a second audition to play at the club. After playing in the club, they were asked to try and debut as professionals. Mr. Children sent out five demo tapes; all failed to generate record label interest, and the group took a three-month hiatus in 1991. Hideya Suzuki worked as a receptionist at an economy hotel, while Kazutoshi Sakurai worked with his father who owned a construction company. When they returned, the group created a sixth demo tape and caught the attention of Toy's Factory. The label signed the group and had them play as the opening act for the rock group Jun Sky Walkers. It was also during this time that they were introduced to their long-time friend and producer Takeshi Kobayashi. Kobayashi was already known in the music industry as a music composer for Keisuke Kuwata of Southern All Stars and Kyōko Koizumi.
1992–1994
On May 10, 1992, Mr. Children's debut album, Everything, was released and represented the long journey they took to get to this point. Three months later their first single was released on August 21, 1992. After the release of the single the group held two tours for the album, both held between September 23, 1992 and November 5 of the same year, the '92 Everything Tour comprising ten and the '92 Your Everything Tour consisting of twelve performances. To cap off the year and lead them into the next, Mr. Children released their second album, Kind of Love and their second single on December 1, 1992. "Dakishimetai" was later used as an insert song for the Japanese drama . Shortly after, a new tour called '92–93 Kind of Love Tour started and lasted from December 7, 1992 till January 25, 1993.
In 1993, with the completion of the band's tour they began work on for their third album. The first single of the new year to be released was "Replay", released on July 1, 1993 and used in commercials. On September 9, 1993 their third album Versus was released, but failed to bring the group into the spotlight. They continued on and held a new tour. The '93 Versus Tour was held from September 23 until November 5 and had the band holding nine performances. Shortly after, "Cross Road" was released on November 10, 1993, which was used to promote the Japanese drama . The single was not a hit, but through word of mouth "Cross Road" gained popularity and after 22 weeks sold over a million copies and later, though released in 1993, managed to become the fifteenth best selling single in Oricon's 1994 yearly charts. Sakurai confessed years later as to not liking his works up to this point. According to him:
On June 1, 1994 a new single called "Innocent World" was released and used a promotional song for the soft drink . The single solidified the groups popularity with its sales, managing to sell 1,935,830 copies and becoming the No. 1 selling single in Oricon's 1994 yearly charts. Afterwards work began on their fourth original album Atomic Heart. The album was released on September 1, 1994 and became the band's highest selling album to date. Due to the huge success the band received from the album and "Innocent World" single, the groups popularity built up creating the in Japan.
The band also had Takeshi Kobayashi produce two new tours for them. The first tour, named after the "Innocent World" single was held from September 18 to December 18. The band also released their sixth single "Tomorrow Never Knows" on November 10, 1994 which was used as the theme song to the Japanese drama . The song was written while the group was on tour, was later voted in 2006 as fans No. 1 all-time favorite song on Music Station, and is currently the third highest selling drama tie-in single in Japan. The next single, was released on December 12, 1994, though originally intended to be the B-side of "Tomorrow Never Knows". To end the year, "Innocent World" won the Song of the Year award at the 36th annual Japan Record Awards.
1995–1997
In 1995, the second half of the Atomic Heart tour started, lasting from January 1 to February 2. Mr. Children also became involved in charity work, doing a collaboration song with Keisuke Kuwata of Southern All Stars. The single was used as the theme song for the Act Against AIDS campaign, was produced by Mr. Children and written by Kuwata. To promote the single and the campaign, they held a one-month tour from April 18 until May 14, entitled , where the group did cover songs of many English speaking artists such as The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan. During the tour the group was also filming a documentary/concert movie called Es ~Mr. Children in Film~. It was released in theaters on June 6, 1995, preceded by the group's eight single "Es (Theme of Es)" on May 10, to promote the movie. Two months later the group held an open air tour titled from July 16 to September 10, during which the ninth single, was released on August 10.
On February 6, 1996 Mr. Children's tenth single was released, to promote the Japanese drama and also for Daio Paper's commercial. The single went on to become Japan's highest first week selling single of all time (which was later broken by idol group AKB48) and is currently Japan's eighth highest selling drama tie-in single. The success of the single was also a surprise for Sakurai, who admitted to spending very little time writing the song. Two months later, on April 5, 1996 the group's eleventh single was released, followed by their fifth original album on June 24 and their twelfth single , on August 8. To close the year, the Regress or Progress Tour started and lasted from August 24, 1996 to March 28, 1997. The group visited 14 cities and held 55 concerts.
Mr. Children's 13th single, "Everything (It's You)", was released on February 5, 1997, with the title track used as the theme song to the Japanese drama . A month later, on March 5 Bolero, Mr. Children's sixth album was released. Soon after, rumors started of the group disbanding. Sakurai's reply: "The band will dissolve only when we have no more talent and have relationship problems with each other." Yet the group then decided to take some time off. Nakagawa and Suzuki start a side project band called Hayashi Hideo, and joined by Kenji Fujii from My Little Lover and Sawao Yamanaka from The Pillows, went on a club tour.
1998–2000
On February 11, 1998, they released their 14th single , theme song to the Japanese drama . The group was still on hiatus during this time and made no live performances to promote the single and did not appear in the music video for the song. Finally on October 21, 1998, Mr. Children officially re-grouped and released their 15th single, with the Japanese drama using it as their theme song. The song remains a public favorite in voting polls, Oricon citing its inspirational lyrics as the reason.
On January 13, 1999, , their 16th single, was released, followed by their seventh album, Discovery, on February 3, 1999. Sakurai compared his approach to the songwriting for the record to surfing:
Eleven days later they began the Discovery Tour '99, from February 14 to July 12, where the group visited 16 cities and held 42 shows. During the tour, Mr. Children released their 17th single "I'll Be" on May 12, which was used in Sea Breeze commercials. Though originally released on the Discovery album, the song was re-released as a single with a lighter beat. The single was not a success and became Mr. Children's lowest selling single since "Cross Road". During the Discovery Tour '99, an idea for a live album was brought up. It was released as a 500,000 copy limited edition on September 8, 1999 and called 1/42 (referring to one of the 42 shows in the tour). Most of the tracks were recorded on June 16, 1999 at the Makomanai ice arena, while the bonus track "Dakishimetai" was recorded at the Okinawa Ginowan-Shi seaside park.
At the beginning of a new century , released on January 13, 2000 became the group's 18th single. While "I'll Be" failed to be a success, "Kuchibue" proved to be a hit selling 724,070 copies. On August 9, 2000, their 19th single "Not Found" was also used as the theme song to the Japanese drama , followed a month later by their 9th original album Q on September 27, 2000. The band went to New York to record this album, where they re-recorded some of their old indie material and for the first time, producer Takeshi Kobayashi performed with the band on a recording. The cover for the album was shot bought Size, Inc. at the Bonneville Salt Flats in the United States. The album was not a favorite amongst fans for various reasons and became their first album since Atomic Heart to not sell over one million copies. ‘Concert tour Q’ started, visiting 13 cities and holding 35 concerts between October 15, 2000 and February 24, 2001.
2001–2003
In 2001, Mr. Children continued their Q tour, followed by dual "Best Of" albums. Titled Mr. Children 1992–1995 and Mr. Children 1996–2000, they were both released on July 11, 2001. Both albums went on to sell a combined total of 4,034,785 copies. According to an interview done with MTV Japan Sakurai stated the best of albums weren't something they had planned on doing yet. During this time, the group was finishing up work for their new upcoming album and had planned to start promoting singles on it. However it was decided that a best of album was needed and so they were released. Four days following the dual album release, the group launched the ‘Popsaurus’ tour, visiting 10 cities and playing 15 shows, lasting from July 15, 2001 all the way through September 25, 2001. A month into the tour their 20th single was released and used to promote the Wonda Canned Coffee by Asahi Soft Drinks. Two months after the Popsaurus tour ended, "Youthful Days" was released. Released on November 7, 2001, it was their 21st single and was an insert song for the Japanese drama Antique Bakery. "Youthful Days" debuted at number-one on Japanese Oricon's Charts in its first week at retail (ahead of Mr. Moonlight (Ai no Big Band) by Morning Musume, from album 4th Ikimashoi!), and It ended up being their best selling single for the year. The b-side for the single, "Drawing", originally had no commercial tie-in, but two years later was used as the theme song to the 2003 Japanese drama , Starring former Shibugakitai member Masahiro Motoki.
Mr. Children released their 22nd single on New Year's Day of 2002 (January 1), which was used as a show song in the Japanese drama Antique Bakery. Four months later their tenth original album It's a Wonderful World was released on May 10, the groups' tenth anniversary. The release of the album on their 10th anniversary was not something that had originally intended. As the group was wrapping up recording, Sakurai asked if the album could be released in the spring time. While the group and their management was trying to think of how to promote an album in the spring time, they came up with releasing the album on their 10th anniversary. A new tour, titled Mr. Children Tour 2002 Dear Wonderful World was set to begin later that year. The previous single "I'll Be" from the Discovery album was selected to be used as an official theme for the 2002 FIFA World Cup, held in Japan and South Korea. On May 24, 2002 Mr. Children attended the first ever MTV Video Music Awards Japan and topped the awards show by winning 'Video of the Year' for the song "Kimi ga suki", the band also nominated in Best Group Category but losing to Backstreet Boys. Two months after the release of the new album, Mr.Children's 23rd single "Any", was released on July 11, 2002 and used to promote NTT DoCoMo Group 10th Anniversary. The group was not able to properly promote the single. As preparations for the new tour were beginning and promotion for the new single were being done, lead singer Sakurai was hospitalized on July 21, 2002, after a blockage in his cerebellum was detected. The Mr. Children Tour 2002 Dear Wonderful World was canceled and all group activities were put on a temporary hiatus. While recovering, Sakurai wrote a song called "Hero", that was inspired by his hospitalization. The song was released as the group's 24th single on December 11, 2002 and was used in NTT DoCoMo Group 10th Anniversary commercial. The first press version of the single included a DVD where, in addition to a Mr. Children 2002 documentary -Hero- that was aired, the singer talked about his hospitalization and inspiration for the song. On November 15, 2002 Mr.Children's website announced the band's return to the stage for a "stew of home pride" with a one night only live, December 21, 2002 the group returned to the stage for a single concert, later released on DVD, titled Wonederful World on Dec. 21.
The group remained quiet for most of 2003. Sakurai helped to launch Artists' Power Bank (AP Bank), a non-profit environmental financial institution, in June. Sakamoto Ryuichi, a well known composer, came up with the initial idea to build a wind-power plant. With the help of Sakurai and music producer Takeshi Kobayashi, their goal later became to invest in environmentally friendly projects, such as renewable energy, and as of 2007, participated in other social issues such as helping the victims of a Chuetsu offshore earthquake in Niigata Prefecture on July 16, 2007. Near the end of the year, Mr. Children re-grouped and released their 25th single . It became their first double a-side single with "Tenohira" receiving no commercial tie-in, and "Kurumi" used to promote . The single was a hit and became Mr.Children's best selling single since 2001's "Youthful Days" single.
2004–2006
In 2004, Sakurai started a solo project titled Bank Band, which became a spin-off of AP Bank. As Bank Band, Sakurai released a first album, titled , which contained covers of two Mr. Children songs, "Hero" and "Yasashii Uta". Mr. Children released their eleventh album on April 4, 2004, titled , which came with a documentary DVD showing the group working and talking about the concept behind the album. To help promote the album, Mr. Children used the song in 'Nissin Cup Noodle – NO Border' commercials and as the 'News 23' theme song. According to Sakurai, is
In the following month, they released their 26th single, "Sign", on May 26, which was used as the theme song to the Japanese drama Orange Days and went on to win the Song of the Year award at the 46th annual Japan Record Awards ten years after their win for 'Innocent World'.
Most of the 2005 was spent working on a new album. As a solo act, Kazutoshi Sakurai appeared at Golden Circle vol.7 on February 28, 2005. Finally on June 29, 2005 the group released their 27th single . The single became a monster hit selling 569,000 copies its first week, and ending with 925,632 copies sold. As a quad a-side single, all four songs had a commercial tie in. promoted 'Pocari Sweat', "and I love you" promoted 'Nissin Cup Noodle – NO Border', became the theme song for the Japanese movie 'Fly Daddy Fly', and was used as a promotional song for Fuji TV's educational program 'Kodomo bangumi Ponkikkiizu, Gachagachapon'. Even though it was released as a single, it was classified as an album by the Recording Industry Association of Japan. A month later the group attended Kazutoshi Sakurai's 3-day festival 'ap bank fes’ 05' from July 16, 2005 through July 18, 2005, followed by 'SETSTOCK '05' at Kokuei bihoku kyuuryou park on July 23, 2005 and 'Higher Ground 2005' at Umi no nakamichi kaihinkouen outdoor theater on July 30, 2005. Three months later on September 21, 2005, I Love U (I♥U), Mr.Children’s 12th original album, was released. Two months later Dome Tour 2005 'I Love U' began, running from November 12, 2005 through December 27, 2005 and were only the fourth artist in Japanese history to play at the Osaka, Tokyo, Sapporo, Nagoya and Fukuoka dome's. The tour ended in Tokyo Come where they played to 45,000 fans, bringing the tour total to almost 390,000 fans. By the end of the year the group managed to pass the 45 million mark in sold records.
The first single for 2006, was their 28th single released on July 5, 2006 and used as the promotion song for Toyota's "Tobira wo akeyou" commercial and as the theme song to NTV's 2006 FIFA World Cup broadcasting. Due to the groups involvement with ap bank fes. '06, there were no magazine or radio promotions, and only 3 live performances were done to promote the single. However the commercial tie-in's for the single proved to be a success and "Houkiboshi" was voted No. 3 as the favorite commercial song for 2006 and voted as the favorite winter song heard in the summer. Ten days following the release of 'Houkiboshi', Mr.Children participated in the 3 day festival, ap bank fes '06, where they performed "Hero", "Strange Chameleon", "Owarinaki tabi", and "Hokiboshi". One month later Mr.Children were special guests at The Mujintou fes. 2006 and performed "Mirai", "Innocent world", "Hokorobi", "Sign", "Owarinaki tabi", "Worlds end", and "Houkiboshi". Shortly after Mr.Children announced a joint tour with fellow Japanese rockers the pillows, known as 'Mr.Children & the pillows new big bang tour ~This is Hybrid Innocent~'. The tour was held from September 26, 2006 through October 11, 2006. On November 15, 2006, the group released their 29th single , which was used as the theme song , by NTV, a controversial television drama about underage pregnancy. Kazutoshi Sakurai had begun writing the song in February 2006 and finished writing in March 2006. and shot the promotional video in September 2006. One of the b-sides of single was a re-recording of Mr. Children's 2003 song "Kurumi", used as a theme song in the movie .
2007
On January 24, 2007, the band released their 30th single, , which was used as the theme song for the movie , and while only a limited edition single, brought the group to 26 consecutive No. 1 singles. Shortly after, the 13th original album, Home, was released on March 14, which would become the group's first in almost 13 years to chart at No. 1 for two consecutive weeks. It was also the first Japanese album in 2007 to sell more than a million copies. Work on the record had come to a standstill, during the recording of the song "Houkiboshi", due to a dispute among the group over "Home"'s direction. Producer Kobayashi suggested to make an album that "pays attention to the world with a message".
The album reflected a more personal touch from the group, with talking about the 9/11 attacks at New York City, and , being inspired by Kazutoshi Sakurai father who had been sick. The title of the album, Home, was originally suggested to be titled "Home Made" or "Home Ground", because the group wanted the album to have the meaning that it was made by hand. However, they choose to name it just Home because they felt that by adding another word it would be limiting the idea in mind. Three days after the release of Home, Mr. Children won the awards Best Video of the Year and Best Group Video for the single "Shirushi" at the Space Shower Music Video Awards '07. For the album, the group held two promotional tours. The first half called Mr. Children Home Tour 2007, started on May 4 and lasted until June 23. During the tour, a new compilation album titled B-Side was released on May 10, which was also the group's 15th anniversary. The release of a B-side compilation had been suggested by singer Sakurai while working on Home:
Releasing a public statement on their official site at Toy's Factory, both the group and Sakurai felt that the A-side tracks on their singles had started to dictate and overall theme as to who Mr. Children were as a group. They felt a lot of feelings and desires which have shaped them as a group came from these coupling songs, and thus decided to release them as a compilation album.
On May 5, 2007, after the second concert for the first half of the Home tour, drummer Hideya Suzuki injured his hand after accidentally touching a ventilator. He injured his left index finger, which required four stitches and the following two concerts had to be rescheduled. Publicity for the tour reached a high, when they performed in front of a sold-out tour for 15,000 fans at Yokohama Arena on June 7, 2007 and reignited speculation that the Mr.Children phenomenon was alive and well. A second half of the tour to promote 'Home', titled Mr.Children Home Tour 2007 -In the Field- took place from August 4 to September 30. Both tours ended up being a big success for the group, and became the most attended Japan tour in 2007 at 550,000 fans. The main promotional track for the Home album, , was selected to promote the Olympus E-410. During the E Goes to World campaign, the camera manufacturer had customers submit pictures to create a new promotional video for the song.
On July 10, Mr. Children announced a new song on their website titled . While initially a single release date wasn't issued, the group announced a month later it would be released on October 30, 2007. The title track, "Tabidachi no Uta", was used as a theme song for the Japanese movie , and a month later also be used to promote NTT Higashi Nihon. With the release of the single, Mr. Children managed to debut at number 1 for the week and in return obtained their 27th consecutive number 1 single. Similar to Jyūyonsai no Haha before, the movie Koizora deals with the struggles of a young girl, involving betrayal, rape and abortion. The group was scheduled to play at the ap bank fes '07 from July 14 to July 16, but due to a typhoon, the first two days had to be canceled, and only the final day proceeded as planned. With the announcement of the new single, Mr.Children also announced the 'Home' tour 2007 DVD, which was released on November 14, 2007. On December 18, 2007, Oricon announced that Home became their first album to top the yearly album charts since their debut with the sales of 1.18 million copies, surpassing the sales of Kumi Koda's album Black Cherry of 1.02 million copies.
2008
For the beginning of 2008, Sakurai released an album and DVD with his solo project Bank Band, followed a month later by the official announcement of a new song, , used in the NHK Japanese television drama . Afterwards Mr. Children announced the release of two singles. The first, "Gift", released on July 30, 2008, was used as the official theme song to the 2008 Beijing Olympics coverage on NHK. When writing this song, Sakurai focused on the meaning behind the Olympics and wanted to write a song not just for those who win, but for everyone who participates.
The ap bank announced that Mr.Children would appear for all 3 days at ap bank fes '08. Their second single of the year, "Hanabi", released on September 3, 2008, was used as the theme song to the Japanese drama Code Blue, in which Tomohisa Yamashita played a main role. The single "Hanabi" topped the Oricon single charts for two weeks, becoming their 29th consecutive number-one single. However, their next single became their first download-only single for the music download market. The nun full-track ringtone downloads (Chaku Uta) of the song began on October 1 and the full-track downloads (Chaku Uta Full) began on November 1, 2008. Their studio album Supermarket Fantasy was released on December 10, 2008. Supermarket Fantasy sold about 708,000 copies in its initial week, debuting at the number-one position on the Oricon weekly album charts.
2009–2011
On October 20, 2009, it was announced that Mr. Children produced their first anime theme "Fanfare" for the movie One Piece Film: Strong World. "Fanfare" was digitally released as a non full-track ringtone song (Chaku Uta) on November 16 as a full-track ringtone song (Chaku Uta Full) on December 2, 2009. The song debuted at the number-one position on the RIAJ Digital Track Chart.
On May 10, 2010, Mr. Children released the DVD Mr. Children Dome Tour 2009 Supermarket Fantasy in Tokyo Dome, but it sold about 49,000 copies one day before the official release day, debuting at No. 1 on the Oricon weekly music DVD chart with the one-day sales. It became their seventh consecutive number-one music DVD and they tied the records of Arashi and KAT-TUN for having the most consecutive number-one DVDs on the Oricon weekly music DVD chart. It also debuted at No. 1 on the Oricon weekly comprehensive DVD chart, eclipsing the sales of Avatar in the week. It topped the Oricon comprehensive DVD charts for three consecutive weeks, making them the second artist to achieve that with the music DVD while the first is Arashi.
On September 4, 2010, Mr. Children released their second documentary/concert movie Mr. Children / Split the Difference (since first "Es" ~Mr. Children in Film~) and released DVD + CD includes the movie and selected songs by the band on November 10, 2010. It debuted at No. 1 on the Oricon weekly music DVD chart and they also became the first artist to have their eighth consecutive number-one music DVD.
On December 1, 2010, Mr. Children released their sixteenth studio album Sense includes digital release only single "Fanfare". But the details such as track list, number of tracks, cover and title of the album were not announced until just before a release date, November 29.
On April 4, 2011, Mr. Children released the download single "Kazoe Uta" to collect donations for the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake. "Kazoe Uta" debuted at number 1 on the RIAJ Digital Track Chart, surpassing the download sales of AKB48's charity single "Dareka no Tame ni (What Can I Do for Someone?)".
2012
On April 18, 2012, Mr. Children released the Triple A-side single "Inori ~Namida no Kidou/End of the Day/pieces", their first in 3 years and 7 months; the single debuted at number 1 on the Oricon Weekly Single Charts, selling 174,409 copies. Two of the songs, "Inori ~Namida no Kidou" and "pieces", were used as the themes to the Bokura ga Ita movies. In addition, "Inori ~Namida no Kidou" spent four weeks atop the RIAJ Digital Track Chart, tying the record set by GReeeeN's "Haruka". Also released on April 18 was the band's "Mr. Children 2011 Tour Sense -in the field-" DVD, which debuted at number 1 on both the Oricon DVD and Blu-ray charts, making Mr. Children the first artist to top three of Oricon's charts in a single week.
On May 10, 2012, Mr. Children released a pair of Best Albums titled Mr. Children 2001–2005 <micro> and Mr. Children 2005–2010 <macro> in celebration of their 20th anniversary. The band also embarked on a 2-month dome tour, titled "POPSAURUS 2012", after the series of concerts they held in 2001 following the release of their first two Best Albums.
On November 28, 2012 Mr.Children released new album titled [(An Imitation) Blood Orange].
At the end of the year, Mr.Children had dominated the yearly album ranking for 2012 with all 3 albums in the top10. Their dual best albums Mr. Children 2005–2010 <macro> and Mr. Children 2001–2005 <micro> monopolized TOP 2 the best selling album of 2012 yearly chart with selling 1.17 million copies sold and 1.11 million copies sold consecutively. Moreover, [(An Imitation) Blood Orange] placed 8th in the best selling album in 2012.
They have both achieved "the best selling album" and " the most Artist total sales Albums " for 2012. Mr.Children became the third artists who achieved TOP 2 spots on the yearly album ranking, and this is the first time in 14 years for any artist to achieve this . Mr.Children was the 4th artist by total sales revenue in Japan in 2012, with ¥9.947 billion (approximately $84 million).
2014
On November 19, 2014 Mr.Children released the single CD "Ashioto ~Be Strong"
2020
On December 2, 2020, Mr.Children released their 20th studio album SOUNDTRACKS.
Photographers
The band has collaborated with photographers such as Osami Yabuta, Reylia Slaby and Alfie Goodrich
Oricon Chart Statistics
Artist's Total sales (CD Total Sales) : 58.61 million copies sold ( #2 most selling artist)
No.1 on Oricon Year-End Charts: 1994 ("innocent world"); 1996 ("Namonaki Uta"), 2007 (HOME), 2012 (Mr.Children Macro 2005-2010)
Double Million Seller Singles: 2nd overall (1st - CHAGE and ASKA)
Million Seller Singles: 3rd overall (1st - B'z, 2nd - AKB48)
Million Seller Albums: 2nd overall (1st - B'z, 3rd - DREAMS COME TRUE)
The most non tie up Single sales : 1.82 million copies sold (by「See Saw Game」)
Won Japan Record Grand Prix in 1994 for "innocent world" and won it again 10 years later for "Sign"
Charitable and other activities
Since their official debut, Mr.Children has engaged in social and charitable causes. As a group they participated in the live concert for Act Against AIDS on December 1, 1994 and again on December 1, 1995. The goal of live was to raise awareness about AIDS. The proceeds from the event were donated to support children living with HIV. The live was followed up by a collaboration Act Against AIDS charity single with fellow Japanese artist Kuwata Keisuke titled ‘Kiseki no hoshi’ and released on January 23, 1995. On April 25, 2001 Kazutoshi Sakurai also participated in the recording of Zero Landmine, a single created to promote awareness of the problem of landmines and promote a ban on landmines. In addition the group has also participated in Kazutoshi Sakura's solo project, AP bank. AP Bank, a nonprofit lending group, carries the goal of tackling environmental problems by financing environmentally friendly projects such as renewable energy, in addition to holding yearly festivals to raise money to fund additional projects. Since its inception in 2005, Mr.Children has been actively participating in the festivals, with an announcement in 2008 that the group will now work more closely with its cause by participating during the entire three-day festival duration in addition to further details to be announced at a later time.
Members Kazutoshi Sakurai and Kenichi Tahara joined together to create Acid Test for the concert ‘Dream Power John Lennon Super live broadcasting’ on October 9, 2001. The live was part of Yoko Ono’s Dream Power and educational platform where artists came together to hold a charity concert to raise money for school construction funds for children in Africa and Asia. The John Lennon song covered by Acid Test during the live, "Mother", was later recorded and released on a tribute album Happy Birthday, John, and released on September 30, 2005.
In addition to social causes, Mr.Children's music has been used as background music for numerous television advertisements, television programs, television drama's, and motion pictures. Examples of the group's commercial tie-ins include "and I love you", "Bokura no Oto", and "Tagatame" for Nissin Cup Noodle no Border commercials, 'Gift' for the 2008 Beijing Olympics on NHK, and "Tabidachi no uta" for the 2007 Japanese movie . As a group, Mr.Children have not endorsed products by physically appearing in television commercials or printed media advertisements. One of the methods used to help promote the group is through Brajackets, a dust jacket for books, which are available at stands in bookstores for free. The Brajacket serve as free advertising for various products from ice cream to movies and musicals. Mr. Children have used this method to promote singles and albums; for example and I Love U (I♥U).
Fan club
The official fan club of Mr. Children is called Father & Mother, the title being derived from their name. The fan club, which started in 1994, was kept relatively secretive at first, as the group has never made any mention of it on their official website. In 2006, for the release of the group's 29th single "Shirushi", the official website was revamped and with it information about the fan club was finally added. Just like before however, the fan club can only be joined by mail and requires an admission fee of 3,500 yen, with yearly re-applications for membership.
Band members
Current members
Kazutoshi Sakurai – lead vocals, guitar, primary songwriter
Kenichi Tahara – guitar, backing vocals
He was born in Fukuoka and is charge of playing guitar in the band. He had joined the baseball team in high school but became interested in the guitar because he saw his classmate playing a guitar at a school festival. One day one of his classmates, Kazutoshi Sakurai brought his guitar to school. They bonded with each other over it and that became the catalyst for forming Mr.Children. Known for being quiet in live concerts, his fans become estatic when he says interacts with them.
Keisuke Nakagawa – bass, backing vocals
Nakagawa was born in Nagasaki. His nickname is "Nakakei". He went to the same junior high school as Kenichi and Hideya where he started playing the bass. He is also famous for being a baseball fan.
Hideya Suzuki – drums, backing vocals, also known as "Jen" and is the leader of Mr. Children
Supporting members
Takeshi Kobayashi – keyboards, producer
Naoto Inti Raymi – guitar, chorus
Takashi "Sunny" Katsuya – keyboards, backing vocals
Shuji Kouguchi – guitar, harmonica
Discography
Albums
* Compilation album.** Live album
Books
Official Books:
[es] Mr.Children in 370 DAYS (April 25, 1995) C0076
Mr.Children Everything 天才・桜井和寿 終わりなき音の冒険 (Mr.Children Everything -Tensai Sakurai Kazutoshi owarinaki oto no bouken-) (December 25, 1996) C0073
Mr.Children詩集「優しい歌」 (Mr.Children song collection -Yasashii Uta-) (December 10, 2001) C0092
Tours
Official Tours:
'92 Everything Tour (September 23, 1992 – November 5, 1992)
Visited 10 cities and held 10 concerts
'92 Your Everything Tour (September 26, 1992 – November 22, 1992)
Visited 11 cities and held 12 concerts
'92–93 Kind of Love Tour (December 7, 1992 – January 25, 1993)
Visited 9 cities and held 9 concerts
'93 Versus Tour (September 23, 1993 – November 5, 1993)
Visited 9 cities and held 9 concerts
Mr. Children '94 tour innocent world (September 18, 1994 – December 18, 1994)
Visited 24 cities and held 27 concerts
Mr.Children '95 Tour Atomic Heart (January 7, 1995 – February 20, 1995)
Visited 10 cities and held 21 concerts
(July 16, 1995 – September 10, 1995)
Visited 11 cities and held 19 concerts
Regress or Progress (August 24, 1996 – March 28, 1997)
Visited 14 cities and held 55 concerts
"Discovery" Tour '99 (February 14, 1999 – July 12, 1999)
Visited 16 cities and held 42 concerts
Mr. Children Concert tour Q (October 15, 2000 – February 24, 2001)
Visited 13 cities and held 35 concerts
Popsaurus Mr. Children (July 15, 2001 – September 25, 2001)
Visited 10 cities and held 15 concerts
Wonderful World on Dec. 21 (December 21, 2002)
A one night live. Originally intended to be a 26 city and 39 concert tour, but was canceled due to Kazutoshi Sakurai's hospitalization
(June 12, 2004 – September 25, 2004)
Stadium Tour, Visited 11 cities and held 21 concerts
Dome tour 2005 "I ♥ U" (November 12, 2005 – December 27, 2005)
Dome Tour, Visited 5 cities and held 10 concerts
Mr. Children & the pillows new big bang tour ~This is Hybrid Innocent~ (September 26, 2006 – October 11, 2006)
Hall tour, Visited 6 cities and held 7 concerts. The tour, a Zepp tour, was a joint effort with fellow rock group the pillows
Mr. Children "Home" Tour 2007 (May 4, 2007 – June 23, 2007)
Arena tour, Visited 7 cities and held 14 concerts
Mr. Children "Home" Tour 2007 -in the field- (August 4, 2007 – September 30, 2007)
Stadium tour, Visited 9 cities and held 14 concerts
" (Feb 14, 2009 – March 31, 2009)
Arena Tour, Visited 17 cities and held 34 concerts
Mr.Children DOME TOUR 2009 ~SUPERMARKET FANTASY~ (November 28, 2009 – December 27, 2009)
Dome tour, Visited 5 cities and held 11 concerts
Mr.Children Tour 2011 SENSE (February 19, 2011 – May 15, 2011)
Arena Tour, Visited 9 cities and held 19 concerts
Mr.Children STADIUM TOUR 2011 SENSE -in the field- (August 20, 2011 – September 25, 2011)
Stadium tour, Visited 6 cities and held 10 concerts
MR.CHILDREN TOUR POPSAURUS 2012 (April 14, 2012 – June 6, 2012)
Dome tour, Visited 6 cities and held 14 concerts
Mr.Children [(an imitation) blood orange] Tour (December 15, 2012 – June 9, 2012)
Dome tour, Visited 20 cities and held 40 concerts
Mr.Children FATHER&MOTHER 21st anniversary Fanclub Tour (September 17, 2014 – October 9, 2014)
Zepp tour, Visited 5 cities and held 5 concerts
Mr.Children TOUR 2015 REFLECTION (March 14, 2015 – June 4, 2015)
Arena Tour, Visited 10 cities and held 20 concerts
Mr.Children Stadium Tour 2015 未完 (July 8, 2015 – September 20, 2015)
Stadium tour, Visited 10 cities and held 16 concerts
Mr.Children Hall tour 2016 "Niji" (April 14, 2016 – May 26, 2016)
Hall Tour, Visited 13 cities and held 13 concerts
Note: It is the first time in 14 years to hold Hall tour since 2002
Awards and Records
See also
Japanese rock
Japan Record Awards
MTV Video Music Awards Japan
List of best-selling music artists in Japan
List of best-selling singles in Japan
Footnotes
a. Early on in the group's career, Takeshi Kobayashi collaborated with Kazutoshi Sakurai on various songs in addition to writing songs himself. For example, "Dance dance dance" on the album Atomic Heart was co-composed by him, and on the album Versus, was both composed and written by him. Over the years, his composing and lyrical work with the group has lessened with the last a-side track co-written by him and Kazutoshi Sakurai being which was released on December 12, 1994 .
References
External links
Official website
Mr. Children at Toy's Factory
Innocent World – Unofficial English translations of Mr. Children news and articles
Mr. Children English Fansite – Unofficial English translations of Mr. Children lyrics, guitar tabs and album reviews
Toy's Factory artists
Japanese pop rock music groups
Musical groups from Tokyo
Musical quartets
Musical groups established in 1988 | 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"
] |
[
"Mr. Children",
"1998-2000",
"What happened in 1998?",
"On February 11, 1998, they released their 14th single \"Nishi e Higashi e\" (nishiehigashie),"
] | C_cc47c7df2d994d02b905ef7002dc163a_0 | Was the single a success? | 2 | Was Mr. Children's 14th single "Nishi e Higashi e" a success? | Mr. Children | On February 11, 1998, they released their 14th single "Nishi e Higashi e" (nishiehigashie), theme song to the Japanese drama Kira kira Hikaru (kirakirahikaru). The group was still on hiatus during this time and made no live performances to promote the single and did not appear in the music video for the song. Finally on October 21, 1998, Mr. Children officially re-grouped and released their 15th single, "Owarinaki Tabi" (Zhong warinakiLu ) with the Japanese drama Naguru Onna (Ou ruNu ) using it as their theme song. The song remains a public favorite in voting polls, Oricon citing its inspirational lyrics as the reason. On January 13, 1999, "Hikari no Sasu Hou E" (Guang noShe suFang he), their 16th single, was released, followed by their seventh album, Discovery, on February 3, 1999. Sakurai compared his approach to the songwriting for the record to surfing: Eleven days later they began the Discovery Tour '99, from February 14 to July 12, where the group visited 16 cities and held 42 shows. During the tour, Mr. Children released their 17th single "I'll Be" on May 12, which was used in Shiseido's (Zi Sheng Tang ) Sea Breeze commercials. Though originally released on the Discovery album, the song was re-released as a single with a lighter beat. The single was not a success and became Mr. Children's lowest selling single since "Cross Road". During the Discovery Tour '99, an idea for a live album was brought up. It was released as a 500,000 copy limited edition on September 8, 1999 and called 1/42 (referring to one of the 42 shows in the tour). Most of the tracks were recorded on June 16, 1999 at the Makomanai ice arena, while the bonus track "Dakishimetai" was recorded at the Okinawa Ginowan-Shi seaside park. At the beginning of a new century "Kuchibue" (Kou Di ), released on January 13, 2000 became the group's 18th single. While "I'll Be" failed to be a success, "Kuchibue" proved to be a hit selling 724,070 copies. On August 9, 2000, their 19th single "Not Found" was also used as the theme song to the Japanese drama Bus Stop (basusutotsupu), followed a month later by their 9th original album Q on September 27, 2000. The band went to New York to record this album, where they re-recorded some of their old indie material and for the first time, producer Takeshi Kobayashi performed with the band on a recording. The cover for the album was shot bought Size, Inc. at the Bonneville Salt Flats in the United States. The album was not a favorite amongst fans for various reasons and became their first album since Atomic Heart to not sell over one million copies. 'Concert tour Q' started, visiting 13 cities and holding 35 concerts between October 15, 2000 and February 24, 2001. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | , commonly referred to by their contracted nickname , are a Japanese pop rock band formed in 1989. Consisting of Kazutoshi Sakurai, Kenichi Tahara, Keisuke Nakagawa, and Hideya Suzuki, they made their major label debut in 1992. They are one of the best selling artists in Japan and one of the most successful Japanese rock artists, having sold over 75 million records and creating the in the mid-1990s in Japan. They held the record for the highest first week sales of a single in Japan for 15 years, with 1.2 million copies of their 10th single , have 30 consecutive number 1 singles, replaced Glay as the all-male band (with 3 or more members) to have the most number 1 albums on the Oricon charts, and won the Japan Record Award in 1994 for "Innocent World" and in 2004 for "Sign". As of 2012, Mr. Children has published fifteen original studio albums and 34 physical singles, along with five compilations, a live album, and fifteen home video releases.
The band's music is mainly composed and written by lead singer Sakurai, with the exception of the Suzuki-penned songs "Asia" and "#2601" from the albums Atomic Heart and Discovery, and occasional collaborative song writing with producer Takeshi Kobayashi.
In 2012 they celebrated their 20th debut anniversary by releasing dual best album titled Mr. Children 2001–2005 <micro> and Mr. Children 2005–2010 <macro>. Both albums dominated the best-selling album category in the 2012 Oricon yearly chart, selling over 2.5 million copies. Mr.Children has become the third artists who achieved TOP 2 spots on the yearly album ranking, and this is the first time in 14 years for any artist to achieve this. Moreover, [(An Imitation) Blood Orange], an album of new material released in November 2012, debuted No.1 on the Oricon Chart—at the end of the year, all three albums released that year were in the Top 10 best selling albums of 2012.
In 2015, Mr. Children was named No.1 Concert Mobilization Power Ranking based on the overall number of people whom attended their performances during 2015 in Japan, mobilizing 1,119,000 fans (36 concerts).
History
1987–1992
The group's members first met in the year of 1987, when Sakurai, Tahara and Nakagawa were in The Walls, which was originally influenced by the band Echoes. The frontman of Echoes, Jinsei Tsuji, was a political activist, and because of this, The Walls too became a political band. Drummer Hideya Suzuki was not an original member of The Walls. When the original drummer departed, the band recruited Suzuki, who went to the same school as the other members. In late 1988, The Walls disintegrated, while the remaining members formed Mr. Children in early 1989. The name of Mr. Children supposedly came about during a talk in a dinner, in which the group thought the word "children" had a nice ring to it, but because they were no longer children themselves, they decided to add Mr. in front of it. They credit this change as a new way they started to look at the group.
After changing their name and overall sound, Mr. Children auditioned at a music club called La Mama, failing to pass the first time, but passing a second audition to play at the club. After playing in the club, they were asked to try and debut as professionals. Mr. Children sent out five demo tapes; all failed to generate record label interest, and the group took a three-month hiatus in 1991. Hideya Suzuki worked as a receptionist at an economy hotel, while Kazutoshi Sakurai worked with his father who owned a construction company. When they returned, the group created a sixth demo tape and caught the attention of Toy's Factory. The label signed the group and had them play as the opening act for the rock group Jun Sky Walkers. It was also during this time that they were introduced to their long-time friend and producer Takeshi Kobayashi. Kobayashi was already known in the music industry as a music composer for Keisuke Kuwata of Southern All Stars and Kyōko Koizumi.
1992–1994
On May 10, 1992, Mr. Children's debut album, Everything, was released and represented the long journey they took to get to this point. Three months later their first single was released on August 21, 1992. After the release of the single the group held two tours for the album, both held between September 23, 1992 and November 5 of the same year, the '92 Everything Tour comprising ten and the '92 Your Everything Tour consisting of twelve performances. To cap off the year and lead them into the next, Mr. Children released their second album, Kind of Love and their second single on December 1, 1992. "Dakishimetai" was later used as an insert song for the Japanese drama . Shortly after, a new tour called '92–93 Kind of Love Tour started and lasted from December 7, 1992 till January 25, 1993.
In 1993, with the completion of the band's tour they began work on for their third album. The first single of the new year to be released was "Replay", released on July 1, 1993 and used in commercials. On September 9, 1993 their third album Versus was released, but failed to bring the group into the spotlight. They continued on and held a new tour. The '93 Versus Tour was held from September 23 until November 5 and had the band holding nine performances. Shortly after, "Cross Road" was released on November 10, 1993, which was used to promote the Japanese drama . The single was not a hit, but through word of mouth "Cross Road" gained popularity and after 22 weeks sold over a million copies and later, though released in 1993, managed to become the fifteenth best selling single in Oricon's 1994 yearly charts. Sakurai confessed years later as to not liking his works up to this point. According to him:
On June 1, 1994 a new single called "Innocent World" was released and used a promotional song for the soft drink . The single solidified the groups popularity with its sales, managing to sell 1,935,830 copies and becoming the No. 1 selling single in Oricon's 1994 yearly charts. Afterwards work began on their fourth original album Atomic Heart. The album was released on September 1, 1994 and became the band's highest selling album to date. Due to the huge success the band received from the album and "Innocent World" single, the groups popularity built up creating the in Japan.
The band also had Takeshi Kobayashi produce two new tours for them. The first tour, named after the "Innocent World" single was held from September 18 to December 18. The band also released their sixth single "Tomorrow Never Knows" on November 10, 1994 which was used as the theme song to the Japanese drama . The song was written while the group was on tour, was later voted in 2006 as fans No. 1 all-time favorite song on Music Station, and is currently the third highest selling drama tie-in single in Japan. The next single, was released on December 12, 1994, though originally intended to be the B-side of "Tomorrow Never Knows". To end the year, "Innocent World" won the Song of the Year award at the 36th annual Japan Record Awards.
1995–1997
In 1995, the second half of the Atomic Heart tour started, lasting from January 1 to February 2. Mr. Children also became involved in charity work, doing a collaboration song with Keisuke Kuwata of Southern All Stars. The single was used as the theme song for the Act Against AIDS campaign, was produced by Mr. Children and written by Kuwata. To promote the single and the campaign, they held a one-month tour from April 18 until May 14, entitled , where the group did cover songs of many English speaking artists such as The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan. During the tour the group was also filming a documentary/concert movie called Es ~Mr. Children in Film~. It was released in theaters on June 6, 1995, preceded by the group's eight single "Es (Theme of Es)" on May 10, to promote the movie. Two months later the group held an open air tour titled from July 16 to September 10, during which the ninth single, was released on August 10.
On February 6, 1996 Mr. Children's tenth single was released, to promote the Japanese drama and also for Daio Paper's commercial. The single went on to become Japan's highest first week selling single of all time (which was later broken by idol group AKB48) and is currently Japan's eighth highest selling drama tie-in single. The success of the single was also a surprise for Sakurai, who admitted to spending very little time writing the song. Two months later, on April 5, 1996 the group's eleventh single was released, followed by their fifth original album on June 24 and their twelfth single , on August 8. To close the year, the Regress or Progress Tour started and lasted from August 24, 1996 to March 28, 1997. The group visited 14 cities and held 55 concerts.
Mr. Children's 13th single, "Everything (It's You)", was released on February 5, 1997, with the title track used as the theme song to the Japanese drama . A month later, on March 5 Bolero, Mr. Children's sixth album was released. Soon after, rumors started of the group disbanding. Sakurai's reply: "The band will dissolve only when we have no more talent and have relationship problems with each other." Yet the group then decided to take some time off. Nakagawa and Suzuki start a side project band called Hayashi Hideo, and joined by Kenji Fujii from My Little Lover and Sawao Yamanaka from The Pillows, went on a club tour.
1998–2000
On February 11, 1998, they released their 14th single , theme song to the Japanese drama . The group was still on hiatus during this time and made no live performances to promote the single and did not appear in the music video for the song. Finally on October 21, 1998, Mr. Children officially re-grouped and released their 15th single, with the Japanese drama using it as their theme song. The song remains a public favorite in voting polls, Oricon citing its inspirational lyrics as the reason.
On January 13, 1999, , their 16th single, was released, followed by their seventh album, Discovery, on February 3, 1999. Sakurai compared his approach to the songwriting for the record to surfing:
Eleven days later they began the Discovery Tour '99, from February 14 to July 12, where the group visited 16 cities and held 42 shows. During the tour, Mr. Children released their 17th single "I'll Be" on May 12, which was used in Sea Breeze commercials. Though originally released on the Discovery album, the song was re-released as a single with a lighter beat. The single was not a success and became Mr. Children's lowest selling single since "Cross Road". During the Discovery Tour '99, an idea for a live album was brought up. It was released as a 500,000 copy limited edition on September 8, 1999 and called 1/42 (referring to one of the 42 shows in the tour). Most of the tracks were recorded on June 16, 1999 at the Makomanai ice arena, while the bonus track "Dakishimetai" was recorded at the Okinawa Ginowan-Shi seaside park.
At the beginning of a new century , released on January 13, 2000 became the group's 18th single. While "I'll Be" failed to be a success, "Kuchibue" proved to be a hit selling 724,070 copies. On August 9, 2000, their 19th single "Not Found" was also used as the theme song to the Japanese drama , followed a month later by their 9th original album Q on September 27, 2000. The band went to New York to record this album, where they re-recorded some of their old indie material and for the first time, producer Takeshi Kobayashi performed with the band on a recording. The cover for the album was shot bought Size, Inc. at the Bonneville Salt Flats in the United States. The album was not a favorite amongst fans for various reasons and became their first album since Atomic Heart to not sell over one million copies. ‘Concert tour Q’ started, visiting 13 cities and holding 35 concerts between October 15, 2000 and February 24, 2001.
2001–2003
In 2001, Mr. Children continued their Q tour, followed by dual "Best Of" albums. Titled Mr. Children 1992–1995 and Mr. Children 1996–2000, they were both released on July 11, 2001. Both albums went on to sell a combined total of 4,034,785 copies. According to an interview done with MTV Japan Sakurai stated the best of albums weren't something they had planned on doing yet. During this time, the group was finishing up work for their new upcoming album and had planned to start promoting singles on it. However it was decided that a best of album was needed and so they were released. Four days following the dual album release, the group launched the ‘Popsaurus’ tour, visiting 10 cities and playing 15 shows, lasting from July 15, 2001 all the way through September 25, 2001. A month into the tour their 20th single was released and used to promote the Wonda Canned Coffee by Asahi Soft Drinks. Two months after the Popsaurus tour ended, "Youthful Days" was released. Released on November 7, 2001, it was their 21st single and was an insert song for the Japanese drama Antique Bakery. "Youthful Days" debuted at number-one on Japanese Oricon's Charts in its first week at retail (ahead of Mr. Moonlight (Ai no Big Band) by Morning Musume, from album 4th Ikimashoi!), and It ended up being their best selling single for the year. The b-side for the single, "Drawing", originally had no commercial tie-in, but two years later was used as the theme song to the 2003 Japanese drama , Starring former Shibugakitai member Masahiro Motoki.
Mr. Children released their 22nd single on New Year's Day of 2002 (January 1), which was used as a show song in the Japanese drama Antique Bakery. Four months later their tenth original album It's a Wonderful World was released on May 10, the groups' tenth anniversary. The release of the album on their 10th anniversary was not something that had originally intended. As the group was wrapping up recording, Sakurai asked if the album could be released in the spring time. While the group and their management was trying to think of how to promote an album in the spring time, they came up with releasing the album on their 10th anniversary. A new tour, titled Mr. Children Tour 2002 Dear Wonderful World was set to begin later that year. The previous single "I'll Be" from the Discovery album was selected to be used as an official theme for the 2002 FIFA World Cup, held in Japan and South Korea. On May 24, 2002 Mr. Children attended the first ever MTV Video Music Awards Japan and topped the awards show by winning 'Video of the Year' for the song "Kimi ga suki", the band also nominated in Best Group Category but losing to Backstreet Boys. Two months after the release of the new album, Mr.Children's 23rd single "Any", was released on July 11, 2002 and used to promote NTT DoCoMo Group 10th Anniversary. The group was not able to properly promote the single. As preparations for the new tour were beginning and promotion for the new single were being done, lead singer Sakurai was hospitalized on July 21, 2002, after a blockage in his cerebellum was detected. The Mr. Children Tour 2002 Dear Wonderful World was canceled and all group activities were put on a temporary hiatus. While recovering, Sakurai wrote a song called "Hero", that was inspired by his hospitalization. The song was released as the group's 24th single on December 11, 2002 and was used in NTT DoCoMo Group 10th Anniversary commercial. The first press version of the single included a DVD where, in addition to a Mr. Children 2002 documentary -Hero- that was aired, the singer talked about his hospitalization and inspiration for the song. On November 15, 2002 Mr.Children's website announced the band's return to the stage for a "stew of home pride" with a one night only live, December 21, 2002 the group returned to the stage for a single concert, later released on DVD, titled Wonederful World on Dec. 21.
The group remained quiet for most of 2003. Sakurai helped to launch Artists' Power Bank (AP Bank), a non-profit environmental financial institution, in June. Sakamoto Ryuichi, a well known composer, came up with the initial idea to build a wind-power plant. With the help of Sakurai and music producer Takeshi Kobayashi, their goal later became to invest in environmentally friendly projects, such as renewable energy, and as of 2007, participated in other social issues such as helping the victims of a Chuetsu offshore earthquake in Niigata Prefecture on July 16, 2007. Near the end of the year, Mr. Children re-grouped and released their 25th single . It became their first double a-side single with "Tenohira" receiving no commercial tie-in, and "Kurumi" used to promote . The single was a hit and became Mr.Children's best selling single since 2001's "Youthful Days" single.
2004–2006
In 2004, Sakurai started a solo project titled Bank Band, which became a spin-off of AP Bank. As Bank Band, Sakurai released a first album, titled , which contained covers of two Mr. Children songs, "Hero" and "Yasashii Uta". Mr. Children released their eleventh album on April 4, 2004, titled , which came with a documentary DVD showing the group working and talking about the concept behind the album. To help promote the album, Mr. Children used the song in 'Nissin Cup Noodle – NO Border' commercials and as the 'News 23' theme song. According to Sakurai, is
In the following month, they released their 26th single, "Sign", on May 26, which was used as the theme song to the Japanese drama Orange Days and went on to win the Song of the Year award at the 46th annual Japan Record Awards ten years after their win for 'Innocent World'.
Most of the 2005 was spent working on a new album. As a solo act, Kazutoshi Sakurai appeared at Golden Circle vol.7 on February 28, 2005. Finally on June 29, 2005 the group released their 27th single . The single became a monster hit selling 569,000 copies its first week, and ending with 925,632 copies sold. As a quad a-side single, all four songs had a commercial tie in. promoted 'Pocari Sweat', "and I love you" promoted 'Nissin Cup Noodle – NO Border', became the theme song for the Japanese movie 'Fly Daddy Fly', and was used as a promotional song for Fuji TV's educational program 'Kodomo bangumi Ponkikkiizu, Gachagachapon'. Even though it was released as a single, it was classified as an album by the Recording Industry Association of Japan. A month later the group attended Kazutoshi Sakurai's 3-day festival 'ap bank fes’ 05' from July 16, 2005 through July 18, 2005, followed by 'SETSTOCK '05' at Kokuei bihoku kyuuryou park on July 23, 2005 and 'Higher Ground 2005' at Umi no nakamichi kaihinkouen outdoor theater on July 30, 2005. Three months later on September 21, 2005, I Love U (I♥U), Mr.Children’s 12th original album, was released. Two months later Dome Tour 2005 'I Love U' began, running from November 12, 2005 through December 27, 2005 and were only the fourth artist in Japanese history to play at the Osaka, Tokyo, Sapporo, Nagoya and Fukuoka dome's. The tour ended in Tokyo Come where they played to 45,000 fans, bringing the tour total to almost 390,000 fans. By the end of the year the group managed to pass the 45 million mark in sold records.
The first single for 2006, was their 28th single released on July 5, 2006 and used as the promotion song for Toyota's "Tobira wo akeyou" commercial and as the theme song to NTV's 2006 FIFA World Cup broadcasting. Due to the groups involvement with ap bank fes. '06, there were no magazine or radio promotions, and only 3 live performances were done to promote the single. However the commercial tie-in's for the single proved to be a success and "Houkiboshi" was voted No. 3 as the favorite commercial song for 2006 and voted as the favorite winter song heard in the summer. Ten days following the release of 'Houkiboshi', Mr.Children participated in the 3 day festival, ap bank fes '06, where they performed "Hero", "Strange Chameleon", "Owarinaki tabi", and "Hokiboshi". One month later Mr.Children were special guests at The Mujintou fes. 2006 and performed "Mirai", "Innocent world", "Hokorobi", "Sign", "Owarinaki tabi", "Worlds end", and "Houkiboshi". Shortly after Mr.Children announced a joint tour with fellow Japanese rockers the pillows, known as 'Mr.Children & the pillows new big bang tour ~This is Hybrid Innocent~'. The tour was held from September 26, 2006 through October 11, 2006. On November 15, 2006, the group released their 29th single , which was used as the theme song , by NTV, a controversial television drama about underage pregnancy. Kazutoshi Sakurai had begun writing the song in February 2006 and finished writing in March 2006. and shot the promotional video in September 2006. One of the b-sides of single was a re-recording of Mr. Children's 2003 song "Kurumi", used as a theme song in the movie .
2007
On January 24, 2007, the band released their 30th single, , which was used as the theme song for the movie , and while only a limited edition single, brought the group to 26 consecutive No. 1 singles. Shortly after, the 13th original album, Home, was released on March 14, which would become the group's first in almost 13 years to chart at No. 1 for two consecutive weeks. It was also the first Japanese album in 2007 to sell more than a million copies. Work on the record had come to a standstill, during the recording of the song "Houkiboshi", due to a dispute among the group over "Home"'s direction. Producer Kobayashi suggested to make an album that "pays attention to the world with a message".
The album reflected a more personal touch from the group, with talking about the 9/11 attacks at New York City, and , being inspired by Kazutoshi Sakurai father who had been sick. The title of the album, Home, was originally suggested to be titled "Home Made" or "Home Ground", because the group wanted the album to have the meaning that it was made by hand. However, they choose to name it just Home because they felt that by adding another word it would be limiting the idea in mind. Three days after the release of Home, Mr. Children won the awards Best Video of the Year and Best Group Video for the single "Shirushi" at the Space Shower Music Video Awards '07. For the album, the group held two promotional tours. The first half called Mr. Children Home Tour 2007, started on May 4 and lasted until June 23. During the tour, a new compilation album titled B-Side was released on May 10, which was also the group's 15th anniversary. The release of a B-side compilation had been suggested by singer Sakurai while working on Home:
Releasing a public statement on their official site at Toy's Factory, both the group and Sakurai felt that the A-side tracks on their singles had started to dictate and overall theme as to who Mr. Children were as a group. They felt a lot of feelings and desires which have shaped them as a group came from these coupling songs, and thus decided to release them as a compilation album.
On May 5, 2007, after the second concert for the first half of the Home tour, drummer Hideya Suzuki injured his hand after accidentally touching a ventilator. He injured his left index finger, which required four stitches and the following two concerts had to be rescheduled. Publicity for the tour reached a high, when they performed in front of a sold-out tour for 15,000 fans at Yokohama Arena on June 7, 2007 and reignited speculation that the Mr.Children phenomenon was alive and well. A second half of the tour to promote 'Home', titled Mr.Children Home Tour 2007 -In the Field- took place from August 4 to September 30. Both tours ended up being a big success for the group, and became the most attended Japan tour in 2007 at 550,000 fans. The main promotional track for the Home album, , was selected to promote the Olympus E-410. During the E Goes to World campaign, the camera manufacturer had customers submit pictures to create a new promotional video for the song.
On July 10, Mr. Children announced a new song on their website titled . While initially a single release date wasn't issued, the group announced a month later it would be released on October 30, 2007. The title track, "Tabidachi no Uta", was used as a theme song for the Japanese movie , and a month later also be used to promote NTT Higashi Nihon. With the release of the single, Mr. Children managed to debut at number 1 for the week and in return obtained their 27th consecutive number 1 single. Similar to Jyūyonsai no Haha before, the movie Koizora deals with the struggles of a young girl, involving betrayal, rape and abortion. The group was scheduled to play at the ap bank fes '07 from July 14 to July 16, but due to a typhoon, the first two days had to be canceled, and only the final day proceeded as planned. With the announcement of the new single, Mr.Children also announced the 'Home' tour 2007 DVD, which was released on November 14, 2007. On December 18, 2007, Oricon announced that Home became their first album to top the yearly album charts since their debut with the sales of 1.18 million copies, surpassing the sales of Kumi Koda's album Black Cherry of 1.02 million copies.
2008
For the beginning of 2008, Sakurai released an album and DVD with his solo project Bank Band, followed a month later by the official announcement of a new song, , used in the NHK Japanese television drama . Afterwards Mr. Children announced the release of two singles. The first, "Gift", released on July 30, 2008, was used as the official theme song to the 2008 Beijing Olympics coverage on NHK. When writing this song, Sakurai focused on the meaning behind the Olympics and wanted to write a song not just for those who win, but for everyone who participates.
The ap bank announced that Mr.Children would appear for all 3 days at ap bank fes '08. Their second single of the year, "Hanabi", released on September 3, 2008, was used as the theme song to the Japanese drama Code Blue, in which Tomohisa Yamashita played a main role. The single "Hanabi" topped the Oricon single charts for two weeks, becoming their 29th consecutive number-one single. However, their next single became their first download-only single for the music download market. The nun full-track ringtone downloads (Chaku Uta) of the song began on October 1 and the full-track downloads (Chaku Uta Full) began on November 1, 2008. Their studio album Supermarket Fantasy was released on December 10, 2008. Supermarket Fantasy sold about 708,000 copies in its initial week, debuting at the number-one position on the Oricon weekly album charts.
2009–2011
On October 20, 2009, it was announced that Mr. Children produced their first anime theme "Fanfare" for the movie One Piece Film: Strong World. "Fanfare" was digitally released as a non full-track ringtone song (Chaku Uta) on November 16 as a full-track ringtone song (Chaku Uta Full) on December 2, 2009. The song debuted at the number-one position on the RIAJ Digital Track Chart.
On May 10, 2010, Mr. Children released the DVD Mr. Children Dome Tour 2009 Supermarket Fantasy in Tokyo Dome, but it sold about 49,000 copies one day before the official release day, debuting at No. 1 on the Oricon weekly music DVD chart with the one-day sales. It became their seventh consecutive number-one music DVD and they tied the records of Arashi and KAT-TUN for having the most consecutive number-one DVDs on the Oricon weekly music DVD chart. It also debuted at No. 1 on the Oricon weekly comprehensive DVD chart, eclipsing the sales of Avatar in the week. It topped the Oricon comprehensive DVD charts for three consecutive weeks, making them the second artist to achieve that with the music DVD while the first is Arashi.
On September 4, 2010, Mr. Children released their second documentary/concert movie Mr. Children / Split the Difference (since first "Es" ~Mr. Children in Film~) and released DVD + CD includes the movie and selected songs by the band on November 10, 2010. It debuted at No. 1 on the Oricon weekly music DVD chart and they also became the first artist to have their eighth consecutive number-one music DVD.
On December 1, 2010, Mr. Children released their sixteenth studio album Sense includes digital release only single "Fanfare". But the details such as track list, number of tracks, cover and title of the album were not announced until just before a release date, November 29.
On April 4, 2011, Mr. Children released the download single "Kazoe Uta" to collect donations for the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake. "Kazoe Uta" debuted at number 1 on the RIAJ Digital Track Chart, surpassing the download sales of AKB48's charity single "Dareka no Tame ni (What Can I Do for Someone?)".
2012
On April 18, 2012, Mr. Children released the Triple A-side single "Inori ~Namida no Kidou/End of the Day/pieces", their first in 3 years and 7 months; the single debuted at number 1 on the Oricon Weekly Single Charts, selling 174,409 copies. Two of the songs, "Inori ~Namida no Kidou" and "pieces", were used as the themes to the Bokura ga Ita movies. In addition, "Inori ~Namida no Kidou" spent four weeks atop the RIAJ Digital Track Chart, tying the record set by GReeeeN's "Haruka". Also released on April 18 was the band's "Mr. Children 2011 Tour Sense -in the field-" DVD, which debuted at number 1 on both the Oricon DVD and Blu-ray charts, making Mr. Children the first artist to top three of Oricon's charts in a single week.
On May 10, 2012, Mr. Children released a pair of Best Albums titled Mr. Children 2001–2005 <micro> and Mr. Children 2005–2010 <macro> in celebration of their 20th anniversary. The band also embarked on a 2-month dome tour, titled "POPSAURUS 2012", after the series of concerts they held in 2001 following the release of their first two Best Albums.
On November 28, 2012 Mr.Children released new album titled [(An Imitation) Blood Orange].
At the end of the year, Mr.Children had dominated the yearly album ranking for 2012 with all 3 albums in the top10. Their dual best albums Mr. Children 2005–2010 <macro> and Mr. Children 2001–2005 <micro> monopolized TOP 2 the best selling album of 2012 yearly chart with selling 1.17 million copies sold and 1.11 million copies sold consecutively. Moreover, [(An Imitation) Blood Orange] placed 8th in the best selling album in 2012.
They have both achieved "the best selling album" and " the most Artist total sales Albums " for 2012. Mr.Children became the third artists who achieved TOP 2 spots on the yearly album ranking, and this is the first time in 14 years for any artist to achieve this . Mr.Children was the 4th artist by total sales revenue in Japan in 2012, with ¥9.947 billion (approximately $84 million).
2014
On November 19, 2014 Mr.Children released the single CD "Ashioto ~Be Strong"
2020
On December 2, 2020, Mr.Children released their 20th studio album SOUNDTRACKS.
Photographers
The band has collaborated with photographers such as Osami Yabuta, Reylia Slaby and Alfie Goodrich
Oricon Chart Statistics
Artist's Total sales (CD Total Sales) : 58.61 million copies sold ( #2 most selling artist)
No.1 on Oricon Year-End Charts: 1994 ("innocent world"); 1996 ("Namonaki Uta"), 2007 (HOME), 2012 (Mr.Children Macro 2005-2010)
Double Million Seller Singles: 2nd overall (1st - CHAGE and ASKA)
Million Seller Singles: 3rd overall (1st - B'z, 2nd - AKB48)
Million Seller Albums: 2nd overall (1st - B'z, 3rd - DREAMS COME TRUE)
The most non tie up Single sales : 1.82 million copies sold (by「See Saw Game」)
Won Japan Record Grand Prix in 1994 for "innocent world" and won it again 10 years later for "Sign"
Charitable and other activities
Since their official debut, Mr.Children has engaged in social and charitable causes. As a group they participated in the live concert for Act Against AIDS on December 1, 1994 and again on December 1, 1995. The goal of live was to raise awareness about AIDS. The proceeds from the event were donated to support children living with HIV. The live was followed up by a collaboration Act Against AIDS charity single with fellow Japanese artist Kuwata Keisuke titled ‘Kiseki no hoshi’ and released on January 23, 1995. On April 25, 2001 Kazutoshi Sakurai also participated in the recording of Zero Landmine, a single created to promote awareness of the problem of landmines and promote a ban on landmines. In addition the group has also participated in Kazutoshi Sakura's solo project, AP bank. AP Bank, a nonprofit lending group, carries the goal of tackling environmental problems by financing environmentally friendly projects such as renewable energy, in addition to holding yearly festivals to raise money to fund additional projects. Since its inception in 2005, Mr.Children has been actively participating in the festivals, with an announcement in 2008 that the group will now work more closely with its cause by participating during the entire three-day festival duration in addition to further details to be announced at a later time.
Members Kazutoshi Sakurai and Kenichi Tahara joined together to create Acid Test for the concert ‘Dream Power John Lennon Super live broadcasting’ on October 9, 2001. The live was part of Yoko Ono’s Dream Power and educational platform where artists came together to hold a charity concert to raise money for school construction funds for children in Africa and Asia. The John Lennon song covered by Acid Test during the live, "Mother", was later recorded and released on a tribute album Happy Birthday, John, and released on September 30, 2005.
In addition to social causes, Mr.Children's music has been used as background music for numerous television advertisements, television programs, television drama's, and motion pictures. Examples of the group's commercial tie-ins include "and I love you", "Bokura no Oto", and "Tagatame" for Nissin Cup Noodle no Border commercials, 'Gift' for the 2008 Beijing Olympics on NHK, and "Tabidachi no uta" for the 2007 Japanese movie . As a group, Mr.Children have not endorsed products by physically appearing in television commercials or printed media advertisements. One of the methods used to help promote the group is through Brajackets, a dust jacket for books, which are available at stands in bookstores for free. The Brajacket serve as free advertising for various products from ice cream to movies and musicals. Mr. Children have used this method to promote singles and albums; for example and I Love U (I♥U).
Fan club
The official fan club of Mr. Children is called Father & Mother, the title being derived from their name. The fan club, which started in 1994, was kept relatively secretive at first, as the group has never made any mention of it on their official website. In 2006, for the release of the group's 29th single "Shirushi", the official website was revamped and with it information about the fan club was finally added. Just like before however, the fan club can only be joined by mail and requires an admission fee of 3,500 yen, with yearly re-applications for membership.
Band members
Current members
Kazutoshi Sakurai – lead vocals, guitar, primary songwriter
Kenichi Tahara – guitar, backing vocals
He was born in Fukuoka and is charge of playing guitar in the band. He had joined the baseball team in high school but became interested in the guitar because he saw his classmate playing a guitar at a school festival. One day one of his classmates, Kazutoshi Sakurai brought his guitar to school. They bonded with each other over it and that became the catalyst for forming Mr.Children. Known for being quiet in live concerts, his fans become estatic when he says interacts with them.
Keisuke Nakagawa – bass, backing vocals
Nakagawa was born in Nagasaki. His nickname is "Nakakei". He went to the same junior high school as Kenichi and Hideya where he started playing the bass. He is also famous for being a baseball fan.
Hideya Suzuki – drums, backing vocals, also known as "Jen" and is the leader of Mr. Children
Supporting members
Takeshi Kobayashi – keyboards, producer
Naoto Inti Raymi – guitar, chorus
Takashi "Sunny" Katsuya – keyboards, backing vocals
Shuji Kouguchi – guitar, harmonica
Discography
Albums
* Compilation album.** Live album
Books
Official Books:
[es] Mr.Children in 370 DAYS (April 25, 1995) C0076
Mr.Children Everything 天才・桜井和寿 終わりなき音の冒険 (Mr.Children Everything -Tensai Sakurai Kazutoshi owarinaki oto no bouken-) (December 25, 1996) C0073
Mr.Children詩集「優しい歌」 (Mr.Children song collection -Yasashii Uta-) (December 10, 2001) C0092
Tours
Official Tours:
'92 Everything Tour (September 23, 1992 – November 5, 1992)
Visited 10 cities and held 10 concerts
'92 Your Everything Tour (September 26, 1992 – November 22, 1992)
Visited 11 cities and held 12 concerts
'92–93 Kind of Love Tour (December 7, 1992 – January 25, 1993)
Visited 9 cities and held 9 concerts
'93 Versus Tour (September 23, 1993 – November 5, 1993)
Visited 9 cities and held 9 concerts
Mr. Children '94 tour innocent world (September 18, 1994 – December 18, 1994)
Visited 24 cities and held 27 concerts
Mr.Children '95 Tour Atomic Heart (January 7, 1995 – February 20, 1995)
Visited 10 cities and held 21 concerts
(July 16, 1995 – September 10, 1995)
Visited 11 cities and held 19 concerts
Regress or Progress (August 24, 1996 – March 28, 1997)
Visited 14 cities and held 55 concerts
"Discovery" Tour '99 (February 14, 1999 – July 12, 1999)
Visited 16 cities and held 42 concerts
Mr. Children Concert tour Q (October 15, 2000 – February 24, 2001)
Visited 13 cities and held 35 concerts
Popsaurus Mr. Children (July 15, 2001 – September 25, 2001)
Visited 10 cities and held 15 concerts
Wonderful World on Dec. 21 (December 21, 2002)
A one night live. Originally intended to be a 26 city and 39 concert tour, but was canceled due to Kazutoshi Sakurai's hospitalization
(June 12, 2004 – September 25, 2004)
Stadium Tour, Visited 11 cities and held 21 concerts
Dome tour 2005 "I ♥ U" (November 12, 2005 – December 27, 2005)
Dome Tour, Visited 5 cities and held 10 concerts
Mr. Children & the pillows new big bang tour ~This is Hybrid Innocent~ (September 26, 2006 – October 11, 2006)
Hall tour, Visited 6 cities and held 7 concerts. The tour, a Zepp tour, was a joint effort with fellow rock group the pillows
Mr. Children "Home" Tour 2007 (May 4, 2007 – June 23, 2007)
Arena tour, Visited 7 cities and held 14 concerts
Mr. Children "Home" Tour 2007 -in the field- (August 4, 2007 – September 30, 2007)
Stadium tour, Visited 9 cities and held 14 concerts
" (Feb 14, 2009 – March 31, 2009)
Arena Tour, Visited 17 cities and held 34 concerts
Mr.Children DOME TOUR 2009 ~SUPERMARKET FANTASY~ (November 28, 2009 – December 27, 2009)
Dome tour, Visited 5 cities and held 11 concerts
Mr.Children Tour 2011 SENSE (February 19, 2011 – May 15, 2011)
Arena Tour, Visited 9 cities and held 19 concerts
Mr.Children STADIUM TOUR 2011 SENSE -in the field- (August 20, 2011 – September 25, 2011)
Stadium tour, Visited 6 cities and held 10 concerts
MR.CHILDREN TOUR POPSAURUS 2012 (April 14, 2012 – June 6, 2012)
Dome tour, Visited 6 cities and held 14 concerts
Mr.Children [(an imitation) blood orange] Tour (December 15, 2012 – June 9, 2012)
Dome tour, Visited 20 cities and held 40 concerts
Mr.Children FATHER&MOTHER 21st anniversary Fanclub Tour (September 17, 2014 – October 9, 2014)
Zepp tour, Visited 5 cities and held 5 concerts
Mr.Children TOUR 2015 REFLECTION (March 14, 2015 – June 4, 2015)
Arena Tour, Visited 10 cities and held 20 concerts
Mr.Children Stadium Tour 2015 未完 (July 8, 2015 – September 20, 2015)
Stadium tour, Visited 10 cities and held 16 concerts
Mr.Children Hall tour 2016 "Niji" (April 14, 2016 – May 26, 2016)
Hall Tour, Visited 13 cities and held 13 concerts
Note: It is the first time in 14 years to hold Hall tour since 2002
Awards and Records
See also
Japanese rock
Japan Record Awards
MTV Video Music Awards Japan
List of best-selling music artists in Japan
List of best-selling singles in Japan
Footnotes
a. Early on in the group's career, Takeshi Kobayashi collaborated with Kazutoshi Sakurai on various songs in addition to writing songs himself. For example, "Dance dance dance" on the album Atomic Heart was co-composed by him, and on the album Versus, was both composed and written by him. Over the years, his composing and lyrical work with the group has lessened with the last a-side track co-written by him and Kazutoshi Sakurai being which was released on December 12, 1994 .
References
External links
Official website
Mr. Children at Toy's Factory
Innocent World – Unofficial English translations of Mr. Children news and articles
Mr. Children English Fansite – Unofficial English translations of Mr. Children lyrics, guitar tabs and album reviews
Toy's Factory artists
Japanese pop rock music groups
Musical groups from Tokyo
Musical quartets
Musical groups established in 1988 | false | [
"Sweet, Soft N' Lazy (The Exclusive Collection) is the first compilation album by French-Belgian singer Viktor Lazlo.\n\nThe album was released following the success of Lazlo's German-French duet single Das erste Mal tat's noch weh with Stefan Waggershausen in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The single peaked at No. 6 on the German single charts and was a massive success. The single Ansiedad was another success for Lazlo, charting in Germany and Belgium. It was also part of the official soundtrack for Lazlo's movie Boom Boom, a Spanish romantic comedy.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nAlbum\n\nSingle releases\n\nReferences\n\n1990 albums\nViktor Lazlo albums\nPolydor Records albums",
"Collaborations 2 is the tenth studio album by Punjabi singer Sukshinder Shinda, released on 26 February 2009 worldwide making his second collaborated album. The album was also released internationally to USA, Canada, and U.K.\n\nThe album was preceded by the lead single, Ghum Shum Ghum Shum which featured Rahat Fateh Ali Khan. The song was also Shinda's first with Rahat. Following the success of his first single, Yarrian Banai Rakhi Yaarian featuring Jazzy B, was released which was another success. Despite success with two singles from the album, the album received positive reviews.\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences\n\n2009 albums"
] |
[
"Mr. Children",
"1998-2000",
"What happened in 1998?",
"On February 11, 1998, they released their 14th single \"Nishi e Higashi e\" (nishiehigashie),",
"Was the single a success?",
"I don't know."
] | C_cc47c7df2d994d02b905ef7002dc163a_0 | What happened in 1999? | 3 | What happened to Mr. Children in 1999? | Mr. Children | On February 11, 1998, they released their 14th single "Nishi e Higashi e" (nishiehigashie), theme song to the Japanese drama Kira kira Hikaru (kirakirahikaru). The group was still on hiatus during this time and made no live performances to promote the single and did not appear in the music video for the song. Finally on October 21, 1998, Mr. Children officially re-grouped and released their 15th single, "Owarinaki Tabi" (Zhong warinakiLu ) with the Japanese drama Naguru Onna (Ou ruNu ) using it as their theme song. The song remains a public favorite in voting polls, Oricon citing its inspirational lyrics as the reason. On January 13, 1999, "Hikari no Sasu Hou E" (Guang noShe suFang he), their 16th single, was released, followed by their seventh album, Discovery, on February 3, 1999. Sakurai compared his approach to the songwriting for the record to surfing: Eleven days later they began the Discovery Tour '99, from February 14 to July 12, where the group visited 16 cities and held 42 shows. During the tour, Mr. Children released their 17th single "I'll Be" on May 12, which was used in Shiseido's (Zi Sheng Tang ) Sea Breeze commercials. Though originally released on the Discovery album, the song was re-released as a single with a lighter beat. The single was not a success and became Mr. Children's lowest selling single since "Cross Road". During the Discovery Tour '99, an idea for a live album was brought up. It was released as a 500,000 copy limited edition on September 8, 1999 and called 1/42 (referring to one of the 42 shows in the tour). Most of the tracks were recorded on June 16, 1999 at the Makomanai ice arena, while the bonus track "Dakishimetai" was recorded at the Okinawa Ginowan-Shi seaside park. At the beginning of a new century "Kuchibue" (Kou Di ), released on January 13, 2000 became the group's 18th single. While "I'll Be" failed to be a success, "Kuchibue" proved to be a hit selling 724,070 copies. On August 9, 2000, their 19th single "Not Found" was also used as the theme song to the Japanese drama Bus Stop (basusutotsupu), followed a month later by their 9th original album Q on September 27, 2000. The band went to New York to record this album, where they re-recorded some of their old indie material and for the first time, producer Takeshi Kobayashi performed with the band on a recording. The cover for the album was shot bought Size, Inc. at the Bonneville Salt Flats in the United States. The album was not a favorite amongst fans for various reasons and became their first album since Atomic Heart to not sell over one million copies. 'Concert tour Q' started, visiting 13 cities and holding 35 concerts between October 15, 2000 and February 24, 2001. CANNOTANSWER | On January 13, 1999, "Hikari no Sasu Hou E" (Guang noShe suFang he), their 16th single, was released, followed by their seventh album, Discovery, on February 3, 1999. | , commonly referred to by their contracted nickname , are a Japanese pop rock band formed in 1989. Consisting of Kazutoshi Sakurai, Kenichi Tahara, Keisuke Nakagawa, and Hideya Suzuki, they made their major label debut in 1992. They are one of the best selling artists in Japan and one of the most successful Japanese rock artists, having sold over 75 million records and creating the in the mid-1990s in Japan. They held the record for the highest first week sales of a single in Japan for 15 years, with 1.2 million copies of their 10th single , have 30 consecutive number 1 singles, replaced Glay as the all-male band (with 3 or more members) to have the most number 1 albums on the Oricon charts, and won the Japan Record Award in 1994 for "Innocent World" and in 2004 for "Sign". As of 2012, Mr. Children has published fifteen original studio albums and 34 physical singles, along with five compilations, a live album, and fifteen home video releases.
The band's music is mainly composed and written by lead singer Sakurai, with the exception of the Suzuki-penned songs "Asia" and "#2601" from the albums Atomic Heart and Discovery, and occasional collaborative song writing with producer Takeshi Kobayashi.
In 2012 they celebrated their 20th debut anniversary by releasing dual best album titled Mr. Children 2001–2005 <micro> and Mr. Children 2005–2010 <macro>. Both albums dominated the best-selling album category in the 2012 Oricon yearly chart, selling over 2.5 million copies. Mr.Children has become the third artists who achieved TOP 2 spots on the yearly album ranking, and this is the first time in 14 years for any artist to achieve this. Moreover, [(An Imitation) Blood Orange], an album of new material released in November 2012, debuted No.1 on the Oricon Chart—at the end of the year, all three albums released that year were in the Top 10 best selling albums of 2012.
In 2015, Mr. Children was named No.1 Concert Mobilization Power Ranking based on the overall number of people whom attended their performances during 2015 in Japan, mobilizing 1,119,000 fans (36 concerts).
History
1987–1992
The group's members first met in the year of 1987, when Sakurai, Tahara and Nakagawa were in The Walls, which was originally influenced by the band Echoes. The frontman of Echoes, Jinsei Tsuji, was a political activist, and because of this, The Walls too became a political band. Drummer Hideya Suzuki was not an original member of The Walls. When the original drummer departed, the band recruited Suzuki, who went to the same school as the other members. In late 1988, The Walls disintegrated, while the remaining members formed Mr. Children in early 1989. The name of Mr. Children supposedly came about during a talk in a dinner, in which the group thought the word "children" had a nice ring to it, but because they were no longer children themselves, they decided to add Mr. in front of it. They credit this change as a new way they started to look at the group.
After changing their name and overall sound, Mr. Children auditioned at a music club called La Mama, failing to pass the first time, but passing a second audition to play at the club. After playing in the club, they were asked to try and debut as professionals. Mr. Children sent out five demo tapes; all failed to generate record label interest, and the group took a three-month hiatus in 1991. Hideya Suzuki worked as a receptionist at an economy hotel, while Kazutoshi Sakurai worked with his father who owned a construction company. When they returned, the group created a sixth demo tape and caught the attention of Toy's Factory. The label signed the group and had them play as the opening act for the rock group Jun Sky Walkers. It was also during this time that they were introduced to their long-time friend and producer Takeshi Kobayashi. Kobayashi was already known in the music industry as a music composer for Keisuke Kuwata of Southern All Stars and Kyōko Koizumi.
1992–1994
On May 10, 1992, Mr. Children's debut album, Everything, was released and represented the long journey they took to get to this point. Three months later their first single was released on August 21, 1992. After the release of the single the group held two tours for the album, both held between September 23, 1992 and November 5 of the same year, the '92 Everything Tour comprising ten and the '92 Your Everything Tour consisting of twelve performances. To cap off the year and lead them into the next, Mr. Children released their second album, Kind of Love and their second single on December 1, 1992. "Dakishimetai" was later used as an insert song for the Japanese drama . Shortly after, a new tour called '92–93 Kind of Love Tour started and lasted from December 7, 1992 till January 25, 1993.
In 1993, with the completion of the band's tour they began work on for their third album. The first single of the new year to be released was "Replay", released on July 1, 1993 and used in commercials. On September 9, 1993 their third album Versus was released, but failed to bring the group into the spotlight. They continued on and held a new tour. The '93 Versus Tour was held from September 23 until November 5 and had the band holding nine performances. Shortly after, "Cross Road" was released on November 10, 1993, which was used to promote the Japanese drama . The single was not a hit, but through word of mouth "Cross Road" gained popularity and after 22 weeks sold over a million copies and later, though released in 1993, managed to become the fifteenth best selling single in Oricon's 1994 yearly charts. Sakurai confessed years later as to not liking his works up to this point. According to him:
On June 1, 1994 a new single called "Innocent World" was released and used a promotional song for the soft drink . The single solidified the groups popularity with its sales, managing to sell 1,935,830 copies and becoming the No. 1 selling single in Oricon's 1994 yearly charts. Afterwards work began on their fourth original album Atomic Heart. The album was released on September 1, 1994 and became the band's highest selling album to date. Due to the huge success the band received from the album and "Innocent World" single, the groups popularity built up creating the in Japan.
The band also had Takeshi Kobayashi produce two new tours for them. The first tour, named after the "Innocent World" single was held from September 18 to December 18. The band also released their sixth single "Tomorrow Never Knows" on November 10, 1994 which was used as the theme song to the Japanese drama . The song was written while the group was on tour, was later voted in 2006 as fans No. 1 all-time favorite song on Music Station, and is currently the third highest selling drama tie-in single in Japan. The next single, was released on December 12, 1994, though originally intended to be the B-side of "Tomorrow Never Knows". To end the year, "Innocent World" won the Song of the Year award at the 36th annual Japan Record Awards.
1995–1997
In 1995, the second half of the Atomic Heart tour started, lasting from January 1 to February 2. Mr. Children also became involved in charity work, doing a collaboration song with Keisuke Kuwata of Southern All Stars. The single was used as the theme song for the Act Against AIDS campaign, was produced by Mr. Children and written by Kuwata. To promote the single and the campaign, they held a one-month tour from April 18 until May 14, entitled , where the group did cover songs of many English speaking artists such as The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan. During the tour the group was also filming a documentary/concert movie called Es ~Mr. Children in Film~. It was released in theaters on June 6, 1995, preceded by the group's eight single "Es (Theme of Es)" on May 10, to promote the movie. Two months later the group held an open air tour titled from July 16 to September 10, during which the ninth single, was released on August 10.
On February 6, 1996 Mr. Children's tenth single was released, to promote the Japanese drama and also for Daio Paper's commercial. The single went on to become Japan's highest first week selling single of all time (which was later broken by idol group AKB48) and is currently Japan's eighth highest selling drama tie-in single. The success of the single was also a surprise for Sakurai, who admitted to spending very little time writing the song. Two months later, on April 5, 1996 the group's eleventh single was released, followed by their fifth original album on June 24 and their twelfth single , on August 8. To close the year, the Regress or Progress Tour started and lasted from August 24, 1996 to March 28, 1997. The group visited 14 cities and held 55 concerts.
Mr. Children's 13th single, "Everything (It's You)", was released on February 5, 1997, with the title track used as the theme song to the Japanese drama . A month later, on March 5 Bolero, Mr. Children's sixth album was released. Soon after, rumors started of the group disbanding. Sakurai's reply: "The band will dissolve only when we have no more talent and have relationship problems with each other." Yet the group then decided to take some time off. Nakagawa and Suzuki start a side project band called Hayashi Hideo, and joined by Kenji Fujii from My Little Lover and Sawao Yamanaka from The Pillows, went on a club tour.
1998–2000
On February 11, 1998, they released their 14th single , theme song to the Japanese drama . The group was still on hiatus during this time and made no live performances to promote the single and did not appear in the music video for the song. Finally on October 21, 1998, Mr. Children officially re-grouped and released their 15th single, with the Japanese drama using it as their theme song. The song remains a public favorite in voting polls, Oricon citing its inspirational lyrics as the reason.
On January 13, 1999, , their 16th single, was released, followed by their seventh album, Discovery, on February 3, 1999. Sakurai compared his approach to the songwriting for the record to surfing:
Eleven days later they began the Discovery Tour '99, from February 14 to July 12, where the group visited 16 cities and held 42 shows. During the tour, Mr. Children released their 17th single "I'll Be" on May 12, which was used in Sea Breeze commercials. Though originally released on the Discovery album, the song was re-released as a single with a lighter beat. The single was not a success and became Mr. Children's lowest selling single since "Cross Road". During the Discovery Tour '99, an idea for a live album was brought up. It was released as a 500,000 copy limited edition on September 8, 1999 and called 1/42 (referring to one of the 42 shows in the tour). Most of the tracks were recorded on June 16, 1999 at the Makomanai ice arena, while the bonus track "Dakishimetai" was recorded at the Okinawa Ginowan-Shi seaside park.
At the beginning of a new century , released on January 13, 2000 became the group's 18th single. While "I'll Be" failed to be a success, "Kuchibue" proved to be a hit selling 724,070 copies. On August 9, 2000, their 19th single "Not Found" was also used as the theme song to the Japanese drama , followed a month later by their 9th original album Q on September 27, 2000. The band went to New York to record this album, where they re-recorded some of their old indie material and for the first time, producer Takeshi Kobayashi performed with the band on a recording. The cover for the album was shot bought Size, Inc. at the Bonneville Salt Flats in the United States. The album was not a favorite amongst fans for various reasons and became their first album since Atomic Heart to not sell over one million copies. ‘Concert tour Q’ started, visiting 13 cities and holding 35 concerts between October 15, 2000 and February 24, 2001.
2001–2003
In 2001, Mr. Children continued their Q tour, followed by dual "Best Of" albums. Titled Mr. Children 1992–1995 and Mr. Children 1996–2000, they were both released on July 11, 2001. Both albums went on to sell a combined total of 4,034,785 copies. According to an interview done with MTV Japan Sakurai stated the best of albums weren't something they had planned on doing yet. During this time, the group was finishing up work for their new upcoming album and had planned to start promoting singles on it. However it was decided that a best of album was needed and so they were released. Four days following the dual album release, the group launched the ‘Popsaurus’ tour, visiting 10 cities and playing 15 shows, lasting from July 15, 2001 all the way through September 25, 2001. A month into the tour their 20th single was released and used to promote the Wonda Canned Coffee by Asahi Soft Drinks. Two months after the Popsaurus tour ended, "Youthful Days" was released. Released on November 7, 2001, it was their 21st single and was an insert song for the Japanese drama Antique Bakery. "Youthful Days" debuted at number-one on Japanese Oricon's Charts in its first week at retail (ahead of Mr. Moonlight (Ai no Big Band) by Morning Musume, from album 4th Ikimashoi!), and It ended up being their best selling single for the year. The b-side for the single, "Drawing", originally had no commercial tie-in, but two years later was used as the theme song to the 2003 Japanese drama , Starring former Shibugakitai member Masahiro Motoki.
Mr. Children released their 22nd single on New Year's Day of 2002 (January 1), which was used as a show song in the Japanese drama Antique Bakery. Four months later their tenth original album It's a Wonderful World was released on May 10, the groups' tenth anniversary. The release of the album on their 10th anniversary was not something that had originally intended. As the group was wrapping up recording, Sakurai asked if the album could be released in the spring time. While the group and their management was trying to think of how to promote an album in the spring time, they came up with releasing the album on their 10th anniversary. A new tour, titled Mr. Children Tour 2002 Dear Wonderful World was set to begin later that year. The previous single "I'll Be" from the Discovery album was selected to be used as an official theme for the 2002 FIFA World Cup, held in Japan and South Korea. On May 24, 2002 Mr. Children attended the first ever MTV Video Music Awards Japan and topped the awards show by winning 'Video of the Year' for the song "Kimi ga suki", the band also nominated in Best Group Category but losing to Backstreet Boys. Two months after the release of the new album, Mr.Children's 23rd single "Any", was released on July 11, 2002 and used to promote NTT DoCoMo Group 10th Anniversary. The group was not able to properly promote the single. As preparations for the new tour were beginning and promotion for the new single were being done, lead singer Sakurai was hospitalized on July 21, 2002, after a blockage in his cerebellum was detected. The Mr. Children Tour 2002 Dear Wonderful World was canceled and all group activities were put on a temporary hiatus. While recovering, Sakurai wrote a song called "Hero", that was inspired by his hospitalization. The song was released as the group's 24th single on December 11, 2002 and was used in NTT DoCoMo Group 10th Anniversary commercial. The first press version of the single included a DVD where, in addition to a Mr. Children 2002 documentary -Hero- that was aired, the singer talked about his hospitalization and inspiration for the song. On November 15, 2002 Mr.Children's website announced the band's return to the stage for a "stew of home pride" with a one night only live, December 21, 2002 the group returned to the stage for a single concert, later released on DVD, titled Wonederful World on Dec. 21.
The group remained quiet for most of 2003. Sakurai helped to launch Artists' Power Bank (AP Bank), a non-profit environmental financial institution, in June. Sakamoto Ryuichi, a well known composer, came up with the initial idea to build a wind-power plant. With the help of Sakurai and music producer Takeshi Kobayashi, their goal later became to invest in environmentally friendly projects, such as renewable energy, and as of 2007, participated in other social issues such as helping the victims of a Chuetsu offshore earthquake in Niigata Prefecture on July 16, 2007. Near the end of the year, Mr. Children re-grouped and released their 25th single . It became their first double a-side single with "Tenohira" receiving no commercial tie-in, and "Kurumi" used to promote . The single was a hit and became Mr.Children's best selling single since 2001's "Youthful Days" single.
2004–2006
In 2004, Sakurai started a solo project titled Bank Band, which became a spin-off of AP Bank. As Bank Band, Sakurai released a first album, titled , which contained covers of two Mr. Children songs, "Hero" and "Yasashii Uta". Mr. Children released their eleventh album on April 4, 2004, titled , which came with a documentary DVD showing the group working and talking about the concept behind the album. To help promote the album, Mr. Children used the song in 'Nissin Cup Noodle – NO Border' commercials and as the 'News 23' theme song. According to Sakurai, is
In the following month, they released their 26th single, "Sign", on May 26, which was used as the theme song to the Japanese drama Orange Days and went on to win the Song of the Year award at the 46th annual Japan Record Awards ten years after their win for 'Innocent World'.
Most of the 2005 was spent working on a new album. As a solo act, Kazutoshi Sakurai appeared at Golden Circle vol.7 on February 28, 2005. Finally on June 29, 2005 the group released their 27th single . The single became a monster hit selling 569,000 copies its first week, and ending with 925,632 copies sold. As a quad a-side single, all four songs had a commercial tie in. promoted 'Pocari Sweat', "and I love you" promoted 'Nissin Cup Noodle – NO Border', became the theme song for the Japanese movie 'Fly Daddy Fly', and was used as a promotional song for Fuji TV's educational program 'Kodomo bangumi Ponkikkiizu, Gachagachapon'. Even though it was released as a single, it was classified as an album by the Recording Industry Association of Japan. A month later the group attended Kazutoshi Sakurai's 3-day festival 'ap bank fes’ 05' from July 16, 2005 through July 18, 2005, followed by 'SETSTOCK '05' at Kokuei bihoku kyuuryou park on July 23, 2005 and 'Higher Ground 2005' at Umi no nakamichi kaihinkouen outdoor theater on July 30, 2005. Three months later on September 21, 2005, I Love U (I♥U), Mr.Children’s 12th original album, was released. Two months later Dome Tour 2005 'I Love U' began, running from November 12, 2005 through December 27, 2005 and were only the fourth artist in Japanese history to play at the Osaka, Tokyo, Sapporo, Nagoya and Fukuoka dome's. The tour ended in Tokyo Come where they played to 45,000 fans, bringing the tour total to almost 390,000 fans. By the end of the year the group managed to pass the 45 million mark in sold records.
The first single for 2006, was their 28th single released on July 5, 2006 and used as the promotion song for Toyota's "Tobira wo akeyou" commercial and as the theme song to NTV's 2006 FIFA World Cup broadcasting. Due to the groups involvement with ap bank fes. '06, there were no magazine or radio promotions, and only 3 live performances were done to promote the single. However the commercial tie-in's for the single proved to be a success and "Houkiboshi" was voted No. 3 as the favorite commercial song for 2006 and voted as the favorite winter song heard in the summer. Ten days following the release of 'Houkiboshi', Mr.Children participated in the 3 day festival, ap bank fes '06, where they performed "Hero", "Strange Chameleon", "Owarinaki tabi", and "Hokiboshi". One month later Mr.Children were special guests at The Mujintou fes. 2006 and performed "Mirai", "Innocent world", "Hokorobi", "Sign", "Owarinaki tabi", "Worlds end", and "Houkiboshi". Shortly after Mr.Children announced a joint tour with fellow Japanese rockers the pillows, known as 'Mr.Children & the pillows new big bang tour ~This is Hybrid Innocent~'. The tour was held from September 26, 2006 through October 11, 2006. On November 15, 2006, the group released their 29th single , which was used as the theme song , by NTV, a controversial television drama about underage pregnancy. Kazutoshi Sakurai had begun writing the song in February 2006 and finished writing in March 2006. and shot the promotional video in September 2006. One of the b-sides of single was a re-recording of Mr. Children's 2003 song "Kurumi", used as a theme song in the movie .
2007
On January 24, 2007, the band released their 30th single, , which was used as the theme song for the movie , and while only a limited edition single, brought the group to 26 consecutive No. 1 singles. Shortly after, the 13th original album, Home, was released on March 14, which would become the group's first in almost 13 years to chart at No. 1 for two consecutive weeks. It was also the first Japanese album in 2007 to sell more than a million copies. Work on the record had come to a standstill, during the recording of the song "Houkiboshi", due to a dispute among the group over "Home"'s direction. Producer Kobayashi suggested to make an album that "pays attention to the world with a message".
The album reflected a more personal touch from the group, with talking about the 9/11 attacks at New York City, and , being inspired by Kazutoshi Sakurai father who had been sick. The title of the album, Home, was originally suggested to be titled "Home Made" or "Home Ground", because the group wanted the album to have the meaning that it was made by hand. However, they choose to name it just Home because they felt that by adding another word it would be limiting the idea in mind. Three days after the release of Home, Mr. Children won the awards Best Video of the Year and Best Group Video for the single "Shirushi" at the Space Shower Music Video Awards '07. For the album, the group held two promotional tours. The first half called Mr. Children Home Tour 2007, started on May 4 and lasted until June 23. During the tour, a new compilation album titled B-Side was released on May 10, which was also the group's 15th anniversary. The release of a B-side compilation had been suggested by singer Sakurai while working on Home:
Releasing a public statement on their official site at Toy's Factory, both the group and Sakurai felt that the A-side tracks on their singles had started to dictate and overall theme as to who Mr. Children were as a group. They felt a lot of feelings and desires which have shaped them as a group came from these coupling songs, and thus decided to release them as a compilation album.
On May 5, 2007, after the second concert for the first half of the Home tour, drummer Hideya Suzuki injured his hand after accidentally touching a ventilator. He injured his left index finger, which required four stitches and the following two concerts had to be rescheduled. Publicity for the tour reached a high, when they performed in front of a sold-out tour for 15,000 fans at Yokohama Arena on June 7, 2007 and reignited speculation that the Mr.Children phenomenon was alive and well. A second half of the tour to promote 'Home', titled Mr.Children Home Tour 2007 -In the Field- took place from August 4 to September 30. Both tours ended up being a big success for the group, and became the most attended Japan tour in 2007 at 550,000 fans. The main promotional track for the Home album, , was selected to promote the Olympus E-410. During the E Goes to World campaign, the camera manufacturer had customers submit pictures to create a new promotional video for the song.
On July 10, Mr. Children announced a new song on their website titled . While initially a single release date wasn't issued, the group announced a month later it would be released on October 30, 2007. The title track, "Tabidachi no Uta", was used as a theme song for the Japanese movie , and a month later also be used to promote NTT Higashi Nihon. With the release of the single, Mr. Children managed to debut at number 1 for the week and in return obtained their 27th consecutive number 1 single. Similar to Jyūyonsai no Haha before, the movie Koizora deals with the struggles of a young girl, involving betrayal, rape and abortion. The group was scheduled to play at the ap bank fes '07 from July 14 to July 16, but due to a typhoon, the first two days had to be canceled, and only the final day proceeded as planned. With the announcement of the new single, Mr.Children also announced the 'Home' tour 2007 DVD, which was released on November 14, 2007. On December 18, 2007, Oricon announced that Home became their first album to top the yearly album charts since their debut with the sales of 1.18 million copies, surpassing the sales of Kumi Koda's album Black Cherry of 1.02 million copies.
2008
For the beginning of 2008, Sakurai released an album and DVD with his solo project Bank Band, followed a month later by the official announcement of a new song, , used in the NHK Japanese television drama . Afterwards Mr. Children announced the release of two singles. The first, "Gift", released on July 30, 2008, was used as the official theme song to the 2008 Beijing Olympics coverage on NHK. When writing this song, Sakurai focused on the meaning behind the Olympics and wanted to write a song not just for those who win, but for everyone who participates.
The ap bank announced that Mr.Children would appear for all 3 days at ap bank fes '08. Their second single of the year, "Hanabi", released on September 3, 2008, was used as the theme song to the Japanese drama Code Blue, in which Tomohisa Yamashita played a main role. The single "Hanabi" topped the Oricon single charts for two weeks, becoming their 29th consecutive number-one single. However, their next single became their first download-only single for the music download market. The nun full-track ringtone downloads (Chaku Uta) of the song began on October 1 and the full-track downloads (Chaku Uta Full) began on November 1, 2008. Their studio album Supermarket Fantasy was released on December 10, 2008. Supermarket Fantasy sold about 708,000 copies in its initial week, debuting at the number-one position on the Oricon weekly album charts.
2009–2011
On October 20, 2009, it was announced that Mr. Children produced their first anime theme "Fanfare" for the movie One Piece Film: Strong World. "Fanfare" was digitally released as a non full-track ringtone song (Chaku Uta) on November 16 as a full-track ringtone song (Chaku Uta Full) on December 2, 2009. The song debuted at the number-one position on the RIAJ Digital Track Chart.
On May 10, 2010, Mr. Children released the DVD Mr. Children Dome Tour 2009 Supermarket Fantasy in Tokyo Dome, but it sold about 49,000 copies one day before the official release day, debuting at No. 1 on the Oricon weekly music DVD chart with the one-day sales. It became their seventh consecutive number-one music DVD and they tied the records of Arashi and KAT-TUN for having the most consecutive number-one DVDs on the Oricon weekly music DVD chart. It also debuted at No. 1 on the Oricon weekly comprehensive DVD chart, eclipsing the sales of Avatar in the week. It topped the Oricon comprehensive DVD charts for three consecutive weeks, making them the second artist to achieve that with the music DVD while the first is Arashi.
On September 4, 2010, Mr. Children released their second documentary/concert movie Mr. Children / Split the Difference (since first "Es" ~Mr. Children in Film~) and released DVD + CD includes the movie and selected songs by the band on November 10, 2010. It debuted at No. 1 on the Oricon weekly music DVD chart and they also became the first artist to have their eighth consecutive number-one music DVD.
On December 1, 2010, Mr. Children released their sixteenth studio album Sense includes digital release only single "Fanfare". But the details such as track list, number of tracks, cover and title of the album were not announced until just before a release date, November 29.
On April 4, 2011, Mr. Children released the download single "Kazoe Uta" to collect donations for the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake. "Kazoe Uta" debuted at number 1 on the RIAJ Digital Track Chart, surpassing the download sales of AKB48's charity single "Dareka no Tame ni (What Can I Do for Someone?)".
2012
On April 18, 2012, Mr. Children released the Triple A-side single "Inori ~Namida no Kidou/End of the Day/pieces", their first in 3 years and 7 months; the single debuted at number 1 on the Oricon Weekly Single Charts, selling 174,409 copies. Two of the songs, "Inori ~Namida no Kidou" and "pieces", were used as the themes to the Bokura ga Ita movies. In addition, "Inori ~Namida no Kidou" spent four weeks atop the RIAJ Digital Track Chart, tying the record set by GReeeeN's "Haruka". Also released on April 18 was the band's "Mr. Children 2011 Tour Sense -in the field-" DVD, which debuted at number 1 on both the Oricon DVD and Blu-ray charts, making Mr. Children the first artist to top three of Oricon's charts in a single week.
On May 10, 2012, Mr. Children released a pair of Best Albums titled Mr. Children 2001–2005 <micro> and Mr. Children 2005–2010 <macro> in celebration of their 20th anniversary. The band also embarked on a 2-month dome tour, titled "POPSAURUS 2012", after the series of concerts they held in 2001 following the release of their first two Best Albums.
On November 28, 2012 Mr.Children released new album titled [(An Imitation) Blood Orange].
At the end of the year, Mr.Children had dominated the yearly album ranking for 2012 with all 3 albums in the top10. Their dual best albums Mr. Children 2005–2010 <macro> and Mr. Children 2001–2005 <micro> monopolized TOP 2 the best selling album of 2012 yearly chart with selling 1.17 million copies sold and 1.11 million copies sold consecutively. Moreover, [(An Imitation) Blood Orange] placed 8th in the best selling album in 2012.
They have both achieved "the best selling album" and " the most Artist total sales Albums " for 2012. Mr.Children became the third artists who achieved TOP 2 spots on the yearly album ranking, and this is the first time in 14 years for any artist to achieve this . Mr.Children was the 4th artist by total sales revenue in Japan in 2012, with ¥9.947 billion (approximately $84 million).
2014
On November 19, 2014 Mr.Children released the single CD "Ashioto ~Be Strong"
2020
On December 2, 2020, Mr.Children released their 20th studio album SOUNDTRACKS.
Photographers
The band has collaborated with photographers such as Osami Yabuta, Reylia Slaby and Alfie Goodrich
Oricon Chart Statistics
Artist's Total sales (CD Total Sales) : 58.61 million copies sold ( #2 most selling artist)
No.1 on Oricon Year-End Charts: 1994 ("innocent world"); 1996 ("Namonaki Uta"), 2007 (HOME), 2012 (Mr.Children Macro 2005-2010)
Double Million Seller Singles: 2nd overall (1st - CHAGE and ASKA)
Million Seller Singles: 3rd overall (1st - B'z, 2nd - AKB48)
Million Seller Albums: 2nd overall (1st - B'z, 3rd - DREAMS COME TRUE)
The most non tie up Single sales : 1.82 million copies sold (by「See Saw Game」)
Won Japan Record Grand Prix in 1994 for "innocent world" and won it again 10 years later for "Sign"
Charitable and other activities
Since their official debut, Mr.Children has engaged in social and charitable causes. As a group they participated in the live concert for Act Against AIDS on December 1, 1994 and again on December 1, 1995. The goal of live was to raise awareness about AIDS. The proceeds from the event were donated to support children living with HIV. The live was followed up by a collaboration Act Against AIDS charity single with fellow Japanese artist Kuwata Keisuke titled ‘Kiseki no hoshi’ and released on January 23, 1995. On April 25, 2001 Kazutoshi Sakurai also participated in the recording of Zero Landmine, a single created to promote awareness of the problem of landmines and promote a ban on landmines. In addition the group has also participated in Kazutoshi Sakura's solo project, AP bank. AP Bank, a nonprofit lending group, carries the goal of tackling environmental problems by financing environmentally friendly projects such as renewable energy, in addition to holding yearly festivals to raise money to fund additional projects. Since its inception in 2005, Mr.Children has been actively participating in the festivals, with an announcement in 2008 that the group will now work more closely with its cause by participating during the entire three-day festival duration in addition to further details to be announced at a later time.
Members Kazutoshi Sakurai and Kenichi Tahara joined together to create Acid Test for the concert ‘Dream Power John Lennon Super live broadcasting’ on October 9, 2001. The live was part of Yoko Ono’s Dream Power and educational platform where artists came together to hold a charity concert to raise money for school construction funds for children in Africa and Asia. The John Lennon song covered by Acid Test during the live, "Mother", was later recorded and released on a tribute album Happy Birthday, John, and released on September 30, 2005.
In addition to social causes, Mr.Children's music has been used as background music for numerous television advertisements, television programs, television drama's, and motion pictures. Examples of the group's commercial tie-ins include "and I love you", "Bokura no Oto", and "Tagatame" for Nissin Cup Noodle no Border commercials, 'Gift' for the 2008 Beijing Olympics on NHK, and "Tabidachi no uta" for the 2007 Japanese movie . As a group, Mr.Children have not endorsed products by physically appearing in television commercials or printed media advertisements. One of the methods used to help promote the group is through Brajackets, a dust jacket for books, which are available at stands in bookstores for free. The Brajacket serve as free advertising for various products from ice cream to movies and musicals. Mr. Children have used this method to promote singles and albums; for example and I Love U (I♥U).
Fan club
The official fan club of Mr. Children is called Father & Mother, the title being derived from their name. The fan club, which started in 1994, was kept relatively secretive at first, as the group has never made any mention of it on their official website. In 2006, for the release of the group's 29th single "Shirushi", the official website was revamped and with it information about the fan club was finally added. Just like before however, the fan club can only be joined by mail and requires an admission fee of 3,500 yen, with yearly re-applications for membership.
Band members
Current members
Kazutoshi Sakurai – lead vocals, guitar, primary songwriter
Kenichi Tahara – guitar, backing vocals
He was born in Fukuoka and is charge of playing guitar in the band. He had joined the baseball team in high school but became interested in the guitar because he saw his classmate playing a guitar at a school festival. One day one of his classmates, Kazutoshi Sakurai brought his guitar to school. They bonded with each other over it and that became the catalyst for forming Mr.Children. Known for being quiet in live concerts, his fans become estatic when he says interacts with them.
Keisuke Nakagawa – bass, backing vocals
Nakagawa was born in Nagasaki. His nickname is "Nakakei". He went to the same junior high school as Kenichi and Hideya where he started playing the bass. He is also famous for being a baseball fan.
Hideya Suzuki – drums, backing vocals, also known as "Jen" and is the leader of Mr. Children
Supporting members
Takeshi Kobayashi – keyboards, producer
Naoto Inti Raymi – guitar, chorus
Takashi "Sunny" Katsuya – keyboards, backing vocals
Shuji Kouguchi – guitar, harmonica
Discography
Albums
* Compilation album.** Live album
Books
Official Books:
[es] Mr.Children in 370 DAYS (April 25, 1995) C0076
Mr.Children Everything 天才・桜井和寿 終わりなき音の冒険 (Mr.Children Everything -Tensai Sakurai Kazutoshi owarinaki oto no bouken-) (December 25, 1996) C0073
Mr.Children詩集「優しい歌」 (Mr.Children song collection -Yasashii Uta-) (December 10, 2001) C0092
Tours
Official Tours:
'92 Everything Tour (September 23, 1992 – November 5, 1992)
Visited 10 cities and held 10 concerts
'92 Your Everything Tour (September 26, 1992 – November 22, 1992)
Visited 11 cities and held 12 concerts
'92–93 Kind of Love Tour (December 7, 1992 – January 25, 1993)
Visited 9 cities and held 9 concerts
'93 Versus Tour (September 23, 1993 – November 5, 1993)
Visited 9 cities and held 9 concerts
Mr. Children '94 tour innocent world (September 18, 1994 – December 18, 1994)
Visited 24 cities and held 27 concerts
Mr.Children '95 Tour Atomic Heart (January 7, 1995 – February 20, 1995)
Visited 10 cities and held 21 concerts
(July 16, 1995 – September 10, 1995)
Visited 11 cities and held 19 concerts
Regress or Progress (August 24, 1996 – March 28, 1997)
Visited 14 cities and held 55 concerts
"Discovery" Tour '99 (February 14, 1999 – July 12, 1999)
Visited 16 cities and held 42 concerts
Mr. Children Concert tour Q (October 15, 2000 – February 24, 2001)
Visited 13 cities and held 35 concerts
Popsaurus Mr. Children (July 15, 2001 – September 25, 2001)
Visited 10 cities and held 15 concerts
Wonderful World on Dec. 21 (December 21, 2002)
A one night live. Originally intended to be a 26 city and 39 concert tour, but was canceled due to Kazutoshi Sakurai's hospitalization
(June 12, 2004 – September 25, 2004)
Stadium Tour, Visited 11 cities and held 21 concerts
Dome tour 2005 "I ♥ U" (November 12, 2005 – December 27, 2005)
Dome Tour, Visited 5 cities and held 10 concerts
Mr. Children & the pillows new big bang tour ~This is Hybrid Innocent~ (September 26, 2006 – October 11, 2006)
Hall tour, Visited 6 cities and held 7 concerts. The tour, a Zepp tour, was a joint effort with fellow rock group the pillows
Mr. Children "Home" Tour 2007 (May 4, 2007 – June 23, 2007)
Arena tour, Visited 7 cities and held 14 concerts
Mr. Children "Home" Tour 2007 -in the field- (August 4, 2007 – September 30, 2007)
Stadium tour, Visited 9 cities and held 14 concerts
" (Feb 14, 2009 – March 31, 2009)
Arena Tour, Visited 17 cities and held 34 concerts
Mr.Children DOME TOUR 2009 ~SUPERMARKET FANTASY~ (November 28, 2009 – December 27, 2009)
Dome tour, Visited 5 cities and held 11 concerts
Mr.Children Tour 2011 SENSE (February 19, 2011 – May 15, 2011)
Arena Tour, Visited 9 cities and held 19 concerts
Mr.Children STADIUM TOUR 2011 SENSE -in the field- (August 20, 2011 – September 25, 2011)
Stadium tour, Visited 6 cities and held 10 concerts
MR.CHILDREN TOUR POPSAURUS 2012 (April 14, 2012 – June 6, 2012)
Dome tour, Visited 6 cities and held 14 concerts
Mr.Children [(an imitation) blood orange] Tour (December 15, 2012 – June 9, 2012)
Dome tour, Visited 20 cities and held 40 concerts
Mr.Children FATHER&MOTHER 21st anniversary Fanclub Tour (September 17, 2014 – October 9, 2014)
Zepp tour, Visited 5 cities and held 5 concerts
Mr.Children TOUR 2015 REFLECTION (March 14, 2015 – June 4, 2015)
Arena Tour, Visited 10 cities and held 20 concerts
Mr.Children Stadium Tour 2015 未完 (July 8, 2015 – September 20, 2015)
Stadium tour, Visited 10 cities and held 16 concerts
Mr.Children Hall tour 2016 "Niji" (April 14, 2016 – May 26, 2016)
Hall Tour, Visited 13 cities and held 13 concerts
Note: It is the first time in 14 years to hold Hall tour since 2002
Awards and Records
See also
Japanese rock
Japan Record Awards
MTV Video Music Awards Japan
List of best-selling music artists in Japan
List of best-selling singles in Japan
Footnotes
a. Early on in the group's career, Takeshi Kobayashi collaborated with Kazutoshi Sakurai on various songs in addition to writing songs himself. For example, "Dance dance dance" on the album Atomic Heart was co-composed by him, and on the album Versus, was both composed and written by him. Over the years, his composing and lyrical work with the group has lessened with the last a-side track co-written by him and Kazutoshi Sakurai being which was released on December 12, 1994 .
References
External links
Official website
Mr. Children at Toy's Factory
Innocent World – Unofficial English translations of Mr. Children news and articles
Mr. Children English Fansite – Unofficial English translations of Mr. Children lyrics, guitar tabs and album reviews
Toy's Factory artists
Japanese pop rock music groups
Musical groups from Tokyo
Musical quartets
Musical groups established in 1988 | 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"
] |
[
"Mr. Children",
"1998-2000",
"What happened in 1998?",
"On February 11, 1998, they released their 14th single \"Nishi e Higashi e\" (nishiehigashie),",
"Was the single a success?",
"I don't know.",
"What happened in 1999?",
"On January 13, 1999, \"Hikari no Sasu Hou E\" (Guang noShe suFang he), their 16th single, was released, followed by their seventh album, Discovery, on February 3, 1999."
] | C_cc47c7df2d994d02b905ef7002dc163a_0 | Did they win any awards? | 4 | Did Mr. Children's albums win any awards? | Mr. Children | On February 11, 1998, they released their 14th single "Nishi e Higashi e" (nishiehigashie), theme song to the Japanese drama Kira kira Hikaru (kirakirahikaru). The group was still on hiatus during this time and made no live performances to promote the single and did not appear in the music video for the song. Finally on October 21, 1998, Mr. Children officially re-grouped and released their 15th single, "Owarinaki Tabi" (Zhong warinakiLu ) with the Japanese drama Naguru Onna (Ou ruNu ) using it as their theme song. The song remains a public favorite in voting polls, Oricon citing its inspirational lyrics as the reason. On January 13, 1999, "Hikari no Sasu Hou E" (Guang noShe suFang he), their 16th single, was released, followed by their seventh album, Discovery, on February 3, 1999. Sakurai compared his approach to the songwriting for the record to surfing: Eleven days later they began the Discovery Tour '99, from February 14 to July 12, where the group visited 16 cities and held 42 shows. During the tour, Mr. Children released their 17th single "I'll Be" on May 12, which was used in Shiseido's (Zi Sheng Tang ) Sea Breeze commercials. Though originally released on the Discovery album, the song was re-released as a single with a lighter beat. The single was not a success and became Mr. Children's lowest selling single since "Cross Road". During the Discovery Tour '99, an idea for a live album was brought up. It was released as a 500,000 copy limited edition on September 8, 1999 and called 1/42 (referring to one of the 42 shows in the tour). Most of the tracks were recorded on June 16, 1999 at the Makomanai ice arena, while the bonus track "Dakishimetai" was recorded at the Okinawa Ginowan-Shi seaside park. At the beginning of a new century "Kuchibue" (Kou Di ), released on January 13, 2000 became the group's 18th single. While "I'll Be" failed to be a success, "Kuchibue" proved to be a hit selling 724,070 copies. On August 9, 2000, their 19th single "Not Found" was also used as the theme song to the Japanese drama Bus Stop (basusutotsupu), followed a month later by their 9th original album Q on September 27, 2000. The band went to New York to record this album, where they re-recorded some of their old indie material and for the first time, producer Takeshi Kobayashi performed with the band on a recording. The cover for the album was shot bought Size, Inc. at the Bonneville Salt Flats in the United States. The album was not a favorite amongst fans for various reasons and became their first album since Atomic Heart to not sell over one million copies. 'Concert tour Q' started, visiting 13 cities and holding 35 concerts between October 15, 2000 and February 24, 2001. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | , commonly referred to by their contracted nickname , are a Japanese pop rock band formed in 1989. Consisting of Kazutoshi Sakurai, Kenichi Tahara, Keisuke Nakagawa, and Hideya Suzuki, they made their major label debut in 1992. They are one of the best selling artists in Japan and one of the most successful Japanese rock artists, having sold over 75 million records and creating the in the mid-1990s in Japan. They held the record for the highest first week sales of a single in Japan for 15 years, with 1.2 million copies of their 10th single , have 30 consecutive number 1 singles, replaced Glay as the all-male band (with 3 or more members) to have the most number 1 albums on the Oricon charts, and won the Japan Record Award in 1994 for "Innocent World" and in 2004 for "Sign". As of 2012, Mr. Children has published fifteen original studio albums and 34 physical singles, along with five compilations, a live album, and fifteen home video releases.
The band's music is mainly composed and written by lead singer Sakurai, with the exception of the Suzuki-penned songs "Asia" and "#2601" from the albums Atomic Heart and Discovery, and occasional collaborative song writing with producer Takeshi Kobayashi.
In 2012 they celebrated their 20th debut anniversary by releasing dual best album titled Mr. Children 2001–2005 <micro> and Mr. Children 2005–2010 <macro>. Both albums dominated the best-selling album category in the 2012 Oricon yearly chart, selling over 2.5 million copies. Mr.Children has become the third artists who achieved TOP 2 spots on the yearly album ranking, and this is the first time in 14 years for any artist to achieve this. Moreover, [(An Imitation) Blood Orange], an album of new material released in November 2012, debuted No.1 on the Oricon Chart—at the end of the year, all three albums released that year were in the Top 10 best selling albums of 2012.
In 2015, Mr. Children was named No.1 Concert Mobilization Power Ranking based on the overall number of people whom attended their performances during 2015 in Japan, mobilizing 1,119,000 fans (36 concerts).
History
1987–1992
The group's members first met in the year of 1987, when Sakurai, Tahara and Nakagawa were in The Walls, which was originally influenced by the band Echoes. The frontman of Echoes, Jinsei Tsuji, was a political activist, and because of this, The Walls too became a political band. Drummer Hideya Suzuki was not an original member of The Walls. When the original drummer departed, the band recruited Suzuki, who went to the same school as the other members. In late 1988, The Walls disintegrated, while the remaining members formed Mr. Children in early 1989. The name of Mr. Children supposedly came about during a talk in a dinner, in which the group thought the word "children" had a nice ring to it, but because they were no longer children themselves, they decided to add Mr. in front of it. They credit this change as a new way they started to look at the group.
After changing their name and overall sound, Mr. Children auditioned at a music club called La Mama, failing to pass the first time, but passing a second audition to play at the club. After playing in the club, they were asked to try and debut as professionals. Mr. Children sent out five demo tapes; all failed to generate record label interest, and the group took a three-month hiatus in 1991. Hideya Suzuki worked as a receptionist at an economy hotel, while Kazutoshi Sakurai worked with his father who owned a construction company. When they returned, the group created a sixth demo tape and caught the attention of Toy's Factory. The label signed the group and had them play as the opening act for the rock group Jun Sky Walkers. It was also during this time that they were introduced to their long-time friend and producer Takeshi Kobayashi. Kobayashi was already known in the music industry as a music composer for Keisuke Kuwata of Southern All Stars and Kyōko Koizumi.
1992–1994
On May 10, 1992, Mr. Children's debut album, Everything, was released and represented the long journey they took to get to this point. Three months later their first single was released on August 21, 1992. After the release of the single the group held two tours for the album, both held between September 23, 1992 and November 5 of the same year, the '92 Everything Tour comprising ten and the '92 Your Everything Tour consisting of twelve performances. To cap off the year and lead them into the next, Mr. Children released their second album, Kind of Love and their second single on December 1, 1992. "Dakishimetai" was later used as an insert song for the Japanese drama . Shortly after, a new tour called '92–93 Kind of Love Tour started and lasted from December 7, 1992 till January 25, 1993.
In 1993, with the completion of the band's tour they began work on for their third album. The first single of the new year to be released was "Replay", released on July 1, 1993 and used in commercials. On September 9, 1993 their third album Versus was released, but failed to bring the group into the spotlight. They continued on and held a new tour. The '93 Versus Tour was held from September 23 until November 5 and had the band holding nine performances. Shortly after, "Cross Road" was released on November 10, 1993, which was used to promote the Japanese drama . The single was not a hit, but through word of mouth "Cross Road" gained popularity and after 22 weeks sold over a million copies and later, though released in 1993, managed to become the fifteenth best selling single in Oricon's 1994 yearly charts. Sakurai confessed years later as to not liking his works up to this point. According to him:
On June 1, 1994 a new single called "Innocent World" was released and used a promotional song for the soft drink . The single solidified the groups popularity with its sales, managing to sell 1,935,830 copies and becoming the No. 1 selling single in Oricon's 1994 yearly charts. Afterwards work began on their fourth original album Atomic Heart. The album was released on September 1, 1994 and became the band's highest selling album to date. Due to the huge success the band received from the album and "Innocent World" single, the groups popularity built up creating the in Japan.
The band also had Takeshi Kobayashi produce two new tours for them. The first tour, named after the "Innocent World" single was held from September 18 to December 18. The band also released their sixth single "Tomorrow Never Knows" on November 10, 1994 which was used as the theme song to the Japanese drama . The song was written while the group was on tour, was later voted in 2006 as fans No. 1 all-time favorite song on Music Station, and is currently the third highest selling drama tie-in single in Japan. The next single, was released on December 12, 1994, though originally intended to be the B-side of "Tomorrow Never Knows". To end the year, "Innocent World" won the Song of the Year award at the 36th annual Japan Record Awards.
1995–1997
In 1995, the second half of the Atomic Heart tour started, lasting from January 1 to February 2. Mr. Children also became involved in charity work, doing a collaboration song with Keisuke Kuwata of Southern All Stars. The single was used as the theme song for the Act Against AIDS campaign, was produced by Mr. Children and written by Kuwata. To promote the single and the campaign, they held a one-month tour from April 18 until May 14, entitled , where the group did cover songs of many English speaking artists such as The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan. During the tour the group was also filming a documentary/concert movie called Es ~Mr. Children in Film~. It was released in theaters on June 6, 1995, preceded by the group's eight single "Es (Theme of Es)" on May 10, to promote the movie. Two months later the group held an open air tour titled from July 16 to September 10, during which the ninth single, was released on August 10.
On February 6, 1996 Mr. Children's tenth single was released, to promote the Japanese drama and also for Daio Paper's commercial. The single went on to become Japan's highest first week selling single of all time (which was later broken by idol group AKB48) and is currently Japan's eighth highest selling drama tie-in single. The success of the single was also a surprise for Sakurai, who admitted to spending very little time writing the song. Two months later, on April 5, 1996 the group's eleventh single was released, followed by their fifth original album on June 24 and their twelfth single , on August 8. To close the year, the Regress or Progress Tour started and lasted from August 24, 1996 to March 28, 1997. The group visited 14 cities and held 55 concerts.
Mr. Children's 13th single, "Everything (It's You)", was released on February 5, 1997, with the title track used as the theme song to the Japanese drama . A month later, on March 5 Bolero, Mr. Children's sixth album was released. Soon after, rumors started of the group disbanding. Sakurai's reply: "The band will dissolve only when we have no more talent and have relationship problems with each other." Yet the group then decided to take some time off. Nakagawa and Suzuki start a side project band called Hayashi Hideo, and joined by Kenji Fujii from My Little Lover and Sawao Yamanaka from The Pillows, went on a club tour.
1998–2000
On February 11, 1998, they released their 14th single , theme song to the Japanese drama . The group was still on hiatus during this time and made no live performances to promote the single and did not appear in the music video for the song. Finally on October 21, 1998, Mr. Children officially re-grouped and released their 15th single, with the Japanese drama using it as their theme song. The song remains a public favorite in voting polls, Oricon citing its inspirational lyrics as the reason.
On January 13, 1999, , their 16th single, was released, followed by their seventh album, Discovery, on February 3, 1999. Sakurai compared his approach to the songwriting for the record to surfing:
Eleven days later they began the Discovery Tour '99, from February 14 to July 12, where the group visited 16 cities and held 42 shows. During the tour, Mr. Children released their 17th single "I'll Be" on May 12, which was used in Sea Breeze commercials. Though originally released on the Discovery album, the song was re-released as a single with a lighter beat. The single was not a success and became Mr. Children's lowest selling single since "Cross Road". During the Discovery Tour '99, an idea for a live album was brought up. It was released as a 500,000 copy limited edition on September 8, 1999 and called 1/42 (referring to one of the 42 shows in the tour). Most of the tracks were recorded on June 16, 1999 at the Makomanai ice arena, while the bonus track "Dakishimetai" was recorded at the Okinawa Ginowan-Shi seaside park.
At the beginning of a new century , released on January 13, 2000 became the group's 18th single. While "I'll Be" failed to be a success, "Kuchibue" proved to be a hit selling 724,070 copies. On August 9, 2000, their 19th single "Not Found" was also used as the theme song to the Japanese drama , followed a month later by their 9th original album Q on September 27, 2000. The band went to New York to record this album, where they re-recorded some of their old indie material and for the first time, producer Takeshi Kobayashi performed with the band on a recording. The cover for the album was shot bought Size, Inc. at the Bonneville Salt Flats in the United States. The album was not a favorite amongst fans for various reasons and became their first album since Atomic Heart to not sell over one million copies. ‘Concert tour Q’ started, visiting 13 cities and holding 35 concerts between October 15, 2000 and February 24, 2001.
2001–2003
In 2001, Mr. Children continued their Q tour, followed by dual "Best Of" albums. Titled Mr. Children 1992–1995 and Mr. Children 1996–2000, they were both released on July 11, 2001. Both albums went on to sell a combined total of 4,034,785 copies. According to an interview done with MTV Japan Sakurai stated the best of albums weren't something they had planned on doing yet. During this time, the group was finishing up work for their new upcoming album and had planned to start promoting singles on it. However it was decided that a best of album was needed and so they were released. Four days following the dual album release, the group launched the ‘Popsaurus’ tour, visiting 10 cities and playing 15 shows, lasting from July 15, 2001 all the way through September 25, 2001. A month into the tour their 20th single was released and used to promote the Wonda Canned Coffee by Asahi Soft Drinks. Two months after the Popsaurus tour ended, "Youthful Days" was released. Released on November 7, 2001, it was their 21st single and was an insert song for the Japanese drama Antique Bakery. "Youthful Days" debuted at number-one on Japanese Oricon's Charts in its first week at retail (ahead of Mr. Moonlight (Ai no Big Band) by Morning Musume, from album 4th Ikimashoi!), and It ended up being their best selling single for the year. The b-side for the single, "Drawing", originally had no commercial tie-in, but two years later was used as the theme song to the 2003 Japanese drama , Starring former Shibugakitai member Masahiro Motoki.
Mr. Children released their 22nd single on New Year's Day of 2002 (January 1), which was used as a show song in the Japanese drama Antique Bakery. Four months later their tenth original album It's a Wonderful World was released on May 10, the groups' tenth anniversary. The release of the album on their 10th anniversary was not something that had originally intended. As the group was wrapping up recording, Sakurai asked if the album could be released in the spring time. While the group and their management was trying to think of how to promote an album in the spring time, they came up with releasing the album on their 10th anniversary. A new tour, titled Mr. Children Tour 2002 Dear Wonderful World was set to begin later that year. The previous single "I'll Be" from the Discovery album was selected to be used as an official theme for the 2002 FIFA World Cup, held in Japan and South Korea. On May 24, 2002 Mr. Children attended the first ever MTV Video Music Awards Japan and topped the awards show by winning 'Video of the Year' for the song "Kimi ga suki", the band also nominated in Best Group Category but losing to Backstreet Boys. Two months after the release of the new album, Mr.Children's 23rd single "Any", was released on July 11, 2002 and used to promote NTT DoCoMo Group 10th Anniversary. The group was not able to properly promote the single. As preparations for the new tour were beginning and promotion for the new single were being done, lead singer Sakurai was hospitalized on July 21, 2002, after a blockage in his cerebellum was detected. The Mr. Children Tour 2002 Dear Wonderful World was canceled and all group activities were put on a temporary hiatus. While recovering, Sakurai wrote a song called "Hero", that was inspired by his hospitalization. The song was released as the group's 24th single on December 11, 2002 and was used in NTT DoCoMo Group 10th Anniversary commercial. The first press version of the single included a DVD where, in addition to a Mr. Children 2002 documentary -Hero- that was aired, the singer talked about his hospitalization and inspiration for the song. On November 15, 2002 Mr.Children's website announced the band's return to the stage for a "stew of home pride" with a one night only live, December 21, 2002 the group returned to the stage for a single concert, later released on DVD, titled Wonederful World on Dec. 21.
The group remained quiet for most of 2003. Sakurai helped to launch Artists' Power Bank (AP Bank), a non-profit environmental financial institution, in June. Sakamoto Ryuichi, a well known composer, came up with the initial idea to build a wind-power plant. With the help of Sakurai and music producer Takeshi Kobayashi, their goal later became to invest in environmentally friendly projects, such as renewable energy, and as of 2007, participated in other social issues such as helping the victims of a Chuetsu offshore earthquake in Niigata Prefecture on July 16, 2007. Near the end of the year, Mr. Children re-grouped and released their 25th single . It became their first double a-side single with "Tenohira" receiving no commercial tie-in, and "Kurumi" used to promote . The single was a hit and became Mr.Children's best selling single since 2001's "Youthful Days" single.
2004–2006
In 2004, Sakurai started a solo project titled Bank Band, which became a spin-off of AP Bank. As Bank Band, Sakurai released a first album, titled , which contained covers of two Mr. Children songs, "Hero" and "Yasashii Uta". Mr. Children released their eleventh album on April 4, 2004, titled , which came with a documentary DVD showing the group working and talking about the concept behind the album. To help promote the album, Mr. Children used the song in 'Nissin Cup Noodle – NO Border' commercials and as the 'News 23' theme song. According to Sakurai, is
In the following month, they released their 26th single, "Sign", on May 26, which was used as the theme song to the Japanese drama Orange Days and went on to win the Song of the Year award at the 46th annual Japan Record Awards ten years after their win for 'Innocent World'.
Most of the 2005 was spent working on a new album. As a solo act, Kazutoshi Sakurai appeared at Golden Circle vol.7 on February 28, 2005. Finally on June 29, 2005 the group released their 27th single . The single became a monster hit selling 569,000 copies its first week, and ending with 925,632 copies sold. As a quad a-side single, all four songs had a commercial tie in. promoted 'Pocari Sweat', "and I love you" promoted 'Nissin Cup Noodle – NO Border', became the theme song for the Japanese movie 'Fly Daddy Fly', and was used as a promotional song for Fuji TV's educational program 'Kodomo bangumi Ponkikkiizu, Gachagachapon'. Even though it was released as a single, it was classified as an album by the Recording Industry Association of Japan. A month later the group attended Kazutoshi Sakurai's 3-day festival 'ap bank fes’ 05' from July 16, 2005 through July 18, 2005, followed by 'SETSTOCK '05' at Kokuei bihoku kyuuryou park on July 23, 2005 and 'Higher Ground 2005' at Umi no nakamichi kaihinkouen outdoor theater on July 30, 2005. Three months later on September 21, 2005, I Love U (I♥U), Mr.Children’s 12th original album, was released. Two months later Dome Tour 2005 'I Love U' began, running from November 12, 2005 through December 27, 2005 and were only the fourth artist in Japanese history to play at the Osaka, Tokyo, Sapporo, Nagoya and Fukuoka dome's. The tour ended in Tokyo Come where they played to 45,000 fans, bringing the tour total to almost 390,000 fans. By the end of the year the group managed to pass the 45 million mark in sold records.
The first single for 2006, was their 28th single released on July 5, 2006 and used as the promotion song for Toyota's "Tobira wo akeyou" commercial and as the theme song to NTV's 2006 FIFA World Cup broadcasting. Due to the groups involvement with ap bank fes. '06, there were no magazine or radio promotions, and only 3 live performances were done to promote the single. However the commercial tie-in's for the single proved to be a success and "Houkiboshi" was voted No. 3 as the favorite commercial song for 2006 and voted as the favorite winter song heard in the summer. Ten days following the release of 'Houkiboshi', Mr.Children participated in the 3 day festival, ap bank fes '06, where they performed "Hero", "Strange Chameleon", "Owarinaki tabi", and "Hokiboshi". One month later Mr.Children were special guests at The Mujintou fes. 2006 and performed "Mirai", "Innocent world", "Hokorobi", "Sign", "Owarinaki tabi", "Worlds end", and "Houkiboshi". Shortly after Mr.Children announced a joint tour with fellow Japanese rockers the pillows, known as 'Mr.Children & the pillows new big bang tour ~This is Hybrid Innocent~'. The tour was held from September 26, 2006 through October 11, 2006. On November 15, 2006, the group released their 29th single , which was used as the theme song , by NTV, a controversial television drama about underage pregnancy. Kazutoshi Sakurai had begun writing the song in February 2006 and finished writing in March 2006. and shot the promotional video in September 2006. One of the b-sides of single was a re-recording of Mr. Children's 2003 song "Kurumi", used as a theme song in the movie .
2007
On January 24, 2007, the band released their 30th single, , which was used as the theme song for the movie , and while only a limited edition single, brought the group to 26 consecutive No. 1 singles. Shortly after, the 13th original album, Home, was released on March 14, which would become the group's first in almost 13 years to chart at No. 1 for two consecutive weeks. It was also the first Japanese album in 2007 to sell more than a million copies. Work on the record had come to a standstill, during the recording of the song "Houkiboshi", due to a dispute among the group over "Home"'s direction. Producer Kobayashi suggested to make an album that "pays attention to the world with a message".
The album reflected a more personal touch from the group, with talking about the 9/11 attacks at New York City, and , being inspired by Kazutoshi Sakurai father who had been sick. The title of the album, Home, was originally suggested to be titled "Home Made" or "Home Ground", because the group wanted the album to have the meaning that it was made by hand. However, they choose to name it just Home because they felt that by adding another word it would be limiting the idea in mind. Three days after the release of Home, Mr. Children won the awards Best Video of the Year and Best Group Video for the single "Shirushi" at the Space Shower Music Video Awards '07. For the album, the group held two promotional tours. The first half called Mr. Children Home Tour 2007, started on May 4 and lasted until June 23. During the tour, a new compilation album titled B-Side was released on May 10, which was also the group's 15th anniversary. The release of a B-side compilation had been suggested by singer Sakurai while working on Home:
Releasing a public statement on their official site at Toy's Factory, both the group and Sakurai felt that the A-side tracks on their singles had started to dictate and overall theme as to who Mr. Children were as a group. They felt a lot of feelings and desires which have shaped them as a group came from these coupling songs, and thus decided to release them as a compilation album.
On May 5, 2007, after the second concert for the first half of the Home tour, drummer Hideya Suzuki injured his hand after accidentally touching a ventilator. He injured his left index finger, which required four stitches and the following two concerts had to be rescheduled. Publicity for the tour reached a high, when they performed in front of a sold-out tour for 15,000 fans at Yokohama Arena on June 7, 2007 and reignited speculation that the Mr.Children phenomenon was alive and well. A second half of the tour to promote 'Home', titled Mr.Children Home Tour 2007 -In the Field- took place from August 4 to September 30. Both tours ended up being a big success for the group, and became the most attended Japan tour in 2007 at 550,000 fans. The main promotional track for the Home album, , was selected to promote the Olympus E-410. During the E Goes to World campaign, the camera manufacturer had customers submit pictures to create a new promotional video for the song.
On July 10, Mr. Children announced a new song on their website titled . While initially a single release date wasn't issued, the group announced a month later it would be released on October 30, 2007. The title track, "Tabidachi no Uta", was used as a theme song for the Japanese movie , and a month later also be used to promote NTT Higashi Nihon. With the release of the single, Mr. Children managed to debut at number 1 for the week and in return obtained their 27th consecutive number 1 single. Similar to Jyūyonsai no Haha before, the movie Koizora deals with the struggles of a young girl, involving betrayal, rape and abortion. The group was scheduled to play at the ap bank fes '07 from July 14 to July 16, but due to a typhoon, the first two days had to be canceled, and only the final day proceeded as planned. With the announcement of the new single, Mr.Children also announced the 'Home' tour 2007 DVD, which was released on November 14, 2007. On December 18, 2007, Oricon announced that Home became their first album to top the yearly album charts since their debut with the sales of 1.18 million copies, surpassing the sales of Kumi Koda's album Black Cherry of 1.02 million copies.
2008
For the beginning of 2008, Sakurai released an album and DVD with his solo project Bank Band, followed a month later by the official announcement of a new song, , used in the NHK Japanese television drama . Afterwards Mr. Children announced the release of two singles. The first, "Gift", released on July 30, 2008, was used as the official theme song to the 2008 Beijing Olympics coverage on NHK. When writing this song, Sakurai focused on the meaning behind the Olympics and wanted to write a song not just for those who win, but for everyone who participates.
The ap bank announced that Mr.Children would appear for all 3 days at ap bank fes '08. Their second single of the year, "Hanabi", released on September 3, 2008, was used as the theme song to the Japanese drama Code Blue, in which Tomohisa Yamashita played a main role. The single "Hanabi" topped the Oricon single charts for two weeks, becoming their 29th consecutive number-one single. However, their next single became their first download-only single for the music download market. The nun full-track ringtone downloads (Chaku Uta) of the song began on October 1 and the full-track downloads (Chaku Uta Full) began on November 1, 2008. Their studio album Supermarket Fantasy was released on December 10, 2008. Supermarket Fantasy sold about 708,000 copies in its initial week, debuting at the number-one position on the Oricon weekly album charts.
2009–2011
On October 20, 2009, it was announced that Mr. Children produced their first anime theme "Fanfare" for the movie One Piece Film: Strong World. "Fanfare" was digitally released as a non full-track ringtone song (Chaku Uta) on November 16 as a full-track ringtone song (Chaku Uta Full) on December 2, 2009. The song debuted at the number-one position on the RIAJ Digital Track Chart.
On May 10, 2010, Mr. Children released the DVD Mr. Children Dome Tour 2009 Supermarket Fantasy in Tokyo Dome, but it sold about 49,000 copies one day before the official release day, debuting at No. 1 on the Oricon weekly music DVD chart with the one-day sales. It became their seventh consecutive number-one music DVD and they tied the records of Arashi and KAT-TUN for having the most consecutive number-one DVDs on the Oricon weekly music DVD chart. It also debuted at No. 1 on the Oricon weekly comprehensive DVD chart, eclipsing the sales of Avatar in the week. It topped the Oricon comprehensive DVD charts for three consecutive weeks, making them the second artist to achieve that with the music DVD while the first is Arashi.
On September 4, 2010, Mr. Children released their second documentary/concert movie Mr. Children / Split the Difference (since first "Es" ~Mr. Children in Film~) and released DVD + CD includes the movie and selected songs by the band on November 10, 2010. It debuted at No. 1 on the Oricon weekly music DVD chart and they also became the first artist to have their eighth consecutive number-one music DVD.
On December 1, 2010, Mr. Children released their sixteenth studio album Sense includes digital release only single "Fanfare". But the details such as track list, number of tracks, cover and title of the album were not announced until just before a release date, November 29.
On April 4, 2011, Mr. Children released the download single "Kazoe Uta" to collect donations for the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake. "Kazoe Uta" debuted at number 1 on the RIAJ Digital Track Chart, surpassing the download sales of AKB48's charity single "Dareka no Tame ni (What Can I Do for Someone?)".
2012
On April 18, 2012, Mr. Children released the Triple A-side single "Inori ~Namida no Kidou/End of the Day/pieces", their first in 3 years and 7 months; the single debuted at number 1 on the Oricon Weekly Single Charts, selling 174,409 copies. Two of the songs, "Inori ~Namida no Kidou" and "pieces", were used as the themes to the Bokura ga Ita movies. In addition, "Inori ~Namida no Kidou" spent four weeks atop the RIAJ Digital Track Chart, tying the record set by GReeeeN's "Haruka". Also released on April 18 was the band's "Mr. Children 2011 Tour Sense -in the field-" DVD, which debuted at number 1 on both the Oricon DVD and Blu-ray charts, making Mr. Children the first artist to top three of Oricon's charts in a single week.
On May 10, 2012, Mr. Children released a pair of Best Albums titled Mr. Children 2001–2005 <micro> and Mr. Children 2005–2010 <macro> in celebration of their 20th anniversary. The band also embarked on a 2-month dome tour, titled "POPSAURUS 2012", after the series of concerts they held in 2001 following the release of their first two Best Albums.
On November 28, 2012 Mr.Children released new album titled [(An Imitation) Blood Orange].
At the end of the year, Mr.Children had dominated the yearly album ranking for 2012 with all 3 albums in the top10. Their dual best albums Mr. Children 2005–2010 <macro> and Mr. Children 2001–2005 <micro> monopolized TOP 2 the best selling album of 2012 yearly chart with selling 1.17 million copies sold and 1.11 million copies sold consecutively. Moreover, [(An Imitation) Blood Orange] placed 8th in the best selling album in 2012.
They have both achieved "the best selling album" and " the most Artist total sales Albums " for 2012. Mr.Children became the third artists who achieved TOP 2 spots on the yearly album ranking, and this is the first time in 14 years for any artist to achieve this . Mr.Children was the 4th artist by total sales revenue in Japan in 2012, with ¥9.947 billion (approximately $84 million).
2014
On November 19, 2014 Mr.Children released the single CD "Ashioto ~Be Strong"
2020
On December 2, 2020, Mr.Children released their 20th studio album SOUNDTRACKS.
Photographers
The band has collaborated with photographers such as Osami Yabuta, Reylia Slaby and Alfie Goodrich
Oricon Chart Statistics
Artist's Total sales (CD Total Sales) : 58.61 million copies sold ( #2 most selling artist)
No.1 on Oricon Year-End Charts: 1994 ("innocent world"); 1996 ("Namonaki Uta"), 2007 (HOME), 2012 (Mr.Children Macro 2005-2010)
Double Million Seller Singles: 2nd overall (1st - CHAGE and ASKA)
Million Seller Singles: 3rd overall (1st - B'z, 2nd - AKB48)
Million Seller Albums: 2nd overall (1st - B'z, 3rd - DREAMS COME TRUE)
The most non tie up Single sales : 1.82 million copies sold (by「See Saw Game」)
Won Japan Record Grand Prix in 1994 for "innocent world" and won it again 10 years later for "Sign"
Charitable and other activities
Since their official debut, Mr.Children has engaged in social and charitable causes. As a group they participated in the live concert for Act Against AIDS on December 1, 1994 and again on December 1, 1995. The goal of live was to raise awareness about AIDS. The proceeds from the event were donated to support children living with HIV. The live was followed up by a collaboration Act Against AIDS charity single with fellow Japanese artist Kuwata Keisuke titled ‘Kiseki no hoshi’ and released on January 23, 1995. On April 25, 2001 Kazutoshi Sakurai also participated in the recording of Zero Landmine, a single created to promote awareness of the problem of landmines and promote a ban on landmines. In addition the group has also participated in Kazutoshi Sakura's solo project, AP bank. AP Bank, a nonprofit lending group, carries the goal of tackling environmental problems by financing environmentally friendly projects such as renewable energy, in addition to holding yearly festivals to raise money to fund additional projects. Since its inception in 2005, Mr.Children has been actively participating in the festivals, with an announcement in 2008 that the group will now work more closely with its cause by participating during the entire three-day festival duration in addition to further details to be announced at a later time.
Members Kazutoshi Sakurai and Kenichi Tahara joined together to create Acid Test for the concert ‘Dream Power John Lennon Super live broadcasting’ on October 9, 2001. The live was part of Yoko Ono’s Dream Power and educational platform where artists came together to hold a charity concert to raise money for school construction funds for children in Africa and Asia. The John Lennon song covered by Acid Test during the live, "Mother", was later recorded and released on a tribute album Happy Birthday, John, and released on September 30, 2005.
In addition to social causes, Mr.Children's music has been used as background music for numerous television advertisements, television programs, television drama's, and motion pictures. Examples of the group's commercial tie-ins include "and I love you", "Bokura no Oto", and "Tagatame" for Nissin Cup Noodle no Border commercials, 'Gift' for the 2008 Beijing Olympics on NHK, and "Tabidachi no uta" for the 2007 Japanese movie . As a group, Mr.Children have not endorsed products by physically appearing in television commercials or printed media advertisements. One of the methods used to help promote the group is through Brajackets, a dust jacket for books, which are available at stands in bookstores for free. The Brajacket serve as free advertising for various products from ice cream to movies and musicals. Mr. Children have used this method to promote singles and albums; for example and I Love U (I♥U).
Fan club
The official fan club of Mr. Children is called Father & Mother, the title being derived from their name. The fan club, which started in 1994, was kept relatively secretive at first, as the group has never made any mention of it on their official website. In 2006, for the release of the group's 29th single "Shirushi", the official website was revamped and with it information about the fan club was finally added. Just like before however, the fan club can only be joined by mail and requires an admission fee of 3,500 yen, with yearly re-applications for membership.
Band members
Current members
Kazutoshi Sakurai – lead vocals, guitar, primary songwriter
Kenichi Tahara – guitar, backing vocals
He was born in Fukuoka and is charge of playing guitar in the band. He had joined the baseball team in high school but became interested in the guitar because he saw his classmate playing a guitar at a school festival. One day one of his classmates, Kazutoshi Sakurai brought his guitar to school. They bonded with each other over it and that became the catalyst for forming Mr.Children. Known for being quiet in live concerts, his fans become estatic when he says interacts with them.
Keisuke Nakagawa – bass, backing vocals
Nakagawa was born in Nagasaki. His nickname is "Nakakei". He went to the same junior high school as Kenichi and Hideya where he started playing the bass. He is also famous for being a baseball fan.
Hideya Suzuki – drums, backing vocals, also known as "Jen" and is the leader of Mr. Children
Supporting members
Takeshi Kobayashi – keyboards, producer
Naoto Inti Raymi – guitar, chorus
Takashi "Sunny" Katsuya – keyboards, backing vocals
Shuji Kouguchi – guitar, harmonica
Discography
Albums
* Compilation album.** Live album
Books
Official Books:
[es] Mr.Children in 370 DAYS (April 25, 1995) C0076
Mr.Children Everything 天才・桜井和寿 終わりなき音の冒険 (Mr.Children Everything -Tensai Sakurai Kazutoshi owarinaki oto no bouken-) (December 25, 1996) C0073
Mr.Children詩集「優しい歌」 (Mr.Children song collection -Yasashii Uta-) (December 10, 2001) C0092
Tours
Official Tours:
'92 Everything Tour (September 23, 1992 – November 5, 1992)
Visited 10 cities and held 10 concerts
'92 Your Everything Tour (September 26, 1992 – November 22, 1992)
Visited 11 cities and held 12 concerts
'92–93 Kind of Love Tour (December 7, 1992 – January 25, 1993)
Visited 9 cities and held 9 concerts
'93 Versus Tour (September 23, 1993 – November 5, 1993)
Visited 9 cities and held 9 concerts
Mr. Children '94 tour innocent world (September 18, 1994 – December 18, 1994)
Visited 24 cities and held 27 concerts
Mr.Children '95 Tour Atomic Heart (January 7, 1995 – February 20, 1995)
Visited 10 cities and held 21 concerts
(July 16, 1995 – September 10, 1995)
Visited 11 cities and held 19 concerts
Regress or Progress (August 24, 1996 – March 28, 1997)
Visited 14 cities and held 55 concerts
"Discovery" Tour '99 (February 14, 1999 – July 12, 1999)
Visited 16 cities and held 42 concerts
Mr. Children Concert tour Q (October 15, 2000 – February 24, 2001)
Visited 13 cities and held 35 concerts
Popsaurus Mr. Children (July 15, 2001 – September 25, 2001)
Visited 10 cities and held 15 concerts
Wonderful World on Dec. 21 (December 21, 2002)
A one night live. Originally intended to be a 26 city and 39 concert tour, but was canceled due to Kazutoshi Sakurai's hospitalization
(June 12, 2004 – September 25, 2004)
Stadium Tour, Visited 11 cities and held 21 concerts
Dome tour 2005 "I ♥ U" (November 12, 2005 – December 27, 2005)
Dome Tour, Visited 5 cities and held 10 concerts
Mr. Children & the pillows new big bang tour ~This is Hybrid Innocent~ (September 26, 2006 – October 11, 2006)
Hall tour, Visited 6 cities and held 7 concerts. The tour, a Zepp tour, was a joint effort with fellow rock group the pillows
Mr. Children "Home" Tour 2007 (May 4, 2007 – June 23, 2007)
Arena tour, Visited 7 cities and held 14 concerts
Mr. Children "Home" Tour 2007 -in the field- (August 4, 2007 – September 30, 2007)
Stadium tour, Visited 9 cities and held 14 concerts
" (Feb 14, 2009 – March 31, 2009)
Arena Tour, Visited 17 cities and held 34 concerts
Mr.Children DOME TOUR 2009 ~SUPERMARKET FANTASY~ (November 28, 2009 – December 27, 2009)
Dome tour, Visited 5 cities and held 11 concerts
Mr.Children Tour 2011 SENSE (February 19, 2011 – May 15, 2011)
Arena Tour, Visited 9 cities and held 19 concerts
Mr.Children STADIUM TOUR 2011 SENSE -in the field- (August 20, 2011 – September 25, 2011)
Stadium tour, Visited 6 cities and held 10 concerts
MR.CHILDREN TOUR POPSAURUS 2012 (April 14, 2012 – June 6, 2012)
Dome tour, Visited 6 cities and held 14 concerts
Mr.Children [(an imitation) blood orange] Tour (December 15, 2012 – June 9, 2012)
Dome tour, Visited 20 cities and held 40 concerts
Mr.Children FATHER&MOTHER 21st anniversary Fanclub Tour (September 17, 2014 – October 9, 2014)
Zepp tour, Visited 5 cities and held 5 concerts
Mr.Children TOUR 2015 REFLECTION (March 14, 2015 – June 4, 2015)
Arena Tour, Visited 10 cities and held 20 concerts
Mr.Children Stadium Tour 2015 未完 (July 8, 2015 – September 20, 2015)
Stadium tour, Visited 10 cities and held 16 concerts
Mr.Children Hall tour 2016 "Niji" (April 14, 2016 – May 26, 2016)
Hall Tour, Visited 13 cities and held 13 concerts
Note: It is the first time in 14 years to hold Hall tour since 2002
Awards and Records
See also
Japanese rock
Japan Record Awards
MTV Video Music Awards Japan
List of best-selling music artists in Japan
List of best-selling singles in Japan
Footnotes
a. Early on in the group's career, Takeshi Kobayashi collaborated with Kazutoshi Sakurai on various songs in addition to writing songs himself. For example, "Dance dance dance" on the album Atomic Heart was co-composed by him, and on the album Versus, was both composed and written by him. Over the years, his composing and lyrical work with the group has lessened with the last a-side track co-written by him and Kazutoshi Sakurai being which was released on December 12, 1994 .
References
External links
Official website
Mr. Children at Toy's Factory
Innocent World – Unofficial English translations of Mr. Children news and articles
Mr. Children English Fansite – Unofficial English translations of Mr. Children lyrics, guitar tabs and album reviews
Toy's Factory artists
Japanese pop rock music groups
Musical groups from Tokyo
Musical quartets
Musical groups established in 1988 | false | [
"Le Cousin is a 1997 French film directed by Alain Corneau.\n\nPlot \nThe film deals with the relationship of the police and an informant in the drug scene.\n\nAwards and nominations\nLe Cousin was nominated for 5 César Awards but did not win in any category.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1997 films\n1997 crime films\nFilms about drugs\nFilms directed by Alain Corneau\nFrench crime films\nFrench films\nFrench-language films",
"The African National Congress was a political party in Trinidad and Tobago. The party first contested national elections in 1961, when it received just 0.5% of the vote and failed to win a seat. They did not put forward any candidates for the 1966 elections, but returned for the 1971 elections, in which they received 2.4% of the vote, but again failed to win a seat as the People's National Movement won all 36. The party did not contest any further elections.\n\nReferences\n\nDefunct political parties in Trinidad and Tobago"
] |
[
"Mr. Children",
"1998-2000",
"What happened in 1998?",
"On February 11, 1998, they released their 14th single \"Nishi e Higashi e\" (nishiehigashie),",
"Was the single a success?",
"I don't know.",
"What happened in 1999?",
"On January 13, 1999, \"Hikari no Sasu Hou E\" (Guang noShe suFang he), their 16th single, was released, followed by their seventh album, Discovery, on February 3, 1999.",
"Did they win any awards?",
"I don't know."
] | C_cc47c7df2d994d02b905ef7002dc163a_0 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 5 | In addition to their music, are there any other interesting aspects about the article "Mr. Children, 1998-2000"?? | Mr. Children | On February 11, 1998, they released their 14th single "Nishi e Higashi e" (nishiehigashie), theme song to the Japanese drama Kira kira Hikaru (kirakirahikaru). The group was still on hiatus during this time and made no live performances to promote the single and did not appear in the music video for the song. Finally on October 21, 1998, Mr. Children officially re-grouped and released their 15th single, "Owarinaki Tabi" (Zhong warinakiLu ) with the Japanese drama Naguru Onna (Ou ruNu ) using it as their theme song. The song remains a public favorite in voting polls, Oricon citing its inspirational lyrics as the reason. On January 13, 1999, "Hikari no Sasu Hou E" (Guang noShe suFang he), their 16th single, was released, followed by their seventh album, Discovery, on February 3, 1999. Sakurai compared his approach to the songwriting for the record to surfing: Eleven days later they began the Discovery Tour '99, from February 14 to July 12, where the group visited 16 cities and held 42 shows. During the tour, Mr. Children released their 17th single "I'll Be" on May 12, which was used in Shiseido's (Zi Sheng Tang ) Sea Breeze commercials. Though originally released on the Discovery album, the song was re-released as a single with a lighter beat. The single was not a success and became Mr. Children's lowest selling single since "Cross Road". During the Discovery Tour '99, an idea for a live album was brought up. It was released as a 500,000 copy limited edition on September 8, 1999 and called 1/42 (referring to one of the 42 shows in the tour). Most of the tracks were recorded on June 16, 1999 at the Makomanai ice arena, while the bonus track "Dakishimetai" was recorded at the Okinawa Ginowan-Shi seaside park. At the beginning of a new century "Kuchibue" (Kou Di ), released on January 13, 2000 became the group's 18th single. While "I'll Be" failed to be a success, "Kuchibue" proved to be a hit selling 724,070 copies. On August 9, 2000, their 19th single "Not Found" was also used as the theme song to the Japanese drama Bus Stop (basusutotsupu), followed a month later by their 9th original album Q on September 27, 2000. The band went to New York to record this album, where they re-recorded some of their old indie material and for the first time, producer Takeshi Kobayashi performed with the band on a recording. The cover for the album was shot bought Size, Inc. at the Bonneville Salt Flats in the United States. The album was not a favorite amongst fans for various reasons and became their first album since Atomic Heart to not sell over one million copies. 'Concert tour Q' started, visiting 13 cities and holding 35 concerts between October 15, 2000 and February 24, 2001. CANNOTANSWER | During the Discovery Tour '99, an idea for a live album was brought up. | , commonly referred to by their contracted nickname , are a Japanese pop rock band formed in 1989. Consisting of Kazutoshi Sakurai, Kenichi Tahara, Keisuke Nakagawa, and Hideya Suzuki, they made their major label debut in 1992. They are one of the best selling artists in Japan and one of the most successful Japanese rock artists, having sold over 75 million records and creating the in the mid-1990s in Japan. They held the record for the highest first week sales of a single in Japan for 15 years, with 1.2 million copies of their 10th single , have 30 consecutive number 1 singles, replaced Glay as the all-male band (with 3 or more members) to have the most number 1 albums on the Oricon charts, and won the Japan Record Award in 1994 for "Innocent World" and in 2004 for "Sign". As of 2012, Mr. Children has published fifteen original studio albums and 34 physical singles, along with five compilations, a live album, and fifteen home video releases.
The band's music is mainly composed and written by lead singer Sakurai, with the exception of the Suzuki-penned songs "Asia" and "#2601" from the albums Atomic Heart and Discovery, and occasional collaborative song writing with producer Takeshi Kobayashi.
In 2012 they celebrated their 20th debut anniversary by releasing dual best album titled Mr. Children 2001–2005 <micro> and Mr. Children 2005–2010 <macro>. Both albums dominated the best-selling album category in the 2012 Oricon yearly chart, selling over 2.5 million copies. Mr.Children has become the third artists who achieved TOP 2 spots on the yearly album ranking, and this is the first time in 14 years for any artist to achieve this. Moreover, [(An Imitation) Blood Orange], an album of new material released in November 2012, debuted No.1 on the Oricon Chart—at the end of the year, all three albums released that year were in the Top 10 best selling albums of 2012.
In 2015, Mr. Children was named No.1 Concert Mobilization Power Ranking based on the overall number of people whom attended their performances during 2015 in Japan, mobilizing 1,119,000 fans (36 concerts).
History
1987–1992
The group's members first met in the year of 1987, when Sakurai, Tahara and Nakagawa were in The Walls, which was originally influenced by the band Echoes. The frontman of Echoes, Jinsei Tsuji, was a political activist, and because of this, The Walls too became a political band. Drummer Hideya Suzuki was not an original member of The Walls. When the original drummer departed, the band recruited Suzuki, who went to the same school as the other members. In late 1988, The Walls disintegrated, while the remaining members formed Mr. Children in early 1989. The name of Mr. Children supposedly came about during a talk in a dinner, in which the group thought the word "children" had a nice ring to it, but because they were no longer children themselves, they decided to add Mr. in front of it. They credit this change as a new way they started to look at the group.
After changing their name and overall sound, Mr. Children auditioned at a music club called La Mama, failing to pass the first time, but passing a second audition to play at the club. After playing in the club, they were asked to try and debut as professionals. Mr. Children sent out five demo tapes; all failed to generate record label interest, and the group took a three-month hiatus in 1991. Hideya Suzuki worked as a receptionist at an economy hotel, while Kazutoshi Sakurai worked with his father who owned a construction company. When they returned, the group created a sixth demo tape and caught the attention of Toy's Factory. The label signed the group and had them play as the opening act for the rock group Jun Sky Walkers. It was also during this time that they were introduced to their long-time friend and producer Takeshi Kobayashi. Kobayashi was already known in the music industry as a music composer for Keisuke Kuwata of Southern All Stars and Kyōko Koizumi.
1992–1994
On May 10, 1992, Mr. Children's debut album, Everything, was released and represented the long journey they took to get to this point. Three months later their first single was released on August 21, 1992. After the release of the single the group held two tours for the album, both held between September 23, 1992 and November 5 of the same year, the '92 Everything Tour comprising ten and the '92 Your Everything Tour consisting of twelve performances. To cap off the year and lead them into the next, Mr. Children released their second album, Kind of Love and their second single on December 1, 1992. "Dakishimetai" was later used as an insert song for the Japanese drama . Shortly after, a new tour called '92–93 Kind of Love Tour started and lasted from December 7, 1992 till January 25, 1993.
In 1993, with the completion of the band's tour they began work on for their third album. The first single of the new year to be released was "Replay", released on July 1, 1993 and used in commercials. On September 9, 1993 their third album Versus was released, but failed to bring the group into the spotlight. They continued on and held a new tour. The '93 Versus Tour was held from September 23 until November 5 and had the band holding nine performances. Shortly after, "Cross Road" was released on November 10, 1993, which was used to promote the Japanese drama . The single was not a hit, but through word of mouth "Cross Road" gained popularity and after 22 weeks sold over a million copies and later, though released in 1993, managed to become the fifteenth best selling single in Oricon's 1994 yearly charts. Sakurai confessed years later as to not liking his works up to this point. According to him:
On June 1, 1994 a new single called "Innocent World" was released and used a promotional song for the soft drink . The single solidified the groups popularity with its sales, managing to sell 1,935,830 copies and becoming the No. 1 selling single in Oricon's 1994 yearly charts. Afterwards work began on their fourth original album Atomic Heart. The album was released on September 1, 1994 and became the band's highest selling album to date. Due to the huge success the band received from the album and "Innocent World" single, the groups popularity built up creating the in Japan.
The band also had Takeshi Kobayashi produce two new tours for them. The first tour, named after the "Innocent World" single was held from September 18 to December 18. The band also released their sixth single "Tomorrow Never Knows" on November 10, 1994 which was used as the theme song to the Japanese drama . The song was written while the group was on tour, was later voted in 2006 as fans No. 1 all-time favorite song on Music Station, and is currently the third highest selling drama tie-in single in Japan. The next single, was released on December 12, 1994, though originally intended to be the B-side of "Tomorrow Never Knows". To end the year, "Innocent World" won the Song of the Year award at the 36th annual Japan Record Awards.
1995–1997
In 1995, the second half of the Atomic Heart tour started, lasting from January 1 to February 2. Mr. Children also became involved in charity work, doing a collaboration song with Keisuke Kuwata of Southern All Stars. The single was used as the theme song for the Act Against AIDS campaign, was produced by Mr. Children and written by Kuwata. To promote the single and the campaign, they held a one-month tour from April 18 until May 14, entitled , where the group did cover songs of many English speaking artists such as The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan. During the tour the group was also filming a documentary/concert movie called Es ~Mr. Children in Film~. It was released in theaters on June 6, 1995, preceded by the group's eight single "Es (Theme of Es)" on May 10, to promote the movie. Two months later the group held an open air tour titled from July 16 to September 10, during which the ninth single, was released on August 10.
On February 6, 1996 Mr. Children's tenth single was released, to promote the Japanese drama and also for Daio Paper's commercial. The single went on to become Japan's highest first week selling single of all time (which was later broken by idol group AKB48) and is currently Japan's eighth highest selling drama tie-in single. The success of the single was also a surprise for Sakurai, who admitted to spending very little time writing the song. Two months later, on April 5, 1996 the group's eleventh single was released, followed by their fifth original album on June 24 and their twelfth single , on August 8. To close the year, the Regress or Progress Tour started and lasted from August 24, 1996 to March 28, 1997. The group visited 14 cities and held 55 concerts.
Mr. Children's 13th single, "Everything (It's You)", was released on February 5, 1997, with the title track used as the theme song to the Japanese drama . A month later, on March 5 Bolero, Mr. Children's sixth album was released. Soon after, rumors started of the group disbanding. Sakurai's reply: "The band will dissolve only when we have no more talent and have relationship problems with each other." Yet the group then decided to take some time off. Nakagawa and Suzuki start a side project band called Hayashi Hideo, and joined by Kenji Fujii from My Little Lover and Sawao Yamanaka from The Pillows, went on a club tour.
1998–2000
On February 11, 1998, they released their 14th single , theme song to the Japanese drama . The group was still on hiatus during this time and made no live performances to promote the single and did not appear in the music video for the song. Finally on October 21, 1998, Mr. Children officially re-grouped and released their 15th single, with the Japanese drama using it as their theme song. The song remains a public favorite in voting polls, Oricon citing its inspirational lyrics as the reason.
On January 13, 1999, , their 16th single, was released, followed by their seventh album, Discovery, on February 3, 1999. Sakurai compared his approach to the songwriting for the record to surfing:
Eleven days later they began the Discovery Tour '99, from February 14 to July 12, where the group visited 16 cities and held 42 shows. During the tour, Mr. Children released their 17th single "I'll Be" on May 12, which was used in Sea Breeze commercials. Though originally released on the Discovery album, the song was re-released as a single with a lighter beat. The single was not a success and became Mr. Children's lowest selling single since "Cross Road". During the Discovery Tour '99, an idea for a live album was brought up. It was released as a 500,000 copy limited edition on September 8, 1999 and called 1/42 (referring to one of the 42 shows in the tour). Most of the tracks were recorded on June 16, 1999 at the Makomanai ice arena, while the bonus track "Dakishimetai" was recorded at the Okinawa Ginowan-Shi seaside park.
At the beginning of a new century , released on January 13, 2000 became the group's 18th single. While "I'll Be" failed to be a success, "Kuchibue" proved to be a hit selling 724,070 copies. On August 9, 2000, their 19th single "Not Found" was also used as the theme song to the Japanese drama , followed a month later by their 9th original album Q on September 27, 2000. The band went to New York to record this album, where they re-recorded some of their old indie material and for the first time, producer Takeshi Kobayashi performed with the band on a recording. The cover for the album was shot bought Size, Inc. at the Bonneville Salt Flats in the United States. The album was not a favorite amongst fans for various reasons and became their first album since Atomic Heart to not sell over one million copies. ‘Concert tour Q’ started, visiting 13 cities and holding 35 concerts between October 15, 2000 and February 24, 2001.
2001–2003
In 2001, Mr. Children continued their Q tour, followed by dual "Best Of" albums. Titled Mr. Children 1992–1995 and Mr. Children 1996–2000, they were both released on July 11, 2001. Both albums went on to sell a combined total of 4,034,785 copies. According to an interview done with MTV Japan Sakurai stated the best of albums weren't something they had planned on doing yet. During this time, the group was finishing up work for their new upcoming album and had planned to start promoting singles on it. However it was decided that a best of album was needed and so they were released. Four days following the dual album release, the group launched the ‘Popsaurus’ tour, visiting 10 cities and playing 15 shows, lasting from July 15, 2001 all the way through September 25, 2001. A month into the tour their 20th single was released and used to promote the Wonda Canned Coffee by Asahi Soft Drinks. Two months after the Popsaurus tour ended, "Youthful Days" was released. Released on November 7, 2001, it was their 21st single and was an insert song for the Japanese drama Antique Bakery. "Youthful Days" debuted at number-one on Japanese Oricon's Charts in its first week at retail (ahead of Mr. Moonlight (Ai no Big Band) by Morning Musume, from album 4th Ikimashoi!), and It ended up being their best selling single for the year. The b-side for the single, "Drawing", originally had no commercial tie-in, but two years later was used as the theme song to the 2003 Japanese drama , Starring former Shibugakitai member Masahiro Motoki.
Mr. Children released their 22nd single on New Year's Day of 2002 (January 1), which was used as a show song in the Japanese drama Antique Bakery. Four months later their tenth original album It's a Wonderful World was released on May 10, the groups' tenth anniversary. The release of the album on their 10th anniversary was not something that had originally intended. As the group was wrapping up recording, Sakurai asked if the album could be released in the spring time. While the group and their management was trying to think of how to promote an album in the spring time, they came up with releasing the album on their 10th anniversary. A new tour, titled Mr. Children Tour 2002 Dear Wonderful World was set to begin later that year. The previous single "I'll Be" from the Discovery album was selected to be used as an official theme for the 2002 FIFA World Cup, held in Japan and South Korea. On May 24, 2002 Mr. Children attended the first ever MTV Video Music Awards Japan and topped the awards show by winning 'Video of the Year' for the song "Kimi ga suki", the band also nominated in Best Group Category but losing to Backstreet Boys. Two months after the release of the new album, Mr.Children's 23rd single "Any", was released on July 11, 2002 and used to promote NTT DoCoMo Group 10th Anniversary. The group was not able to properly promote the single. As preparations for the new tour were beginning and promotion for the new single were being done, lead singer Sakurai was hospitalized on July 21, 2002, after a blockage in his cerebellum was detected. The Mr. Children Tour 2002 Dear Wonderful World was canceled and all group activities were put on a temporary hiatus. While recovering, Sakurai wrote a song called "Hero", that was inspired by his hospitalization. The song was released as the group's 24th single on December 11, 2002 and was used in NTT DoCoMo Group 10th Anniversary commercial. The first press version of the single included a DVD where, in addition to a Mr. Children 2002 documentary -Hero- that was aired, the singer talked about his hospitalization and inspiration for the song. On November 15, 2002 Mr.Children's website announced the band's return to the stage for a "stew of home pride" with a one night only live, December 21, 2002 the group returned to the stage for a single concert, later released on DVD, titled Wonederful World on Dec. 21.
The group remained quiet for most of 2003. Sakurai helped to launch Artists' Power Bank (AP Bank), a non-profit environmental financial institution, in June. Sakamoto Ryuichi, a well known composer, came up with the initial idea to build a wind-power plant. With the help of Sakurai and music producer Takeshi Kobayashi, their goal later became to invest in environmentally friendly projects, such as renewable energy, and as of 2007, participated in other social issues such as helping the victims of a Chuetsu offshore earthquake in Niigata Prefecture on July 16, 2007. Near the end of the year, Mr. Children re-grouped and released their 25th single . It became their first double a-side single with "Tenohira" receiving no commercial tie-in, and "Kurumi" used to promote . The single was a hit and became Mr.Children's best selling single since 2001's "Youthful Days" single.
2004–2006
In 2004, Sakurai started a solo project titled Bank Band, which became a spin-off of AP Bank. As Bank Band, Sakurai released a first album, titled , which contained covers of two Mr. Children songs, "Hero" and "Yasashii Uta". Mr. Children released their eleventh album on April 4, 2004, titled , which came with a documentary DVD showing the group working and talking about the concept behind the album. To help promote the album, Mr. Children used the song in 'Nissin Cup Noodle – NO Border' commercials and as the 'News 23' theme song. According to Sakurai, is
In the following month, they released their 26th single, "Sign", on May 26, which was used as the theme song to the Japanese drama Orange Days and went on to win the Song of the Year award at the 46th annual Japan Record Awards ten years after their win for 'Innocent World'.
Most of the 2005 was spent working on a new album. As a solo act, Kazutoshi Sakurai appeared at Golden Circle vol.7 on February 28, 2005. Finally on June 29, 2005 the group released their 27th single . The single became a monster hit selling 569,000 copies its first week, and ending with 925,632 copies sold. As a quad a-side single, all four songs had a commercial tie in. promoted 'Pocari Sweat', "and I love you" promoted 'Nissin Cup Noodle – NO Border', became the theme song for the Japanese movie 'Fly Daddy Fly', and was used as a promotional song for Fuji TV's educational program 'Kodomo bangumi Ponkikkiizu, Gachagachapon'. Even though it was released as a single, it was classified as an album by the Recording Industry Association of Japan. A month later the group attended Kazutoshi Sakurai's 3-day festival 'ap bank fes’ 05' from July 16, 2005 through July 18, 2005, followed by 'SETSTOCK '05' at Kokuei bihoku kyuuryou park on July 23, 2005 and 'Higher Ground 2005' at Umi no nakamichi kaihinkouen outdoor theater on July 30, 2005. Three months later on September 21, 2005, I Love U (I♥U), Mr.Children’s 12th original album, was released. Two months later Dome Tour 2005 'I Love U' began, running from November 12, 2005 through December 27, 2005 and were only the fourth artist in Japanese history to play at the Osaka, Tokyo, Sapporo, Nagoya and Fukuoka dome's. The tour ended in Tokyo Come where they played to 45,000 fans, bringing the tour total to almost 390,000 fans. By the end of the year the group managed to pass the 45 million mark in sold records.
The first single for 2006, was their 28th single released on July 5, 2006 and used as the promotion song for Toyota's "Tobira wo akeyou" commercial and as the theme song to NTV's 2006 FIFA World Cup broadcasting. Due to the groups involvement with ap bank fes. '06, there were no magazine or radio promotions, and only 3 live performances were done to promote the single. However the commercial tie-in's for the single proved to be a success and "Houkiboshi" was voted No. 3 as the favorite commercial song for 2006 and voted as the favorite winter song heard in the summer. Ten days following the release of 'Houkiboshi', Mr.Children participated in the 3 day festival, ap bank fes '06, where they performed "Hero", "Strange Chameleon", "Owarinaki tabi", and "Hokiboshi". One month later Mr.Children were special guests at The Mujintou fes. 2006 and performed "Mirai", "Innocent world", "Hokorobi", "Sign", "Owarinaki tabi", "Worlds end", and "Houkiboshi". Shortly after Mr.Children announced a joint tour with fellow Japanese rockers the pillows, known as 'Mr.Children & the pillows new big bang tour ~This is Hybrid Innocent~'. The tour was held from September 26, 2006 through October 11, 2006. On November 15, 2006, the group released their 29th single , which was used as the theme song , by NTV, a controversial television drama about underage pregnancy. Kazutoshi Sakurai had begun writing the song in February 2006 and finished writing in March 2006. and shot the promotional video in September 2006. One of the b-sides of single was a re-recording of Mr. Children's 2003 song "Kurumi", used as a theme song in the movie .
2007
On January 24, 2007, the band released their 30th single, , which was used as the theme song for the movie , and while only a limited edition single, brought the group to 26 consecutive No. 1 singles. Shortly after, the 13th original album, Home, was released on March 14, which would become the group's first in almost 13 years to chart at No. 1 for two consecutive weeks. It was also the first Japanese album in 2007 to sell more than a million copies. Work on the record had come to a standstill, during the recording of the song "Houkiboshi", due to a dispute among the group over "Home"'s direction. Producer Kobayashi suggested to make an album that "pays attention to the world with a message".
The album reflected a more personal touch from the group, with talking about the 9/11 attacks at New York City, and , being inspired by Kazutoshi Sakurai father who had been sick. The title of the album, Home, was originally suggested to be titled "Home Made" or "Home Ground", because the group wanted the album to have the meaning that it was made by hand. However, they choose to name it just Home because they felt that by adding another word it would be limiting the idea in mind. Three days after the release of Home, Mr. Children won the awards Best Video of the Year and Best Group Video for the single "Shirushi" at the Space Shower Music Video Awards '07. For the album, the group held two promotional tours. The first half called Mr. Children Home Tour 2007, started on May 4 and lasted until June 23. During the tour, a new compilation album titled B-Side was released on May 10, which was also the group's 15th anniversary. The release of a B-side compilation had been suggested by singer Sakurai while working on Home:
Releasing a public statement on their official site at Toy's Factory, both the group and Sakurai felt that the A-side tracks on their singles had started to dictate and overall theme as to who Mr. Children were as a group. They felt a lot of feelings and desires which have shaped them as a group came from these coupling songs, and thus decided to release them as a compilation album.
On May 5, 2007, after the second concert for the first half of the Home tour, drummer Hideya Suzuki injured his hand after accidentally touching a ventilator. He injured his left index finger, which required four stitches and the following two concerts had to be rescheduled. Publicity for the tour reached a high, when they performed in front of a sold-out tour for 15,000 fans at Yokohama Arena on June 7, 2007 and reignited speculation that the Mr.Children phenomenon was alive and well. A second half of the tour to promote 'Home', titled Mr.Children Home Tour 2007 -In the Field- took place from August 4 to September 30. Both tours ended up being a big success for the group, and became the most attended Japan tour in 2007 at 550,000 fans. The main promotional track for the Home album, , was selected to promote the Olympus E-410. During the E Goes to World campaign, the camera manufacturer had customers submit pictures to create a new promotional video for the song.
On July 10, Mr. Children announced a new song on their website titled . While initially a single release date wasn't issued, the group announced a month later it would be released on October 30, 2007. The title track, "Tabidachi no Uta", was used as a theme song for the Japanese movie , and a month later also be used to promote NTT Higashi Nihon. With the release of the single, Mr. Children managed to debut at number 1 for the week and in return obtained their 27th consecutive number 1 single. Similar to Jyūyonsai no Haha before, the movie Koizora deals with the struggles of a young girl, involving betrayal, rape and abortion. The group was scheduled to play at the ap bank fes '07 from July 14 to July 16, but due to a typhoon, the first two days had to be canceled, and only the final day proceeded as planned. With the announcement of the new single, Mr.Children also announced the 'Home' tour 2007 DVD, which was released on November 14, 2007. On December 18, 2007, Oricon announced that Home became their first album to top the yearly album charts since their debut with the sales of 1.18 million copies, surpassing the sales of Kumi Koda's album Black Cherry of 1.02 million copies.
2008
For the beginning of 2008, Sakurai released an album and DVD with his solo project Bank Band, followed a month later by the official announcement of a new song, , used in the NHK Japanese television drama . Afterwards Mr. Children announced the release of two singles. The first, "Gift", released on July 30, 2008, was used as the official theme song to the 2008 Beijing Olympics coverage on NHK. When writing this song, Sakurai focused on the meaning behind the Olympics and wanted to write a song not just for those who win, but for everyone who participates.
The ap bank announced that Mr.Children would appear for all 3 days at ap bank fes '08. Their second single of the year, "Hanabi", released on September 3, 2008, was used as the theme song to the Japanese drama Code Blue, in which Tomohisa Yamashita played a main role. The single "Hanabi" topped the Oricon single charts for two weeks, becoming their 29th consecutive number-one single. However, their next single became their first download-only single for the music download market. The nun full-track ringtone downloads (Chaku Uta) of the song began on October 1 and the full-track downloads (Chaku Uta Full) began on November 1, 2008. Their studio album Supermarket Fantasy was released on December 10, 2008. Supermarket Fantasy sold about 708,000 copies in its initial week, debuting at the number-one position on the Oricon weekly album charts.
2009–2011
On October 20, 2009, it was announced that Mr. Children produced their first anime theme "Fanfare" for the movie One Piece Film: Strong World. "Fanfare" was digitally released as a non full-track ringtone song (Chaku Uta) on November 16 as a full-track ringtone song (Chaku Uta Full) on December 2, 2009. The song debuted at the number-one position on the RIAJ Digital Track Chart.
On May 10, 2010, Mr. Children released the DVD Mr. Children Dome Tour 2009 Supermarket Fantasy in Tokyo Dome, but it sold about 49,000 copies one day before the official release day, debuting at No. 1 on the Oricon weekly music DVD chart with the one-day sales. It became their seventh consecutive number-one music DVD and they tied the records of Arashi and KAT-TUN for having the most consecutive number-one DVDs on the Oricon weekly music DVD chart. It also debuted at No. 1 on the Oricon weekly comprehensive DVD chart, eclipsing the sales of Avatar in the week. It topped the Oricon comprehensive DVD charts for three consecutive weeks, making them the second artist to achieve that with the music DVD while the first is Arashi.
On September 4, 2010, Mr. Children released their second documentary/concert movie Mr. Children / Split the Difference (since first "Es" ~Mr. Children in Film~) and released DVD + CD includes the movie and selected songs by the band on November 10, 2010. It debuted at No. 1 on the Oricon weekly music DVD chart and they also became the first artist to have their eighth consecutive number-one music DVD.
On December 1, 2010, Mr. Children released their sixteenth studio album Sense includes digital release only single "Fanfare". But the details such as track list, number of tracks, cover and title of the album were not announced until just before a release date, November 29.
On April 4, 2011, Mr. Children released the download single "Kazoe Uta" to collect donations for the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake. "Kazoe Uta" debuted at number 1 on the RIAJ Digital Track Chart, surpassing the download sales of AKB48's charity single "Dareka no Tame ni (What Can I Do for Someone?)".
2012
On April 18, 2012, Mr. Children released the Triple A-side single "Inori ~Namida no Kidou/End of the Day/pieces", their first in 3 years and 7 months; the single debuted at number 1 on the Oricon Weekly Single Charts, selling 174,409 copies. Two of the songs, "Inori ~Namida no Kidou" and "pieces", were used as the themes to the Bokura ga Ita movies. In addition, "Inori ~Namida no Kidou" spent four weeks atop the RIAJ Digital Track Chart, tying the record set by GReeeeN's "Haruka". Also released on April 18 was the band's "Mr. Children 2011 Tour Sense -in the field-" DVD, which debuted at number 1 on both the Oricon DVD and Blu-ray charts, making Mr. Children the first artist to top three of Oricon's charts in a single week.
On May 10, 2012, Mr. Children released a pair of Best Albums titled Mr. Children 2001–2005 <micro> and Mr. Children 2005–2010 <macro> in celebration of their 20th anniversary. The band also embarked on a 2-month dome tour, titled "POPSAURUS 2012", after the series of concerts they held in 2001 following the release of their first two Best Albums.
On November 28, 2012 Mr.Children released new album titled [(An Imitation) Blood Orange].
At the end of the year, Mr.Children had dominated the yearly album ranking for 2012 with all 3 albums in the top10. Their dual best albums Mr. Children 2005–2010 <macro> and Mr. Children 2001–2005 <micro> monopolized TOP 2 the best selling album of 2012 yearly chart with selling 1.17 million copies sold and 1.11 million copies sold consecutively. Moreover, [(An Imitation) Blood Orange] placed 8th in the best selling album in 2012.
They have both achieved "the best selling album" and " the most Artist total sales Albums " for 2012. Mr.Children became the third artists who achieved TOP 2 spots on the yearly album ranking, and this is the first time in 14 years for any artist to achieve this . Mr.Children was the 4th artist by total sales revenue in Japan in 2012, with ¥9.947 billion (approximately $84 million).
2014
On November 19, 2014 Mr.Children released the single CD "Ashioto ~Be Strong"
2020
On December 2, 2020, Mr.Children released their 20th studio album SOUNDTRACKS.
Photographers
The band has collaborated with photographers such as Osami Yabuta, Reylia Slaby and Alfie Goodrich
Oricon Chart Statistics
Artist's Total sales (CD Total Sales) : 58.61 million copies sold ( #2 most selling artist)
No.1 on Oricon Year-End Charts: 1994 ("innocent world"); 1996 ("Namonaki Uta"), 2007 (HOME), 2012 (Mr.Children Macro 2005-2010)
Double Million Seller Singles: 2nd overall (1st - CHAGE and ASKA)
Million Seller Singles: 3rd overall (1st - B'z, 2nd - AKB48)
Million Seller Albums: 2nd overall (1st - B'z, 3rd - DREAMS COME TRUE)
The most non tie up Single sales : 1.82 million copies sold (by「See Saw Game」)
Won Japan Record Grand Prix in 1994 for "innocent world" and won it again 10 years later for "Sign"
Charitable and other activities
Since their official debut, Mr.Children has engaged in social and charitable causes. As a group they participated in the live concert for Act Against AIDS on December 1, 1994 and again on December 1, 1995. The goal of live was to raise awareness about AIDS. The proceeds from the event were donated to support children living with HIV. The live was followed up by a collaboration Act Against AIDS charity single with fellow Japanese artist Kuwata Keisuke titled ‘Kiseki no hoshi’ and released on January 23, 1995. On April 25, 2001 Kazutoshi Sakurai also participated in the recording of Zero Landmine, a single created to promote awareness of the problem of landmines and promote a ban on landmines. In addition the group has also participated in Kazutoshi Sakura's solo project, AP bank. AP Bank, a nonprofit lending group, carries the goal of tackling environmental problems by financing environmentally friendly projects such as renewable energy, in addition to holding yearly festivals to raise money to fund additional projects. Since its inception in 2005, Mr.Children has been actively participating in the festivals, with an announcement in 2008 that the group will now work more closely with its cause by participating during the entire three-day festival duration in addition to further details to be announced at a later time.
Members Kazutoshi Sakurai and Kenichi Tahara joined together to create Acid Test for the concert ‘Dream Power John Lennon Super live broadcasting’ on October 9, 2001. The live was part of Yoko Ono’s Dream Power and educational platform where artists came together to hold a charity concert to raise money for school construction funds for children in Africa and Asia. The John Lennon song covered by Acid Test during the live, "Mother", was later recorded and released on a tribute album Happy Birthday, John, and released on September 30, 2005.
In addition to social causes, Mr.Children's music has been used as background music for numerous television advertisements, television programs, television drama's, and motion pictures. Examples of the group's commercial tie-ins include "and I love you", "Bokura no Oto", and "Tagatame" for Nissin Cup Noodle no Border commercials, 'Gift' for the 2008 Beijing Olympics on NHK, and "Tabidachi no uta" for the 2007 Japanese movie . As a group, Mr.Children have not endorsed products by physically appearing in television commercials or printed media advertisements. One of the methods used to help promote the group is through Brajackets, a dust jacket for books, which are available at stands in bookstores for free. The Brajacket serve as free advertising for various products from ice cream to movies and musicals. Mr. Children have used this method to promote singles and albums; for example and I Love U (I♥U).
Fan club
The official fan club of Mr. Children is called Father & Mother, the title being derived from their name. The fan club, which started in 1994, was kept relatively secretive at first, as the group has never made any mention of it on their official website. In 2006, for the release of the group's 29th single "Shirushi", the official website was revamped and with it information about the fan club was finally added. Just like before however, the fan club can only be joined by mail and requires an admission fee of 3,500 yen, with yearly re-applications for membership.
Band members
Current members
Kazutoshi Sakurai – lead vocals, guitar, primary songwriter
Kenichi Tahara – guitar, backing vocals
He was born in Fukuoka and is charge of playing guitar in the band. He had joined the baseball team in high school but became interested in the guitar because he saw his classmate playing a guitar at a school festival. One day one of his classmates, Kazutoshi Sakurai brought his guitar to school. They bonded with each other over it and that became the catalyst for forming Mr.Children. Known for being quiet in live concerts, his fans become estatic when he says interacts with them.
Keisuke Nakagawa – bass, backing vocals
Nakagawa was born in Nagasaki. His nickname is "Nakakei". He went to the same junior high school as Kenichi and Hideya where he started playing the bass. He is also famous for being a baseball fan.
Hideya Suzuki – drums, backing vocals, also known as "Jen" and is the leader of Mr. Children
Supporting members
Takeshi Kobayashi – keyboards, producer
Naoto Inti Raymi – guitar, chorus
Takashi "Sunny" Katsuya – keyboards, backing vocals
Shuji Kouguchi – guitar, harmonica
Discography
Albums
* Compilation album.** Live album
Books
Official Books:
[es] Mr.Children in 370 DAYS (April 25, 1995) C0076
Mr.Children Everything 天才・桜井和寿 終わりなき音の冒険 (Mr.Children Everything -Tensai Sakurai Kazutoshi owarinaki oto no bouken-) (December 25, 1996) C0073
Mr.Children詩集「優しい歌」 (Mr.Children song collection -Yasashii Uta-) (December 10, 2001) C0092
Tours
Official Tours:
'92 Everything Tour (September 23, 1992 – November 5, 1992)
Visited 10 cities and held 10 concerts
'92 Your Everything Tour (September 26, 1992 – November 22, 1992)
Visited 11 cities and held 12 concerts
'92–93 Kind of Love Tour (December 7, 1992 – January 25, 1993)
Visited 9 cities and held 9 concerts
'93 Versus Tour (September 23, 1993 – November 5, 1993)
Visited 9 cities and held 9 concerts
Mr. Children '94 tour innocent world (September 18, 1994 – December 18, 1994)
Visited 24 cities and held 27 concerts
Mr.Children '95 Tour Atomic Heart (January 7, 1995 – February 20, 1995)
Visited 10 cities and held 21 concerts
(July 16, 1995 – September 10, 1995)
Visited 11 cities and held 19 concerts
Regress or Progress (August 24, 1996 – March 28, 1997)
Visited 14 cities and held 55 concerts
"Discovery" Tour '99 (February 14, 1999 – July 12, 1999)
Visited 16 cities and held 42 concerts
Mr. Children Concert tour Q (October 15, 2000 – February 24, 2001)
Visited 13 cities and held 35 concerts
Popsaurus Mr. Children (July 15, 2001 – September 25, 2001)
Visited 10 cities and held 15 concerts
Wonderful World on Dec. 21 (December 21, 2002)
A one night live. Originally intended to be a 26 city and 39 concert tour, but was canceled due to Kazutoshi Sakurai's hospitalization
(June 12, 2004 – September 25, 2004)
Stadium Tour, Visited 11 cities and held 21 concerts
Dome tour 2005 "I ♥ U" (November 12, 2005 – December 27, 2005)
Dome Tour, Visited 5 cities and held 10 concerts
Mr. Children & the pillows new big bang tour ~This is Hybrid Innocent~ (September 26, 2006 – October 11, 2006)
Hall tour, Visited 6 cities and held 7 concerts. The tour, a Zepp tour, was a joint effort with fellow rock group the pillows
Mr. Children "Home" Tour 2007 (May 4, 2007 – June 23, 2007)
Arena tour, Visited 7 cities and held 14 concerts
Mr. Children "Home" Tour 2007 -in the field- (August 4, 2007 – September 30, 2007)
Stadium tour, Visited 9 cities and held 14 concerts
" (Feb 14, 2009 – March 31, 2009)
Arena Tour, Visited 17 cities and held 34 concerts
Mr.Children DOME TOUR 2009 ~SUPERMARKET FANTASY~ (November 28, 2009 – December 27, 2009)
Dome tour, Visited 5 cities and held 11 concerts
Mr.Children Tour 2011 SENSE (February 19, 2011 – May 15, 2011)
Arena Tour, Visited 9 cities and held 19 concerts
Mr.Children STADIUM TOUR 2011 SENSE -in the field- (August 20, 2011 – September 25, 2011)
Stadium tour, Visited 6 cities and held 10 concerts
MR.CHILDREN TOUR POPSAURUS 2012 (April 14, 2012 – June 6, 2012)
Dome tour, Visited 6 cities and held 14 concerts
Mr.Children [(an imitation) blood orange] Tour (December 15, 2012 – June 9, 2012)
Dome tour, Visited 20 cities and held 40 concerts
Mr.Children FATHER&MOTHER 21st anniversary Fanclub Tour (September 17, 2014 – October 9, 2014)
Zepp tour, Visited 5 cities and held 5 concerts
Mr.Children TOUR 2015 REFLECTION (March 14, 2015 – June 4, 2015)
Arena Tour, Visited 10 cities and held 20 concerts
Mr.Children Stadium Tour 2015 未完 (July 8, 2015 – September 20, 2015)
Stadium tour, Visited 10 cities and held 16 concerts
Mr.Children Hall tour 2016 "Niji" (April 14, 2016 – May 26, 2016)
Hall Tour, Visited 13 cities and held 13 concerts
Note: It is the first time in 14 years to hold Hall tour since 2002
Awards and Records
See also
Japanese rock
Japan Record Awards
MTV Video Music Awards Japan
List of best-selling music artists in Japan
List of best-selling singles in Japan
Footnotes
a. Early on in the group's career, Takeshi Kobayashi collaborated with Kazutoshi Sakurai on various songs in addition to writing songs himself. For example, "Dance dance dance" on the album Atomic Heart was co-composed by him, and on the album Versus, was both composed and written by him. Over the years, his composing and lyrical work with the group has lessened with the last a-side track co-written by him and Kazutoshi Sakurai being which was released on December 12, 1994 .
References
External links
Official website
Mr. Children at Toy's Factory
Innocent World – Unofficial English translations of Mr. Children news and articles
Mr. Children English Fansite – Unofficial English translations of Mr. Children lyrics, guitar tabs and album reviews
Toy's Factory artists
Japanese pop rock music groups
Musical groups from Tokyo
Musical quartets
Musical groups established in 1988 | 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"
] |
[
"RuPaul's Drag Race",
"Untucked"
] | C_2bdaab02168043d394ffbc0451581d47_0 | What is Untucked? | 1 | What is Untucked? | RuPaul's Drag Race | The first season of Drag Race was accompanied by a seven-episode web series, titled Under the Hood of RuPaul's Drag Race. LOGOonline published a webisode of Under the Hood after each episode of Drag Race. In this companion series, RuPaul presents a documentary of contestants' conversation in the green room, replays pertinent moments from Drag Race, and airs deleted footage. Starting with the second season of Drag Race in 2010, Logo reformatted Under the Hood, increased its production budget, moved it from the web to television, and re-titled it to RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked. Logo broadcast an episode of Untucked after each episode of Drag Race. Untucked replaces the basic green room of Under the Hood with two decorated rooms that were until season 6 sponsored by Absolut Vodka and Interior Illusions, Inc.: the Interior Illusions Lounge and the Gold Bar. FormDecor sponsored the Lounge for season 6. These two backstage areas allow for separated group conversation. At the start of the seventh season of the Drag Race, Untucked reverted to a webseries, as part of the World of Wonder YouTube page. Instead of two decorated rooms, Untucked was moved back to the one room, an empty backstage space that connects to the main stage and work room, with couches for contestants to chat on. The newly renovated version also follows contestants following their elimination from the show, documenting them packing their belongings and leaving the set. The webseries format continued for the eighth and ninth season. For the show's tenth season, Untucked returned to television. CANNOTANSWER | In this companion series, RuPaul presents a documentary of contestants' conversation in the green room, replays pertinent moments from Drag Race, | RuPaul's Drag Race is an American reality competition television series, the first in the Drag Race franchise, produced by World of Wonder for Logo TV, WOW Presents Plus, and, beginning with the ninth season, VH1. The show documents RuPaul in the search for "America's next drag superstar." RuPaul plays the role of host, mentor, and head judge for this series, as contestants are given different challenges each week. RuPaul's Drag Race employs a panel of judges, including RuPaul, Michelle Visage, an alternating third main judge of either Carson Kressley or Ross Matthews, and a host of other guest judges, who critique contestants' progress throughout the competition. The title of the show is a play on drag queen and drag racing, and the title sequence and song "Drag Race" both have a drag-racing theme. To date, there have been thirteen winners of the show: BeBe Zahara Benet, Tyra Sanchez, Raja, Sharon Needles, Jinkx Monsoon, Bianca Del Rio, Violet Chachki, Bob the Drag Queen, Sasha Velour, Aquaria, Yvie Oddly, Jaida Essence Hall and Symone.
RuPaul's Drag Race has spanned thirteen seasons and inspired the spin-off shows RuPaul's Drag U, RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars, RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked, RuPaul's Secret Celebrity Drag Race, RuPaul's Drag Race UK, and RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under. The show has become the highest-rated television program on Logo TV, and airs internationally, including in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and Israel. The show earned RuPaul six consecutive Emmys (2016 to 2021) for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program. The show itself has been awarded as the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program 4 consecutive times (2018 to 2021), and the Outstanding Reality Program award at the 21st GLAAD Media Awards. It has been nominated for four Critics' Choice Television Award including Best Reality Series – Competition and Best Reality Show Host for RuPaul, and was nominated for a Creative Arts Emmy Award for Outstanding Make-up for a Multi-Camera Series or Special (Non-Prosthetic). Later in 2018, the show became the first show to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program in the same year, a feat it has since repeated three times.
Format
Prospective Drag Race contestants submit video auditions to the show's production company, World of Wonder. RuPaul, the host and head judge, views each tape and selects the season's competitors. Once the chosen pool of performers is on set, they film a series of episodes, each one typically concluding with the removal of one contestant from the competition. Rarely, the outcome of an episode has been a double elimination, no elimination, contestant disqualification or removal of a contestant on medical grounds. Each episode features a so-called maxi challenge that tests competitors' skills in a variety of areas of drag performance. Some episodes also feature a mini challenge, the prize of which is often an advantage or benefit in the upcoming maxi challenge. Following the maxi challenge, contestants present themed looks in a runway walk. RuPaul and a panel of judges then critique each contestant's performance, deliberate amongst themselves, and announce the week's winner and bottom two competitors. The bottom two queens compete in a so-called Lip Sync for Your Life; the winner of the lip sync remains in the competition, and the loser is eliminated. Generally, the contestant that the judges feel has displayed the most "charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent" (C.U.N.T.) is the one who advances. The final three, or four depending on what RuPaul chooses, contestants remaining compete in a special finale episode wherein the season's winner is crowned. In early seasons, the finale was pre-recorded in the studio with no audience. More recently, the finale has taken the form of a lip sync tournament before a live audience. The season 12 finale was filmed remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The whole season is typically filmed in four weeks.
Mini and maxi challenges
Mini challenges are quick, small assignments that RuPaul announces at the beginning of an episode. One of the most popular mini challenges, which recurs from season to season, is the reading challenge. In it, contestants satirically criticize one another in a process called "reading", which was popularized by the film Paris Is Burning. Maxi challenges vary in the skill they test; some are group challenges that involve singing and acting, while others feature comedy, a talent of choice, dancing, or makeovers. The winner receives a material or monetary prize. Until the show's sixth season, the winner sometimes also received immunity against elimination the following week. Drag Races most popular seasonal maxi challenge is Snatch Game, a spoof on Match Game wherein contestants impersonate celebrities or famous fictional personas.
Judging
RuPaul has been the series' head judge since its premiere. For the first two seasons, Merle Ginsberg joined him on the panel; she was replaced in season 3 by longtime friend of RuPaul and co-host of The RuPaul Show Michelle Visage. Santino Rice served as a judge from season 1 through season 6. From season 7 onward, Ross Mathews and Carson Kressley have occupied Rice's former seat. New York City makeup artist Billy B held a regular judging spot in the third and fourth seasons when Rice was absent. Most weeks, one or two celebrity guest judges join the panel.
Companion series
The first season of Drag Race was accompanied by a seven-episode web series titled Under the Hood of RuPaul's Drag Race, which Logo TV made available for streaming on its website. The series featured behind-the-scenes and deleted footage from the main show's tapes. From season 2 onward, a companion show called RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked, which has the same premise, has aired instead. Untucked largely focuses on conversations and drama that occur between contestants backstage while the judges deliberate on each episode's results. In most seasons, it has aired on TV following the main show, but it was available only online for season 7 through season 9. A number of smaller web series also accompany each episode of Drag Race. Whatcha Packin, which began at the start of the sixth season, features Michelle Visage interviewing the most recently eliminated queen about their run on the show and showcasing runway outfits they had brought but did not have the opportunity to wear. In 2014, the web-series Fashion Photo Ruview aired for the first time, co-hosted by Raja Gemini and Raven who evaluate the runway looks of the main show. Since season 8, a five- to fifteen-minute aftershow called The Pit Stop has also been produced. It involves a host and guest, typically past competitors of Drag Race, discussing the recently aired episode. Each season's host (or hosts) are different; to date, these have included the YouTuber Kingsley, Raja Gemini, Bob the Drag Queen, Alaska Thunderfuck, Trixie Mattel, Manila Luzon, and Monét X Change.
Series overview
Seasons 1–8 (2009–2016): Logo TV
Season 1 premiered in the U.S. on February 2, 2009, on Logo TV. Nine contestants competed to become "America's Next Drag Superstar". The winner won a lifetime supply of MAC Cosmetics, was featured on the cover of Paper and in an LA Eyeworks campaign, joined the Absolut Pride tour, and won a cash prize of $20,000. One of the nine, Nina Flowers, was determined by an audience vote via the show's official website. The winner of season 1 was BeBe Zahara Benet, with Nina Flowers winning Miss Congeniality. In late 2013, Logo re-aired the season as RuPaul's Drag Race: The Lost Season Ru-Vealed, featuring commentary from RuPaul.
For season 2 (2010), 12 contestants competed for a lifetime supply of NYX Cosmetics and be the face of nyxcosmetics.com, an exclusive one year public relations contract with LGBT firm Project Publicity, be featured in an LA Eyeworks campaign, join the Logo Drag Race Tour, and a cash prize of $25,000. A new tradition of writing a farewell message in lipstick on the workstation mirror was started by the first eliminated queen, Shangela. Each week's episode is followed by a behind-the-scenes show, RuPaul's Drag Race Untucked. The winner of season 2 was Tyra Sanchez, with Pandora Boxx winning Miss Congeniality. On December 6, 2011, Amazon.com released season 2 on DVD via the CreateSpace program.
Season 3 (2011) had Michelle Visage replacing Merle Ginsberg on the judging panel as well as Billy Brasfield (commonly known as Billy B), Mike Ruiz, and Jeffrey Moran (courtesy of Absolut Vodka) filling in for Santino Rice's absence during several episodes. Due to Billy B's continued appearances, he and Rice are considered to have been alternate judges for the same seat on judges panel. Other changes made included the introduction of a wildcard contestant from the past season, Shangela; an episode with no elimination; and a contestant, Carmen Carrera, being brought back into the competition after having been eliminated a few episodes prior. A new pit crew was also introduced consisting of Jason Carter and Shawn Morales. As with the previous season, each week's episode was followed by a behind-the-scenes show, RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked. The winner of the season 3 was Raja, with Yara Sofia winning Miss Congeniality. On December 6, 2011, Amazon.com released this season on DVD via their CreateSpace program.
Season 4 began airing on January 30, 2012, with cast members announced November 13, 2011. The winner headlined Logo's Drag Race Tour featuring Absolut Vodka, won a one-of-a-kind trip, a lifetime supply of NYX Cosmetics, a cash prize of $100,000, and the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar." Like the previous season, Rice and Billy B (Billy Brasfield), shared the same seat at the judges table alternatively, with Brasfield filling in for Rice when needed. The winner of season 4 was Sharon Needles, with Latrice Royale winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 5 began airing on January 28, 2013, with a 90-minute premiere episode. Fourteen contestants competed for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar" along with a lifetime supply of Colorevolution Cosmetics, a one-of-a-kind trip courtesy of AlandChuck.travel, a headlining spot on Logo's Drag Race Tour featuring Absolut Vodka and a cash prize of $100,000. Rice and Visage were back as judges on the panel. The winner of season 5 was Jinkx Monsoon, with Ivy Winters winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 6 began airing February 24, 2014. Like season 5, season 6 saw 14 contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar". For the first time in the show's history, the season premiere was split into two episodes; the fourteen queens are split into two groups and the seven queens in each group compete against one another before being united as one group in the third episode. Rice and Visage returned as judges at the panel. Two new pit crew members, Miles Moody and Simon Sherry-Wood, joined Carter and Morales. The winner won a prize package that included a supply from Colorevolution Cosmetics and a cash prize of $100,000. The winner of season 6 was Bianca Del Rio, with BenDeLaCreme winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 7 began airing on March 2, 2015. Returning judges included RuPaul and Visage, while the space previously occupied by Rice was filled by new additions Ross Mathews and Carson Kressley. Mathews and Kressley were both present for the season premiere and then took turns sharing judging responsibilities. Morales and Simon Sherry-Wood did not appear this season and were replaced by Bryce Eilenberg. Like the previous two seasons, this one featured fourteen contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. The season premiere debuted with a live and same-day viewership of 348,000, a 20 percent increase from the previous season. On March 20, 2015, it was announced that Logo had given the series an early renewal for an eighth season. The winner of season 7 was Violet Chachki, with Katya winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 8 on began airing on March 7, 2016, with cast members announced during the NewNowNext Honors on February 1, 2016. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. The first episode celebrated the 100th taping of the show, and the 100th drag queen to compete. Similar to season 2, this season had twelve contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. The winner of season 8 was Bob the Drag Queen, with Cynthia Lee Fontaine winning Miss Congeniality.
Seasons 9–14 (2017–present): VH1
Season 9 began airing on March 24, 2017 on VH1, with cast members being announced on February 2, 2017. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. This season features fourteen contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. The ninth season aired on VH1, with encore presentations continuing to air on Logo. This season featured the return of Cynthia Lee Fontaine, who previously participated in the season 8. Season 9 featured a top four in the finale episode, as opposed to the top three, which was previously established in season 4. The winner of season 9 was Sasha Velour, with Valentina winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 10 began airing on March 22, 2018. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. This season features thirteen new contestants, and one returning contestant, competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. Eureka O'Hara, who was removed from the ninth season due to an injury, returned to the show after she accepted an open invitation. Season 10 premiered alongside the televised return of Untucked. The tenth season featured a top four following the previous season's finale format. The winner of season 10 was Aquaria, with Monét X Change winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 11 began airing February 28, 2019. This season had fifteen contestants, whereas previous seasons typically had fourteen contestants. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. This season features fourteen new contestants, and one returning contestant, competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. This season saw the return of Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, who was the first contestant eliminated in season 10. Season 11 again featured a top four in the finale. As with season 10, each week's episode was followed by an episode of the televised return of RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked. The winner of season 11 was Yvie Oddly, with Nina West winning Miss Congeniality.
On January 22, 2019, casting for Season 12 (2020) was announced via YouTube and Twitter and was closed on March 1, 2019. On August 19, 2019, it was announced that the series had been renewed for a twelfth season. The season began airing on February 28, 2020. This is the first and only season to have the reunion and finale recorded virtually from the contestants' homes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The winner of season 12 was Jaida Essence Hall, with Heidi N Closet winning Miss Congeniality.
On December 2, 2019, casting for Season 13 (2021) was announced via YouTube and Twitter. The casting call closed on January 24, 2020. On August 20, 2020, it was announced the thirteenth season had been ordered by VH1. It began airing on January 1, 2021. The winner of season 13 was Symone, with Kandy Muse as runner-up, and LaLa Ri as Miss Congeniality.
Casting for Season 14 began on November 23, 2020. In August 2021, it was announced the fourteenth season had been ordered by VH1. The cast for the fourteenth season was revealed through VH1 on December 2, 2021. The season will start airing on January 7, 2022.
Casting for season 15 began on November 4, 2021, and will close January 7, 2022.
Contestants
More than 150 contestants have competed on the U.S. version of the show.
Specials
RuPaul's Drag Race: Green Screen Christmas (2015): On December 13, 2015, Logo aired a seasonal themed episode of Drag Race. The non-competitive special was released in conjunction with RuPaul's holiday album Slay Belles and featured music videos for songs from the album. The cast included RuPaul, Michelle Visage, Siedah Garrett, and Todrick Hall, and former contestants Alyssa Edwards, Laganja Estranja, Latrice Royale, Raja, and Shangela.
RuPaul's Drag Race Holi-slay Spectacular (2018): On November 1, 2018, VH1 announced a seasonal themed special episode of Drag Race scheduled to air on December 7, 2018. The special saw eight former contestants compete for the title of "America's first Drag Race Christmas Queen". Competitors included Eureka O'Hara, Jasmine Masters, Kim Chi, Latrice Royale, Mayhem Miller, Shangela, Sonique, and Trixie Mattel.
RuPaul's Secret Celebrity Drag Race (2020): On April 10, 2020, VH1 announced a celebrity edition of Drag Race scheduled to air for four weeks beginning on April 24, 2020. The series featured a trio of celebrities receiving makeovers from former contestants. After receiving help from "Queen Supremes" Alyssa Edwards, Asia O'Hara, Bob the Drag Queen, Kim Chi, Monét X Change, Monique Heart, Nina West, Trinity the Tuck, Trixie Mattel and Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, the celebrities competed in fan-favorite challenges and on the runway to be named "America's Next Celebrity Drag Race Superstar" and prize money for choice charities.
RuPaul's Drag Race: Vegas Revue (2020): On July 22, 2020, it was announced that a docu-series would premiere on August 21, 2020.
RuPaul's Drag Race: Corona Can't Keep a Good Queen Down (2021): On February 26, 2021, the one hour special aired on VH1 in between episodes 8 and 9 of Season 13 and detailed the contestants' journeys with filming the season amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Spin-offs
RuPaul's Drag U (2010–2012): In each episode, three women are paired with former Drag Race contestants ("Drag Professors"), who give them drag makeovers and help them to access their "inner divas".
RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars (2012–present): Past contestants return and compete for a spot in the Drag Race Hall of Fame. The show's format is similar to that of RuPaul's Drag Race, with challenges and a panel of judges.
Dancing Queen (2018): In April 2013, RuPaul confirmed that he planned to executive-produce a spin-off of Drag Race that stars season five and All Stars season two contestant Alyssa Edwards. Alyssa Edwards has confirmed that the spin-off's title is Beyond Belief (later retitled as Dancing Queen), and that his dance company in Mesquite, Texas is the setting. The series aired on Netflix on October 5, 2018.
Feature film: In August 2015, RuPaul revealed that a movie featuring all of the contestants was in the works. "We've got a director for it, we've got a light script, but it just needs a little more retooling and scheduling."
RuPaul's Drag Race: The Mobile Game is an upcoming mobile app by World of Wonder and Leaf Mobile's subsidiary East Side Games.
International versions
The Switch Drag Race (2015–2018): This licensed glocalization of Drag Race premiered in October 2015 on Chilean television channel Mega. As in Drag Race, queens compete in "mini-challenges" and a main challenge and are evaluated by a panel of judges. Similar to Drag Race, The Switch requires contestants to lip-sync, dance, and perform impersonations.
Drag Race Thailand (2018–present): In October 2017, Kantana Group acquired the rights to produce its own version of Drag Race. Season 1 of Drag Race Thailand was met with successful ratings on Thai television. It was later announced that the first season will premiere in the U.S. in May 2018. The first season also made stirs in the Asian LGBT community, the most prominent of which was a campaign to establish versions of Drag Race in the Philippines and Taiwan as well, two of the most LGBT-accepting nations in Asia.
RuPaul's Drag Race UK (2019–present): On December 5, 2018, it was announced that the British version of RuPaul's Drag Race would be an eight-part series filmed in London based on local drag queens and would air on BBC Three in 2019. Visage confirmed via social media that she would appear as a judge.
Canada's Drag Race (2020–present): On June 27, 2019, OutTV and Bell Media's streaming service Crave announced that they had co-commissioned a Canadian version of Drag Race. Rights to the series, as well as the U.S. and British versions, will be shared by OutTV and Crave. Additionally, season 11 runner-up Brooke Lynn Hytes was confirmed as one of the judges, becoming the first Drag Race contestant to serve as a permanent judge. The show premiered on July 2, 2020.
Drag Race Holland (2020–present): A Dutch version of Drag Race was announced on July 26, 2020. The series debuted on Videoland in The Netherlands, and aired on WOW Presents Plus internationally. The show is hosted by Fred van Leer and premiered .
RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under (2021–present): On August 26, 2019, an Oceanic version was announced to be in production and said to air in 2020, but was likely delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Filming began in Auckland, New Zealand in January 2021. The series premiered on TVNZ 2 and TVNZ OnDemand in New Zealand, Stan in Australia, and on WOW Presents Plus internationally on 1 May 2021.
Drag Race España (2021–present): On November 16, 2020, Atresmedia announced that they would produce a Spanish version of Drag Race together with Buendía Estudios after reaching an agreement with Passion Distribution in favour of World of Wonder. The series debuted on Atresmedia's pay streaming service ATRESplayer Premium on 30 May 2021, and aired on WOW Presents Plus internationally. It is hosted by Supremme de Luxe.
Drag Race Italia (2021–present): An Italian version of Drag Race was announced on June 30, 2021. The series will debut in November 2021 on Discovery+.
RuPaul's Drag Race: UK Versus the World (2022): On December 21, 2021, World of Wonder announced that a spin-off series of RuPaul's Drag Race UK would premiere in February 2022. Filmed in the United Kingdom, The series will feature international queens who have competed in the Drag Race franchise around the world.
Drag Race Philippines (2022–present): On August 17, 2021, a Filipino version of Drag Race was announced.
Drag Race France (2022–present): On November 17, 2021, a French version of Drag Race was announced.
Home media
Full seasons of shows in the Drag Race franchise are available to stream on WOW Presents Plus in over 200 territories. The show is also currently available on the following streaming platforms:
United States — Hulu (seasons 3–8; All Stars 1–4); Paramount Plus (seasons 1–12, All Stars 1–6, Untucked seasons 9–11, All Stars Untucked seasons 5–6), WOW Presents Plus (Untucked seasons 7–8, Thailand season 2, and all other international series)
Canada — Netflix (seasons 1–12, All Stars 4, Untucked seasons 11 and 12), Crave (all seasons, All Stars 1–6, UK series 1–3, Canada season 1 and 2, Down Under season 1), WOW Presents Plus (seasons 1–10, Untucked seasons 1–10, All Stars 1–4)
UK & Ireland — Netflix (all seasons, Untucked seasons 11–12, All Stars 4 & 5, Celebrity season 1), BBC iPlayer (UK series 1 and 2, Canada season 1, Down Under season 1), WOW Presents Plus (seasons 1–10, Untucked seasons 1–10, all episodes of All Stars and Holland)
Australia — Stan (all seasons of original, All Stars, Untucked, UK, Canada, Down Under and Thailand Season 2), WOW Presents Plus (UK series 1, Canada season 1)
Awards and nominations
RuPaul's Drag Race has been nominated for thirty-nine Emmy Awards, and won nineteen. It has also been nominated for nine Reality Television Awards, winning three, and nominated for six NewNowNext Awards, winning three.
Critical reception
Thrillist called Drag Race "the closest gay culture gets to a sports league." In 2019, the TV series was ranked 93rd on The Guardians list of the 100 best TV shows of the 21st century.
Controversy
In March 2014, Drag Race sparked controversy over the use of the term "shemale" in the season 6 mini challenge "Female or She-male?". Logo has since removed the segment from all platforms and addressed the allegations of transphobia by removing the "You've got she-mail" intro from new episodes of the series. This was replaced with, "She done already done had herses!" RuPaul additionally came under fire for comments made in an interview with The Guardian, in which he stated he would "probably not" allow a transgender contestant to compete. He compared transgender drag performers to doping athletes on his Twitter, and has since apologized. Sasha Velour (season 9) disagreed, tweeting "My drag was born in a community full of trans women, trans men, and gender non-conforming folks doing drag. That's the real world of drag, like it or not. I thinks it's fabulous and I will fight my entire life to protect and uplift it".
Relationship with trans community
For the first twelve seasons, RuPaul would say, "Gentlemen, start your engines, and may the best woman win," before the contestants' runway looks for the episode were shown. When season 13 introduced the show's first ever transgender male contestant, Gottmik, RuPaul's catchphrase was changed in order to promote inclusivity: "Racers, start your engines, and may the best drag queen win." In season 6 of All Stars, an altered version of the shows opening theme was introduced with the new tag line.
Performers of any sexual orientation and gender identity are eligible to audition, although most contestants to date have been gay, cisgender men. Transgender competitors have become more common as seasons have progressed; Sonique, a season two contestant, became the first openly trans contestant when she came out as a woman during the reunion special. Sonique later won All Stars 6, becoming the first trans woman to win an English-language version of the show and the second overall. Monica Beverly Hillz (season 5) became the first contestant to come out as a trans woman during the competition. Peppermint (season 9) is the first contestant who was out as a trans woman prior to the airing of her season. Other trans contestants came out as women after their elimination, including Carmen Carrera, Kenya Michaels, Stacy Layne Matthews, Jiggly Caliente, Gia Gunn, Laganja Estranja and Gigi Goode. Additionally, Gottmik (season 13) was the first AFAB and currently the only openly transgender male contestant in the franchise's history.
Season 14 is the first regular season to feature four transgender women in the cast—Kerri Colby, Kornbread "The Snack" Jeté, Bosco and Jasmine Kennedie. While Colby was cast after transitioning, Kornbread, Bosco and Jasmine came out after the show's taping.
Broadcast
Australia: In Australia, lifestyle channel LifeStyle YOU regularly shows and re-screens seasons 1–7, including Untucked. In addition, free-to-air channel SBS2 began screening the first season on August 31, 2013. On March 13, 2017, it was announced that on-demand service Stan would fast-track season 9 (including Untucked). As of 2020, Stan streams all seasons since Season 1, as well as Untucked, All Stars, All Stars Untucked, Canada's Drag Race, Secret Celebrity, Drag Race UK and Season 2 of Drag Race Thailand.
Canada: The series airs on OutTV in Canada at the same time as the US airing. Unlike Logo, OutTV continues to broadcast Untucked immediately after each Drag Race episode. Beginning with season 12, OutTV has shared its first-run rights to the main series (but not Untucked) with the more widely subscribed Crave streaming service, with episodes available on Crave shortly after they premiere on OutTV, in connection with Crave and OutTV's co-production of Canada's Drag Race. Past seasons are also available on Netflix in Canada, with each season released there shortly before the next season begins.
Ireland: In Ireland, season 2 to season 8 of the programme were available on Netflix; as of the release of Season 10, only seasons 8 & 9 are available. Netflix has started airing season 10 episodes one day after they air in the USA. All seasons of the show have been made available on Netflix since October 2018
Indonesia: In Indonesia, season 1 to season 13 of the programme were available on Netflix, alongside the Christmas spectacular; As of the release of All Stars, only season 4 and 5 is available. Netflix also aired Untucked season 10 episodes one day after they air in the USA.
UK: E4 aired season 1 in 2009, followed by season 2 in 2010. Since its success on Netflix in the UK, TruTV acquired the broadcast rights for all eight seasons of the show including Untucked episodes. In June 2015, TruTV started airing two episodes of the show a week, starting with season 4, followed by All Stars, then season 5. As of May 2018, the series airs on VH1 UK Monday–Thursday at 11pm, beginning with All Stars season 3.Israel''': Yes has broadcast all seasons and Untucked episodes. Seasons 1–12, All Stars seasons 4–5 and Untucked'' seasons 11–12 are also available on Netflix.
See also
List of reality television programs with LGBT cast members
List of Rusicals
LGBT culture in New York City
Paris Is Burning (film)
References
External links
Edgar, E. (2011). "Xtravaganza!": Drag Representation and Articulation in "RuPaul's Drag Race". Studies in Popular Culture,34(1), 133–146. Retrieved from "Xtravaganza!": Drag Representation and Articulation in "RuPaul's Drag Race"
2009 American television series debuts
2000s American reality television series
2000s LGBT-related reality television series
2010s American reality television series
2010s LGBT-related reality television series
2020s American reality television series
2020s LGBT-related reality television series
American LGBT-related reality television series
English-language television shows
Logo TV original programming
Primetime Emmy Award-winning television series
Television series by World of Wonder (company)
Transgender-related television shows
VH1 original programming
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality Program winners
2000s American LGBT-related television series
2010s American LGBT-related television series
2020s American LGBT-related television series | false | [
"Katrina Carlson is an American singer-songwriter. She currently resides in Santa Monica, California with her husband, Kenneth A. Carlson, and her three children, Mackenzie, Alexander and Ruby Rose.\n\nEarly life\nCarlson was born and grew up in Paradise Valley, Arizona, the youngest of 11 children. By the age of 12, she was playing both piano and guitar, and composing songs. Carlson attended college at Brown University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with Honors in International Relations, Foreign Policy and Diplomacy with a focus in Nuclear Arms Control. After graduating from college, Carlson moved to New York City and was admitted to the Manhattan School of Music and Brooklyn College’s opera program.\n\nCareer\n\nEarly years\nDuring her time in New York, she appeared in an Off-Broadway Cole Porter review, You Never Know. She also lived in Washington, D.C. where she performed in many plays and musicals at various theaters.\n\nIn 1993, Carlson moved to Santa Monica, California, where she continued to perform in local and regional theater. Carlson also garnered appearances in films and television shows including: In the Line of Fire, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as a Bajoran Officer and Special Delivery. Carlson placed two of her songs, \"I Never Believed\" and \"Bring it On\" in Special Deliverys soundtrack.\n\nApples For Eve\nIn 1999, Carlson started her own record label, Kataphonic Records. Carlson released her debut record, Apples For Eve, in September 2001. The album was produced by Emmy Award-winning producer Ron Cohen. Three songs from Apples for Eve, \"I Know You By Heart\", \"Friday Night\" and \"Winning’s Everything\", were featured in the documentary feature film Go Tigers!. \"Winning’s Everything\" was used on NBC's Lost and the title track \"Apples For Eve\" was featured on the daytime drama Passions. Carlson's song \"Friday Night\" aired as the theme song for ABC's TGIF Friday Night line up in the fall/winter of 2003–2004.\n\nCarlson was a finalist in the Rolling Stone/Jim Beam emerging Artist series in 2002, finishing second.\n\nUntucked\nCarlson's second album, Untucked, was released in May 2003. David Darling, best known as a member of the Boxing Gandhis and for his work with Meredith Brooks and Brian Setzer, produced the album. Special guests on the disc included Goo Goo Doll drummer Mike Malinin, Oingo Boingo bassist John Avila, hit singer-songwriter Benny Mardones and drummer Josh Freese (Nine Inch Nails, A Perfect Circle, Guns N' Roses).\n\nFour singles from the Untucked CD spent a combined 18 months in the Top 30 of the Billboard and R&R Adult Contemporary charts: \"Suddenly Beautiful\", \"Drive\", \"Count On Me\", and \"I Know You By Heart\". Carlson’s success on the Billboard charts with these singles put Kataphonic Records in the Top #20 in Billboard's 2005 Adult Pop Power Players special issue (July 23, 2005) with Gregg Bell at the helm as general manager of the label. Other record labels on the Adult Pop Power Players list included Columbia, Epic, Universal, Island Def Jam, Warner Bros, Atlantic, Capitol, Interscope, and Lava.\n\nThe first single from Untucked was the pop ballad \"I Know You By Heart\", which featured Benny Mardones, best known for his 1980's hit single \"Into The Night\". Later in 2006, Carlson would perform the duet \"This Time\" with Mardones' for his 2006 album Let's Hear It for Love. Nationally syndicated radio host Delilah was a big fan of the track and played it on her show, and Carlson also appeared on the Delilah show on several occasions. \"Drive\", a cover of the Cars' 1984 hit, was a bonus track on the Untucked CD and was recorded immediately following the album sessions. A mash up of Carlson's \"Drive\" and the original \"Drive\", featuring the Cars' Benjamin Orr, spent 3 weeks at No. 1 on Los Angeles radio station KBIG FM and also hit the Top 5 at sister station KOST FM. In their review of the \"Suddenly Beautiful\" single, Billboard magazine declared the song \"beautiful, indeed\".\n\nCarlson had numerous songs from the Untucked album included on television shows. Dawson's Creek featured \"I Know You By Heart\" and \"Blue Steak Cadillac\", and \"Dive\" appeared on the Bravo reality show Blowout 3. In 2008, \"Go-To Girl\" and \"Getaway Car\" were also featured on the teen drama South Of Nowhere.\n\nCarlson won two awards at the 2003 Los Angeles Music Awards. Untucked was selected as \"Best Independent Pop Album\", and \"Dive\" was selected as \"Indie Single of the Year\".\n\nIn 2005, \"Suddenly Beautiful\" was featured on the Music Is Hope compilation. The record was issued on Robby Takac's (Goo Goo Dolls) Good Charamel records and also included tracks by Goo Goo Dolls and Ani DiFranco.\n\nAlso in 2005, Carlson released the original song \"You Are Christmas\", produced by Tal Herzberg. Musicians on the track include Tim Pierce and John Beasley. In December 2005, the television show Extra! aired the song as well as an interview with Carlson.\n\nIn 2008, the track \"Mother\" was included on Stork Tunes: Songs for a Happy Birth Day, a compilation released by the March of Dimes foundation. Billy Joel, Kenny Loggins, Norah Jones, The Dixie Chicks and Celine Dion also appeared on the disc.\n\nHere and Now\nHere and Now, was released August 2007. Ron Aniello produced the record and played guitar, bass and keyboards. Matt Chamberlain played drums on the record.\n\nHere and Now'''s first single was an updated take on the Howard Jones classic \"No One Is to Blame\", with a guest appearance by Jones himself on vocals and piano. The single reached No. 20 on the Billboard chart and hit No. 1 on the ACQB chart, making it Carlson's first No. 1 song. Billboard Magazine's review of the track described the song as \"utterly charming\".\n\nCarlson's audience grew significantly in 2008 when \"Feel For Me\" was featured in two episodes of the N Network's 3rd season of the teen drama South of Nowhere. \"Feel For Me\" was eventually released as the third single from Here and Now.Here and Nows lead-off track, \"Be The One\", won first place in the Pop category at Indie International Songwriting Contest and \"Be The One\" music video won first place at the Indie Gathering. In September 2007, Extra! premiered the \"Be The One\" video on their show.\n\nIn 2008, Carlson played a show at the Briar Rose Winery in Temecula with special guest host Kate Linder of the daytime drama The Young and the Restless. Her performance inspired Briar Rose winery to name their 2007 Estate Zinfandel \"Katrina\".\n\nAlso in 2008, Carlson was selected to attend hit country songwriter Jeffrey Steele's Songwriting Bootcamp. Hundreds of people applied from the US and beyond, and only twelve people were selected. The bootcamp is a three-day, three night songwriting event where songwriters get one-on-one coaching and critiquing from Jeffrey Steele.\n\nIn her career, Carlson has performed with Lindsey Buckingham, Howard Jones, Chicago, Kenny Loggins, Rick Springfield, Eddie Money, Julie Roberts, Joan Jett, Tal Bachman, Richard Marx, and Kimberly Locke amongst others.\n\nKatrina Carlson is endorsed by Fender Guitars, Taylor Guitars, Martin Guitars and Dean Markley Strings.\n\nDiscography\nAlbums\n Apples for Eve (2001)\n Untucked (2003)\n Drive (2003)\n You Are Christmas (2005)\n Here and Now (2007)\n Rock Your Beautiful (2009)\n\nCompilation Appearances\n 4th Annual NSAI Song Contest (2004) – New Shoes\n Women at Work (2005) – Underground\n Music Is Hope (2005) – Suddenly Beautiful\n Stork Tunes (2008) – Mother\n Los Angeles Women in Music – Best of the Best Soiree (2007–2008) – Here and Now\n Stomp Out Cancer (2008)'' – Count On Me\n\nAwards\n 2002 Finalist in the Rolling Stone/Jim Beam emerging Artist series\n 2003 Untucked won \"Best Independent Pop Album\" at the Los Angeles Music Awards\n 2003 \"Dive\" won \"Indie Single of the Year\" at the Los Angeles Music Awards\n 2004 \"New Shoes\" was a Runner-up in the 4th Annual CMT song Contest\n 2006 Finalist in the Billboard Songwriting Contest\n 2007 Finalist in the Billboard Songwriting Contest\n 2008 Finalist in the Billboard Songwriting Contest\n 2008 \"Be The One\" music video won 1st place in The Indie Gathering contest\n 2008 \"Be The One\" won 1st place in the Pop Category at the Indie International Songwriting Contest\n\nRadio charts\nBillboard/R&R AC (Nielsen BDS-based)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n\nAmerican women guitarists\nAmerican women singer-songwriters\nPeople from Paradise Valley, Arizona\nLiving people\nYear of birth missing (living people)\n21st-century American women\nSinger-songwriters from Arizona",
"Damon Fox is a Los Angeles multi-instrumentalist/songwriter/producer. He is primarily recognized as the lead singer, keyboardist of the psychedelic prog metal outfit Bigelf. He can be heard on several platinum albums, including Alicia Keys’ As I Am and Christina Aguilera's Stripped and Back To Basics. Damon’s keyboards also appear on releases from Matt Sorum (Guns & Roses), Cheap Trick, and Courtney Love. Since 2016, he is a touring musician with the British rock band The Cult, and continues to tour worldwide with Bigelf.\nFox made a guest appearance on season six of RuPaul’s Drag Race for one challenge. The episode’s challenge was for the competing queens to makeover straight men as brides. The brides appeared on the behind the scenes show ‘Untucked’ with their spouses dresses as grooms. Fox’s makeover was performed by drag fan favorite Darienne Lake.\n\nDiscography\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n Bigelf Official Website\n The Cult Official Website\n\nAmerican rock guitarists\nAmerican rock keyboardists\nLiving people\n21st-century American keyboardists \nYear of birth missing (living people)"
] |
[
"RuPaul's Drag Race",
"Untucked",
"What is Untucked?",
"In this companion series, RuPaul presents a documentary of contestants' conversation in the green room, replays pertinent moments from Drag Race,"
] | C_2bdaab02168043d394ffbc0451581d47_0 | When did it air? | 2 | When did Untucked air? | RuPaul's Drag Race | The first season of Drag Race was accompanied by a seven-episode web series, titled Under the Hood of RuPaul's Drag Race. LOGOonline published a webisode of Under the Hood after each episode of Drag Race. In this companion series, RuPaul presents a documentary of contestants' conversation in the green room, replays pertinent moments from Drag Race, and airs deleted footage. Starting with the second season of Drag Race in 2010, Logo reformatted Under the Hood, increased its production budget, moved it from the web to television, and re-titled it to RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked. Logo broadcast an episode of Untucked after each episode of Drag Race. Untucked replaces the basic green room of Under the Hood with two decorated rooms that were until season 6 sponsored by Absolut Vodka and Interior Illusions, Inc.: the Interior Illusions Lounge and the Gold Bar. FormDecor sponsored the Lounge for season 6. These two backstage areas allow for separated group conversation. At the start of the seventh season of the Drag Race, Untucked reverted to a webseries, as part of the World of Wonder YouTube page. Instead of two decorated rooms, Untucked was moved back to the one room, an empty backstage space that connects to the main stage and work room, with couches for contestants to chat on. The newly renovated version also follows contestants following their elimination from the show, documenting them packing their belongings and leaving the set. The webseries format continued for the eighth and ninth season. For the show's tenth season, Untucked returned to television. CANNOTANSWER | LOGOonline published a webisode of Under the Hood after each episode of Drag Race. | RuPaul's Drag Race is an American reality competition television series, the first in the Drag Race franchise, produced by World of Wonder for Logo TV, WOW Presents Plus, and, beginning with the ninth season, VH1. The show documents RuPaul in the search for "America's next drag superstar." RuPaul plays the role of host, mentor, and head judge for this series, as contestants are given different challenges each week. RuPaul's Drag Race employs a panel of judges, including RuPaul, Michelle Visage, an alternating third main judge of either Carson Kressley or Ross Matthews, and a host of other guest judges, who critique contestants' progress throughout the competition. The title of the show is a play on drag queen and drag racing, and the title sequence and song "Drag Race" both have a drag-racing theme. To date, there have been thirteen winners of the show: BeBe Zahara Benet, Tyra Sanchez, Raja, Sharon Needles, Jinkx Monsoon, Bianca Del Rio, Violet Chachki, Bob the Drag Queen, Sasha Velour, Aquaria, Yvie Oddly, Jaida Essence Hall and Symone.
RuPaul's Drag Race has spanned thirteen seasons and inspired the spin-off shows RuPaul's Drag U, RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars, RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked, RuPaul's Secret Celebrity Drag Race, RuPaul's Drag Race UK, and RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under. The show has become the highest-rated television program on Logo TV, and airs internationally, including in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and Israel. The show earned RuPaul six consecutive Emmys (2016 to 2021) for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program. The show itself has been awarded as the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program 4 consecutive times (2018 to 2021), and the Outstanding Reality Program award at the 21st GLAAD Media Awards. It has been nominated for four Critics' Choice Television Award including Best Reality Series – Competition and Best Reality Show Host for RuPaul, and was nominated for a Creative Arts Emmy Award for Outstanding Make-up for a Multi-Camera Series or Special (Non-Prosthetic). Later in 2018, the show became the first show to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program in the same year, a feat it has since repeated three times.
Format
Prospective Drag Race contestants submit video auditions to the show's production company, World of Wonder. RuPaul, the host and head judge, views each tape and selects the season's competitors. Once the chosen pool of performers is on set, they film a series of episodes, each one typically concluding with the removal of one contestant from the competition. Rarely, the outcome of an episode has been a double elimination, no elimination, contestant disqualification or removal of a contestant on medical grounds. Each episode features a so-called maxi challenge that tests competitors' skills in a variety of areas of drag performance. Some episodes also feature a mini challenge, the prize of which is often an advantage or benefit in the upcoming maxi challenge. Following the maxi challenge, contestants present themed looks in a runway walk. RuPaul and a panel of judges then critique each contestant's performance, deliberate amongst themselves, and announce the week's winner and bottom two competitors. The bottom two queens compete in a so-called Lip Sync for Your Life; the winner of the lip sync remains in the competition, and the loser is eliminated. Generally, the contestant that the judges feel has displayed the most "charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent" (C.U.N.T.) is the one who advances. The final three, or four depending on what RuPaul chooses, contestants remaining compete in a special finale episode wherein the season's winner is crowned. In early seasons, the finale was pre-recorded in the studio with no audience. More recently, the finale has taken the form of a lip sync tournament before a live audience. The season 12 finale was filmed remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The whole season is typically filmed in four weeks.
Mini and maxi challenges
Mini challenges are quick, small assignments that RuPaul announces at the beginning of an episode. One of the most popular mini challenges, which recurs from season to season, is the reading challenge. In it, contestants satirically criticize one another in a process called "reading", which was popularized by the film Paris Is Burning. Maxi challenges vary in the skill they test; some are group challenges that involve singing and acting, while others feature comedy, a talent of choice, dancing, or makeovers. The winner receives a material or monetary prize. Until the show's sixth season, the winner sometimes also received immunity against elimination the following week. Drag Races most popular seasonal maxi challenge is Snatch Game, a spoof on Match Game wherein contestants impersonate celebrities or famous fictional personas.
Judging
RuPaul has been the series' head judge since its premiere. For the first two seasons, Merle Ginsberg joined him on the panel; she was replaced in season 3 by longtime friend of RuPaul and co-host of The RuPaul Show Michelle Visage. Santino Rice served as a judge from season 1 through season 6. From season 7 onward, Ross Mathews and Carson Kressley have occupied Rice's former seat. New York City makeup artist Billy B held a regular judging spot in the third and fourth seasons when Rice was absent. Most weeks, one or two celebrity guest judges join the panel.
Companion series
The first season of Drag Race was accompanied by a seven-episode web series titled Under the Hood of RuPaul's Drag Race, which Logo TV made available for streaming on its website. The series featured behind-the-scenes and deleted footage from the main show's tapes. From season 2 onward, a companion show called RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked, which has the same premise, has aired instead. Untucked largely focuses on conversations and drama that occur between contestants backstage while the judges deliberate on each episode's results. In most seasons, it has aired on TV following the main show, but it was available only online for season 7 through season 9. A number of smaller web series also accompany each episode of Drag Race. Whatcha Packin, which began at the start of the sixth season, features Michelle Visage interviewing the most recently eliminated queen about their run on the show and showcasing runway outfits they had brought but did not have the opportunity to wear. In 2014, the web-series Fashion Photo Ruview aired for the first time, co-hosted by Raja Gemini and Raven who evaluate the runway looks of the main show. Since season 8, a five- to fifteen-minute aftershow called The Pit Stop has also been produced. It involves a host and guest, typically past competitors of Drag Race, discussing the recently aired episode. Each season's host (or hosts) are different; to date, these have included the YouTuber Kingsley, Raja Gemini, Bob the Drag Queen, Alaska Thunderfuck, Trixie Mattel, Manila Luzon, and Monét X Change.
Series overview
Seasons 1–8 (2009–2016): Logo TV
Season 1 premiered in the U.S. on February 2, 2009, on Logo TV. Nine contestants competed to become "America's Next Drag Superstar". The winner won a lifetime supply of MAC Cosmetics, was featured on the cover of Paper and in an LA Eyeworks campaign, joined the Absolut Pride tour, and won a cash prize of $20,000. One of the nine, Nina Flowers, was determined by an audience vote via the show's official website. The winner of season 1 was BeBe Zahara Benet, with Nina Flowers winning Miss Congeniality. In late 2013, Logo re-aired the season as RuPaul's Drag Race: The Lost Season Ru-Vealed, featuring commentary from RuPaul.
For season 2 (2010), 12 contestants competed for a lifetime supply of NYX Cosmetics and be the face of nyxcosmetics.com, an exclusive one year public relations contract with LGBT firm Project Publicity, be featured in an LA Eyeworks campaign, join the Logo Drag Race Tour, and a cash prize of $25,000. A new tradition of writing a farewell message in lipstick on the workstation mirror was started by the first eliminated queen, Shangela. Each week's episode is followed by a behind-the-scenes show, RuPaul's Drag Race Untucked. The winner of season 2 was Tyra Sanchez, with Pandora Boxx winning Miss Congeniality. On December 6, 2011, Amazon.com released season 2 on DVD via the CreateSpace program.
Season 3 (2011) had Michelle Visage replacing Merle Ginsberg on the judging panel as well as Billy Brasfield (commonly known as Billy B), Mike Ruiz, and Jeffrey Moran (courtesy of Absolut Vodka) filling in for Santino Rice's absence during several episodes. Due to Billy B's continued appearances, he and Rice are considered to have been alternate judges for the same seat on judges panel. Other changes made included the introduction of a wildcard contestant from the past season, Shangela; an episode with no elimination; and a contestant, Carmen Carrera, being brought back into the competition after having been eliminated a few episodes prior. A new pit crew was also introduced consisting of Jason Carter and Shawn Morales. As with the previous season, each week's episode was followed by a behind-the-scenes show, RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked. The winner of the season 3 was Raja, with Yara Sofia winning Miss Congeniality. On December 6, 2011, Amazon.com released this season on DVD via their CreateSpace program.
Season 4 began airing on January 30, 2012, with cast members announced November 13, 2011. The winner headlined Logo's Drag Race Tour featuring Absolut Vodka, won a one-of-a-kind trip, a lifetime supply of NYX Cosmetics, a cash prize of $100,000, and the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar." Like the previous season, Rice and Billy B (Billy Brasfield), shared the same seat at the judges table alternatively, with Brasfield filling in for Rice when needed. The winner of season 4 was Sharon Needles, with Latrice Royale winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 5 began airing on January 28, 2013, with a 90-minute premiere episode. Fourteen contestants competed for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar" along with a lifetime supply of Colorevolution Cosmetics, a one-of-a-kind trip courtesy of AlandChuck.travel, a headlining spot on Logo's Drag Race Tour featuring Absolut Vodka and a cash prize of $100,000. Rice and Visage were back as judges on the panel. The winner of season 5 was Jinkx Monsoon, with Ivy Winters winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 6 began airing February 24, 2014. Like season 5, season 6 saw 14 contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar". For the first time in the show's history, the season premiere was split into two episodes; the fourteen queens are split into two groups and the seven queens in each group compete against one another before being united as one group in the third episode. Rice and Visage returned as judges at the panel. Two new pit crew members, Miles Moody and Simon Sherry-Wood, joined Carter and Morales. The winner won a prize package that included a supply from Colorevolution Cosmetics and a cash prize of $100,000. The winner of season 6 was Bianca Del Rio, with BenDeLaCreme winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 7 began airing on March 2, 2015. Returning judges included RuPaul and Visage, while the space previously occupied by Rice was filled by new additions Ross Mathews and Carson Kressley. Mathews and Kressley were both present for the season premiere and then took turns sharing judging responsibilities. Morales and Simon Sherry-Wood did not appear this season and were replaced by Bryce Eilenberg. Like the previous two seasons, this one featured fourteen contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. The season premiere debuted with a live and same-day viewership of 348,000, a 20 percent increase from the previous season. On March 20, 2015, it was announced that Logo had given the series an early renewal for an eighth season. The winner of season 7 was Violet Chachki, with Katya winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 8 on began airing on March 7, 2016, with cast members announced during the NewNowNext Honors on February 1, 2016. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. The first episode celebrated the 100th taping of the show, and the 100th drag queen to compete. Similar to season 2, this season had twelve contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. The winner of season 8 was Bob the Drag Queen, with Cynthia Lee Fontaine winning Miss Congeniality.
Seasons 9–14 (2017–present): VH1
Season 9 began airing on March 24, 2017 on VH1, with cast members being announced on February 2, 2017. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. This season features fourteen contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. The ninth season aired on VH1, with encore presentations continuing to air on Logo. This season featured the return of Cynthia Lee Fontaine, who previously participated in the season 8. Season 9 featured a top four in the finale episode, as opposed to the top three, which was previously established in season 4. The winner of season 9 was Sasha Velour, with Valentina winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 10 began airing on March 22, 2018. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. This season features thirteen new contestants, and one returning contestant, competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. Eureka O'Hara, who was removed from the ninth season due to an injury, returned to the show after she accepted an open invitation. Season 10 premiered alongside the televised return of Untucked. The tenth season featured a top four following the previous season's finale format. The winner of season 10 was Aquaria, with Monét X Change winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 11 began airing February 28, 2019. This season had fifteen contestants, whereas previous seasons typically had fourteen contestants. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. This season features fourteen new contestants, and one returning contestant, competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. This season saw the return of Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, who was the first contestant eliminated in season 10. Season 11 again featured a top four in the finale. As with season 10, each week's episode was followed by an episode of the televised return of RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked. The winner of season 11 was Yvie Oddly, with Nina West winning Miss Congeniality.
On January 22, 2019, casting for Season 12 (2020) was announced via YouTube and Twitter and was closed on March 1, 2019. On August 19, 2019, it was announced that the series had been renewed for a twelfth season. The season began airing on February 28, 2020. This is the first and only season to have the reunion and finale recorded virtually from the contestants' homes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The winner of season 12 was Jaida Essence Hall, with Heidi N Closet winning Miss Congeniality.
On December 2, 2019, casting for Season 13 (2021) was announced via YouTube and Twitter. The casting call closed on January 24, 2020. On August 20, 2020, it was announced the thirteenth season had been ordered by VH1. It began airing on January 1, 2021. The winner of season 13 was Symone, with Kandy Muse as runner-up, and LaLa Ri as Miss Congeniality.
Casting for Season 14 began on November 23, 2020. In August 2021, it was announced the fourteenth season had been ordered by VH1. The cast for the fourteenth season was revealed through VH1 on December 2, 2021. The season will start airing on January 7, 2022.
Casting for season 15 began on November 4, 2021, and will close January 7, 2022.
Contestants
More than 150 contestants have competed on the U.S. version of the show.
Specials
RuPaul's Drag Race: Green Screen Christmas (2015): On December 13, 2015, Logo aired a seasonal themed episode of Drag Race. The non-competitive special was released in conjunction with RuPaul's holiday album Slay Belles and featured music videos for songs from the album. The cast included RuPaul, Michelle Visage, Siedah Garrett, and Todrick Hall, and former contestants Alyssa Edwards, Laganja Estranja, Latrice Royale, Raja, and Shangela.
RuPaul's Drag Race Holi-slay Spectacular (2018): On November 1, 2018, VH1 announced a seasonal themed special episode of Drag Race scheduled to air on December 7, 2018. The special saw eight former contestants compete for the title of "America's first Drag Race Christmas Queen". Competitors included Eureka O'Hara, Jasmine Masters, Kim Chi, Latrice Royale, Mayhem Miller, Shangela, Sonique, and Trixie Mattel.
RuPaul's Secret Celebrity Drag Race (2020): On April 10, 2020, VH1 announced a celebrity edition of Drag Race scheduled to air for four weeks beginning on April 24, 2020. The series featured a trio of celebrities receiving makeovers from former contestants. After receiving help from "Queen Supremes" Alyssa Edwards, Asia O'Hara, Bob the Drag Queen, Kim Chi, Monét X Change, Monique Heart, Nina West, Trinity the Tuck, Trixie Mattel and Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, the celebrities competed in fan-favorite challenges and on the runway to be named "America's Next Celebrity Drag Race Superstar" and prize money for choice charities.
RuPaul's Drag Race: Vegas Revue (2020): On July 22, 2020, it was announced that a docu-series would premiere on August 21, 2020.
RuPaul's Drag Race: Corona Can't Keep a Good Queen Down (2021): On February 26, 2021, the one hour special aired on VH1 in between episodes 8 and 9 of Season 13 and detailed the contestants' journeys with filming the season amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Spin-offs
RuPaul's Drag U (2010–2012): In each episode, three women are paired with former Drag Race contestants ("Drag Professors"), who give them drag makeovers and help them to access their "inner divas".
RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars (2012–present): Past contestants return and compete for a spot in the Drag Race Hall of Fame. The show's format is similar to that of RuPaul's Drag Race, with challenges and a panel of judges.
Dancing Queen (2018): In April 2013, RuPaul confirmed that he planned to executive-produce a spin-off of Drag Race that stars season five and All Stars season two contestant Alyssa Edwards. Alyssa Edwards has confirmed that the spin-off's title is Beyond Belief (later retitled as Dancing Queen), and that his dance company in Mesquite, Texas is the setting. The series aired on Netflix on October 5, 2018.
Feature film: In August 2015, RuPaul revealed that a movie featuring all of the contestants was in the works. "We've got a director for it, we've got a light script, but it just needs a little more retooling and scheduling."
RuPaul's Drag Race: The Mobile Game is an upcoming mobile app by World of Wonder and Leaf Mobile's subsidiary East Side Games.
International versions
The Switch Drag Race (2015–2018): This licensed glocalization of Drag Race premiered in October 2015 on Chilean television channel Mega. As in Drag Race, queens compete in "mini-challenges" and a main challenge and are evaluated by a panel of judges. Similar to Drag Race, The Switch requires contestants to lip-sync, dance, and perform impersonations.
Drag Race Thailand (2018–present): In October 2017, Kantana Group acquired the rights to produce its own version of Drag Race. Season 1 of Drag Race Thailand was met with successful ratings on Thai television. It was later announced that the first season will premiere in the U.S. in May 2018. The first season also made stirs in the Asian LGBT community, the most prominent of which was a campaign to establish versions of Drag Race in the Philippines and Taiwan as well, two of the most LGBT-accepting nations in Asia.
RuPaul's Drag Race UK (2019–present): On December 5, 2018, it was announced that the British version of RuPaul's Drag Race would be an eight-part series filmed in London based on local drag queens and would air on BBC Three in 2019. Visage confirmed via social media that she would appear as a judge.
Canada's Drag Race (2020–present): On June 27, 2019, OutTV and Bell Media's streaming service Crave announced that they had co-commissioned a Canadian version of Drag Race. Rights to the series, as well as the U.S. and British versions, will be shared by OutTV and Crave. Additionally, season 11 runner-up Brooke Lynn Hytes was confirmed as one of the judges, becoming the first Drag Race contestant to serve as a permanent judge. The show premiered on July 2, 2020.
Drag Race Holland (2020–present): A Dutch version of Drag Race was announced on July 26, 2020. The series debuted on Videoland in The Netherlands, and aired on WOW Presents Plus internationally. The show is hosted by Fred van Leer and premiered .
RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under (2021–present): On August 26, 2019, an Oceanic version was announced to be in production and said to air in 2020, but was likely delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Filming began in Auckland, New Zealand in January 2021. The series premiered on TVNZ 2 and TVNZ OnDemand in New Zealand, Stan in Australia, and on WOW Presents Plus internationally on 1 May 2021.
Drag Race España (2021–present): On November 16, 2020, Atresmedia announced that they would produce a Spanish version of Drag Race together with Buendía Estudios after reaching an agreement with Passion Distribution in favour of World of Wonder. The series debuted on Atresmedia's pay streaming service ATRESplayer Premium on 30 May 2021, and aired on WOW Presents Plus internationally. It is hosted by Supremme de Luxe.
Drag Race Italia (2021–present): An Italian version of Drag Race was announced on June 30, 2021. The series will debut in November 2021 on Discovery+.
RuPaul's Drag Race: UK Versus the World (2022): On December 21, 2021, World of Wonder announced that a spin-off series of RuPaul's Drag Race UK would premiere in February 2022. Filmed in the United Kingdom, The series will feature international queens who have competed in the Drag Race franchise around the world.
Drag Race Philippines (2022–present): On August 17, 2021, a Filipino version of Drag Race was announced.
Drag Race France (2022–present): On November 17, 2021, a French version of Drag Race was announced.
Home media
Full seasons of shows in the Drag Race franchise are available to stream on WOW Presents Plus in over 200 territories. The show is also currently available on the following streaming platforms:
United States — Hulu (seasons 3–8; All Stars 1–4); Paramount Plus (seasons 1–12, All Stars 1–6, Untucked seasons 9–11, All Stars Untucked seasons 5–6), WOW Presents Plus (Untucked seasons 7–8, Thailand season 2, and all other international series)
Canada — Netflix (seasons 1–12, All Stars 4, Untucked seasons 11 and 12), Crave (all seasons, All Stars 1–6, UK series 1–3, Canada season 1 and 2, Down Under season 1), WOW Presents Plus (seasons 1–10, Untucked seasons 1–10, All Stars 1–4)
UK & Ireland — Netflix (all seasons, Untucked seasons 11–12, All Stars 4 & 5, Celebrity season 1), BBC iPlayer (UK series 1 and 2, Canada season 1, Down Under season 1), WOW Presents Plus (seasons 1–10, Untucked seasons 1–10, all episodes of All Stars and Holland)
Australia — Stan (all seasons of original, All Stars, Untucked, UK, Canada, Down Under and Thailand Season 2), WOW Presents Plus (UK series 1, Canada season 1)
Awards and nominations
RuPaul's Drag Race has been nominated for thirty-nine Emmy Awards, and won nineteen. It has also been nominated for nine Reality Television Awards, winning three, and nominated for six NewNowNext Awards, winning three.
Critical reception
Thrillist called Drag Race "the closest gay culture gets to a sports league." In 2019, the TV series was ranked 93rd on The Guardians list of the 100 best TV shows of the 21st century.
Controversy
In March 2014, Drag Race sparked controversy over the use of the term "shemale" in the season 6 mini challenge "Female or She-male?". Logo has since removed the segment from all platforms and addressed the allegations of transphobia by removing the "You've got she-mail" intro from new episodes of the series. This was replaced with, "She done already done had herses!" RuPaul additionally came under fire for comments made in an interview with The Guardian, in which he stated he would "probably not" allow a transgender contestant to compete. He compared transgender drag performers to doping athletes on his Twitter, and has since apologized. Sasha Velour (season 9) disagreed, tweeting "My drag was born in a community full of trans women, trans men, and gender non-conforming folks doing drag. That's the real world of drag, like it or not. I thinks it's fabulous and I will fight my entire life to protect and uplift it".
Relationship with trans community
For the first twelve seasons, RuPaul would say, "Gentlemen, start your engines, and may the best woman win," before the contestants' runway looks for the episode were shown. When season 13 introduced the show's first ever transgender male contestant, Gottmik, RuPaul's catchphrase was changed in order to promote inclusivity: "Racers, start your engines, and may the best drag queen win." In season 6 of All Stars, an altered version of the shows opening theme was introduced with the new tag line.
Performers of any sexual orientation and gender identity are eligible to audition, although most contestants to date have been gay, cisgender men. Transgender competitors have become more common as seasons have progressed; Sonique, a season two contestant, became the first openly trans contestant when she came out as a woman during the reunion special. Sonique later won All Stars 6, becoming the first trans woman to win an English-language version of the show and the second overall. Monica Beverly Hillz (season 5) became the first contestant to come out as a trans woman during the competition. Peppermint (season 9) is the first contestant who was out as a trans woman prior to the airing of her season. Other trans contestants came out as women after their elimination, including Carmen Carrera, Kenya Michaels, Stacy Layne Matthews, Jiggly Caliente, Gia Gunn, Laganja Estranja and Gigi Goode. Additionally, Gottmik (season 13) was the first AFAB and currently the only openly transgender male contestant in the franchise's history.
Season 14 is the first regular season to feature four transgender women in the cast—Kerri Colby, Kornbread "The Snack" Jeté, Bosco and Jasmine Kennedie. While Colby was cast after transitioning, Kornbread, Bosco and Jasmine came out after the show's taping.
Broadcast
Australia: In Australia, lifestyle channel LifeStyle YOU regularly shows and re-screens seasons 1–7, including Untucked. In addition, free-to-air channel SBS2 began screening the first season on August 31, 2013. On March 13, 2017, it was announced that on-demand service Stan would fast-track season 9 (including Untucked). As of 2020, Stan streams all seasons since Season 1, as well as Untucked, All Stars, All Stars Untucked, Canada's Drag Race, Secret Celebrity, Drag Race UK and Season 2 of Drag Race Thailand.
Canada: The series airs on OutTV in Canada at the same time as the US airing. Unlike Logo, OutTV continues to broadcast Untucked immediately after each Drag Race episode. Beginning with season 12, OutTV has shared its first-run rights to the main series (but not Untucked) with the more widely subscribed Crave streaming service, with episodes available on Crave shortly after they premiere on OutTV, in connection with Crave and OutTV's co-production of Canada's Drag Race. Past seasons are also available on Netflix in Canada, with each season released there shortly before the next season begins.
Ireland: In Ireland, season 2 to season 8 of the programme were available on Netflix; as of the release of Season 10, only seasons 8 & 9 are available. Netflix has started airing season 10 episodes one day after they air in the USA. All seasons of the show have been made available on Netflix since October 2018
Indonesia: In Indonesia, season 1 to season 13 of the programme were available on Netflix, alongside the Christmas spectacular; As of the release of All Stars, only season 4 and 5 is available. Netflix also aired Untucked season 10 episodes one day after they air in the USA.
UK: E4 aired season 1 in 2009, followed by season 2 in 2010. Since its success on Netflix in the UK, TruTV acquired the broadcast rights for all eight seasons of the show including Untucked episodes. In June 2015, TruTV started airing two episodes of the show a week, starting with season 4, followed by All Stars, then season 5. As of May 2018, the series airs on VH1 UK Monday–Thursday at 11pm, beginning with All Stars season 3.Israel''': Yes has broadcast all seasons and Untucked episodes. Seasons 1–12, All Stars seasons 4–5 and Untucked'' seasons 11–12 are also available on Netflix.
See also
List of reality television programs with LGBT cast members
List of Rusicals
LGBT culture in New York City
Paris Is Burning (film)
References
External links
Edgar, E. (2011). "Xtravaganza!": Drag Representation and Articulation in "RuPaul's Drag Race". Studies in Popular Culture,34(1), 133–146. Retrieved from "Xtravaganza!": Drag Representation and Articulation in "RuPaul's Drag Race"
2009 American television series debuts
2000s American reality television series
2000s LGBT-related reality television series
2010s American reality television series
2010s LGBT-related reality television series
2020s American reality television series
2020s LGBT-related reality television series
American LGBT-related reality television series
English-language television shows
Logo TV original programming
Primetime Emmy Award-winning television series
Television series by World of Wonder (company)
Transgender-related television shows
VH1 original programming
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality Program winners
2000s American LGBT-related television series
2010s American LGBT-related television series
2020s American LGBT-related television series | false | [
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"The 1956 Air Force Falcons football team represented the United States Air Force Academy in the 1956 NCAA University Division football season. The Falcons did not have an official stadium during the season, and remained without one until the 1962 season when Falcon Stadium opened. Led by first-year head coach Buck Shaw, it was the second season for the football program. The Falcons were independent, and finished with a record of\n\nSchedule\n\nPersonnel\n\nReferences\n\nAir Force\nAir Force Falcons football seasons\nAir Force Falcons football"
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"RuPaul's Drag Race",
"Untucked",
"What is Untucked?",
"In this companion series, RuPaul presents a documentary of contestants' conversation in the green room, replays pertinent moments from Drag Race,",
"When did it air?",
"LOGOonline published a webisode of Under the Hood after each episode of Drag Race."
] | C_2bdaab02168043d394ffbc0451581d47_0 | When did it begin? | 3 | When did Untucked begin? | RuPaul's Drag Race | The first season of Drag Race was accompanied by a seven-episode web series, titled Under the Hood of RuPaul's Drag Race. LOGOonline published a webisode of Under the Hood after each episode of Drag Race. In this companion series, RuPaul presents a documentary of contestants' conversation in the green room, replays pertinent moments from Drag Race, and airs deleted footage. Starting with the second season of Drag Race in 2010, Logo reformatted Under the Hood, increased its production budget, moved it from the web to television, and re-titled it to RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked. Logo broadcast an episode of Untucked after each episode of Drag Race. Untucked replaces the basic green room of Under the Hood with two decorated rooms that were until season 6 sponsored by Absolut Vodka and Interior Illusions, Inc.: the Interior Illusions Lounge and the Gold Bar. FormDecor sponsored the Lounge for season 6. These two backstage areas allow for separated group conversation. At the start of the seventh season of the Drag Race, Untucked reverted to a webseries, as part of the World of Wonder YouTube page. Instead of two decorated rooms, Untucked was moved back to the one room, an empty backstage space that connects to the main stage and work room, with couches for contestants to chat on. The newly renovated version also follows contestants following their elimination from the show, documenting them packing their belongings and leaving the set. The webseries format continued for the eighth and ninth season. For the show's tenth season, Untucked returned to television. CANNOTANSWER | Starting with the second season of Drag Race in 2010, Logo reformatted Under the Hood, increased its production budget, moved it from the web to television, | RuPaul's Drag Race is an American reality competition television series, the first in the Drag Race franchise, produced by World of Wonder for Logo TV, WOW Presents Plus, and, beginning with the ninth season, VH1. The show documents RuPaul in the search for "America's next drag superstar." RuPaul plays the role of host, mentor, and head judge for this series, as contestants are given different challenges each week. RuPaul's Drag Race employs a panel of judges, including RuPaul, Michelle Visage, an alternating third main judge of either Carson Kressley or Ross Matthews, and a host of other guest judges, who critique contestants' progress throughout the competition. The title of the show is a play on drag queen and drag racing, and the title sequence and song "Drag Race" both have a drag-racing theme. To date, there have been thirteen winners of the show: BeBe Zahara Benet, Tyra Sanchez, Raja, Sharon Needles, Jinkx Monsoon, Bianca Del Rio, Violet Chachki, Bob the Drag Queen, Sasha Velour, Aquaria, Yvie Oddly, Jaida Essence Hall and Symone.
RuPaul's Drag Race has spanned thirteen seasons and inspired the spin-off shows RuPaul's Drag U, RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars, RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked, RuPaul's Secret Celebrity Drag Race, RuPaul's Drag Race UK, and RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under. The show has become the highest-rated television program on Logo TV, and airs internationally, including in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and Israel. The show earned RuPaul six consecutive Emmys (2016 to 2021) for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program. The show itself has been awarded as the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program 4 consecutive times (2018 to 2021), and the Outstanding Reality Program award at the 21st GLAAD Media Awards. It has been nominated for four Critics' Choice Television Award including Best Reality Series – Competition and Best Reality Show Host for RuPaul, and was nominated for a Creative Arts Emmy Award for Outstanding Make-up for a Multi-Camera Series or Special (Non-Prosthetic). Later in 2018, the show became the first show to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program in the same year, a feat it has since repeated three times.
Format
Prospective Drag Race contestants submit video auditions to the show's production company, World of Wonder. RuPaul, the host and head judge, views each tape and selects the season's competitors. Once the chosen pool of performers is on set, they film a series of episodes, each one typically concluding with the removal of one contestant from the competition. Rarely, the outcome of an episode has been a double elimination, no elimination, contestant disqualification or removal of a contestant on medical grounds. Each episode features a so-called maxi challenge that tests competitors' skills in a variety of areas of drag performance. Some episodes also feature a mini challenge, the prize of which is often an advantage or benefit in the upcoming maxi challenge. Following the maxi challenge, contestants present themed looks in a runway walk. RuPaul and a panel of judges then critique each contestant's performance, deliberate amongst themselves, and announce the week's winner and bottom two competitors. The bottom two queens compete in a so-called Lip Sync for Your Life; the winner of the lip sync remains in the competition, and the loser is eliminated. Generally, the contestant that the judges feel has displayed the most "charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent" (C.U.N.T.) is the one who advances. The final three, or four depending on what RuPaul chooses, contestants remaining compete in a special finale episode wherein the season's winner is crowned. In early seasons, the finale was pre-recorded in the studio with no audience. More recently, the finale has taken the form of a lip sync tournament before a live audience. The season 12 finale was filmed remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The whole season is typically filmed in four weeks.
Mini and maxi challenges
Mini challenges are quick, small assignments that RuPaul announces at the beginning of an episode. One of the most popular mini challenges, which recurs from season to season, is the reading challenge. In it, contestants satirically criticize one another in a process called "reading", which was popularized by the film Paris Is Burning. Maxi challenges vary in the skill they test; some are group challenges that involve singing and acting, while others feature comedy, a talent of choice, dancing, or makeovers. The winner receives a material or monetary prize. Until the show's sixth season, the winner sometimes also received immunity against elimination the following week. Drag Races most popular seasonal maxi challenge is Snatch Game, a spoof on Match Game wherein contestants impersonate celebrities or famous fictional personas.
Judging
RuPaul has been the series' head judge since its premiere. For the first two seasons, Merle Ginsberg joined him on the panel; she was replaced in season 3 by longtime friend of RuPaul and co-host of The RuPaul Show Michelle Visage. Santino Rice served as a judge from season 1 through season 6. From season 7 onward, Ross Mathews and Carson Kressley have occupied Rice's former seat. New York City makeup artist Billy B held a regular judging spot in the third and fourth seasons when Rice was absent. Most weeks, one or two celebrity guest judges join the panel.
Companion series
The first season of Drag Race was accompanied by a seven-episode web series titled Under the Hood of RuPaul's Drag Race, which Logo TV made available for streaming on its website. The series featured behind-the-scenes and deleted footage from the main show's tapes. From season 2 onward, a companion show called RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked, which has the same premise, has aired instead. Untucked largely focuses on conversations and drama that occur between contestants backstage while the judges deliberate on each episode's results. In most seasons, it has aired on TV following the main show, but it was available only online for season 7 through season 9. A number of smaller web series also accompany each episode of Drag Race. Whatcha Packin, which began at the start of the sixth season, features Michelle Visage interviewing the most recently eliminated queen about their run on the show and showcasing runway outfits they had brought but did not have the opportunity to wear. In 2014, the web-series Fashion Photo Ruview aired for the first time, co-hosted by Raja Gemini and Raven who evaluate the runway looks of the main show. Since season 8, a five- to fifteen-minute aftershow called The Pit Stop has also been produced. It involves a host and guest, typically past competitors of Drag Race, discussing the recently aired episode. Each season's host (or hosts) are different; to date, these have included the YouTuber Kingsley, Raja Gemini, Bob the Drag Queen, Alaska Thunderfuck, Trixie Mattel, Manila Luzon, and Monét X Change.
Series overview
Seasons 1–8 (2009–2016): Logo TV
Season 1 premiered in the U.S. on February 2, 2009, on Logo TV. Nine contestants competed to become "America's Next Drag Superstar". The winner won a lifetime supply of MAC Cosmetics, was featured on the cover of Paper and in an LA Eyeworks campaign, joined the Absolut Pride tour, and won a cash prize of $20,000. One of the nine, Nina Flowers, was determined by an audience vote via the show's official website. The winner of season 1 was BeBe Zahara Benet, with Nina Flowers winning Miss Congeniality. In late 2013, Logo re-aired the season as RuPaul's Drag Race: The Lost Season Ru-Vealed, featuring commentary from RuPaul.
For season 2 (2010), 12 contestants competed for a lifetime supply of NYX Cosmetics and be the face of nyxcosmetics.com, an exclusive one year public relations contract with LGBT firm Project Publicity, be featured in an LA Eyeworks campaign, join the Logo Drag Race Tour, and a cash prize of $25,000. A new tradition of writing a farewell message in lipstick on the workstation mirror was started by the first eliminated queen, Shangela. Each week's episode is followed by a behind-the-scenes show, RuPaul's Drag Race Untucked. The winner of season 2 was Tyra Sanchez, with Pandora Boxx winning Miss Congeniality. On December 6, 2011, Amazon.com released season 2 on DVD via the CreateSpace program.
Season 3 (2011) had Michelle Visage replacing Merle Ginsberg on the judging panel as well as Billy Brasfield (commonly known as Billy B), Mike Ruiz, and Jeffrey Moran (courtesy of Absolut Vodka) filling in for Santino Rice's absence during several episodes. Due to Billy B's continued appearances, he and Rice are considered to have been alternate judges for the same seat on judges panel. Other changes made included the introduction of a wildcard contestant from the past season, Shangela; an episode with no elimination; and a contestant, Carmen Carrera, being brought back into the competition after having been eliminated a few episodes prior. A new pit crew was also introduced consisting of Jason Carter and Shawn Morales. As with the previous season, each week's episode was followed by a behind-the-scenes show, RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked. The winner of the season 3 was Raja, with Yara Sofia winning Miss Congeniality. On December 6, 2011, Amazon.com released this season on DVD via their CreateSpace program.
Season 4 began airing on January 30, 2012, with cast members announced November 13, 2011. The winner headlined Logo's Drag Race Tour featuring Absolut Vodka, won a one-of-a-kind trip, a lifetime supply of NYX Cosmetics, a cash prize of $100,000, and the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar." Like the previous season, Rice and Billy B (Billy Brasfield), shared the same seat at the judges table alternatively, with Brasfield filling in for Rice when needed. The winner of season 4 was Sharon Needles, with Latrice Royale winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 5 began airing on January 28, 2013, with a 90-minute premiere episode. Fourteen contestants competed for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar" along with a lifetime supply of Colorevolution Cosmetics, a one-of-a-kind trip courtesy of AlandChuck.travel, a headlining spot on Logo's Drag Race Tour featuring Absolut Vodka and a cash prize of $100,000. Rice and Visage were back as judges on the panel. The winner of season 5 was Jinkx Monsoon, with Ivy Winters winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 6 began airing February 24, 2014. Like season 5, season 6 saw 14 contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar". For the first time in the show's history, the season premiere was split into two episodes; the fourteen queens are split into two groups and the seven queens in each group compete against one another before being united as one group in the third episode. Rice and Visage returned as judges at the panel. Two new pit crew members, Miles Moody and Simon Sherry-Wood, joined Carter and Morales. The winner won a prize package that included a supply from Colorevolution Cosmetics and a cash prize of $100,000. The winner of season 6 was Bianca Del Rio, with BenDeLaCreme winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 7 began airing on March 2, 2015. Returning judges included RuPaul and Visage, while the space previously occupied by Rice was filled by new additions Ross Mathews and Carson Kressley. Mathews and Kressley were both present for the season premiere and then took turns sharing judging responsibilities. Morales and Simon Sherry-Wood did not appear this season and were replaced by Bryce Eilenberg. Like the previous two seasons, this one featured fourteen contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. The season premiere debuted with a live and same-day viewership of 348,000, a 20 percent increase from the previous season. On March 20, 2015, it was announced that Logo had given the series an early renewal for an eighth season. The winner of season 7 was Violet Chachki, with Katya winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 8 on began airing on March 7, 2016, with cast members announced during the NewNowNext Honors on February 1, 2016. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. The first episode celebrated the 100th taping of the show, and the 100th drag queen to compete. Similar to season 2, this season had twelve contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. The winner of season 8 was Bob the Drag Queen, with Cynthia Lee Fontaine winning Miss Congeniality.
Seasons 9–14 (2017–present): VH1
Season 9 began airing on March 24, 2017 on VH1, with cast members being announced on February 2, 2017. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. This season features fourteen contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. The ninth season aired on VH1, with encore presentations continuing to air on Logo. This season featured the return of Cynthia Lee Fontaine, who previously participated in the season 8. Season 9 featured a top four in the finale episode, as opposed to the top three, which was previously established in season 4. The winner of season 9 was Sasha Velour, with Valentina winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 10 began airing on March 22, 2018. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. This season features thirteen new contestants, and one returning contestant, competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. Eureka O'Hara, who was removed from the ninth season due to an injury, returned to the show after she accepted an open invitation. Season 10 premiered alongside the televised return of Untucked. The tenth season featured a top four following the previous season's finale format. The winner of season 10 was Aquaria, with Monét X Change winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 11 began airing February 28, 2019. This season had fifteen contestants, whereas previous seasons typically had fourteen contestants. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. This season features fourteen new contestants, and one returning contestant, competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. This season saw the return of Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, who was the first contestant eliminated in season 10. Season 11 again featured a top four in the finale. As with season 10, each week's episode was followed by an episode of the televised return of RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked. The winner of season 11 was Yvie Oddly, with Nina West winning Miss Congeniality.
On January 22, 2019, casting for Season 12 (2020) was announced via YouTube and Twitter and was closed on March 1, 2019. On August 19, 2019, it was announced that the series had been renewed for a twelfth season. The season began airing on February 28, 2020. This is the first and only season to have the reunion and finale recorded virtually from the contestants' homes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The winner of season 12 was Jaida Essence Hall, with Heidi N Closet winning Miss Congeniality.
On December 2, 2019, casting for Season 13 (2021) was announced via YouTube and Twitter. The casting call closed on January 24, 2020. On August 20, 2020, it was announced the thirteenth season had been ordered by VH1. It began airing on January 1, 2021. The winner of season 13 was Symone, with Kandy Muse as runner-up, and LaLa Ri as Miss Congeniality.
Casting for Season 14 began on November 23, 2020. In August 2021, it was announced the fourteenth season had been ordered by VH1. The cast for the fourteenth season was revealed through VH1 on December 2, 2021. The season will start airing on January 7, 2022.
Casting for season 15 began on November 4, 2021, and will close January 7, 2022.
Contestants
More than 150 contestants have competed on the U.S. version of the show.
Specials
RuPaul's Drag Race: Green Screen Christmas (2015): On December 13, 2015, Logo aired a seasonal themed episode of Drag Race. The non-competitive special was released in conjunction with RuPaul's holiday album Slay Belles and featured music videos for songs from the album. The cast included RuPaul, Michelle Visage, Siedah Garrett, and Todrick Hall, and former contestants Alyssa Edwards, Laganja Estranja, Latrice Royale, Raja, and Shangela.
RuPaul's Drag Race Holi-slay Spectacular (2018): On November 1, 2018, VH1 announced a seasonal themed special episode of Drag Race scheduled to air on December 7, 2018. The special saw eight former contestants compete for the title of "America's first Drag Race Christmas Queen". Competitors included Eureka O'Hara, Jasmine Masters, Kim Chi, Latrice Royale, Mayhem Miller, Shangela, Sonique, and Trixie Mattel.
RuPaul's Secret Celebrity Drag Race (2020): On April 10, 2020, VH1 announced a celebrity edition of Drag Race scheduled to air for four weeks beginning on April 24, 2020. The series featured a trio of celebrities receiving makeovers from former contestants. After receiving help from "Queen Supremes" Alyssa Edwards, Asia O'Hara, Bob the Drag Queen, Kim Chi, Monét X Change, Monique Heart, Nina West, Trinity the Tuck, Trixie Mattel and Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, the celebrities competed in fan-favorite challenges and on the runway to be named "America's Next Celebrity Drag Race Superstar" and prize money for choice charities.
RuPaul's Drag Race: Vegas Revue (2020): On July 22, 2020, it was announced that a docu-series would premiere on August 21, 2020.
RuPaul's Drag Race: Corona Can't Keep a Good Queen Down (2021): On February 26, 2021, the one hour special aired on VH1 in between episodes 8 and 9 of Season 13 and detailed the contestants' journeys with filming the season amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Spin-offs
RuPaul's Drag U (2010–2012): In each episode, three women are paired with former Drag Race contestants ("Drag Professors"), who give them drag makeovers and help them to access their "inner divas".
RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars (2012–present): Past contestants return and compete for a spot in the Drag Race Hall of Fame. The show's format is similar to that of RuPaul's Drag Race, with challenges and a panel of judges.
Dancing Queen (2018): In April 2013, RuPaul confirmed that he planned to executive-produce a spin-off of Drag Race that stars season five and All Stars season two contestant Alyssa Edwards. Alyssa Edwards has confirmed that the spin-off's title is Beyond Belief (later retitled as Dancing Queen), and that his dance company in Mesquite, Texas is the setting. The series aired on Netflix on October 5, 2018.
Feature film: In August 2015, RuPaul revealed that a movie featuring all of the contestants was in the works. "We've got a director for it, we've got a light script, but it just needs a little more retooling and scheduling."
RuPaul's Drag Race: The Mobile Game is an upcoming mobile app by World of Wonder and Leaf Mobile's subsidiary East Side Games.
International versions
The Switch Drag Race (2015–2018): This licensed glocalization of Drag Race premiered in October 2015 on Chilean television channel Mega. As in Drag Race, queens compete in "mini-challenges" and a main challenge and are evaluated by a panel of judges. Similar to Drag Race, The Switch requires contestants to lip-sync, dance, and perform impersonations.
Drag Race Thailand (2018–present): In October 2017, Kantana Group acquired the rights to produce its own version of Drag Race. Season 1 of Drag Race Thailand was met with successful ratings on Thai television. It was later announced that the first season will premiere in the U.S. in May 2018. The first season also made stirs in the Asian LGBT community, the most prominent of which was a campaign to establish versions of Drag Race in the Philippines and Taiwan as well, two of the most LGBT-accepting nations in Asia.
RuPaul's Drag Race UK (2019–present): On December 5, 2018, it was announced that the British version of RuPaul's Drag Race would be an eight-part series filmed in London based on local drag queens and would air on BBC Three in 2019. Visage confirmed via social media that she would appear as a judge.
Canada's Drag Race (2020–present): On June 27, 2019, OutTV and Bell Media's streaming service Crave announced that they had co-commissioned a Canadian version of Drag Race. Rights to the series, as well as the U.S. and British versions, will be shared by OutTV and Crave. Additionally, season 11 runner-up Brooke Lynn Hytes was confirmed as one of the judges, becoming the first Drag Race contestant to serve as a permanent judge. The show premiered on July 2, 2020.
Drag Race Holland (2020–present): A Dutch version of Drag Race was announced on July 26, 2020. The series debuted on Videoland in The Netherlands, and aired on WOW Presents Plus internationally. The show is hosted by Fred van Leer and premiered .
RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under (2021–present): On August 26, 2019, an Oceanic version was announced to be in production and said to air in 2020, but was likely delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Filming began in Auckland, New Zealand in January 2021. The series premiered on TVNZ 2 and TVNZ OnDemand in New Zealand, Stan in Australia, and on WOW Presents Plus internationally on 1 May 2021.
Drag Race España (2021–present): On November 16, 2020, Atresmedia announced that they would produce a Spanish version of Drag Race together with Buendía Estudios after reaching an agreement with Passion Distribution in favour of World of Wonder. The series debuted on Atresmedia's pay streaming service ATRESplayer Premium on 30 May 2021, and aired on WOW Presents Plus internationally. It is hosted by Supremme de Luxe.
Drag Race Italia (2021–present): An Italian version of Drag Race was announced on June 30, 2021. The series will debut in November 2021 on Discovery+.
RuPaul's Drag Race: UK Versus the World (2022): On December 21, 2021, World of Wonder announced that a spin-off series of RuPaul's Drag Race UK would premiere in February 2022. Filmed in the United Kingdom, The series will feature international queens who have competed in the Drag Race franchise around the world.
Drag Race Philippines (2022–present): On August 17, 2021, a Filipino version of Drag Race was announced.
Drag Race France (2022–present): On November 17, 2021, a French version of Drag Race was announced.
Home media
Full seasons of shows in the Drag Race franchise are available to stream on WOW Presents Plus in over 200 territories. The show is also currently available on the following streaming platforms:
United States — Hulu (seasons 3–8; All Stars 1–4); Paramount Plus (seasons 1–12, All Stars 1–6, Untucked seasons 9–11, All Stars Untucked seasons 5–6), WOW Presents Plus (Untucked seasons 7–8, Thailand season 2, and all other international series)
Canada — Netflix (seasons 1–12, All Stars 4, Untucked seasons 11 and 12), Crave (all seasons, All Stars 1–6, UK series 1–3, Canada season 1 and 2, Down Under season 1), WOW Presents Plus (seasons 1–10, Untucked seasons 1–10, All Stars 1–4)
UK & Ireland — Netflix (all seasons, Untucked seasons 11–12, All Stars 4 & 5, Celebrity season 1), BBC iPlayer (UK series 1 and 2, Canada season 1, Down Under season 1), WOW Presents Plus (seasons 1–10, Untucked seasons 1–10, all episodes of All Stars and Holland)
Australia — Stan (all seasons of original, All Stars, Untucked, UK, Canada, Down Under and Thailand Season 2), WOW Presents Plus (UK series 1, Canada season 1)
Awards and nominations
RuPaul's Drag Race has been nominated for thirty-nine Emmy Awards, and won nineteen. It has also been nominated for nine Reality Television Awards, winning three, and nominated for six NewNowNext Awards, winning three.
Critical reception
Thrillist called Drag Race "the closest gay culture gets to a sports league." In 2019, the TV series was ranked 93rd on The Guardians list of the 100 best TV shows of the 21st century.
Controversy
In March 2014, Drag Race sparked controversy over the use of the term "shemale" in the season 6 mini challenge "Female or She-male?". Logo has since removed the segment from all platforms and addressed the allegations of transphobia by removing the "You've got she-mail" intro from new episodes of the series. This was replaced with, "She done already done had herses!" RuPaul additionally came under fire for comments made in an interview with The Guardian, in which he stated he would "probably not" allow a transgender contestant to compete. He compared transgender drag performers to doping athletes on his Twitter, and has since apologized. Sasha Velour (season 9) disagreed, tweeting "My drag was born in a community full of trans women, trans men, and gender non-conforming folks doing drag. That's the real world of drag, like it or not. I thinks it's fabulous and I will fight my entire life to protect and uplift it".
Relationship with trans community
For the first twelve seasons, RuPaul would say, "Gentlemen, start your engines, and may the best woman win," before the contestants' runway looks for the episode were shown. When season 13 introduced the show's first ever transgender male contestant, Gottmik, RuPaul's catchphrase was changed in order to promote inclusivity: "Racers, start your engines, and may the best drag queen win." In season 6 of All Stars, an altered version of the shows opening theme was introduced with the new tag line.
Performers of any sexual orientation and gender identity are eligible to audition, although most contestants to date have been gay, cisgender men. Transgender competitors have become more common as seasons have progressed; Sonique, a season two contestant, became the first openly trans contestant when she came out as a woman during the reunion special. Sonique later won All Stars 6, becoming the first trans woman to win an English-language version of the show and the second overall. Monica Beverly Hillz (season 5) became the first contestant to come out as a trans woman during the competition. Peppermint (season 9) is the first contestant who was out as a trans woman prior to the airing of her season. Other trans contestants came out as women after their elimination, including Carmen Carrera, Kenya Michaels, Stacy Layne Matthews, Jiggly Caliente, Gia Gunn, Laganja Estranja and Gigi Goode. Additionally, Gottmik (season 13) was the first AFAB and currently the only openly transgender male contestant in the franchise's history.
Season 14 is the first regular season to feature four transgender women in the cast—Kerri Colby, Kornbread "The Snack" Jeté, Bosco and Jasmine Kennedie. While Colby was cast after transitioning, Kornbread, Bosco and Jasmine came out after the show's taping.
Broadcast
Australia: In Australia, lifestyle channel LifeStyle YOU regularly shows and re-screens seasons 1–7, including Untucked. In addition, free-to-air channel SBS2 began screening the first season on August 31, 2013. On March 13, 2017, it was announced that on-demand service Stan would fast-track season 9 (including Untucked). As of 2020, Stan streams all seasons since Season 1, as well as Untucked, All Stars, All Stars Untucked, Canada's Drag Race, Secret Celebrity, Drag Race UK and Season 2 of Drag Race Thailand.
Canada: The series airs on OutTV in Canada at the same time as the US airing. Unlike Logo, OutTV continues to broadcast Untucked immediately after each Drag Race episode. Beginning with season 12, OutTV has shared its first-run rights to the main series (but not Untucked) with the more widely subscribed Crave streaming service, with episodes available on Crave shortly after they premiere on OutTV, in connection with Crave and OutTV's co-production of Canada's Drag Race. Past seasons are also available on Netflix in Canada, with each season released there shortly before the next season begins.
Ireland: In Ireland, season 2 to season 8 of the programme were available on Netflix; as of the release of Season 10, only seasons 8 & 9 are available. Netflix has started airing season 10 episodes one day after they air in the USA. All seasons of the show have been made available on Netflix since October 2018
Indonesia: In Indonesia, season 1 to season 13 of the programme were available on Netflix, alongside the Christmas spectacular; As of the release of All Stars, only season 4 and 5 is available. Netflix also aired Untucked season 10 episodes one day after they air in the USA.
UK: E4 aired season 1 in 2009, followed by season 2 in 2010. Since its success on Netflix in the UK, TruTV acquired the broadcast rights for all eight seasons of the show including Untucked episodes. In June 2015, TruTV started airing two episodes of the show a week, starting with season 4, followed by All Stars, then season 5. As of May 2018, the series airs on VH1 UK Monday–Thursday at 11pm, beginning with All Stars season 3.Israel''': Yes has broadcast all seasons and Untucked episodes. Seasons 1–12, All Stars seasons 4–5 and Untucked'' seasons 11–12 are also available on Netflix.
See also
List of reality television programs with LGBT cast members
List of Rusicals
LGBT culture in New York City
Paris Is Burning (film)
References
External links
Edgar, E. (2011). "Xtravaganza!": Drag Representation and Articulation in "RuPaul's Drag Race". Studies in Popular Culture,34(1), 133–146. Retrieved from "Xtravaganza!": Drag Representation and Articulation in "RuPaul's Drag Race"
2009 American television series debuts
2000s American reality television series
2000s LGBT-related reality television series
2010s American reality television series
2010s LGBT-related reality television series
2020s American reality television series
2020s LGBT-related reality television series
American LGBT-related reality television series
English-language television shows
Logo TV original programming
Primetime Emmy Award-winning television series
Television series by World of Wonder (company)
Transgender-related television shows
VH1 original programming
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality Program winners
2000s American LGBT-related television series
2010s American LGBT-related television series
2020s American LGBT-related television series | false | [
"Zvi Harry Hurwitz (; August 29, 1924 – October 1, 2008), also known as Harry Zvi Hurwitz, was a noted South African Jewish journalist and community leader who moved to Israel, where he served as an Israeli diplomat and adviser to prime ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir before founding the Menachem Begin Heritage Center.\n\nEarly years\nHurwitz was born in 1924 in Liepāja, Latvia to Maishe and Malshen (Kutisker) Hurwitz, who migrated to Johannesburg in what was then the Union of South Africa with their two sons when Harry was ten-years-old. In so doing, the family avoided what would have been almost certain death during the Holocaust, when all but 20 or 30 of the city's 7,000 Jews were murdered by Nazi Germany and Latvian collaborators.\n\nZionist activity\nLatvia was the birthplace of Betar, the Revisionist Zionist youth movement, which the young Hurwitz joined when he heard Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the founder of Revisionist Zionism, speak a year before his family's departure. Hurwitz went on to become a national leader of Betar and Revisionist organizations in South Africa, and later headed the South African Zionist Federation. A professional journalist, he served for 25 years as the editor of The Jewish Herald, a weekly that was the organ of the United Zionist Revisionist Party of Southern Africa, and was a frequent broadcaster, television commentator and public speaker.\n\nIn 1964, Hurwitz was one of Jabotinsky's pallbearers when he and his wife were reburied on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.\n\nA long-time supporter of Menachem Begin, Hurwitz first met the future Prime Minister of Israel in 1946 during a visit to Mandatory Palestine following the 22nd Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, when Begin, as the commander of the Irgun, was still in the underground hiding from British authorities. The two continued to maintain contact after Israel gained independence and throughout Begin's two stints as Leader of the Opposition and his service as Minister without Portfolio in a national unity government.\n\nGovernment service\nFollowing Begin's 1977 election as Prime Minister, Hurwitz and his wife, Freda, made aliyah, settling in Jerusalem. He subsequently joined the Prime Minister's Office as Adviser for External Information, and served in that capacity until 1980, when he was appointed Minister of Information at the Embassy of Israel in Washington, D.C. He returned to Jerusalem in mid-1983 to become Adviser to the Prime Minister for Diaspora Affairs, first under Begin and then, following Begin's resignation, under Yitzhak Shamir. He held that position until Shamir was replaced as prime minister by Yitzhak Rabin in July 1992.\n\nMenachem Begin Heritage Center\nUpon Begin's death in March 1992, Hurwitz proposed the establishment of a living memorial to Israel's sixth prime minister based on the American presidential library concept. It was the first such institution in Israel. To bring that project to fruition he organized the Menachem Begin Heritage Foundation which, under his leadership, raised $20 million to construct the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem, opposite Mount Zion.\n\nIn 1998, at Hurwitz's urging, then-Knesset member Reuven Rivlin proposed the Menachem Begin Commemoration\nLaw, which was adopted with support from almost 100 of the Israeli parliament's 120 members. The law established the future Begin Center as the official, state-funded memorial for Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Opened in 2004, the Center provides a framework for students, soldiers, citizens, and tourists to learn about and experience the life of Menachem Begin, identify his place in history and examine his life's work. The Begin Center houses a museum, archives, library, and research center and hosts a variety of programs \"to achieve its goal of passing on to future generations Begin's belief in democracy and parliamentarianism, his vision of peace for a secure Israel, social justice, and the return of Jews to Israel.\"\n\nAwards\nHurwitz was presented with the 2005 Prime Minister's Prize by Israel's Presidents and Prime Ministers Memorial Council in recognition of his role in establishing the Center and, in 2008, a Yakir Zion Award by the South African Zionist Federation in Israel.\n\nDeath\nHurwitz served as head of the center until he died on October 1, 2008, at the age of 84 after suffering a massive heart attack at his son's home on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. He was buried in the section reserved for Irgun veterans at the Har HaMenuchot cemetery in Jerusalem. Eulogies were delivered by Moshe Arens, Benny Begin, Benjamin Netanyahu, Reuven Rivlin, family members, and Begin Center colleagues.\n\nThe Center later named its foyer in honor of the Hurwitz family and annually awards the Harry Hurwitz Hasbara in Action Prize.\n\nPublished works\nHurwitz was the author of Begin: His Life, Works and Deeds, Gefen Publishing House, 2004, , which was previously issued as Begin: A Portrait by B'nai B'rith Book Service, 1994, . It was a revised and updated version of Begin: A Portrait, The Jewish Herald (PTY) Ltd., 1977, , which was the first Begin biography ever written.\n\nHe also co-edited (with Yisrael Medad) the posthumously-published Peace in the Making: The Menachem Begin-Anwar Sadat Personal Correspondence, Gefen Publishing House, 2011, .\n\nTrivia\nDue to a case of mistaken identity after a different man with the same name died, The Jerusalem Post published an obituary of Hurwitz on January 15, 2001 entitled \"A Noble Spirit,\" written by Shmuel Katz, who was his predecessor as Begin's Adviser for External Information. \"The first thing I did after reading my own obituary was call up my friend Shmuel Katz who wrote it and thank him for all the lovely things he said about me,\" Hurwitz, who had a sense of humor, told the Post afterwards. \"Not everyone has the privilege of reading their own obituary, and it was a lovely one.\" A few days later, at a special meeting on the subject of South African Jewry held at the Jewish Agency, participants were asked to introduce themselves and state where they resided. When his turn came, Hurwitz announced \"Harry Hurwitz from heaven.\"\n\nHurwitz later framed a copy of the subsequent Post article in which the newspaper acknowledged the error and hung it on his office wall. (In the end, Hurwitz outlived Katz by almost five months and it was he who attended the other's funeral.)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nMenachem Begin Heritage Center\n\n1924 births\n2008 deaths\nLatvian emigrants to South Africa\nLatvian Jews\nSouth African Jews\nSouth African Zionists\nBetar members\nIrgun members\nSouth African newspaper editors\nSouth African people of Latvian-Jewish descent\nIsraeli Jews\nIsraeli people of Latvian-Jewish descent\nSouth African emigrants to Israel\nIsraeli civil servants\nIsraeli diplomats\nIsraeli biographers\nBurials at Har HaMenuchot\n20th-century biographers",
"XHITT-FM 88.7 is a public radio station in Tijuana, Mexico, owned by the Instituto Tecnológico de Tijuana.\n\nWhile the technological institute had sought a station since 1977, XHITT received its initial permit on September 30, 1986, but transmissions did not begin until June 13, 1987, at 5:17 p.m., when Héctor Magaña, the station manager, exclaimed \"¡Buenas tardes, Tijuana!\" (Good afternoon, Tijuana!) on the station. Formal transmissions began on October 29.\n\nReferences\n\nRadio stations in Tijuana\nRadio stations established in 1987\nPublic radio in Mexico"
] |
[
"RuPaul's Drag Race",
"Untucked",
"What is Untucked?",
"In this companion series, RuPaul presents a documentary of contestants' conversation in the green room, replays pertinent moments from Drag Race,",
"When did it air?",
"LOGOonline published a webisode of Under the Hood after each episode of Drag Race.",
"When did it begin?",
"Starting with the second season of Drag Race in 2010, Logo reformatted Under the Hood, increased its production budget, moved it from the web to television,"
] | C_2bdaab02168043d394ffbc0451581d47_0 | Were there prizes? | 4 | Were there prizes for Untucked? | RuPaul's Drag Race | The first season of Drag Race was accompanied by a seven-episode web series, titled Under the Hood of RuPaul's Drag Race. LOGOonline published a webisode of Under the Hood after each episode of Drag Race. In this companion series, RuPaul presents a documentary of contestants' conversation in the green room, replays pertinent moments from Drag Race, and airs deleted footage. Starting with the second season of Drag Race in 2010, Logo reformatted Under the Hood, increased its production budget, moved it from the web to television, and re-titled it to RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked. Logo broadcast an episode of Untucked after each episode of Drag Race. Untucked replaces the basic green room of Under the Hood with two decorated rooms that were until season 6 sponsored by Absolut Vodka and Interior Illusions, Inc.: the Interior Illusions Lounge and the Gold Bar. FormDecor sponsored the Lounge for season 6. These two backstage areas allow for separated group conversation. At the start of the seventh season of the Drag Race, Untucked reverted to a webseries, as part of the World of Wonder YouTube page. Instead of two decorated rooms, Untucked was moved back to the one room, an empty backstage space that connects to the main stage and work room, with couches for contestants to chat on. The newly renovated version also follows contestants following their elimination from the show, documenting them packing their belongings and leaving the set. The webseries format continued for the eighth and ninth season. For the show's tenth season, Untucked returned to television. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | RuPaul's Drag Race is an American reality competition television series, the first in the Drag Race franchise, produced by World of Wonder for Logo TV, WOW Presents Plus, and, beginning with the ninth season, VH1. The show documents RuPaul in the search for "America's next drag superstar." RuPaul plays the role of host, mentor, and head judge for this series, as contestants are given different challenges each week. RuPaul's Drag Race employs a panel of judges, including RuPaul, Michelle Visage, an alternating third main judge of either Carson Kressley or Ross Matthews, and a host of other guest judges, who critique contestants' progress throughout the competition. The title of the show is a play on drag queen and drag racing, and the title sequence and song "Drag Race" both have a drag-racing theme. To date, there have been thirteen winners of the show: BeBe Zahara Benet, Tyra Sanchez, Raja, Sharon Needles, Jinkx Monsoon, Bianca Del Rio, Violet Chachki, Bob the Drag Queen, Sasha Velour, Aquaria, Yvie Oddly, Jaida Essence Hall and Symone.
RuPaul's Drag Race has spanned thirteen seasons and inspired the spin-off shows RuPaul's Drag U, RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars, RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked, RuPaul's Secret Celebrity Drag Race, RuPaul's Drag Race UK, and RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under. The show has become the highest-rated television program on Logo TV, and airs internationally, including in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and Israel. The show earned RuPaul six consecutive Emmys (2016 to 2021) for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program. The show itself has been awarded as the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program 4 consecutive times (2018 to 2021), and the Outstanding Reality Program award at the 21st GLAAD Media Awards. It has been nominated for four Critics' Choice Television Award including Best Reality Series – Competition and Best Reality Show Host for RuPaul, and was nominated for a Creative Arts Emmy Award for Outstanding Make-up for a Multi-Camera Series or Special (Non-Prosthetic). Later in 2018, the show became the first show to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program in the same year, a feat it has since repeated three times.
Format
Prospective Drag Race contestants submit video auditions to the show's production company, World of Wonder. RuPaul, the host and head judge, views each tape and selects the season's competitors. Once the chosen pool of performers is on set, they film a series of episodes, each one typically concluding with the removal of one contestant from the competition. Rarely, the outcome of an episode has been a double elimination, no elimination, contestant disqualification or removal of a contestant on medical grounds. Each episode features a so-called maxi challenge that tests competitors' skills in a variety of areas of drag performance. Some episodes also feature a mini challenge, the prize of which is often an advantage or benefit in the upcoming maxi challenge. Following the maxi challenge, contestants present themed looks in a runway walk. RuPaul and a panel of judges then critique each contestant's performance, deliberate amongst themselves, and announce the week's winner and bottom two competitors. The bottom two queens compete in a so-called Lip Sync for Your Life; the winner of the lip sync remains in the competition, and the loser is eliminated. Generally, the contestant that the judges feel has displayed the most "charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent" (C.U.N.T.) is the one who advances. The final three, or four depending on what RuPaul chooses, contestants remaining compete in a special finale episode wherein the season's winner is crowned. In early seasons, the finale was pre-recorded in the studio with no audience. More recently, the finale has taken the form of a lip sync tournament before a live audience. The season 12 finale was filmed remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The whole season is typically filmed in four weeks.
Mini and maxi challenges
Mini challenges are quick, small assignments that RuPaul announces at the beginning of an episode. One of the most popular mini challenges, which recurs from season to season, is the reading challenge. In it, contestants satirically criticize one another in a process called "reading", which was popularized by the film Paris Is Burning. Maxi challenges vary in the skill they test; some are group challenges that involve singing and acting, while others feature comedy, a talent of choice, dancing, or makeovers. The winner receives a material or monetary prize. Until the show's sixth season, the winner sometimes also received immunity against elimination the following week. Drag Races most popular seasonal maxi challenge is Snatch Game, a spoof on Match Game wherein contestants impersonate celebrities or famous fictional personas.
Judging
RuPaul has been the series' head judge since its premiere. For the first two seasons, Merle Ginsberg joined him on the panel; she was replaced in season 3 by longtime friend of RuPaul and co-host of The RuPaul Show Michelle Visage. Santino Rice served as a judge from season 1 through season 6. From season 7 onward, Ross Mathews and Carson Kressley have occupied Rice's former seat. New York City makeup artist Billy B held a regular judging spot in the third and fourth seasons when Rice was absent. Most weeks, one or two celebrity guest judges join the panel.
Companion series
The first season of Drag Race was accompanied by a seven-episode web series titled Under the Hood of RuPaul's Drag Race, which Logo TV made available for streaming on its website. The series featured behind-the-scenes and deleted footage from the main show's tapes. From season 2 onward, a companion show called RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked, which has the same premise, has aired instead. Untucked largely focuses on conversations and drama that occur between contestants backstage while the judges deliberate on each episode's results. In most seasons, it has aired on TV following the main show, but it was available only online for season 7 through season 9. A number of smaller web series also accompany each episode of Drag Race. Whatcha Packin, which began at the start of the sixth season, features Michelle Visage interviewing the most recently eliminated queen about their run on the show and showcasing runway outfits they had brought but did not have the opportunity to wear. In 2014, the web-series Fashion Photo Ruview aired for the first time, co-hosted by Raja Gemini and Raven who evaluate the runway looks of the main show. Since season 8, a five- to fifteen-minute aftershow called The Pit Stop has also been produced. It involves a host and guest, typically past competitors of Drag Race, discussing the recently aired episode. Each season's host (or hosts) are different; to date, these have included the YouTuber Kingsley, Raja Gemini, Bob the Drag Queen, Alaska Thunderfuck, Trixie Mattel, Manila Luzon, and Monét X Change.
Series overview
Seasons 1–8 (2009–2016): Logo TV
Season 1 premiered in the U.S. on February 2, 2009, on Logo TV. Nine contestants competed to become "America's Next Drag Superstar". The winner won a lifetime supply of MAC Cosmetics, was featured on the cover of Paper and in an LA Eyeworks campaign, joined the Absolut Pride tour, and won a cash prize of $20,000. One of the nine, Nina Flowers, was determined by an audience vote via the show's official website. The winner of season 1 was BeBe Zahara Benet, with Nina Flowers winning Miss Congeniality. In late 2013, Logo re-aired the season as RuPaul's Drag Race: The Lost Season Ru-Vealed, featuring commentary from RuPaul.
For season 2 (2010), 12 contestants competed for a lifetime supply of NYX Cosmetics and be the face of nyxcosmetics.com, an exclusive one year public relations contract with LGBT firm Project Publicity, be featured in an LA Eyeworks campaign, join the Logo Drag Race Tour, and a cash prize of $25,000. A new tradition of writing a farewell message in lipstick on the workstation mirror was started by the first eliminated queen, Shangela. Each week's episode is followed by a behind-the-scenes show, RuPaul's Drag Race Untucked. The winner of season 2 was Tyra Sanchez, with Pandora Boxx winning Miss Congeniality. On December 6, 2011, Amazon.com released season 2 on DVD via the CreateSpace program.
Season 3 (2011) had Michelle Visage replacing Merle Ginsberg on the judging panel as well as Billy Brasfield (commonly known as Billy B), Mike Ruiz, and Jeffrey Moran (courtesy of Absolut Vodka) filling in for Santino Rice's absence during several episodes. Due to Billy B's continued appearances, he and Rice are considered to have been alternate judges for the same seat on judges panel. Other changes made included the introduction of a wildcard contestant from the past season, Shangela; an episode with no elimination; and a contestant, Carmen Carrera, being brought back into the competition after having been eliminated a few episodes prior. A new pit crew was also introduced consisting of Jason Carter and Shawn Morales. As with the previous season, each week's episode was followed by a behind-the-scenes show, RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked. The winner of the season 3 was Raja, with Yara Sofia winning Miss Congeniality. On December 6, 2011, Amazon.com released this season on DVD via their CreateSpace program.
Season 4 began airing on January 30, 2012, with cast members announced November 13, 2011. The winner headlined Logo's Drag Race Tour featuring Absolut Vodka, won a one-of-a-kind trip, a lifetime supply of NYX Cosmetics, a cash prize of $100,000, and the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar." Like the previous season, Rice and Billy B (Billy Brasfield), shared the same seat at the judges table alternatively, with Brasfield filling in for Rice when needed. The winner of season 4 was Sharon Needles, with Latrice Royale winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 5 began airing on January 28, 2013, with a 90-minute premiere episode. Fourteen contestants competed for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar" along with a lifetime supply of Colorevolution Cosmetics, a one-of-a-kind trip courtesy of AlandChuck.travel, a headlining spot on Logo's Drag Race Tour featuring Absolut Vodka and a cash prize of $100,000. Rice and Visage were back as judges on the panel. The winner of season 5 was Jinkx Monsoon, with Ivy Winters winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 6 began airing February 24, 2014. Like season 5, season 6 saw 14 contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar". For the first time in the show's history, the season premiere was split into two episodes; the fourteen queens are split into two groups and the seven queens in each group compete against one another before being united as one group in the third episode. Rice and Visage returned as judges at the panel. Two new pit crew members, Miles Moody and Simon Sherry-Wood, joined Carter and Morales. The winner won a prize package that included a supply from Colorevolution Cosmetics and a cash prize of $100,000. The winner of season 6 was Bianca Del Rio, with BenDeLaCreme winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 7 began airing on March 2, 2015. Returning judges included RuPaul and Visage, while the space previously occupied by Rice was filled by new additions Ross Mathews and Carson Kressley. Mathews and Kressley were both present for the season premiere and then took turns sharing judging responsibilities. Morales and Simon Sherry-Wood did not appear this season and were replaced by Bryce Eilenberg. Like the previous two seasons, this one featured fourteen contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. The season premiere debuted with a live and same-day viewership of 348,000, a 20 percent increase from the previous season. On March 20, 2015, it was announced that Logo had given the series an early renewal for an eighth season. The winner of season 7 was Violet Chachki, with Katya winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 8 on began airing on March 7, 2016, with cast members announced during the NewNowNext Honors on February 1, 2016. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. The first episode celebrated the 100th taping of the show, and the 100th drag queen to compete. Similar to season 2, this season had twelve contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. The winner of season 8 was Bob the Drag Queen, with Cynthia Lee Fontaine winning Miss Congeniality.
Seasons 9–14 (2017–present): VH1
Season 9 began airing on March 24, 2017 on VH1, with cast members being announced on February 2, 2017. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. This season features fourteen contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. The ninth season aired on VH1, with encore presentations continuing to air on Logo. This season featured the return of Cynthia Lee Fontaine, who previously participated in the season 8. Season 9 featured a top four in the finale episode, as opposed to the top three, which was previously established in season 4. The winner of season 9 was Sasha Velour, with Valentina winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 10 began airing on March 22, 2018. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. This season features thirteen new contestants, and one returning contestant, competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. Eureka O'Hara, who was removed from the ninth season due to an injury, returned to the show after she accepted an open invitation. Season 10 premiered alongside the televised return of Untucked. The tenth season featured a top four following the previous season's finale format. The winner of season 10 was Aquaria, with Monét X Change winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 11 began airing February 28, 2019. This season had fifteen contestants, whereas previous seasons typically had fourteen contestants. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. This season features fourteen new contestants, and one returning contestant, competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. This season saw the return of Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, who was the first contestant eliminated in season 10. Season 11 again featured a top four in the finale. As with season 10, each week's episode was followed by an episode of the televised return of RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked. The winner of season 11 was Yvie Oddly, with Nina West winning Miss Congeniality.
On January 22, 2019, casting for Season 12 (2020) was announced via YouTube and Twitter and was closed on March 1, 2019. On August 19, 2019, it was announced that the series had been renewed for a twelfth season. The season began airing on February 28, 2020. This is the first and only season to have the reunion and finale recorded virtually from the contestants' homes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The winner of season 12 was Jaida Essence Hall, with Heidi N Closet winning Miss Congeniality.
On December 2, 2019, casting for Season 13 (2021) was announced via YouTube and Twitter. The casting call closed on January 24, 2020. On August 20, 2020, it was announced the thirteenth season had been ordered by VH1. It began airing on January 1, 2021. The winner of season 13 was Symone, with Kandy Muse as runner-up, and LaLa Ri as Miss Congeniality.
Casting for Season 14 began on November 23, 2020. In August 2021, it was announced the fourteenth season had been ordered by VH1. The cast for the fourteenth season was revealed through VH1 on December 2, 2021. The season will start airing on January 7, 2022.
Casting for season 15 began on November 4, 2021, and will close January 7, 2022.
Contestants
More than 150 contestants have competed on the U.S. version of the show.
Specials
RuPaul's Drag Race: Green Screen Christmas (2015): On December 13, 2015, Logo aired a seasonal themed episode of Drag Race. The non-competitive special was released in conjunction with RuPaul's holiday album Slay Belles and featured music videos for songs from the album. The cast included RuPaul, Michelle Visage, Siedah Garrett, and Todrick Hall, and former contestants Alyssa Edwards, Laganja Estranja, Latrice Royale, Raja, and Shangela.
RuPaul's Drag Race Holi-slay Spectacular (2018): On November 1, 2018, VH1 announced a seasonal themed special episode of Drag Race scheduled to air on December 7, 2018. The special saw eight former contestants compete for the title of "America's first Drag Race Christmas Queen". Competitors included Eureka O'Hara, Jasmine Masters, Kim Chi, Latrice Royale, Mayhem Miller, Shangela, Sonique, and Trixie Mattel.
RuPaul's Secret Celebrity Drag Race (2020): On April 10, 2020, VH1 announced a celebrity edition of Drag Race scheduled to air for four weeks beginning on April 24, 2020. The series featured a trio of celebrities receiving makeovers from former contestants. After receiving help from "Queen Supremes" Alyssa Edwards, Asia O'Hara, Bob the Drag Queen, Kim Chi, Monét X Change, Monique Heart, Nina West, Trinity the Tuck, Trixie Mattel and Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, the celebrities competed in fan-favorite challenges and on the runway to be named "America's Next Celebrity Drag Race Superstar" and prize money for choice charities.
RuPaul's Drag Race: Vegas Revue (2020): On July 22, 2020, it was announced that a docu-series would premiere on August 21, 2020.
RuPaul's Drag Race: Corona Can't Keep a Good Queen Down (2021): On February 26, 2021, the one hour special aired on VH1 in between episodes 8 and 9 of Season 13 and detailed the contestants' journeys with filming the season amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Spin-offs
RuPaul's Drag U (2010–2012): In each episode, three women are paired with former Drag Race contestants ("Drag Professors"), who give them drag makeovers and help them to access their "inner divas".
RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars (2012–present): Past contestants return and compete for a spot in the Drag Race Hall of Fame. The show's format is similar to that of RuPaul's Drag Race, with challenges and a panel of judges.
Dancing Queen (2018): In April 2013, RuPaul confirmed that he planned to executive-produce a spin-off of Drag Race that stars season five and All Stars season two contestant Alyssa Edwards. Alyssa Edwards has confirmed that the spin-off's title is Beyond Belief (later retitled as Dancing Queen), and that his dance company in Mesquite, Texas is the setting. The series aired on Netflix on October 5, 2018.
Feature film: In August 2015, RuPaul revealed that a movie featuring all of the contestants was in the works. "We've got a director for it, we've got a light script, but it just needs a little more retooling and scheduling."
RuPaul's Drag Race: The Mobile Game is an upcoming mobile app by World of Wonder and Leaf Mobile's subsidiary East Side Games.
International versions
The Switch Drag Race (2015–2018): This licensed glocalization of Drag Race premiered in October 2015 on Chilean television channel Mega. As in Drag Race, queens compete in "mini-challenges" and a main challenge and are evaluated by a panel of judges. Similar to Drag Race, The Switch requires contestants to lip-sync, dance, and perform impersonations.
Drag Race Thailand (2018–present): In October 2017, Kantana Group acquired the rights to produce its own version of Drag Race. Season 1 of Drag Race Thailand was met with successful ratings on Thai television. It was later announced that the first season will premiere in the U.S. in May 2018. The first season also made stirs in the Asian LGBT community, the most prominent of which was a campaign to establish versions of Drag Race in the Philippines and Taiwan as well, two of the most LGBT-accepting nations in Asia.
RuPaul's Drag Race UK (2019–present): On December 5, 2018, it was announced that the British version of RuPaul's Drag Race would be an eight-part series filmed in London based on local drag queens and would air on BBC Three in 2019. Visage confirmed via social media that she would appear as a judge.
Canada's Drag Race (2020–present): On June 27, 2019, OutTV and Bell Media's streaming service Crave announced that they had co-commissioned a Canadian version of Drag Race. Rights to the series, as well as the U.S. and British versions, will be shared by OutTV and Crave. Additionally, season 11 runner-up Brooke Lynn Hytes was confirmed as one of the judges, becoming the first Drag Race contestant to serve as a permanent judge. The show premiered on July 2, 2020.
Drag Race Holland (2020–present): A Dutch version of Drag Race was announced on July 26, 2020. The series debuted on Videoland in The Netherlands, and aired on WOW Presents Plus internationally. The show is hosted by Fred van Leer and premiered .
RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under (2021–present): On August 26, 2019, an Oceanic version was announced to be in production and said to air in 2020, but was likely delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Filming began in Auckland, New Zealand in January 2021. The series premiered on TVNZ 2 and TVNZ OnDemand in New Zealand, Stan in Australia, and on WOW Presents Plus internationally on 1 May 2021.
Drag Race España (2021–present): On November 16, 2020, Atresmedia announced that they would produce a Spanish version of Drag Race together with Buendía Estudios after reaching an agreement with Passion Distribution in favour of World of Wonder. The series debuted on Atresmedia's pay streaming service ATRESplayer Premium on 30 May 2021, and aired on WOW Presents Plus internationally. It is hosted by Supremme de Luxe.
Drag Race Italia (2021–present): An Italian version of Drag Race was announced on June 30, 2021. The series will debut in November 2021 on Discovery+.
RuPaul's Drag Race: UK Versus the World (2022): On December 21, 2021, World of Wonder announced that a spin-off series of RuPaul's Drag Race UK would premiere in February 2022. Filmed in the United Kingdom, The series will feature international queens who have competed in the Drag Race franchise around the world.
Drag Race Philippines (2022–present): On August 17, 2021, a Filipino version of Drag Race was announced.
Drag Race France (2022–present): On November 17, 2021, a French version of Drag Race was announced.
Home media
Full seasons of shows in the Drag Race franchise are available to stream on WOW Presents Plus in over 200 territories. The show is also currently available on the following streaming platforms:
United States — Hulu (seasons 3–8; All Stars 1–4); Paramount Plus (seasons 1–12, All Stars 1–6, Untucked seasons 9–11, All Stars Untucked seasons 5–6), WOW Presents Plus (Untucked seasons 7–8, Thailand season 2, and all other international series)
Canada — Netflix (seasons 1–12, All Stars 4, Untucked seasons 11 and 12), Crave (all seasons, All Stars 1–6, UK series 1–3, Canada season 1 and 2, Down Under season 1), WOW Presents Plus (seasons 1–10, Untucked seasons 1–10, All Stars 1–4)
UK & Ireland — Netflix (all seasons, Untucked seasons 11–12, All Stars 4 & 5, Celebrity season 1), BBC iPlayer (UK series 1 and 2, Canada season 1, Down Under season 1), WOW Presents Plus (seasons 1–10, Untucked seasons 1–10, all episodes of All Stars and Holland)
Australia — Stan (all seasons of original, All Stars, Untucked, UK, Canada, Down Under and Thailand Season 2), WOW Presents Plus (UK series 1, Canada season 1)
Awards and nominations
RuPaul's Drag Race has been nominated for thirty-nine Emmy Awards, and won nineteen. It has also been nominated for nine Reality Television Awards, winning three, and nominated for six NewNowNext Awards, winning three.
Critical reception
Thrillist called Drag Race "the closest gay culture gets to a sports league." In 2019, the TV series was ranked 93rd on The Guardians list of the 100 best TV shows of the 21st century.
Controversy
In March 2014, Drag Race sparked controversy over the use of the term "shemale" in the season 6 mini challenge "Female or She-male?". Logo has since removed the segment from all platforms and addressed the allegations of transphobia by removing the "You've got she-mail" intro from new episodes of the series. This was replaced with, "She done already done had herses!" RuPaul additionally came under fire for comments made in an interview with The Guardian, in which he stated he would "probably not" allow a transgender contestant to compete. He compared transgender drag performers to doping athletes on his Twitter, and has since apologized. Sasha Velour (season 9) disagreed, tweeting "My drag was born in a community full of trans women, trans men, and gender non-conforming folks doing drag. That's the real world of drag, like it or not. I thinks it's fabulous and I will fight my entire life to protect and uplift it".
Relationship with trans community
For the first twelve seasons, RuPaul would say, "Gentlemen, start your engines, and may the best woman win," before the contestants' runway looks for the episode were shown. When season 13 introduced the show's first ever transgender male contestant, Gottmik, RuPaul's catchphrase was changed in order to promote inclusivity: "Racers, start your engines, and may the best drag queen win." In season 6 of All Stars, an altered version of the shows opening theme was introduced with the new tag line.
Performers of any sexual orientation and gender identity are eligible to audition, although most contestants to date have been gay, cisgender men. Transgender competitors have become more common as seasons have progressed; Sonique, a season two contestant, became the first openly trans contestant when she came out as a woman during the reunion special. Sonique later won All Stars 6, becoming the first trans woman to win an English-language version of the show and the second overall. Monica Beverly Hillz (season 5) became the first contestant to come out as a trans woman during the competition. Peppermint (season 9) is the first contestant who was out as a trans woman prior to the airing of her season. Other trans contestants came out as women after their elimination, including Carmen Carrera, Kenya Michaels, Stacy Layne Matthews, Jiggly Caliente, Gia Gunn, Laganja Estranja and Gigi Goode. Additionally, Gottmik (season 13) was the first AFAB and currently the only openly transgender male contestant in the franchise's history.
Season 14 is the first regular season to feature four transgender women in the cast—Kerri Colby, Kornbread "The Snack" Jeté, Bosco and Jasmine Kennedie. While Colby was cast after transitioning, Kornbread, Bosco and Jasmine came out after the show's taping.
Broadcast
Australia: In Australia, lifestyle channel LifeStyle YOU regularly shows and re-screens seasons 1–7, including Untucked. In addition, free-to-air channel SBS2 began screening the first season on August 31, 2013. On March 13, 2017, it was announced that on-demand service Stan would fast-track season 9 (including Untucked). As of 2020, Stan streams all seasons since Season 1, as well as Untucked, All Stars, All Stars Untucked, Canada's Drag Race, Secret Celebrity, Drag Race UK and Season 2 of Drag Race Thailand.
Canada: The series airs on OutTV in Canada at the same time as the US airing. Unlike Logo, OutTV continues to broadcast Untucked immediately after each Drag Race episode. Beginning with season 12, OutTV has shared its first-run rights to the main series (but not Untucked) with the more widely subscribed Crave streaming service, with episodes available on Crave shortly after they premiere on OutTV, in connection with Crave and OutTV's co-production of Canada's Drag Race. Past seasons are also available on Netflix in Canada, with each season released there shortly before the next season begins.
Ireland: In Ireland, season 2 to season 8 of the programme were available on Netflix; as of the release of Season 10, only seasons 8 & 9 are available. Netflix has started airing season 10 episodes one day after they air in the USA. All seasons of the show have been made available on Netflix since October 2018
Indonesia: In Indonesia, season 1 to season 13 of the programme were available on Netflix, alongside the Christmas spectacular; As of the release of All Stars, only season 4 and 5 is available. Netflix also aired Untucked season 10 episodes one day after they air in the USA.
UK: E4 aired season 1 in 2009, followed by season 2 in 2010. Since its success on Netflix in the UK, TruTV acquired the broadcast rights for all eight seasons of the show including Untucked episodes. In June 2015, TruTV started airing two episodes of the show a week, starting with season 4, followed by All Stars, then season 5. As of May 2018, the series airs on VH1 UK Monday–Thursday at 11pm, beginning with All Stars season 3.Israel''': Yes has broadcast all seasons and Untucked episodes. Seasons 1–12, All Stars seasons 4–5 and Untucked'' seasons 11–12 are also available on Netflix.
See also
List of reality television programs with LGBT cast members
List of Rusicals
LGBT culture in New York City
Paris Is Burning (film)
References
External links
Edgar, E. (2011). "Xtravaganza!": Drag Representation and Articulation in "RuPaul's Drag Race". Studies in Popular Culture,34(1), 133–146. Retrieved from "Xtravaganza!": Drag Representation and Articulation in "RuPaul's Drag Race"
2009 American television series debuts
2000s American reality television series
2000s LGBT-related reality television series
2010s American reality television series
2010s LGBT-related reality television series
2020s American reality television series
2020s LGBT-related reality television series
American LGBT-related reality television series
English-language television shows
Logo TV original programming
Primetime Emmy Award-winning television series
Television series by World of Wonder (company)
Transgender-related television shows
VH1 original programming
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality Program winners
2000s American LGBT-related television series
2010s American LGBT-related television series
2020s American LGBT-related television series | false | [
"The 2013 Pulitzer Prizes were awarded on April 15, 2013 by the Pulitzer Prize Board for work during the 2012 calendar year.\n\nPrizes\nThere were 21 prizes awarded in three categories.\n\nJournalism\n\nLetters and drama\n\nMusic\n\nSpecial Citation\nNot awarded in 2013.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nPulitzer Prize official website\n\nPulitzer Prizes by year\nPulitzer Prize\nPulitzer\nPulitzer Prize\nPulitzer Prize\nApril 2013 events in the United States",
"The Pulitzer Prize for Photography was one of the American Pulitzer Prizes annually awarded for journalism. It was inaugurated in 1942 and replaced by two photojournalism prizes in 1968: the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography and \"Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography\", which was later renamed Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography in 2000.\n\nThe Pulitzer Prizes were established by the bequest of Joseph Pulitzer, which suggested four journalism awards, and were inaugurated beginning 1917. By 1942 there were eight Pulitzers for journalism; for several years now there have been 14 including the two for photojournalism.\n\nWinners\nThere were 26 simple Photography prizes awarded in 26 years including two in 1944 (for 1943 work) and none in 1946.\n\nReferences\n\nPhotojournalism awards\nPhotography\n\nAwards established in 1942\n1942 establishments in the United States\nPulitzer Prize"
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"In this companion series, RuPaul presents a documentary of contestants' conversation in the green room, replays pertinent moments from Drag Race,",
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"I don't know."
] | C_2bdaab02168043d394ffbc0451581d47_0 | What happens in Untucked? | 5 | What happens in Untucked? | RuPaul's Drag Race | The first season of Drag Race was accompanied by a seven-episode web series, titled Under the Hood of RuPaul's Drag Race. LOGOonline published a webisode of Under the Hood after each episode of Drag Race. In this companion series, RuPaul presents a documentary of contestants' conversation in the green room, replays pertinent moments from Drag Race, and airs deleted footage. Starting with the second season of Drag Race in 2010, Logo reformatted Under the Hood, increased its production budget, moved it from the web to television, and re-titled it to RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked. Logo broadcast an episode of Untucked after each episode of Drag Race. Untucked replaces the basic green room of Under the Hood with two decorated rooms that were until season 6 sponsored by Absolut Vodka and Interior Illusions, Inc.: the Interior Illusions Lounge and the Gold Bar. FormDecor sponsored the Lounge for season 6. These two backstage areas allow for separated group conversation. At the start of the seventh season of the Drag Race, Untucked reverted to a webseries, as part of the World of Wonder YouTube page. Instead of two decorated rooms, Untucked was moved back to the one room, an empty backstage space that connects to the main stage and work room, with couches for contestants to chat on. The newly renovated version also follows contestants following their elimination from the show, documenting them packing their belongings and leaving the set. The webseries format continued for the eighth and ninth season. For the show's tenth season, Untucked returned to television. CANNOTANSWER | renovated version also follows contestants following their elimination from the show, documenting them packing their belongings and leaving | RuPaul's Drag Race is an American reality competition television series, the first in the Drag Race franchise, produced by World of Wonder for Logo TV, WOW Presents Plus, and, beginning with the ninth season, VH1. The show documents RuPaul in the search for "America's next drag superstar." RuPaul plays the role of host, mentor, and head judge for this series, as contestants are given different challenges each week. RuPaul's Drag Race employs a panel of judges, including RuPaul, Michelle Visage, an alternating third main judge of either Carson Kressley or Ross Matthews, and a host of other guest judges, who critique contestants' progress throughout the competition. The title of the show is a play on drag queen and drag racing, and the title sequence and song "Drag Race" both have a drag-racing theme. To date, there have been thirteen winners of the show: BeBe Zahara Benet, Tyra Sanchez, Raja, Sharon Needles, Jinkx Monsoon, Bianca Del Rio, Violet Chachki, Bob the Drag Queen, Sasha Velour, Aquaria, Yvie Oddly, Jaida Essence Hall and Symone.
RuPaul's Drag Race has spanned thirteen seasons and inspired the spin-off shows RuPaul's Drag U, RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars, RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked, RuPaul's Secret Celebrity Drag Race, RuPaul's Drag Race UK, and RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under. The show has become the highest-rated television program on Logo TV, and airs internationally, including in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and Israel. The show earned RuPaul six consecutive Emmys (2016 to 2021) for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program. The show itself has been awarded as the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program 4 consecutive times (2018 to 2021), and the Outstanding Reality Program award at the 21st GLAAD Media Awards. It has been nominated for four Critics' Choice Television Award including Best Reality Series – Competition and Best Reality Show Host for RuPaul, and was nominated for a Creative Arts Emmy Award for Outstanding Make-up for a Multi-Camera Series or Special (Non-Prosthetic). Later in 2018, the show became the first show to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program in the same year, a feat it has since repeated three times.
Format
Prospective Drag Race contestants submit video auditions to the show's production company, World of Wonder. RuPaul, the host and head judge, views each tape and selects the season's competitors. Once the chosen pool of performers is on set, they film a series of episodes, each one typically concluding with the removal of one contestant from the competition. Rarely, the outcome of an episode has been a double elimination, no elimination, contestant disqualification or removal of a contestant on medical grounds. Each episode features a so-called maxi challenge that tests competitors' skills in a variety of areas of drag performance. Some episodes also feature a mini challenge, the prize of which is often an advantage or benefit in the upcoming maxi challenge. Following the maxi challenge, contestants present themed looks in a runway walk. RuPaul and a panel of judges then critique each contestant's performance, deliberate amongst themselves, and announce the week's winner and bottom two competitors. The bottom two queens compete in a so-called Lip Sync for Your Life; the winner of the lip sync remains in the competition, and the loser is eliminated. Generally, the contestant that the judges feel has displayed the most "charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent" (C.U.N.T.) is the one who advances. The final three, or four depending on what RuPaul chooses, contestants remaining compete in a special finale episode wherein the season's winner is crowned. In early seasons, the finale was pre-recorded in the studio with no audience. More recently, the finale has taken the form of a lip sync tournament before a live audience. The season 12 finale was filmed remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The whole season is typically filmed in four weeks.
Mini and maxi challenges
Mini challenges are quick, small assignments that RuPaul announces at the beginning of an episode. One of the most popular mini challenges, which recurs from season to season, is the reading challenge. In it, contestants satirically criticize one another in a process called "reading", which was popularized by the film Paris Is Burning. Maxi challenges vary in the skill they test; some are group challenges that involve singing and acting, while others feature comedy, a talent of choice, dancing, or makeovers. The winner receives a material or monetary prize. Until the show's sixth season, the winner sometimes also received immunity against elimination the following week. Drag Races most popular seasonal maxi challenge is Snatch Game, a spoof on Match Game wherein contestants impersonate celebrities or famous fictional personas.
Judging
RuPaul has been the series' head judge since its premiere. For the first two seasons, Merle Ginsberg joined him on the panel; she was replaced in season 3 by longtime friend of RuPaul and co-host of The RuPaul Show Michelle Visage. Santino Rice served as a judge from season 1 through season 6. From season 7 onward, Ross Mathews and Carson Kressley have occupied Rice's former seat. New York City makeup artist Billy B held a regular judging spot in the third and fourth seasons when Rice was absent. Most weeks, one or two celebrity guest judges join the panel.
Companion series
The first season of Drag Race was accompanied by a seven-episode web series titled Under the Hood of RuPaul's Drag Race, which Logo TV made available for streaming on its website. The series featured behind-the-scenes and deleted footage from the main show's tapes. From season 2 onward, a companion show called RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked, which has the same premise, has aired instead. Untucked largely focuses on conversations and drama that occur between contestants backstage while the judges deliberate on each episode's results. In most seasons, it has aired on TV following the main show, but it was available only online for season 7 through season 9. A number of smaller web series also accompany each episode of Drag Race. Whatcha Packin, which began at the start of the sixth season, features Michelle Visage interviewing the most recently eliminated queen about their run on the show and showcasing runway outfits they had brought but did not have the opportunity to wear. In 2014, the web-series Fashion Photo Ruview aired for the first time, co-hosted by Raja Gemini and Raven who evaluate the runway looks of the main show. Since season 8, a five- to fifteen-minute aftershow called The Pit Stop has also been produced. It involves a host and guest, typically past competitors of Drag Race, discussing the recently aired episode. Each season's host (or hosts) are different; to date, these have included the YouTuber Kingsley, Raja Gemini, Bob the Drag Queen, Alaska Thunderfuck, Trixie Mattel, Manila Luzon, and Monét X Change.
Series overview
Seasons 1–8 (2009–2016): Logo TV
Season 1 premiered in the U.S. on February 2, 2009, on Logo TV. Nine contestants competed to become "America's Next Drag Superstar". The winner won a lifetime supply of MAC Cosmetics, was featured on the cover of Paper and in an LA Eyeworks campaign, joined the Absolut Pride tour, and won a cash prize of $20,000. One of the nine, Nina Flowers, was determined by an audience vote via the show's official website. The winner of season 1 was BeBe Zahara Benet, with Nina Flowers winning Miss Congeniality. In late 2013, Logo re-aired the season as RuPaul's Drag Race: The Lost Season Ru-Vealed, featuring commentary from RuPaul.
For season 2 (2010), 12 contestants competed for a lifetime supply of NYX Cosmetics and be the face of nyxcosmetics.com, an exclusive one year public relations contract with LGBT firm Project Publicity, be featured in an LA Eyeworks campaign, join the Logo Drag Race Tour, and a cash prize of $25,000. A new tradition of writing a farewell message in lipstick on the workstation mirror was started by the first eliminated queen, Shangela. Each week's episode is followed by a behind-the-scenes show, RuPaul's Drag Race Untucked. The winner of season 2 was Tyra Sanchez, with Pandora Boxx winning Miss Congeniality. On December 6, 2011, Amazon.com released season 2 on DVD via the CreateSpace program.
Season 3 (2011) had Michelle Visage replacing Merle Ginsberg on the judging panel as well as Billy Brasfield (commonly known as Billy B), Mike Ruiz, and Jeffrey Moran (courtesy of Absolut Vodka) filling in for Santino Rice's absence during several episodes. Due to Billy B's continued appearances, he and Rice are considered to have been alternate judges for the same seat on judges panel. Other changes made included the introduction of a wildcard contestant from the past season, Shangela; an episode with no elimination; and a contestant, Carmen Carrera, being brought back into the competition after having been eliminated a few episodes prior. A new pit crew was also introduced consisting of Jason Carter and Shawn Morales. As with the previous season, each week's episode was followed by a behind-the-scenes show, RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked. The winner of the season 3 was Raja, with Yara Sofia winning Miss Congeniality. On December 6, 2011, Amazon.com released this season on DVD via their CreateSpace program.
Season 4 began airing on January 30, 2012, with cast members announced November 13, 2011. The winner headlined Logo's Drag Race Tour featuring Absolut Vodka, won a one-of-a-kind trip, a lifetime supply of NYX Cosmetics, a cash prize of $100,000, and the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar." Like the previous season, Rice and Billy B (Billy Brasfield), shared the same seat at the judges table alternatively, with Brasfield filling in for Rice when needed. The winner of season 4 was Sharon Needles, with Latrice Royale winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 5 began airing on January 28, 2013, with a 90-minute premiere episode. Fourteen contestants competed for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar" along with a lifetime supply of Colorevolution Cosmetics, a one-of-a-kind trip courtesy of AlandChuck.travel, a headlining spot on Logo's Drag Race Tour featuring Absolut Vodka and a cash prize of $100,000. Rice and Visage were back as judges on the panel. The winner of season 5 was Jinkx Monsoon, with Ivy Winters winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 6 began airing February 24, 2014. Like season 5, season 6 saw 14 contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar". For the first time in the show's history, the season premiere was split into two episodes; the fourteen queens are split into two groups and the seven queens in each group compete against one another before being united as one group in the third episode. Rice and Visage returned as judges at the panel. Two new pit crew members, Miles Moody and Simon Sherry-Wood, joined Carter and Morales. The winner won a prize package that included a supply from Colorevolution Cosmetics and a cash prize of $100,000. The winner of season 6 was Bianca Del Rio, with BenDeLaCreme winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 7 began airing on March 2, 2015. Returning judges included RuPaul and Visage, while the space previously occupied by Rice was filled by new additions Ross Mathews and Carson Kressley. Mathews and Kressley were both present for the season premiere and then took turns sharing judging responsibilities. Morales and Simon Sherry-Wood did not appear this season and were replaced by Bryce Eilenberg. Like the previous two seasons, this one featured fourteen contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. The season premiere debuted with a live and same-day viewership of 348,000, a 20 percent increase from the previous season. On March 20, 2015, it was announced that Logo had given the series an early renewal for an eighth season. The winner of season 7 was Violet Chachki, with Katya winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 8 on began airing on March 7, 2016, with cast members announced during the NewNowNext Honors on February 1, 2016. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. The first episode celebrated the 100th taping of the show, and the 100th drag queen to compete. Similar to season 2, this season had twelve contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. The winner of season 8 was Bob the Drag Queen, with Cynthia Lee Fontaine winning Miss Congeniality.
Seasons 9–14 (2017–present): VH1
Season 9 began airing on March 24, 2017 on VH1, with cast members being announced on February 2, 2017. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. This season features fourteen contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. The ninth season aired on VH1, with encore presentations continuing to air on Logo. This season featured the return of Cynthia Lee Fontaine, who previously participated in the season 8. Season 9 featured a top four in the finale episode, as opposed to the top three, which was previously established in season 4. The winner of season 9 was Sasha Velour, with Valentina winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 10 began airing on March 22, 2018. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. This season features thirteen new contestants, and one returning contestant, competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. Eureka O'Hara, who was removed from the ninth season due to an injury, returned to the show after she accepted an open invitation. Season 10 premiered alongside the televised return of Untucked. The tenth season featured a top four following the previous season's finale format. The winner of season 10 was Aquaria, with Monét X Change winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 11 began airing February 28, 2019. This season had fifteen contestants, whereas previous seasons typically had fourteen contestants. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. This season features fourteen new contestants, and one returning contestant, competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. This season saw the return of Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, who was the first contestant eliminated in season 10. Season 11 again featured a top four in the finale. As with season 10, each week's episode was followed by an episode of the televised return of RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked. The winner of season 11 was Yvie Oddly, with Nina West winning Miss Congeniality.
On January 22, 2019, casting for Season 12 (2020) was announced via YouTube and Twitter and was closed on March 1, 2019. On August 19, 2019, it was announced that the series had been renewed for a twelfth season. The season began airing on February 28, 2020. This is the first and only season to have the reunion and finale recorded virtually from the contestants' homes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The winner of season 12 was Jaida Essence Hall, with Heidi N Closet winning Miss Congeniality.
On December 2, 2019, casting for Season 13 (2021) was announced via YouTube and Twitter. The casting call closed on January 24, 2020. On August 20, 2020, it was announced the thirteenth season had been ordered by VH1. It began airing on January 1, 2021. The winner of season 13 was Symone, with Kandy Muse as runner-up, and LaLa Ri as Miss Congeniality.
Casting for Season 14 began on November 23, 2020. In August 2021, it was announced the fourteenth season had been ordered by VH1. The cast for the fourteenth season was revealed through VH1 on December 2, 2021. The season will start airing on January 7, 2022.
Casting for season 15 began on November 4, 2021, and will close January 7, 2022.
Contestants
More than 150 contestants have competed on the U.S. version of the show.
Specials
RuPaul's Drag Race: Green Screen Christmas (2015): On December 13, 2015, Logo aired a seasonal themed episode of Drag Race. The non-competitive special was released in conjunction with RuPaul's holiday album Slay Belles and featured music videos for songs from the album. The cast included RuPaul, Michelle Visage, Siedah Garrett, and Todrick Hall, and former contestants Alyssa Edwards, Laganja Estranja, Latrice Royale, Raja, and Shangela.
RuPaul's Drag Race Holi-slay Spectacular (2018): On November 1, 2018, VH1 announced a seasonal themed special episode of Drag Race scheduled to air on December 7, 2018. The special saw eight former contestants compete for the title of "America's first Drag Race Christmas Queen". Competitors included Eureka O'Hara, Jasmine Masters, Kim Chi, Latrice Royale, Mayhem Miller, Shangela, Sonique, and Trixie Mattel.
RuPaul's Secret Celebrity Drag Race (2020): On April 10, 2020, VH1 announced a celebrity edition of Drag Race scheduled to air for four weeks beginning on April 24, 2020. The series featured a trio of celebrities receiving makeovers from former contestants. After receiving help from "Queen Supremes" Alyssa Edwards, Asia O'Hara, Bob the Drag Queen, Kim Chi, Monét X Change, Monique Heart, Nina West, Trinity the Tuck, Trixie Mattel and Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, the celebrities competed in fan-favorite challenges and on the runway to be named "America's Next Celebrity Drag Race Superstar" and prize money for choice charities.
RuPaul's Drag Race: Vegas Revue (2020): On July 22, 2020, it was announced that a docu-series would premiere on August 21, 2020.
RuPaul's Drag Race: Corona Can't Keep a Good Queen Down (2021): On February 26, 2021, the one hour special aired on VH1 in between episodes 8 and 9 of Season 13 and detailed the contestants' journeys with filming the season amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Spin-offs
RuPaul's Drag U (2010–2012): In each episode, three women are paired with former Drag Race contestants ("Drag Professors"), who give them drag makeovers and help them to access their "inner divas".
RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars (2012–present): Past contestants return and compete for a spot in the Drag Race Hall of Fame. The show's format is similar to that of RuPaul's Drag Race, with challenges and a panel of judges.
Dancing Queen (2018): In April 2013, RuPaul confirmed that he planned to executive-produce a spin-off of Drag Race that stars season five and All Stars season two contestant Alyssa Edwards. Alyssa Edwards has confirmed that the spin-off's title is Beyond Belief (later retitled as Dancing Queen), and that his dance company in Mesquite, Texas is the setting. The series aired on Netflix on October 5, 2018.
Feature film: In August 2015, RuPaul revealed that a movie featuring all of the contestants was in the works. "We've got a director for it, we've got a light script, but it just needs a little more retooling and scheduling."
RuPaul's Drag Race: The Mobile Game is an upcoming mobile app by World of Wonder and Leaf Mobile's subsidiary East Side Games.
International versions
The Switch Drag Race (2015–2018): This licensed glocalization of Drag Race premiered in October 2015 on Chilean television channel Mega. As in Drag Race, queens compete in "mini-challenges" and a main challenge and are evaluated by a panel of judges. Similar to Drag Race, The Switch requires contestants to lip-sync, dance, and perform impersonations.
Drag Race Thailand (2018–present): In October 2017, Kantana Group acquired the rights to produce its own version of Drag Race. Season 1 of Drag Race Thailand was met with successful ratings on Thai television. It was later announced that the first season will premiere in the U.S. in May 2018. The first season also made stirs in the Asian LGBT community, the most prominent of which was a campaign to establish versions of Drag Race in the Philippines and Taiwan as well, two of the most LGBT-accepting nations in Asia.
RuPaul's Drag Race UK (2019–present): On December 5, 2018, it was announced that the British version of RuPaul's Drag Race would be an eight-part series filmed in London based on local drag queens and would air on BBC Three in 2019. Visage confirmed via social media that she would appear as a judge.
Canada's Drag Race (2020–present): On June 27, 2019, OutTV and Bell Media's streaming service Crave announced that they had co-commissioned a Canadian version of Drag Race. Rights to the series, as well as the U.S. and British versions, will be shared by OutTV and Crave. Additionally, season 11 runner-up Brooke Lynn Hytes was confirmed as one of the judges, becoming the first Drag Race contestant to serve as a permanent judge. The show premiered on July 2, 2020.
Drag Race Holland (2020–present): A Dutch version of Drag Race was announced on July 26, 2020. The series debuted on Videoland in The Netherlands, and aired on WOW Presents Plus internationally. The show is hosted by Fred van Leer and premiered .
RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under (2021–present): On August 26, 2019, an Oceanic version was announced to be in production and said to air in 2020, but was likely delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Filming began in Auckland, New Zealand in January 2021. The series premiered on TVNZ 2 and TVNZ OnDemand in New Zealand, Stan in Australia, and on WOW Presents Plus internationally on 1 May 2021.
Drag Race España (2021–present): On November 16, 2020, Atresmedia announced that they would produce a Spanish version of Drag Race together with Buendía Estudios after reaching an agreement with Passion Distribution in favour of World of Wonder. The series debuted on Atresmedia's pay streaming service ATRESplayer Premium on 30 May 2021, and aired on WOW Presents Plus internationally. It is hosted by Supremme de Luxe.
Drag Race Italia (2021–present): An Italian version of Drag Race was announced on June 30, 2021. The series will debut in November 2021 on Discovery+.
RuPaul's Drag Race: UK Versus the World (2022): On December 21, 2021, World of Wonder announced that a spin-off series of RuPaul's Drag Race UK would premiere in February 2022. Filmed in the United Kingdom, The series will feature international queens who have competed in the Drag Race franchise around the world.
Drag Race Philippines (2022–present): On August 17, 2021, a Filipino version of Drag Race was announced.
Drag Race France (2022–present): On November 17, 2021, a French version of Drag Race was announced.
Home media
Full seasons of shows in the Drag Race franchise are available to stream on WOW Presents Plus in over 200 territories. The show is also currently available on the following streaming platforms:
United States — Hulu (seasons 3–8; All Stars 1–4); Paramount Plus (seasons 1–12, All Stars 1–6, Untucked seasons 9–11, All Stars Untucked seasons 5–6), WOW Presents Plus (Untucked seasons 7–8, Thailand season 2, and all other international series)
Canada — Netflix (seasons 1–12, All Stars 4, Untucked seasons 11 and 12), Crave (all seasons, All Stars 1–6, UK series 1–3, Canada season 1 and 2, Down Under season 1), WOW Presents Plus (seasons 1–10, Untucked seasons 1–10, All Stars 1–4)
UK & Ireland — Netflix (all seasons, Untucked seasons 11–12, All Stars 4 & 5, Celebrity season 1), BBC iPlayer (UK series 1 and 2, Canada season 1, Down Under season 1), WOW Presents Plus (seasons 1–10, Untucked seasons 1–10, all episodes of All Stars and Holland)
Australia — Stan (all seasons of original, All Stars, Untucked, UK, Canada, Down Under and Thailand Season 2), WOW Presents Plus (UK series 1, Canada season 1)
Awards and nominations
RuPaul's Drag Race has been nominated for thirty-nine Emmy Awards, and won nineteen. It has also been nominated for nine Reality Television Awards, winning three, and nominated for six NewNowNext Awards, winning three.
Critical reception
Thrillist called Drag Race "the closest gay culture gets to a sports league." In 2019, the TV series was ranked 93rd on The Guardians list of the 100 best TV shows of the 21st century.
Controversy
In March 2014, Drag Race sparked controversy over the use of the term "shemale" in the season 6 mini challenge "Female or She-male?". Logo has since removed the segment from all platforms and addressed the allegations of transphobia by removing the "You've got she-mail" intro from new episodes of the series. This was replaced with, "She done already done had herses!" RuPaul additionally came under fire for comments made in an interview with The Guardian, in which he stated he would "probably not" allow a transgender contestant to compete. He compared transgender drag performers to doping athletes on his Twitter, and has since apologized. Sasha Velour (season 9) disagreed, tweeting "My drag was born in a community full of trans women, trans men, and gender non-conforming folks doing drag. That's the real world of drag, like it or not. I thinks it's fabulous and I will fight my entire life to protect and uplift it".
Relationship with trans community
For the first twelve seasons, RuPaul would say, "Gentlemen, start your engines, and may the best woman win," before the contestants' runway looks for the episode were shown. When season 13 introduced the show's first ever transgender male contestant, Gottmik, RuPaul's catchphrase was changed in order to promote inclusivity: "Racers, start your engines, and may the best drag queen win." In season 6 of All Stars, an altered version of the shows opening theme was introduced with the new tag line.
Performers of any sexual orientation and gender identity are eligible to audition, although most contestants to date have been gay, cisgender men. Transgender competitors have become more common as seasons have progressed; Sonique, a season two contestant, became the first openly trans contestant when she came out as a woman during the reunion special. Sonique later won All Stars 6, becoming the first trans woman to win an English-language version of the show and the second overall. Monica Beverly Hillz (season 5) became the first contestant to come out as a trans woman during the competition. Peppermint (season 9) is the first contestant who was out as a trans woman prior to the airing of her season. Other trans contestants came out as women after their elimination, including Carmen Carrera, Kenya Michaels, Stacy Layne Matthews, Jiggly Caliente, Gia Gunn, Laganja Estranja and Gigi Goode. Additionally, Gottmik (season 13) was the first AFAB and currently the only openly transgender male contestant in the franchise's history.
Season 14 is the first regular season to feature four transgender women in the cast—Kerri Colby, Kornbread "The Snack" Jeté, Bosco and Jasmine Kennedie. While Colby was cast after transitioning, Kornbread, Bosco and Jasmine came out after the show's taping.
Broadcast
Australia: In Australia, lifestyle channel LifeStyle YOU regularly shows and re-screens seasons 1–7, including Untucked. In addition, free-to-air channel SBS2 began screening the first season on August 31, 2013. On March 13, 2017, it was announced that on-demand service Stan would fast-track season 9 (including Untucked). As of 2020, Stan streams all seasons since Season 1, as well as Untucked, All Stars, All Stars Untucked, Canada's Drag Race, Secret Celebrity, Drag Race UK and Season 2 of Drag Race Thailand.
Canada: The series airs on OutTV in Canada at the same time as the US airing. Unlike Logo, OutTV continues to broadcast Untucked immediately after each Drag Race episode. Beginning with season 12, OutTV has shared its first-run rights to the main series (but not Untucked) with the more widely subscribed Crave streaming service, with episodes available on Crave shortly after they premiere on OutTV, in connection with Crave and OutTV's co-production of Canada's Drag Race. Past seasons are also available on Netflix in Canada, with each season released there shortly before the next season begins.
Ireland: In Ireland, season 2 to season 8 of the programme were available on Netflix; as of the release of Season 10, only seasons 8 & 9 are available. Netflix has started airing season 10 episodes one day after they air in the USA. All seasons of the show have been made available on Netflix since October 2018
Indonesia: In Indonesia, season 1 to season 13 of the programme were available on Netflix, alongside the Christmas spectacular; As of the release of All Stars, only season 4 and 5 is available. Netflix also aired Untucked season 10 episodes one day after they air in the USA.
UK: E4 aired season 1 in 2009, followed by season 2 in 2010. Since its success on Netflix in the UK, TruTV acquired the broadcast rights for all eight seasons of the show including Untucked episodes. In June 2015, TruTV started airing two episodes of the show a week, starting with season 4, followed by All Stars, then season 5. As of May 2018, the series airs on VH1 UK Monday–Thursday at 11pm, beginning with All Stars season 3.Israel''': Yes has broadcast all seasons and Untucked episodes. Seasons 1–12, All Stars seasons 4–5 and Untucked'' seasons 11–12 are also available on Netflix.
See also
List of reality television programs with LGBT cast members
List of Rusicals
LGBT culture in New York City
Paris Is Burning (film)
References
External links
Edgar, E. (2011). "Xtravaganza!": Drag Representation and Articulation in "RuPaul's Drag Race". Studies in Popular Culture,34(1), 133–146. Retrieved from "Xtravaganza!": Drag Representation and Articulation in "RuPaul's Drag Race"
2009 American television series debuts
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2010s American reality television series
2010s LGBT-related reality television series
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2020s LGBT-related reality television series
American LGBT-related reality television series
English-language television shows
Logo TV original programming
Primetime Emmy Award-winning television series
Television series by World of Wonder (company)
Transgender-related television shows
VH1 original programming
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality Program winners
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"\"What Happens Tomorrow\" is a song by British pop rock band Duran Duran from their 11th studio album, Astronaut (2004). It was released on 18 January 2005 as the second single from that album. The song debuted at number 11 in the UK Singles Chart on 6 February 2005 and was the second single from the album to peak at number two in Italy.\n\nAbout the song\nThe track was originally debuted on an American Internet radio station in 2003 while the band were hunting around for a record deal. During the outro, bassist John Taylor announced that it would be a single later on in the year.\n\nThe version of \"What Happens Tomorrow\" played on the radio was an early demo featuring an extended bridge, which would be removed by the time the track was released on Astronaut; parts of the track were re-worked to become the b-side \"Silent Icy River\".\n\nMusic video\nThe video, which showed the band as constellations, was directed by the duo of Smith n' Borin (Frank Buff Borin and Ryan Smith). It was nominated on the Visual Effects Society Awards 2005 for \"Outstanding Visual Effects in a Music Video\" for media artists Jerry Steele, Jo Steele, Brian Adler and Monique Eissing.\n\nPlayboy Playmate Nicole Marie Lenz and Steve Talley (American Pie Presents: The Naked Mile) appear in the video.\n\nB-sides, bonus tracks and remixes\nB-sides on various releases included \"(Reach Up For The) Sunrise (Eric Prydz Mix)\", \"Silent Icy River\", and \"What Happens Tomorrow (Harry Peat Mix)\".\n\nTrack listings\nCD: Epic / 6756501 (UK)\n \"What Happens Tomorrow\" – 4:04\n \"(Reach Up For The) Sunrise (Eric Prydz Edit)\" – 3:36\n\nThe full-length mix was released on a promotional 12 inch during the \"Sunrise\" campaign.\n\nCD Epic / 6756502 (UK)\n \"What Happens Tomorrow\" – 4:04\n \"Silent Icy River\" – 2:54\n \"What Happens Tomorrow (Harry Peat Mix)\" – 4:04\n \"What Happens Tomorrow (video)\" – 4:04\n\nCD Epic / 6756532 (International)\n \"What Happens Tomorrow\" – 4:04\n \"Silent Icy River\" – 2:54\n \"What Happens Tomorrow (Harry Peat Mix)\" – 4:04\n \"(Reach Up For The) Sunrise (Eric Prydz Mix)\" – 6:46\n\nDigital Downloads Only\n \"What Happens Tomorrow (Peter Rauhofer's Reconstruction Mix)\" – 8:56\n \"What Happens Tomorrow (Peter Rauhofer's Reconstruction Dub)\" – 8:49\n\nCD: Epic / SAMPCS145991 (UK)\n \"What Happens Tomorrow\" – 4:05\n\nPersonnel\n Simon Le Bon – vocals \n Nick Rhodes – keyboards\n John Taylor – bass guitar\n Roger Taylor – drums\n Andy Taylor – guitar\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nRelease history\n\nCovers, samples, and media references\nIn 2005, \"What Happens Tomorrow\" was used in a promotional spot for the U.S. digital cable network Fox Soccer Channel; Simon Le Bon and John Taylor had also appeared in a separate spot for the network.\n\nThe song was also used in a promotional spot for Flight 29 Down on Canada's Family Channel.\n\nReferences\n\n2005 singles\nDuran Duran songs\nSongs written by Simon Le Bon\nSongs written by Warren Cuccurullo\nSongs written by Nick Rhodes",
"Katrina Carlson is an American singer-songwriter. She currently resides in Santa Monica, California with her husband, Kenneth A. Carlson, and her three children, Mackenzie, Alexander and Ruby Rose.\n\nEarly life\nCarlson was born and grew up in Paradise Valley, Arizona, the youngest of 11 children. By the age of 12, she was playing both piano and guitar, and composing songs. Carlson attended college at Brown University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with Honors in International Relations, Foreign Policy and Diplomacy with a focus in Nuclear Arms Control. After graduating from college, Carlson moved to New York City and was admitted to the Manhattan School of Music and Brooklyn College’s opera program.\n\nCareer\n\nEarly years\nDuring her time in New York, she appeared in an Off-Broadway Cole Porter review, You Never Know. She also lived in Washington, D.C. where she performed in many plays and musicals at various theaters.\n\nIn 1993, Carlson moved to Santa Monica, California, where she continued to perform in local and regional theater. Carlson also garnered appearances in films and television shows including: In the Line of Fire, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as a Bajoran Officer and Special Delivery. Carlson placed two of her songs, \"I Never Believed\" and \"Bring it On\" in Special Deliverys soundtrack.\n\nApples For Eve\nIn 1999, Carlson started her own record label, Kataphonic Records. Carlson released her debut record, Apples For Eve, in September 2001. The album was produced by Emmy Award-winning producer Ron Cohen. Three songs from Apples for Eve, \"I Know You By Heart\", \"Friday Night\" and \"Winning’s Everything\", were featured in the documentary feature film Go Tigers!. \"Winning’s Everything\" was used on NBC's Lost and the title track \"Apples For Eve\" was featured on the daytime drama Passions. Carlson's song \"Friday Night\" aired as the theme song for ABC's TGIF Friday Night line up in the fall/winter of 2003–2004.\n\nCarlson was a finalist in the Rolling Stone/Jim Beam emerging Artist series in 2002, finishing second.\n\nUntucked\nCarlson's second album, Untucked, was released in May 2003. David Darling, best known as a member of the Boxing Gandhis and for his work with Meredith Brooks and Brian Setzer, produced the album. Special guests on the disc included Goo Goo Doll drummer Mike Malinin, Oingo Boingo bassist John Avila, hit singer-songwriter Benny Mardones and drummer Josh Freese (Nine Inch Nails, A Perfect Circle, Guns N' Roses).\n\nFour singles from the Untucked CD spent a combined 18 months in the Top 30 of the Billboard and R&R Adult Contemporary charts: \"Suddenly Beautiful\", \"Drive\", \"Count On Me\", and \"I Know You By Heart\". Carlson’s success on the Billboard charts with these singles put Kataphonic Records in the Top #20 in Billboard's 2005 Adult Pop Power Players special issue (July 23, 2005) with Gregg Bell at the helm as general manager of the label. Other record labels on the Adult Pop Power Players list included Columbia, Epic, Universal, Island Def Jam, Warner Bros, Atlantic, Capitol, Interscope, and Lava.\n\nThe first single from Untucked was the pop ballad \"I Know You By Heart\", which featured Benny Mardones, best known for his 1980's hit single \"Into The Night\". Later in 2006, Carlson would perform the duet \"This Time\" with Mardones' for his 2006 album Let's Hear It for Love. Nationally syndicated radio host Delilah was a big fan of the track and played it on her show, and Carlson also appeared on the Delilah show on several occasions. \"Drive\", a cover of the Cars' 1984 hit, was a bonus track on the Untucked CD and was recorded immediately following the album sessions. A mash up of Carlson's \"Drive\" and the original \"Drive\", featuring the Cars' Benjamin Orr, spent 3 weeks at No. 1 on Los Angeles radio station KBIG FM and also hit the Top 5 at sister station KOST FM. In their review of the \"Suddenly Beautiful\" single, Billboard magazine declared the song \"beautiful, indeed\".\n\nCarlson had numerous songs from the Untucked album included on television shows. Dawson's Creek featured \"I Know You By Heart\" and \"Blue Steak Cadillac\", and \"Dive\" appeared on the Bravo reality show Blowout 3. In 2008, \"Go-To Girl\" and \"Getaway Car\" were also featured on the teen drama South Of Nowhere.\n\nCarlson won two awards at the 2003 Los Angeles Music Awards. Untucked was selected as \"Best Independent Pop Album\", and \"Dive\" was selected as \"Indie Single of the Year\".\n\nIn 2005, \"Suddenly Beautiful\" was featured on the Music Is Hope compilation. The record was issued on Robby Takac's (Goo Goo Dolls) Good Charamel records and also included tracks by Goo Goo Dolls and Ani DiFranco.\n\nAlso in 2005, Carlson released the original song \"You Are Christmas\", produced by Tal Herzberg. Musicians on the track include Tim Pierce and John Beasley. In December 2005, the television show Extra! aired the song as well as an interview with Carlson.\n\nIn 2008, the track \"Mother\" was included on Stork Tunes: Songs for a Happy Birth Day, a compilation released by the March of Dimes foundation. Billy Joel, Kenny Loggins, Norah Jones, The Dixie Chicks and Celine Dion also appeared on the disc.\n\nHere and Now\nHere and Now, was released August 2007. Ron Aniello produced the record and played guitar, bass and keyboards. Matt Chamberlain played drums on the record.\n\nHere and Now'''s first single was an updated take on the Howard Jones classic \"No One Is to Blame\", with a guest appearance by Jones himself on vocals and piano. The single reached No. 20 on the Billboard chart and hit No. 1 on the ACQB chart, making it Carlson's first No. 1 song. Billboard Magazine's review of the track described the song as \"utterly charming\".\n\nCarlson's audience grew significantly in 2008 when \"Feel For Me\" was featured in two episodes of the N Network's 3rd season of the teen drama South of Nowhere. \"Feel For Me\" was eventually released as the third single from Here and Now.Here and Nows lead-off track, \"Be The One\", won first place in the Pop category at Indie International Songwriting Contest and \"Be The One\" music video won first place at the Indie Gathering. In September 2007, Extra! premiered the \"Be The One\" video on their show.\n\nIn 2008, Carlson played a show at the Briar Rose Winery in Temecula with special guest host Kate Linder of the daytime drama The Young and the Restless. Her performance inspired Briar Rose winery to name their 2007 Estate Zinfandel \"Katrina\".\n\nAlso in 2008, Carlson was selected to attend hit country songwriter Jeffrey Steele's Songwriting Bootcamp. Hundreds of people applied from the US and beyond, and only twelve people were selected. The bootcamp is a three-day, three night songwriting event where songwriters get one-on-one coaching and critiquing from Jeffrey Steele.\n\nIn her career, Carlson has performed with Lindsey Buckingham, Howard Jones, Chicago, Kenny Loggins, Rick Springfield, Eddie Money, Julie Roberts, Joan Jett, Tal Bachman, Richard Marx, and Kimberly Locke amongst others.\n\nKatrina Carlson is endorsed by Fender Guitars, Taylor Guitars, Martin Guitars and Dean Markley Strings.\n\nDiscography\nAlbums\n Apples for Eve (2001)\n Untucked (2003)\n Drive (2003)\n You Are Christmas (2005)\n Here and Now (2007)\n Rock Your Beautiful (2009)\n\nCompilation Appearances\n 4th Annual NSAI Song Contest (2004) – New Shoes\n Women at Work (2005) – Underground\n Music Is Hope (2005) – Suddenly Beautiful\n Stork Tunes (2008) – Mother\n Los Angeles Women in Music – Best of the Best Soiree (2007–2008) – Here and Now\n Stomp Out Cancer (2008)'' – Count On Me\n\nAwards\n 2002 Finalist in the Rolling Stone/Jim Beam emerging Artist series\n 2003 Untucked won \"Best Independent Pop Album\" at the Los Angeles Music Awards\n 2003 \"Dive\" won \"Indie Single of the Year\" at the Los Angeles Music Awards\n 2004 \"New Shoes\" was a Runner-up in the 4th Annual CMT song Contest\n 2006 Finalist in the Billboard Songwriting Contest\n 2007 Finalist in the Billboard Songwriting Contest\n 2008 Finalist in the Billboard Songwriting Contest\n 2008 \"Be The One\" music video won 1st place in The Indie Gathering contest\n 2008 \"Be The One\" won 1st place in the Pop Category at the Indie International Songwriting Contest\n\nRadio charts\nBillboard/R&R AC (Nielsen BDS-based)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n\nAmerican women guitarists\nAmerican women singer-songwriters\nPeople from Paradise Valley, Arizona\nLiving people\nYear of birth missing (living people)\n21st-century American women\nSinger-songwriters from Arizona"
] |
[
"RuPaul's Drag Race",
"Untucked",
"What is Untucked?",
"In this companion series, RuPaul presents a documentary of contestants' conversation in the green room, replays pertinent moments from Drag Race,",
"When did it air?",
"LOGOonline published a webisode of Under the Hood after each episode of Drag Race.",
"When did it begin?",
"Starting with the second season of Drag Race in 2010, Logo reformatted Under the Hood, increased its production budget, moved it from the web to television,",
"Were there prizes?",
"I don't know.",
"What happens in Untucked?",
"renovated version also follows contestants following their elimination from the show, documenting them packing their belongings and leaving"
] | C_2bdaab02168043d394ffbc0451581d47_0 | How many seasons are there? | 6 | How many seasons are there of Untucked? | RuPaul's Drag Race | The first season of Drag Race was accompanied by a seven-episode web series, titled Under the Hood of RuPaul's Drag Race. LOGOonline published a webisode of Under the Hood after each episode of Drag Race. In this companion series, RuPaul presents a documentary of contestants' conversation in the green room, replays pertinent moments from Drag Race, and airs deleted footage. Starting with the second season of Drag Race in 2010, Logo reformatted Under the Hood, increased its production budget, moved it from the web to television, and re-titled it to RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked. Logo broadcast an episode of Untucked after each episode of Drag Race. Untucked replaces the basic green room of Under the Hood with two decorated rooms that were until season 6 sponsored by Absolut Vodka and Interior Illusions, Inc.: the Interior Illusions Lounge and the Gold Bar. FormDecor sponsored the Lounge for season 6. These two backstage areas allow for separated group conversation. At the start of the seventh season of the Drag Race, Untucked reverted to a webseries, as part of the World of Wonder YouTube page. Instead of two decorated rooms, Untucked was moved back to the one room, an empty backstage space that connects to the main stage and work room, with couches for contestants to chat on. The newly renovated version also follows contestants following their elimination from the show, documenting them packing their belongings and leaving the set. The webseries format continued for the eighth and ninth season. For the show's tenth season, Untucked returned to television. CANNOTANSWER | For the show's tenth season, Untucked returned to television. | RuPaul's Drag Race is an American reality competition television series, the first in the Drag Race franchise, produced by World of Wonder for Logo TV, WOW Presents Plus, and, beginning with the ninth season, VH1. The show documents RuPaul in the search for "America's next drag superstar." RuPaul plays the role of host, mentor, and head judge for this series, as contestants are given different challenges each week. RuPaul's Drag Race employs a panel of judges, including RuPaul, Michelle Visage, an alternating third main judge of either Carson Kressley or Ross Matthews, and a host of other guest judges, who critique contestants' progress throughout the competition. The title of the show is a play on drag queen and drag racing, and the title sequence and song "Drag Race" both have a drag-racing theme. To date, there have been thirteen winners of the show: BeBe Zahara Benet, Tyra Sanchez, Raja, Sharon Needles, Jinkx Monsoon, Bianca Del Rio, Violet Chachki, Bob the Drag Queen, Sasha Velour, Aquaria, Yvie Oddly, Jaida Essence Hall and Symone.
RuPaul's Drag Race has spanned thirteen seasons and inspired the spin-off shows RuPaul's Drag U, RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars, RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked, RuPaul's Secret Celebrity Drag Race, RuPaul's Drag Race UK, and RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under. The show has become the highest-rated television program on Logo TV, and airs internationally, including in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and Israel. The show earned RuPaul six consecutive Emmys (2016 to 2021) for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program. The show itself has been awarded as the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program 4 consecutive times (2018 to 2021), and the Outstanding Reality Program award at the 21st GLAAD Media Awards. It has been nominated for four Critics' Choice Television Award including Best Reality Series – Competition and Best Reality Show Host for RuPaul, and was nominated for a Creative Arts Emmy Award for Outstanding Make-up for a Multi-Camera Series or Special (Non-Prosthetic). Later in 2018, the show became the first show to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program in the same year, a feat it has since repeated three times.
Format
Prospective Drag Race contestants submit video auditions to the show's production company, World of Wonder. RuPaul, the host and head judge, views each tape and selects the season's competitors. Once the chosen pool of performers is on set, they film a series of episodes, each one typically concluding with the removal of one contestant from the competition. Rarely, the outcome of an episode has been a double elimination, no elimination, contestant disqualification or removal of a contestant on medical grounds. Each episode features a so-called maxi challenge that tests competitors' skills in a variety of areas of drag performance. Some episodes also feature a mini challenge, the prize of which is often an advantage or benefit in the upcoming maxi challenge. Following the maxi challenge, contestants present themed looks in a runway walk. RuPaul and a panel of judges then critique each contestant's performance, deliberate amongst themselves, and announce the week's winner and bottom two competitors. The bottom two queens compete in a so-called Lip Sync for Your Life; the winner of the lip sync remains in the competition, and the loser is eliminated. Generally, the contestant that the judges feel has displayed the most "charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent" (C.U.N.T.) is the one who advances. The final three, or four depending on what RuPaul chooses, contestants remaining compete in a special finale episode wherein the season's winner is crowned. In early seasons, the finale was pre-recorded in the studio with no audience. More recently, the finale has taken the form of a lip sync tournament before a live audience. The season 12 finale was filmed remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The whole season is typically filmed in four weeks.
Mini and maxi challenges
Mini challenges are quick, small assignments that RuPaul announces at the beginning of an episode. One of the most popular mini challenges, which recurs from season to season, is the reading challenge. In it, contestants satirically criticize one another in a process called "reading", which was popularized by the film Paris Is Burning. Maxi challenges vary in the skill they test; some are group challenges that involve singing and acting, while others feature comedy, a talent of choice, dancing, or makeovers. The winner receives a material or monetary prize. Until the show's sixth season, the winner sometimes also received immunity against elimination the following week. Drag Races most popular seasonal maxi challenge is Snatch Game, a spoof on Match Game wherein contestants impersonate celebrities or famous fictional personas.
Judging
RuPaul has been the series' head judge since its premiere. For the first two seasons, Merle Ginsberg joined him on the panel; she was replaced in season 3 by longtime friend of RuPaul and co-host of The RuPaul Show Michelle Visage. Santino Rice served as a judge from season 1 through season 6. From season 7 onward, Ross Mathews and Carson Kressley have occupied Rice's former seat. New York City makeup artist Billy B held a regular judging spot in the third and fourth seasons when Rice was absent. Most weeks, one or two celebrity guest judges join the panel.
Companion series
The first season of Drag Race was accompanied by a seven-episode web series titled Under the Hood of RuPaul's Drag Race, which Logo TV made available for streaming on its website. The series featured behind-the-scenes and deleted footage from the main show's tapes. From season 2 onward, a companion show called RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked, which has the same premise, has aired instead. Untucked largely focuses on conversations and drama that occur between contestants backstage while the judges deliberate on each episode's results. In most seasons, it has aired on TV following the main show, but it was available only online for season 7 through season 9. A number of smaller web series also accompany each episode of Drag Race. Whatcha Packin, which began at the start of the sixth season, features Michelle Visage interviewing the most recently eliminated queen about their run on the show and showcasing runway outfits they had brought but did not have the opportunity to wear. In 2014, the web-series Fashion Photo Ruview aired for the first time, co-hosted by Raja Gemini and Raven who evaluate the runway looks of the main show. Since season 8, a five- to fifteen-minute aftershow called The Pit Stop has also been produced. It involves a host and guest, typically past competitors of Drag Race, discussing the recently aired episode. Each season's host (or hosts) are different; to date, these have included the YouTuber Kingsley, Raja Gemini, Bob the Drag Queen, Alaska Thunderfuck, Trixie Mattel, Manila Luzon, and Monét X Change.
Series overview
Seasons 1–8 (2009–2016): Logo TV
Season 1 premiered in the U.S. on February 2, 2009, on Logo TV. Nine contestants competed to become "America's Next Drag Superstar". The winner won a lifetime supply of MAC Cosmetics, was featured on the cover of Paper and in an LA Eyeworks campaign, joined the Absolut Pride tour, and won a cash prize of $20,000. One of the nine, Nina Flowers, was determined by an audience vote via the show's official website. The winner of season 1 was BeBe Zahara Benet, with Nina Flowers winning Miss Congeniality. In late 2013, Logo re-aired the season as RuPaul's Drag Race: The Lost Season Ru-Vealed, featuring commentary from RuPaul.
For season 2 (2010), 12 contestants competed for a lifetime supply of NYX Cosmetics and be the face of nyxcosmetics.com, an exclusive one year public relations contract with LGBT firm Project Publicity, be featured in an LA Eyeworks campaign, join the Logo Drag Race Tour, and a cash prize of $25,000. A new tradition of writing a farewell message in lipstick on the workstation mirror was started by the first eliminated queen, Shangela. Each week's episode is followed by a behind-the-scenes show, RuPaul's Drag Race Untucked. The winner of season 2 was Tyra Sanchez, with Pandora Boxx winning Miss Congeniality. On December 6, 2011, Amazon.com released season 2 on DVD via the CreateSpace program.
Season 3 (2011) had Michelle Visage replacing Merle Ginsberg on the judging panel as well as Billy Brasfield (commonly known as Billy B), Mike Ruiz, and Jeffrey Moran (courtesy of Absolut Vodka) filling in for Santino Rice's absence during several episodes. Due to Billy B's continued appearances, he and Rice are considered to have been alternate judges for the same seat on judges panel. Other changes made included the introduction of a wildcard contestant from the past season, Shangela; an episode with no elimination; and a contestant, Carmen Carrera, being brought back into the competition after having been eliminated a few episodes prior. A new pit crew was also introduced consisting of Jason Carter and Shawn Morales. As with the previous season, each week's episode was followed by a behind-the-scenes show, RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked. The winner of the season 3 was Raja, with Yara Sofia winning Miss Congeniality. On December 6, 2011, Amazon.com released this season on DVD via their CreateSpace program.
Season 4 began airing on January 30, 2012, with cast members announced November 13, 2011. The winner headlined Logo's Drag Race Tour featuring Absolut Vodka, won a one-of-a-kind trip, a lifetime supply of NYX Cosmetics, a cash prize of $100,000, and the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar." Like the previous season, Rice and Billy B (Billy Brasfield), shared the same seat at the judges table alternatively, with Brasfield filling in for Rice when needed. The winner of season 4 was Sharon Needles, with Latrice Royale winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 5 began airing on January 28, 2013, with a 90-minute premiere episode. Fourteen contestants competed for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar" along with a lifetime supply of Colorevolution Cosmetics, a one-of-a-kind trip courtesy of AlandChuck.travel, a headlining spot on Logo's Drag Race Tour featuring Absolut Vodka and a cash prize of $100,000. Rice and Visage were back as judges on the panel. The winner of season 5 was Jinkx Monsoon, with Ivy Winters winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 6 began airing February 24, 2014. Like season 5, season 6 saw 14 contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar". For the first time in the show's history, the season premiere was split into two episodes; the fourteen queens are split into two groups and the seven queens in each group compete against one another before being united as one group in the third episode. Rice and Visage returned as judges at the panel. Two new pit crew members, Miles Moody and Simon Sherry-Wood, joined Carter and Morales. The winner won a prize package that included a supply from Colorevolution Cosmetics and a cash prize of $100,000. The winner of season 6 was Bianca Del Rio, with BenDeLaCreme winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 7 began airing on March 2, 2015. Returning judges included RuPaul and Visage, while the space previously occupied by Rice was filled by new additions Ross Mathews and Carson Kressley. Mathews and Kressley were both present for the season premiere and then took turns sharing judging responsibilities. Morales and Simon Sherry-Wood did not appear this season and were replaced by Bryce Eilenberg. Like the previous two seasons, this one featured fourteen contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. The season premiere debuted with a live and same-day viewership of 348,000, a 20 percent increase from the previous season. On March 20, 2015, it was announced that Logo had given the series an early renewal for an eighth season. The winner of season 7 was Violet Chachki, with Katya winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 8 on began airing on March 7, 2016, with cast members announced during the NewNowNext Honors on February 1, 2016. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. The first episode celebrated the 100th taping of the show, and the 100th drag queen to compete. Similar to season 2, this season had twelve contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. The winner of season 8 was Bob the Drag Queen, with Cynthia Lee Fontaine winning Miss Congeniality.
Seasons 9–14 (2017–present): VH1
Season 9 began airing on March 24, 2017 on VH1, with cast members being announced on February 2, 2017. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. This season features fourteen contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. The ninth season aired on VH1, with encore presentations continuing to air on Logo. This season featured the return of Cynthia Lee Fontaine, who previously participated in the season 8. Season 9 featured a top four in the finale episode, as opposed to the top three, which was previously established in season 4. The winner of season 9 was Sasha Velour, with Valentina winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 10 began airing on March 22, 2018. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. This season features thirteen new contestants, and one returning contestant, competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. Eureka O'Hara, who was removed from the ninth season due to an injury, returned to the show after she accepted an open invitation. Season 10 premiered alongside the televised return of Untucked. The tenth season featured a top four following the previous season's finale format. The winner of season 10 was Aquaria, with Monét X Change winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 11 began airing February 28, 2019. This season had fifteen contestants, whereas previous seasons typically had fourteen contestants. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. This season features fourteen new contestants, and one returning contestant, competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. This season saw the return of Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, who was the first contestant eliminated in season 10. Season 11 again featured a top four in the finale. As with season 10, each week's episode was followed by an episode of the televised return of RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked. The winner of season 11 was Yvie Oddly, with Nina West winning Miss Congeniality.
On January 22, 2019, casting for Season 12 (2020) was announced via YouTube and Twitter and was closed on March 1, 2019. On August 19, 2019, it was announced that the series had been renewed for a twelfth season. The season began airing on February 28, 2020. This is the first and only season to have the reunion and finale recorded virtually from the contestants' homes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The winner of season 12 was Jaida Essence Hall, with Heidi N Closet winning Miss Congeniality.
On December 2, 2019, casting for Season 13 (2021) was announced via YouTube and Twitter. The casting call closed on January 24, 2020. On August 20, 2020, it was announced the thirteenth season had been ordered by VH1. It began airing on January 1, 2021. The winner of season 13 was Symone, with Kandy Muse as runner-up, and LaLa Ri as Miss Congeniality.
Casting for Season 14 began on November 23, 2020. In August 2021, it was announced the fourteenth season had been ordered by VH1. The cast for the fourteenth season was revealed through VH1 on December 2, 2021. The season will start airing on January 7, 2022.
Casting for season 15 began on November 4, 2021, and will close January 7, 2022.
Contestants
More than 150 contestants have competed on the U.S. version of the show.
Specials
RuPaul's Drag Race: Green Screen Christmas (2015): On December 13, 2015, Logo aired a seasonal themed episode of Drag Race. The non-competitive special was released in conjunction with RuPaul's holiday album Slay Belles and featured music videos for songs from the album. The cast included RuPaul, Michelle Visage, Siedah Garrett, and Todrick Hall, and former contestants Alyssa Edwards, Laganja Estranja, Latrice Royale, Raja, and Shangela.
RuPaul's Drag Race Holi-slay Spectacular (2018): On November 1, 2018, VH1 announced a seasonal themed special episode of Drag Race scheduled to air on December 7, 2018. The special saw eight former contestants compete for the title of "America's first Drag Race Christmas Queen". Competitors included Eureka O'Hara, Jasmine Masters, Kim Chi, Latrice Royale, Mayhem Miller, Shangela, Sonique, and Trixie Mattel.
RuPaul's Secret Celebrity Drag Race (2020): On April 10, 2020, VH1 announced a celebrity edition of Drag Race scheduled to air for four weeks beginning on April 24, 2020. The series featured a trio of celebrities receiving makeovers from former contestants. After receiving help from "Queen Supremes" Alyssa Edwards, Asia O'Hara, Bob the Drag Queen, Kim Chi, Monét X Change, Monique Heart, Nina West, Trinity the Tuck, Trixie Mattel and Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, the celebrities competed in fan-favorite challenges and on the runway to be named "America's Next Celebrity Drag Race Superstar" and prize money for choice charities.
RuPaul's Drag Race: Vegas Revue (2020): On July 22, 2020, it was announced that a docu-series would premiere on August 21, 2020.
RuPaul's Drag Race: Corona Can't Keep a Good Queen Down (2021): On February 26, 2021, the one hour special aired on VH1 in between episodes 8 and 9 of Season 13 and detailed the contestants' journeys with filming the season amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Spin-offs
RuPaul's Drag U (2010–2012): In each episode, three women are paired with former Drag Race contestants ("Drag Professors"), who give them drag makeovers and help them to access their "inner divas".
RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars (2012–present): Past contestants return and compete for a spot in the Drag Race Hall of Fame. The show's format is similar to that of RuPaul's Drag Race, with challenges and a panel of judges.
Dancing Queen (2018): In April 2013, RuPaul confirmed that he planned to executive-produce a spin-off of Drag Race that stars season five and All Stars season two contestant Alyssa Edwards. Alyssa Edwards has confirmed that the spin-off's title is Beyond Belief (later retitled as Dancing Queen), and that his dance company in Mesquite, Texas is the setting. The series aired on Netflix on October 5, 2018.
Feature film: In August 2015, RuPaul revealed that a movie featuring all of the contestants was in the works. "We've got a director for it, we've got a light script, but it just needs a little more retooling and scheduling."
RuPaul's Drag Race: The Mobile Game is an upcoming mobile app by World of Wonder and Leaf Mobile's subsidiary East Side Games.
International versions
The Switch Drag Race (2015–2018): This licensed glocalization of Drag Race premiered in October 2015 on Chilean television channel Mega. As in Drag Race, queens compete in "mini-challenges" and a main challenge and are evaluated by a panel of judges. Similar to Drag Race, The Switch requires contestants to lip-sync, dance, and perform impersonations.
Drag Race Thailand (2018–present): In October 2017, Kantana Group acquired the rights to produce its own version of Drag Race. Season 1 of Drag Race Thailand was met with successful ratings on Thai television. It was later announced that the first season will premiere in the U.S. in May 2018. The first season also made stirs in the Asian LGBT community, the most prominent of which was a campaign to establish versions of Drag Race in the Philippines and Taiwan as well, two of the most LGBT-accepting nations in Asia.
RuPaul's Drag Race UK (2019–present): On December 5, 2018, it was announced that the British version of RuPaul's Drag Race would be an eight-part series filmed in London based on local drag queens and would air on BBC Three in 2019. Visage confirmed via social media that she would appear as a judge.
Canada's Drag Race (2020–present): On June 27, 2019, OutTV and Bell Media's streaming service Crave announced that they had co-commissioned a Canadian version of Drag Race. Rights to the series, as well as the U.S. and British versions, will be shared by OutTV and Crave. Additionally, season 11 runner-up Brooke Lynn Hytes was confirmed as one of the judges, becoming the first Drag Race contestant to serve as a permanent judge. The show premiered on July 2, 2020.
Drag Race Holland (2020–present): A Dutch version of Drag Race was announced on July 26, 2020. The series debuted on Videoland in The Netherlands, and aired on WOW Presents Plus internationally. The show is hosted by Fred van Leer and premiered .
RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under (2021–present): On August 26, 2019, an Oceanic version was announced to be in production and said to air in 2020, but was likely delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Filming began in Auckland, New Zealand in January 2021. The series premiered on TVNZ 2 and TVNZ OnDemand in New Zealand, Stan in Australia, and on WOW Presents Plus internationally on 1 May 2021.
Drag Race España (2021–present): On November 16, 2020, Atresmedia announced that they would produce a Spanish version of Drag Race together with Buendía Estudios after reaching an agreement with Passion Distribution in favour of World of Wonder. The series debuted on Atresmedia's pay streaming service ATRESplayer Premium on 30 May 2021, and aired on WOW Presents Plus internationally. It is hosted by Supremme de Luxe.
Drag Race Italia (2021–present): An Italian version of Drag Race was announced on June 30, 2021. The series will debut in November 2021 on Discovery+.
RuPaul's Drag Race: UK Versus the World (2022): On December 21, 2021, World of Wonder announced that a spin-off series of RuPaul's Drag Race UK would premiere in February 2022. Filmed in the United Kingdom, The series will feature international queens who have competed in the Drag Race franchise around the world.
Drag Race Philippines (2022–present): On August 17, 2021, a Filipino version of Drag Race was announced.
Drag Race France (2022–present): On November 17, 2021, a French version of Drag Race was announced.
Home media
Full seasons of shows in the Drag Race franchise are available to stream on WOW Presents Plus in over 200 territories. The show is also currently available on the following streaming platforms:
United States — Hulu (seasons 3–8; All Stars 1–4); Paramount Plus (seasons 1–12, All Stars 1–6, Untucked seasons 9–11, All Stars Untucked seasons 5–6), WOW Presents Plus (Untucked seasons 7–8, Thailand season 2, and all other international series)
Canada — Netflix (seasons 1–12, All Stars 4, Untucked seasons 11 and 12), Crave (all seasons, All Stars 1–6, UK series 1–3, Canada season 1 and 2, Down Under season 1), WOW Presents Plus (seasons 1–10, Untucked seasons 1–10, All Stars 1–4)
UK & Ireland — Netflix (all seasons, Untucked seasons 11–12, All Stars 4 & 5, Celebrity season 1), BBC iPlayer (UK series 1 and 2, Canada season 1, Down Under season 1), WOW Presents Plus (seasons 1–10, Untucked seasons 1–10, all episodes of All Stars and Holland)
Australia — Stan (all seasons of original, All Stars, Untucked, UK, Canada, Down Under and Thailand Season 2), WOW Presents Plus (UK series 1, Canada season 1)
Awards and nominations
RuPaul's Drag Race has been nominated for thirty-nine Emmy Awards, and won nineteen. It has also been nominated for nine Reality Television Awards, winning three, and nominated for six NewNowNext Awards, winning three.
Critical reception
Thrillist called Drag Race "the closest gay culture gets to a sports league." In 2019, the TV series was ranked 93rd on The Guardians list of the 100 best TV shows of the 21st century.
Controversy
In March 2014, Drag Race sparked controversy over the use of the term "shemale" in the season 6 mini challenge "Female or She-male?". Logo has since removed the segment from all platforms and addressed the allegations of transphobia by removing the "You've got she-mail" intro from new episodes of the series. This was replaced with, "She done already done had herses!" RuPaul additionally came under fire for comments made in an interview with The Guardian, in which he stated he would "probably not" allow a transgender contestant to compete. He compared transgender drag performers to doping athletes on his Twitter, and has since apologized. Sasha Velour (season 9) disagreed, tweeting "My drag was born in a community full of trans women, trans men, and gender non-conforming folks doing drag. That's the real world of drag, like it or not. I thinks it's fabulous and I will fight my entire life to protect and uplift it".
Relationship with trans community
For the first twelve seasons, RuPaul would say, "Gentlemen, start your engines, and may the best woman win," before the contestants' runway looks for the episode were shown. When season 13 introduced the show's first ever transgender male contestant, Gottmik, RuPaul's catchphrase was changed in order to promote inclusivity: "Racers, start your engines, and may the best drag queen win." In season 6 of All Stars, an altered version of the shows opening theme was introduced with the new tag line.
Performers of any sexual orientation and gender identity are eligible to audition, although most contestants to date have been gay, cisgender men. Transgender competitors have become more common as seasons have progressed; Sonique, a season two contestant, became the first openly trans contestant when she came out as a woman during the reunion special. Sonique later won All Stars 6, becoming the first trans woman to win an English-language version of the show and the second overall. Monica Beverly Hillz (season 5) became the first contestant to come out as a trans woman during the competition. Peppermint (season 9) is the first contestant who was out as a trans woman prior to the airing of her season. Other trans contestants came out as women after their elimination, including Carmen Carrera, Kenya Michaels, Stacy Layne Matthews, Jiggly Caliente, Gia Gunn, Laganja Estranja and Gigi Goode. Additionally, Gottmik (season 13) was the first AFAB and currently the only openly transgender male contestant in the franchise's history.
Season 14 is the first regular season to feature four transgender women in the cast—Kerri Colby, Kornbread "The Snack" Jeté, Bosco and Jasmine Kennedie. While Colby was cast after transitioning, Kornbread, Bosco and Jasmine came out after the show's taping.
Broadcast
Australia: In Australia, lifestyle channel LifeStyle YOU regularly shows and re-screens seasons 1–7, including Untucked. In addition, free-to-air channel SBS2 began screening the first season on August 31, 2013. On March 13, 2017, it was announced that on-demand service Stan would fast-track season 9 (including Untucked). As of 2020, Stan streams all seasons since Season 1, as well as Untucked, All Stars, All Stars Untucked, Canada's Drag Race, Secret Celebrity, Drag Race UK and Season 2 of Drag Race Thailand.
Canada: The series airs on OutTV in Canada at the same time as the US airing. Unlike Logo, OutTV continues to broadcast Untucked immediately after each Drag Race episode. Beginning with season 12, OutTV has shared its first-run rights to the main series (but not Untucked) with the more widely subscribed Crave streaming service, with episodes available on Crave shortly after they premiere on OutTV, in connection with Crave and OutTV's co-production of Canada's Drag Race. Past seasons are also available on Netflix in Canada, with each season released there shortly before the next season begins.
Ireland: In Ireland, season 2 to season 8 of the programme were available on Netflix; as of the release of Season 10, only seasons 8 & 9 are available. Netflix has started airing season 10 episodes one day after they air in the USA. All seasons of the show have been made available on Netflix since October 2018
Indonesia: In Indonesia, season 1 to season 13 of the programme were available on Netflix, alongside the Christmas spectacular; As of the release of All Stars, only season 4 and 5 is available. Netflix also aired Untucked season 10 episodes one day after they air in the USA.
UK: E4 aired season 1 in 2009, followed by season 2 in 2010. Since its success on Netflix in the UK, TruTV acquired the broadcast rights for all eight seasons of the show including Untucked episodes. In June 2015, TruTV started airing two episodes of the show a week, starting with season 4, followed by All Stars, then season 5. As of May 2018, the series airs on VH1 UK Monday–Thursday at 11pm, beginning with All Stars season 3.Israel''': Yes has broadcast all seasons and Untucked episodes. Seasons 1–12, All Stars seasons 4–5 and Untucked'' seasons 11–12 are also available on Netflix.
See also
List of reality television programs with LGBT cast members
List of Rusicals
LGBT culture in New York City
Paris Is Burning (film)
References
External links
Edgar, E. (2011). "Xtravaganza!": Drag Representation and Articulation in "RuPaul's Drag Race". Studies in Popular Culture,34(1), 133–146. Retrieved from "Xtravaganza!": Drag Representation and Articulation in "RuPaul's Drag Race"
2009 American television series debuts
2000s American reality television series
2000s LGBT-related reality television series
2010s American reality television series
2010s LGBT-related reality television series
2020s American reality television series
2020s LGBT-related reality television series
American LGBT-related reality television series
English-language television shows
Logo TV original programming
Primetime Emmy Award-winning television series
Television series by World of Wonder (company)
Transgender-related television shows
VH1 original programming
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality Program winners
2000s American LGBT-related television series
2010s American LGBT-related television series
2020s American LGBT-related television series | false | [
"Here is a list of all of KF Tirana's Cup seasons from 1939 till end of most recent season. This list shows where they finished the season, how many ties won or lost, how many goals they scored and conceded, how many wins draws and losses they had throughout the season, goal difference, winning difference and number of matches played.\n\nAlbanian Cup Performance Table\n\n Appearances: 70 Seasons\n Winners: 16 Times\n Runners-up: 10 Times\n Semi Finals: 36 Times\n Quarter Finals: 55 Times\n Ties Won: 194 Times\n Ties Lost: 53 Times\n\n Data missing from few of Cup seasons, thus the correct total figures in bold differ from some of added sums on the table above.\n\nAll Finals results\n\nHead-to-head\n\n Data missing from few of Cup seasons, thus the correct total figures in bold differ from some of added sums on the table above.\n Last updated: 70th Cup\n\nRecent seasons\n\nAlso look\n\nKF Tirana Statistics in Albanian Superliga\n\nReferences\n\nKF Tirana",
"Svenska Cupen damer (the \"Ladies Swedish Cup\") is the main Swedish women's association football knock-out tournament.\n\nA separate Svenska Cupen exists for men.\n\nRounds and teams\n First round – 52 teams (Division 1 and below)\n Second round – 40 teams (26 remaining teams from Round 1 + 14 teams from Elitettan)\n Third round – 32 teams (20 remaining teams from Round 2 + 12 teams from Damallsvenskan)\n Fourth round – 16 teams\n Fifth round – quarter finals\n Sixth round – semi finals\n Seventh round – final\n\nHow district teams qualify\nThere are a number of districts in the Swedish football organization, and each of them receives a number of spots in the Swedish Cup, due to how many licensed players they have. For an example, Värmlands FF receives three spots and Västergötlands FF receives seven spots.\n\nPrevious winners\nSeasons 1998/1999 and 1999/2000 were played as fall/spring; all other seasons were played spring/fall.\n\nThe cup was also called Folksam Cup between 1981 and 1996.\n\nThe winners are:\n\nClubs by title\n\nFootnotes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nWebsite at Swedish FA\nCup at women.soccerway.com\n\n (women)\nCup (women)\nSweden (women)\n1981 establishments in Sweden\nRecurring sporting events established in 1981\nFootball cup competitions in Sweden"
] |
[
"RuPaul's Drag Race",
"Untucked",
"What is Untucked?",
"In this companion series, RuPaul presents a documentary of contestants' conversation in the green room, replays pertinent moments from Drag Race,",
"When did it air?",
"LOGOonline published a webisode of Under the Hood after each episode of Drag Race.",
"When did it begin?",
"Starting with the second season of Drag Race in 2010, Logo reformatted Under the Hood, increased its production budget, moved it from the web to television,",
"Were there prizes?",
"I don't know.",
"What happens in Untucked?",
"renovated version also follows contestants following their elimination from the show, documenting them packing their belongings and leaving",
"How many seasons are there?",
"For the show's tenth season, Untucked returned to television."
] | C_2bdaab02168043d394ffbc0451581d47_0 | Anything else interesting about it? | 7 | Besides Untucked returning to television for RuPaul's Drag Race's tenth season, anything else interesting about the show? | RuPaul's Drag Race | The first season of Drag Race was accompanied by a seven-episode web series, titled Under the Hood of RuPaul's Drag Race. LOGOonline published a webisode of Under the Hood after each episode of Drag Race. In this companion series, RuPaul presents a documentary of contestants' conversation in the green room, replays pertinent moments from Drag Race, and airs deleted footage. Starting with the second season of Drag Race in 2010, Logo reformatted Under the Hood, increased its production budget, moved it from the web to television, and re-titled it to RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked. Logo broadcast an episode of Untucked after each episode of Drag Race. Untucked replaces the basic green room of Under the Hood with two decorated rooms that were until season 6 sponsored by Absolut Vodka and Interior Illusions, Inc.: the Interior Illusions Lounge and the Gold Bar. FormDecor sponsored the Lounge for season 6. These two backstage areas allow for separated group conversation. At the start of the seventh season of the Drag Race, Untucked reverted to a webseries, as part of the World of Wonder YouTube page. Instead of two decorated rooms, Untucked was moved back to the one room, an empty backstage space that connects to the main stage and work room, with couches for contestants to chat on. The newly renovated version also follows contestants following their elimination from the show, documenting them packing their belongings and leaving the set. The webseries format continued for the eighth and ninth season. For the show's tenth season, Untucked returned to television. CANNOTANSWER | Untucked replaces the basic green room of Under the Hood with two decorated rooms that were until season 6 sponsored by Absolut Vodka and Interior Illusions, Inc.: | RuPaul's Drag Race is an American reality competition television series, the first in the Drag Race franchise, produced by World of Wonder for Logo TV, WOW Presents Plus, and, beginning with the ninth season, VH1. The show documents RuPaul in the search for "America's next drag superstar." RuPaul plays the role of host, mentor, and head judge for this series, as contestants are given different challenges each week. RuPaul's Drag Race employs a panel of judges, including RuPaul, Michelle Visage, an alternating third main judge of either Carson Kressley or Ross Matthews, and a host of other guest judges, who critique contestants' progress throughout the competition. The title of the show is a play on drag queen and drag racing, and the title sequence and song "Drag Race" both have a drag-racing theme. To date, there have been thirteen winners of the show: BeBe Zahara Benet, Tyra Sanchez, Raja, Sharon Needles, Jinkx Monsoon, Bianca Del Rio, Violet Chachki, Bob the Drag Queen, Sasha Velour, Aquaria, Yvie Oddly, Jaida Essence Hall and Symone.
RuPaul's Drag Race has spanned thirteen seasons and inspired the spin-off shows RuPaul's Drag U, RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars, RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked, RuPaul's Secret Celebrity Drag Race, RuPaul's Drag Race UK, and RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under. The show has become the highest-rated television program on Logo TV, and airs internationally, including in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and Israel. The show earned RuPaul six consecutive Emmys (2016 to 2021) for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program. The show itself has been awarded as the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program 4 consecutive times (2018 to 2021), and the Outstanding Reality Program award at the 21st GLAAD Media Awards. It has been nominated for four Critics' Choice Television Award including Best Reality Series – Competition and Best Reality Show Host for RuPaul, and was nominated for a Creative Arts Emmy Award for Outstanding Make-up for a Multi-Camera Series or Special (Non-Prosthetic). Later in 2018, the show became the first show to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program in the same year, a feat it has since repeated three times.
Format
Prospective Drag Race contestants submit video auditions to the show's production company, World of Wonder. RuPaul, the host and head judge, views each tape and selects the season's competitors. Once the chosen pool of performers is on set, they film a series of episodes, each one typically concluding with the removal of one contestant from the competition. Rarely, the outcome of an episode has been a double elimination, no elimination, contestant disqualification or removal of a contestant on medical grounds. Each episode features a so-called maxi challenge that tests competitors' skills in a variety of areas of drag performance. Some episodes also feature a mini challenge, the prize of which is often an advantage or benefit in the upcoming maxi challenge. Following the maxi challenge, contestants present themed looks in a runway walk. RuPaul and a panel of judges then critique each contestant's performance, deliberate amongst themselves, and announce the week's winner and bottom two competitors. The bottom two queens compete in a so-called Lip Sync for Your Life; the winner of the lip sync remains in the competition, and the loser is eliminated. Generally, the contestant that the judges feel has displayed the most "charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent" (C.U.N.T.) is the one who advances. The final three, or four depending on what RuPaul chooses, contestants remaining compete in a special finale episode wherein the season's winner is crowned. In early seasons, the finale was pre-recorded in the studio with no audience. More recently, the finale has taken the form of a lip sync tournament before a live audience. The season 12 finale was filmed remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The whole season is typically filmed in four weeks.
Mini and maxi challenges
Mini challenges are quick, small assignments that RuPaul announces at the beginning of an episode. One of the most popular mini challenges, which recurs from season to season, is the reading challenge. In it, contestants satirically criticize one another in a process called "reading", which was popularized by the film Paris Is Burning. Maxi challenges vary in the skill they test; some are group challenges that involve singing and acting, while others feature comedy, a talent of choice, dancing, or makeovers. The winner receives a material or monetary prize. Until the show's sixth season, the winner sometimes also received immunity against elimination the following week. Drag Races most popular seasonal maxi challenge is Snatch Game, a spoof on Match Game wherein contestants impersonate celebrities or famous fictional personas.
Judging
RuPaul has been the series' head judge since its premiere. For the first two seasons, Merle Ginsberg joined him on the panel; she was replaced in season 3 by longtime friend of RuPaul and co-host of The RuPaul Show Michelle Visage. Santino Rice served as a judge from season 1 through season 6. From season 7 onward, Ross Mathews and Carson Kressley have occupied Rice's former seat. New York City makeup artist Billy B held a regular judging spot in the third and fourth seasons when Rice was absent. Most weeks, one or two celebrity guest judges join the panel.
Companion series
The first season of Drag Race was accompanied by a seven-episode web series titled Under the Hood of RuPaul's Drag Race, which Logo TV made available for streaming on its website. The series featured behind-the-scenes and deleted footage from the main show's tapes. From season 2 onward, a companion show called RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked, which has the same premise, has aired instead. Untucked largely focuses on conversations and drama that occur between contestants backstage while the judges deliberate on each episode's results. In most seasons, it has aired on TV following the main show, but it was available only online for season 7 through season 9. A number of smaller web series also accompany each episode of Drag Race. Whatcha Packin, which began at the start of the sixth season, features Michelle Visage interviewing the most recently eliminated queen about their run on the show and showcasing runway outfits they had brought but did not have the opportunity to wear. In 2014, the web-series Fashion Photo Ruview aired for the first time, co-hosted by Raja Gemini and Raven who evaluate the runway looks of the main show. Since season 8, a five- to fifteen-minute aftershow called The Pit Stop has also been produced. It involves a host and guest, typically past competitors of Drag Race, discussing the recently aired episode. Each season's host (or hosts) are different; to date, these have included the YouTuber Kingsley, Raja Gemini, Bob the Drag Queen, Alaska Thunderfuck, Trixie Mattel, Manila Luzon, and Monét X Change.
Series overview
Seasons 1–8 (2009–2016): Logo TV
Season 1 premiered in the U.S. on February 2, 2009, on Logo TV. Nine contestants competed to become "America's Next Drag Superstar". The winner won a lifetime supply of MAC Cosmetics, was featured on the cover of Paper and in an LA Eyeworks campaign, joined the Absolut Pride tour, and won a cash prize of $20,000. One of the nine, Nina Flowers, was determined by an audience vote via the show's official website. The winner of season 1 was BeBe Zahara Benet, with Nina Flowers winning Miss Congeniality. In late 2013, Logo re-aired the season as RuPaul's Drag Race: The Lost Season Ru-Vealed, featuring commentary from RuPaul.
For season 2 (2010), 12 contestants competed for a lifetime supply of NYX Cosmetics and be the face of nyxcosmetics.com, an exclusive one year public relations contract with LGBT firm Project Publicity, be featured in an LA Eyeworks campaign, join the Logo Drag Race Tour, and a cash prize of $25,000. A new tradition of writing a farewell message in lipstick on the workstation mirror was started by the first eliminated queen, Shangela. Each week's episode is followed by a behind-the-scenes show, RuPaul's Drag Race Untucked. The winner of season 2 was Tyra Sanchez, with Pandora Boxx winning Miss Congeniality. On December 6, 2011, Amazon.com released season 2 on DVD via the CreateSpace program.
Season 3 (2011) had Michelle Visage replacing Merle Ginsberg on the judging panel as well as Billy Brasfield (commonly known as Billy B), Mike Ruiz, and Jeffrey Moran (courtesy of Absolut Vodka) filling in for Santino Rice's absence during several episodes. Due to Billy B's continued appearances, he and Rice are considered to have been alternate judges for the same seat on judges panel. Other changes made included the introduction of a wildcard contestant from the past season, Shangela; an episode with no elimination; and a contestant, Carmen Carrera, being brought back into the competition after having been eliminated a few episodes prior. A new pit crew was also introduced consisting of Jason Carter and Shawn Morales. As with the previous season, each week's episode was followed by a behind-the-scenes show, RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked. The winner of the season 3 was Raja, with Yara Sofia winning Miss Congeniality. On December 6, 2011, Amazon.com released this season on DVD via their CreateSpace program.
Season 4 began airing on January 30, 2012, with cast members announced November 13, 2011. The winner headlined Logo's Drag Race Tour featuring Absolut Vodka, won a one-of-a-kind trip, a lifetime supply of NYX Cosmetics, a cash prize of $100,000, and the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar." Like the previous season, Rice and Billy B (Billy Brasfield), shared the same seat at the judges table alternatively, with Brasfield filling in for Rice when needed. The winner of season 4 was Sharon Needles, with Latrice Royale winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 5 began airing on January 28, 2013, with a 90-minute premiere episode. Fourteen contestants competed for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar" along with a lifetime supply of Colorevolution Cosmetics, a one-of-a-kind trip courtesy of AlandChuck.travel, a headlining spot on Logo's Drag Race Tour featuring Absolut Vodka and a cash prize of $100,000. Rice and Visage were back as judges on the panel. The winner of season 5 was Jinkx Monsoon, with Ivy Winters winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 6 began airing February 24, 2014. Like season 5, season 6 saw 14 contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar". For the first time in the show's history, the season premiere was split into two episodes; the fourteen queens are split into two groups and the seven queens in each group compete against one another before being united as one group in the third episode. Rice and Visage returned as judges at the panel. Two new pit crew members, Miles Moody and Simon Sherry-Wood, joined Carter and Morales. The winner won a prize package that included a supply from Colorevolution Cosmetics and a cash prize of $100,000. The winner of season 6 was Bianca Del Rio, with BenDeLaCreme winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 7 began airing on March 2, 2015. Returning judges included RuPaul and Visage, while the space previously occupied by Rice was filled by new additions Ross Mathews and Carson Kressley. Mathews and Kressley were both present for the season premiere and then took turns sharing judging responsibilities. Morales and Simon Sherry-Wood did not appear this season and were replaced by Bryce Eilenberg. Like the previous two seasons, this one featured fourteen contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. The season premiere debuted with a live and same-day viewership of 348,000, a 20 percent increase from the previous season. On March 20, 2015, it was announced that Logo had given the series an early renewal for an eighth season. The winner of season 7 was Violet Chachki, with Katya winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 8 on began airing on March 7, 2016, with cast members announced during the NewNowNext Honors on February 1, 2016. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. The first episode celebrated the 100th taping of the show, and the 100th drag queen to compete. Similar to season 2, this season had twelve contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. The winner of season 8 was Bob the Drag Queen, with Cynthia Lee Fontaine winning Miss Congeniality.
Seasons 9–14 (2017–present): VH1
Season 9 began airing on March 24, 2017 on VH1, with cast members being announced on February 2, 2017. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. This season features fourteen contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. The ninth season aired on VH1, with encore presentations continuing to air on Logo. This season featured the return of Cynthia Lee Fontaine, who previously participated in the season 8. Season 9 featured a top four in the finale episode, as opposed to the top three, which was previously established in season 4. The winner of season 9 was Sasha Velour, with Valentina winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 10 began airing on March 22, 2018. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. This season features thirteen new contestants, and one returning contestant, competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. Eureka O'Hara, who was removed from the ninth season due to an injury, returned to the show after she accepted an open invitation. Season 10 premiered alongside the televised return of Untucked. The tenth season featured a top four following the previous season's finale format. The winner of season 10 was Aquaria, with Monét X Change winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 11 began airing February 28, 2019. This season had fifteen contestants, whereas previous seasons typically had fourteen contestants. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. This season features fourteen new contestants, and one returning contestant, competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. This season saw the return of Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, who was the first contestant eliminated in season 10. Season 11 again featured a top four in the finale. As with season 10, each week's episode was followed by an episode of the televised return of RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked. The winner of season 11 was Yvie Oddly, with Nina West winning Miss Congeniality.
On January 22, 2019, casting for Season 12 (2020) was announced via YouTube and Twitter and was closed on March 1, 2019. On August 19, 2019, it was announced that the series had been renewed for a twelfth season. The season began airing on February 28, 2020. This is the first and only season to have the reunion and finale recorded virtually from the contestants' homes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The winner of season 12 was Jaida Essence Hall, with Heidi N Closet winning Miss Congeniality.
On December 2, 2019, casting for Season 13 (2021) was announced via YouTube and Twitter. The casting call closed on January 24, 2020. On August 20, 2020, it was announced the thirteenth season had been ordered by VH1. It began airing on January 1, 2021. The winner of season 13 was Symone, with Kandy Muse as runner-up, and LaLa Ri as Miss Congeniality.
Casting for Season 14 began on November 23, 2020. In August 2021, it was announced the fourteenth season had been ordered by VH1. The cast for the fourteenth season was revealed through VH1 on December 2, 2021. The season will start airing on January 7, 2022.
Casting for season 15 began on November 4, 2021, and will close January 7, 2022.
Contestants
More than 150 contestants have competed on the U.S. version of the show.
Specials
RuPaul's Drag Race: Green Screen Christmas (2015): On December 13, 2015, Logo aired a seasonal themed episode of Drag Race. The non-competitive special was released in conjunction with RuPaul's holiday album Slay Belles and featured music videos for songs from the album. The cast included RuPaul, Michelle Visage, Siedah Garrett, and Todrick Hall, and former contestants Alyssa Edwards, Laganja Estranja, Latrice Royale, Raja, and Shangela.
RuPaul's Drag Race Holi-slay Spectacular (2018): On November 1, 2018, VH1 announced a seasonal themed special episode of Drag Race scheduled to air on December 7, 2018. The special saw eight former contestants compete for the title of "America's first Drag Race Christmas Queen". Competitors included Eureka O'Hara, Jasmine Masters, Kim Chi, Latrice Royale, Mayhem Miller, Shangela, Sonique, and Trixie Mattel.
RuPaul's Secret Celebrity Drag Race (2020): On April 10, 2020, VH1 announced a celebrity edition of Drag Race scheduled to air for four weeks beginning on April 24, 2020. The series featured a trio of celebrities receiving makeovers from former contestants. After receiving help from "Queen Supremes" Alyssa Edwards, Asia O'Hara, Bob the Drag Queen, Kim Chi, Monét X Change, Monique Heart, Nina West, Trinity the Tuck, Trixie Mattel and Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, the celebrities competed in fan-favorite challenges and on the runway to be named "America's Next Celebrity Drag Race Superstar" and prize money for choice charities.
RuPaul's Drag Race: Vegas Revue (2020): On July 22, 2020, it was announced that a docu-series would premiere on August 21, 2020.
RuPaul's Drag Race: Corona Can't Keep a Good Queen Down (2021): On February 26, 2021, the one hour special aired on VH1 in between episodes 8 and 9 of Season 13 and detailed the contestants' journeys with filming the season amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Spin-offs
RuPaul's Drag U (2010–2012): In each episode, three women are paired with former Drag Race contestants ("Drag Professors"), who give them drag makeovers and help them to access their "inner divas".
RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars (2012–present): Past contestants return and compete for a spot in the Drag Race Hall of Fame. The show's format is similar to that of RuPaul's Drag Race, with challenges and a panel of judges.
Dancing Queen (2018): In April 2013, RuPaul confirmed that he planned to executive-produce a spin-off of Drag Race that stars season five and All Stars season two contestant Alyssa Edwards. Alyssa Edwards has confirmed that the spin-off's title is Beyond Belief (later retitled as Dancing Queen), and that his dance company in Mesquite, Texas is the setting. The series aired on Netflix on October 5, 2018.
Feature film: In August 2015, RuPaul revealed that a movie featuring all of the contestants was in the works. "We've got a director for it, we've got a light script, but it just needs a little more retooling and scheduling."
RuPaul's Drag Race: The Mobile Game is an upcoming mobile app by World of Wonder and Leaf Mobile's subsidiary East Side Games.
International versions
The Switch Drag Race (2015–2018): This licensed glocalization of Drag Race premiered in October 2015 on Chilean television channel Mega. As in Drag Race, queens compete in "mini-challenges" and a main challenge and are evaluated by a panel of judges. Similar to Drag Race, The Switch requires contestants to lip-sync, dance, and perform impersonations.
Drag Race Thailand (2018–present): In October 2017, Kantana Group acquired the rights to produce its own version of Drag Race. Season 1 of Drag Race Thailand was met with successful ratings on Thai television. It was later announced that the first season will premiere in the U.S. in May 2018. The first season also made stirs in the Asian LGBT community, the most prominent of which was a campaign to establish versions of Drag Race in the Philippines and Taiwan as well, two of the most LGBT-accepting nations in Asia.
RuPaul's Drag Race UK (2019–present): On December 5, 2018, it was announced that the British version of RuPaul's Drag Race would be an eight-part series filmed in London based on local drag queens and would air on BBC Three in 2019. Visage confirmed via social media that she would appear as a judge.
Canada's Drag Race (2020–present): On June 27, 2019, OutTV and Bell Media's streaming service Crave announced that they had co-commissioned a Canadian version of Drag Race. Rights to the series, as well as the U.S. and British versions, will be shared by OutTV and Crave. Additionally, season 11 runner-up Brooke Lynn Hytes was confirmed as one of the judges, becoming the first Drag Race contestant to serve as a permanent judge. The show premiered on July 2, 2020.
Drag Race Holland (2020–present): A Dutch version of Drag Race was announced on July 26, 2020. The series debuted on Videoland in The Netherlands, and aired on WOW Presents Plus internationally. The show is hosted by Fred van Leer and premiered .
RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under (2021–present): On August 26, 2019, an Oceanic version was announced to be in production and said to air in 2020, but was likely delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Filming began in Auckland, New Zealand in January 2021. The series premiered on TVNZ 2 and TVNZ OnDemand in New Zealand, Stan in Australia, and on WOW Presents Plus internationally on 1 May 2021.
Drag Race España (2021–present): On November 16, 2020, Atresmedia announced that they would produce a Spanish version of Drag Race together with Buendía Estudios after reaching an agreement with Passion Distribution in favour of World of Wonder. The series debuted on Atresmedia's pay streaming service ATRESplayer Premium on 30 May 2021, and aired on WOW Presents Plus internationally. It is hosted by Supremme de Luxe.
Drag Race Italia (2021–present): An Italian version of Drag Race was announced on June 30, 2021. The series will debut in November 2021 on Discovery+.
RuPaul's Drag Race: UK Versus the World (2022): On December 21, 2021, World of Wonder announced that a spin-off series of RuPaul's Drag Race UK would premiere in February 2022. Filmed in the United Kingdom, The series will feature international queens who have competed in the Drag Race franchise around the world.
Drag Race Philippines (2022–present): On August 17, 2021, a Filipino version of Drag Race was announced.
Drag Race France (2022–present): On November 17, 2021, a French version of Drag Race was announced.
Home media
Full seasons of shows in the Drag Race franchise are available to stream on WOW Presents Plus in over 200 territories. The show is also currently available on the following streaming platforms:
United States — Hulu (seasons 3–8; All Stars 1–4); Paramount Plus (seasons 1–12, All Stars 1–6, Untucked seasons 9–11, All Stars Untucked seasons 5–6), WOW Presents Plus (Untucked seasons 7–8, Thailand season 2, and all other international series)
Canada — Netflix (seasons 1–12, All Stars 4, Untucked seasons 11 and 12), Crave (all seasons, All Stars 1–6, UK series 1–3, Canada season 1 and 2, Down Under season 1), WOW Presents Plus (seasons 1–10, Untucked seasons 1–10, All Stars 1–4)
UK & Ireland — Netflix (all seasons, Untucked seasons 11–12, All Stars 4 & 5, Celebrity season 1), BBC iPlayer (UK series 1 and 2, Canada season 1, Down Under season 1), WOW Presents Plus (seasons 1–10, Untucked seasons 1–10, all episodes of All Stars and Holland)
Australia — Stan (all seasons of original, All Stars, Untucked, UK, Canada, Down Under and Thailand Season 2), WOW Presents Plus (UK series 1, Canada season 1)
Awards and nominations
RuPaul's Drag Race has been nominated for thirty-nine Emmy Awards, and won nineteen. It has also been nominated for nine Reality Television Awards, winning three, and nominated for six NewNowNext Awards, winning three.
Critical reception
Thrillist called Drag Race "the closest gay culture gets to a sports league." In 2019, the TV series was ranked 93rd on The Guardians list of the 100 best TV shows of the 21st century.
Controversy
In March 2014, Drag Race sparked controversy over the use of the term "shemale" in the season 6 mini challenge "Female or She-male?". Logo has since removed the segment from all platforms and addressed the allegations of transphobia by removing the "You've got she-mail" intro from new episodes of the series. This was replaced with, "She done already done had herses!" RuPaul additionally came under fire for comments made in an interview with The Guardian, in which he stated he would "probably not" allow a transgender contestant to compete. He compared transgender drag performers to doping athletes on his Twitter, and has since apologized. Sasha Velour (season 9) disagreed, tweeting "My drag was born in a community full of trans women, trans men, and gender non-conforming folks doing drag. That's the real world of drag, like it or not. I thinks it's fabulous and I will fight my entire life to protect and uplift it".
Relationship with trans community
For the first twelve seasons, RuPaul would say, "Gentlemen, start your engines, and may the best woman win," before the contestants' runway looks for the episode were shown. When season 13 introduced the show's first ever transgender male contestant, Gottmik, RuPaul's catchphrase was changed in order to promote inclusivity: "Racers, start your engines, and may the best drag queen win." In season 6 of All Stars, an altered version of the shows opening theme was introduced with the new tag line.
Performers of any sexual orientation and gender identity are eligible to audition, although most contestants to date have been gay, cisgender men. Transgender competitors have become more common as seasons have progressed; Sonique, a season two contestant, became the first openly trans contestant when she came out as a woman during the reunion special. Sonique later won All Stars 6, becoming the first trans woman to win an English-language version of the show and the second overall. Monica Beverly Hillz (season 5) became the first contestant to come out as a trans woman during the competition. Peppermint (season 9) is the first contestant who was out as a trans woman prior to the airing of her season. Other trans contestants came out as women after their elimination, including Carmen Carrera, Kenya Michaels, Stacy Layne Matthews, Jiggly Caliente, Gia Gunn, Laganja Estranja and Gigi Goode. Additionally, Gottmik (season 13) was the first AFAB and currently the only openly transgender male contestant in the franchise's history.
Season 14 is the first regular season to feature four transgender women in the cast—Kerri Colby, Kornbread "The Snack" Jeté, Bosco and Jasmine Kennedie. While Colby was cast after transitioning, Kornbread, Bosco and Jasmine came out after the show's taping.
Broadcast
Australia: In Australia, lifestyle channel LifeStyle YOU regularly shows and re-screens seasons 1–7, including Untucked. In addition, free-to-air channel SBS2 began screening the first season on August 31, 2013. On March 13, 2017, it was announced that on-demand service Stan would fast-track season 9 (including Untucked). As of 2020, Stan streams all seasons since Season 1, as well as Untucked, All Stars, All Stars Untucked, Canada's Drag Race, Secret Celebrity, Drag Race UK and Season 2 of Drag Race Thailand.
Canada: The series airs on OutTV in Canada at the same time as the US airing. Unlike Logo, OutTV continues to broadcast Untucked immediately after each Drag Race episode. Beginning with season 12, OutTV has shared its first-run rights to the main series (but not Untucked) with the more widely subscribed Crave streaming service, with episodes available on Crave shortly after they premiere on OutTV, in connection with Crave and OutTV's co-production of Canada's Drag Race. Past seasons are also available on Netflix in Canada, with each season released there shortly before the next season begins.
Ireland: In Ireland, season 2 to season 8 of the programme were available on Netflix; as of the release of Season 10, only seasons 8 & 9 are available. Netflix has started airing season 10 episodes one day after they air in the USA. All seasons of the show have been made available on Netflix since October 2018
Indonesia: In Indonesia, season 1 to season 13 of the programme were available on Netflix, alongside the Christmas spectacular; As of the release of All Stars, only season 4 and 5 is available. Netflix also aired Untucked season 10 episodes one day after they air in the USA.
UK: E4 aired season 1 in 2009, followed by season 2 in 2010. Since its success on Netflix in the UK, TruTV acquired the broadcast rights for all eight seasons of the show including Untucked episodes. In June 2015, TruTV started airing two episodes of the show a week, starting with season 4, followed by All Stars, then season 5. As of May 2018, the series airs on VH1 UK Monday–Thursday at 11pm, beginning with All Stars season 3.Israel''': Yes has broadcast all seasons and Untucked episodes. Seasons 1–12, All Stars seasons 4–5 and Untucked'' seasons 11–12 are also available on Netflix.
See also
List of reality television programs with LGBT cast members
List of Rusicals
LGBT culture in New York City
Paris Is Burning (film)
References
External links
Edgar, E. (2011). "Xtravaganza!": Drag Representation and Articulation in "RuPaul's Drag Race". Studies in Popular Culture,34(1), 133–146. Retrieved from "Xtravaganza!": Drag Representation and Articulation in "RuPaul's Drag Race"
2009 American television series debuts
2000s American reality television series
2000s LGBT-related reality television series
2010s American reality television series
2010s LGBT-related reality television series
2020s American reality television series
2020s LGBT-related reality television series
American LGBT-related reality television series
English-language television shows
Logo TV original programming
Primetime Emmy Award-winning television series
Television series by World of Wonder (company)
Transgender-related television shows
VH1 original programming
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality Program winners
2000s American LGBT-related television series
2010s American LGBT-related television series
2020s American LGBT-related television series | false | [
"\"How Interesting: A Tiny Man\" is a 2010 science fiction/magical realism short story by American writer Harlan Ellison. It was first published in Realms of Fantasy.\n\nPlot summary\nA scientist creates a tiny man. The tiny man is initially very popular, but then draws the hatred of the world, and so the tiny man must flee, together with the scientist (who is now likewise hated, for having created the tiny man).\n\nReception\n\"How Interesting: A Tiny Man\" won the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Short Story, tied with Kij Johnson's \"Ponies\". It was Ellison's final Nebula nomination and win, of his record-setting eight nominations and three wins.\n\nTor.com calls the story \"deceptively simple\", with \"execution (that) is flawless\" and a \"Geppetto-like\" narrator, while Publishers Weekly describes it as \"memorably depict(ing) humanity's smallness of spirit\". The SF Site, however, felt it was \"contrived and less than profound\".\n\nNick Mamatas compared \"How Interesting: A Tiny Man\" negatively to Ellison's other Nebula-winning short stories, and stated that the story's two mutually exclusive endings (in one, the tiny man is killed; in the other, he becomes God) are evocative of the process of writing short stories. Ben Peek considered it to be \"more allegory than (...) anything else\", and interpreted it as being about how the media \"give(s) everyone a voice\", and also about how Ellison was treated by science fiction fandom.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nAudio version of ''How Interesting: A Tiny Man, at StarShipSofa\nHow Interesting: A Tiny Man, at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database\n\nNebula Award for Best Short Story-winning works\nShort stories by Harlan Ellison",
"\"If You Can Do Anything Else\" is a song written by Billy Livsey and Don Schlitz, and recorded by American country music artist George Strait. It was released in February 2001 as the third and final single from his self-titled album. The song reached number 5 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart in July 2001. It also peaked at number 51 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.\n\nContent\nThe song is about man who is giving his woman the option to leave him. He gives her many different options for all the things she can do. At the end he gives her the option to stay with him if she really can’t find anything else to do. He says he will be alright if she leaves, but really it seems he wants her to stay.\n\nChart performance\n\"If You Can Do Anything Else\" debuted at number 60 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks for the week of March 3, 2001.\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\n2001 singles\n2000 songs\nGeorge Strait songs\nSongs written by Billy Livsey\nSongs written by Don Schlitz\nSong recordings produced by Tony Brown (record producer)\nMCA Nashville Records singles"
] |
[
"RuPaul's Drag Race",
"Untucked",
"What is Untucked?",
"In this companion series, RuPaul presents a documentary of contestants' conversation in the green room, replays pertinent moments from Drag Race,",
"When did it air?",
"LOGOonline published a webisode of Under the Hood after each episode of Drag Race.",
"When did it begin?",
"Starting with the second season of Drag Race in 2010, Logo reformatted Under the Hood, increased its production budget, moved it from the web to television,",
"Were there prizes?",
"I don't know.",
"What happens in Untucked?",
"renovated version also follows contestants following their elimination from the show, documenting them packing their belongings and leaving",
"How many seasons are there?",
"For the show's tenth season, Untucked returned to television.",
"Anything else interesting about it?",
"Untucked replaces the basic green room of Under the Hood with two decorated rooms that were until season 6 sponsored by Absolut Vodka and Interior Illusions, Inc.:"
] | C_2bdaab02168043d394ffbc0451581d47_0 | Who sponsored it after 6? | 8 | Who sponsored Untucked after season 6? | RuPaul's Drag Race | The first season of Drag Race was accompanied by a seven-episode web series, titled Under the Hood of RuPaul's Drag Race. LOGOonline published a webisode of Under the Hood after each episode of Drag Race. In this companion series, RuPaul presents a documentary of contestants' conversation in the green room, replays pertinent moments from Drag Race, and airs deleted footage. Starting with the second season of Drag Race in 2010, Logo reformatted Under the Hood, increased its production budget, moved it from the web to television, and re-titled it to RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked. Logo broadcast an episode of Untucked after each episode of Drag Race. Untucked replaces the basic green room of Under the Hood with two decorated rooms that were until season 6 sponsored by Absolut Vodka and Interior Illusions, Inc.: the Interior Illusions Lounge and the Gold Bar. FormDecor sponsored the Lounge for season 6. These two backstage areas allow for separated group conversation. At the start of the seventh season of the Drag Race, Untucked reverted to a webseries, as part of the World of Wonder YouTube page. Instead of two decorated rooms, Untucked was moved back to the one room, an empty backstage space that connects to the main stage and work room, with couches for contestants to chat on. The newly renovated version also follows contestants following their elimination from the show, documenting them packing their belongings and leaving the set. The webseries format continued for the eighth and ninth season. For the show's tenth season, Untucked returned to television. CANNOTANSWER | the Interior Illusions Lounge and the Gold Bar. FormDecor sponsored the Lounge for season 6. These | RuPaul's Drag Race is an American reality competition television series, the first in the Drag Race franchise, produced by World of Wonder for Logo TV, WOW Presents Plus, and, beginning with the ninth season, VH1. The show documents RuPaul in the search for "America's next drag superstar." RuPaul plays the role of host, mentor, and head judge for this series, as contestants are given different challenges each week. RuPaul's Drag Race employs a panel of judges, including RuPaul, Michelle Visage, an alternating third main judge of either Carson Kressley or Ross Matthews, and a host of other guest judges, who critique contestants' progress throughout the competition. The title of the show is a play on drag queen and drag racing, and the title sequence and song "Drag Race" both have a drag-racing theme. To date, there have been thirteen winners of the show: BeBe Zahara Benet, Tyra Sanchez, Raja, Sharon Needles, Jinkx Monsoon, Bianca Del Rio, Violet Chachki, Bob the Drag Queen, Sasha Velour, Aquaria, Yvie Oddly, Jaida Essence Hall and Symone.
RuPaul's Drag Race has spanned thirteen seasons and inspired the spin-off shows RuPaul's Drag U, RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars, RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked, RuPaul's Secret Celebrity Drag Race, RuPaul's Drag Race UK, and RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under. The show has become the highest-rated television program on Logo TV, and airs internationally, including in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and Israel. The show earned RuPaul six consecutive Emmys (2016 to 2021) for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program. The show itself has been awarded as the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program 4 consecutive times (2018 to 2021), and the Outstanding Reality Program award at the 21st GLAAD Media Awards. It has been nominated for four Critics' Choice Television Award including Best Reality Series – Competition and Best Reality Show Host for RuPaul, and was nominated for a Creative Arts Emmy Award for Outstanding Make-up for a Multi-Camera Series or Special (Non-Prosthetic). Later in 2018, the show became the first show to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program in the same year, a feat it has since repeated three times.
Format
Prospective Drag Race contestants submit video auditions to the show's production company, World of Wonder. RuPaul, the host and head judge, views each tape and selects the season's competitors. Once the chosen pool of performers is on set, they film a series of episodes, each one typically concluding with the removal of one contestant from the competition. Rarely, the outcome of an episode has been a double elimination, no elimination, contestant disqualification or removal of a contestant on medical grounds. Each episode features a so-called maxi challenge that tests competitors' skills in a variety of areas of drag performance. Some episodes also feature a mini challenge, the prize of which is often an advantage or benefit in the upcoming maxi challenge. Following the maxi challenge, contestants present themed looks in a runway walk. RuPaul and a panel of judges then critique each contestant's performance, deliberate amongst themselves, and announce the week's winner and bottom two competitors. The bottom two queens compete in a so-called Lip Sync for Your Life; the winner of the lip sync remains in the competition, and the loser is eliminated. Generally, the contestant that the judges feel has displayed the most "charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent" (C.U.N.T.) is the one who advances. The final three, or four depending on what RuPaul chooses, contestants remaining compete in a special finale episode wherein the season's winner is crowned. In early seasons, the finale was pre-recorded in the studio with no audience. More recently, the finale has taken the form of a lip sync tournament before a live audience. The season 12 finale was filmed remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The whole season is typically filmed in four weeks.
Mini and maxi challenges
Mini challenges are quick, small assignments that RuPaul announces at the beginning of an episode. One of the most popular mini challenges, which recurs from season to season, is the reading challenge. In it, contestants satirically criticize one another in a process called "reading", which was popularized by the film Paris Is Burning. Maxi challenges vary in the skill they test; some are group challenges that involve singing and acting, while others feature comedy, a talent of choice, dancing, or makeovers. The winner receives a material or monetary prize. Until the show's sixth season, the winner sometimes also received immunity against elimination the following week. Drag Races most popular seasonal maxi challenge is Snatch Game, a spoof on Match Game wherein contestants impersonate celebrities or famous fictional personas.
Judging
RuPaul has been the series' head judge since its premiere. For the first two seasons, Merle Ginsberg joined him on the panel; she was replaced in season 3 by longtime friend of RuPaul and co-host of The RuPaul Show Michelle Visage. Santino Rice served as a judge from season 1 through season 6. From season 7 onward, Ross Mathews and Carson Kressley have occupied Rice's former seat. New York City makeup artist Billy B held a regular judging spot in the third and fourth seasons when Rice was absent. Most weeks, one or two celebrity guest judges join the panel.
Companion series
The first season of Drag Race was accompanied by a seven-episode web series titled Under the Hood of RuPaul's Drag Race, which Logo TV made available for streaming on its website. The series featured behind-the-scenes and deleted footage from the main show's tapes. From season 2 onward, a companion show called RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked, which has the same premise, has aired instead. Untucked largely focuses on conversations and drama that occur between contestants backstage while the judges deliberate on each episode's results. In most seasons, it has aired on TV following the main show, but it was available only online for season 7 through season 9. A number of smaller web series also accompany each episode of Drag Race. Whatcha Packin, which began at the start of the sixth season, features Michelle Visage interviewing the most recently eliminated queen about their run on the show and showcasing runway outfits they had brought but did not have the opportunity to wear. In 2014, the web-series Fashion Photo Ruview aired for the first time, co-hosted by Raja Gemini and Raven who evaluate the runway looks of the main show. Since season 8, a five- to fifteen-minute aftershow called The Pit Stop has also been produced. It involves a host and guest, typically past competitors of Drag Race, discussing the recently aired episode. Each season's host (or hosts) are different; to date, these have included the YouTuber Kingsley, Raja Gemini, Bob the Drag Queen, Alaska Thunderfuck, Trixie Mattel, Manila Luzon, and Monét X Change.
Series overview
Seasons 1–8 (2009–2016): Logo TV
Season 1 premiered in the U.S. on February 2, 2009, on Logo TV. Nine contestants competed to become "America's Next Drag Superstar". The winner won a lifetime supply of MAC Cosmetics, was featured on the cover of Paper and in an LA Eyeworks campaign, joined the Absolut Pride tour, and won a cash prize of $20,000. One of the nine, Nina Flowers, was determined by an audience vote via the show's official website. The winner of season 1 was BeBe Zahara Benet, with Nina Flowers winning Miss Congeniality. In late 2013, Logo re-aired the season as RuPaul's Drag Race: The Lost Season Ru-Vealed, featuring commentary from RuPaul.
For season 2 (2010), 12 contestants competed for a lifetime supply of NYX Cosmetics and be the face of nyxcosmetics.com, an exclusive one year public relations contract with LGBT firm Project Publicity, be featured in an LA Eyeworks campaign, join the Logo Drag Race Tour, and a cash prize of $25,000. A new tradition of writing a farewell message in lipstick on the workstation mirror was started by the first eliminated queen, Shangela. Each week's episode is followed by a behind-the-scenes show, RuPaul's Drag Race Untucked. The winner of season 2 was Tyra Sanchez, with Pandora Boxx winning Miss Congeniality. On December 6, 2011, Amazon.com released season 2 on DVD via the CreateSpace program.
Season 3 (2011) had Michelle Visage replacing Merle Ginsberg on the judging panel as well as Billy Brasfield (commonly known as Billy B), Mike Ruiz, and Jeffrey Moran (courtesy of Absolut Vodka) filling in for Santino Rice's absence during several episodes. Due to Billy B's continued appearances, he and Rice are considered to have been alternate judges for the same seat on judges panel. Other changes made included the introduction of a wildcard contestant from the past season, Shangela; an episode with no elimination; and a contestant, Carmen Carrera, being brought back into the competition after having been eliminated a few episodes prior. A new pit crew was also introduced consisting of Jason Carter and Shawn Morales. As with the previous season, each week's episode was followed by a behind-the-scenes show, RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked. The winner of the season 3 was Raja, with Yara Sofia winning Miss Congeniality. On December 6, 2011, Amazon.com released this season on DVD via their CreateSpace program.
Season 4 began airing on January 30, 2012, with cast members announced November 13, 2011. The winner headlined Logo's Drag Race Tour featuring Absolut Vodka, won a one-of-a-kind trip, a lifetime supply of NYX Cosmetics, a cash prize of $100,000, and the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar." Like the previous season, Rice and Billy B (Billy Brasfield), shared the same seat at the judges table alternatively, with Brasfield filling in for Rice when needed. The winner of season 4 was Sharon Needles, with Latrice Royale winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 5 began airing on January 28, 2013, with a 90-minute premiere episode. Fourteen contestants competed for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar" along with a lifetime supply of Colorevolution Cosmetics, a one-of-a-kind trip courtesy of AlandChuck.travel, a headlining spot on Logo's Drag Race Tour featuring Absolut Vodka and a cash prize of $100,000. Rice and Visage were back as judges on the panel. The winner of season 5 was Jinkx Monsoon, with Ivy Winters winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 6 began airing February 24, 2014. Like season 5, season 6 saw 14 contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar". For the first time in the show's history, the season premiere was split into two episodes; the fourteen queens are split into two groups and the seven queens in each group compete against one another before being united as one group in the third episode. Rice and Visage returned as judges at the panel. Two new pit crew members, Miles Moody and Simon Sherry-Wood, joined Carter and Morales. The winner won a prize package that included a supply from Colorevolution Cosmetics and a cash prize of $100,000. The winner of season 6 was Bianca Del Rio, with BenDeLaCreme winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 7 began airing on March 2, 2015. Returning judges included RuPaul and Visage, while the space previously occupied by Rice was filled by new additions Ross Mathews and Carson Kressley. Mathews and Kressley were both present for the season premiere and then took turns sharing judging responsibilities. Morales and Simon Sherry-Wood did not appear this season and were replaced by Bryce Eilenberg. Like the previous two seasons, this one featured fourteen contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. The season premiere debuted with a live and same-day viewership of 348,000, a 20 percent increase from the previous season. On March 20, 2015, it was announced that Logo had given the series an early renewal for an eighth season. The winner of season 7 was Violet Chachki, with Katya winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 8 on began airing on March 7, 2016, with cast members announced during the NewNowNext Honors on February 1, 2016. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. The first episode celebrated the 100th taping of the show, and the 100th drag queen to compete. Similar to season 2, this season had twelve contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. The winner of season 8 was Bob the Drag Queen, with Cynthia Lee Fontaine winning Miss Congeniality.
Seasons 9–14 (2017–present): VH1
Season 9 began airing on March 24, 2017 on VH1, with cast members being announced on February 2, 2017. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. This season features fourteen contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. The ninth season aired on VH1, with encore presentations continuing to air on Logo. This season featured the return of Cynthia Lee Fontaine, who previously participated in the season 8. Season 9 featured a top four in the finale episode, as opposed to the top three, which was previously established in season 4. The winner of season 9 was Sasha Velour, with Valentina winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 10 began airing on March 22, 2018. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. This season features thirteen new contestants, and one returning contestant, competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. Eureka O'Hara, who was removed from the ninth season due to an injury, returned to the show after she accepted an open invitation. Season 10 premiered alongside the televised return of Untucked. The tenth season featured a top four following the previous season's finale format. The winner of season 10 was Aquaria, with Monét X Change winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 11 began airing February 28, 2019. This season had fifteen contestants, whereas previous seasons typically had fourteen contestants. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. This season features fourteen new contestants, and one returning contestant, competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. This season saw the return of Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, who was the first contestant eliminated in season 10. Season 11 again featured a top four in the finale. As with season 10, each week's episode was followed by an episode of the televised return of RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked. The winner of season 11 was Yvie Oddly, with Nina West winning Miss Congeniality.
On January 22, 2019, casting for Season 12 (2020) was announced via YouTube and Twitter and was closed on March 1, 2019. On August 19, 2019, it was announced that the series had been renewed for a twelfth season. The season began airing on February 28, 2020. This is the first and only season to have the reunion and finale recorded virtually from the contestants' homes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The winner of season 12 was Jaida Essence Hall, with Heidi N Closet winning Miss Congeniality.
On December 2, 2019, casting for Season 13 (2021) was announced via YouTube and Twitter. The casting call closed on January 24, 2020. On August 20, 2020, it was announced the thirteenth season had been ordered by VH1. It began airing on January 1, 2021. The winner of season 13 was Symone, with Kandy Muse as runner-up, and LaLa Ri as Miss Congeniality.
Casting for Season 14 began on November 23, 2020. In August 2021, it was announced the fourteenth season had been ordered by VH1. The cast for the fourteenth season was revealed through VH1 on December 2, 2021. The season will start airing on January 7, 2022.
Casting for season 15 began on November 4, 2021, and will close January 7, 2022.
Contestants
More than 150 contestants have competed on the U.S. version of the show.
Specials
RuPaul's Drag Race: Green Screen Christmas (2015): On December 13, 2015, Logo aired a seasonal themed episode of Drag Race. The non-competitive special was released in conjunction with RuPaul's holiday album Slay Belles and featured music videos for songs from the album. The cast included RuPaul, Michelle Visage, Siedah Garrett, and Todrick Hall, and former contestants Alyssa Edwards, Laganja Estranja, Latrice Royale, Raja, and Shangela.
RuPaul's Drag Race Holi-slay Spectacular (2018): On November 1, 2018, VH1 announced a seasonal themed special episode of Drag Race scheduled to air on December 7, 2018. The special saw eight former contestants compete for the title of "America's first Drag Race Christmas Queen". Competitors included Eureka O'Hara, Jasmine Masters, Kim Chi, Latrice Royale, Mayhem Miller, Shangela, Sonique, and Trixie Mattel.
RuPaul's Secret Celebrity Drag Race (2020): On April 10, 2020, VH1 announced a celebrity edition of Drag Race scheduled to air for four weeks beginning on April 24, 2020. The series featured a trio of celebrities receiving makeovers from former contestants. After receiving help from "Queen Supremes" Alyssa Edwards, Asia O'Hara, Bob the Drag Queen, Kim Chi, Monét X Change, Monique Heart, Nina West, Trinity the Tuck, Trixie Mattel and Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, the celebrities competed in fan-favorite challenges and on the runway to be named "America's Next Celebrity Drag Race Superstar" and prize money for choice charities.
RuPaul's Drag Race: Vegas Revue (2020): On July 22, 2020, it was announced that a docu-series would premiere on August 21, 2020.
RuPaul's Drag Race: Corona Can't Keep a Good Queen Down (2021): On February 26, 2021, the one hour special aired on VH1 in between episodes 8 and 9 of Season 13 and detailed the contestants' journeys with filming the season amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Spin-offs
RuPaul's Drag U (2010–2012): In each episode, three women are paired with former Drag Race contestants ("Drag Professors"), who give them drag makeovers and help them to access their "inner divas".
RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars (2012–present): Past contestants return and compete for a spot in the Drag Race Hall of Fame. The show's format is similar to that of RuPaul's Drag Race, with challenges and a panel of judges.
Dancing Queen (2018): In April 2013, RuPaul confirmed that he planned to executive-produce a spin-off of Drag Race that stars season five and All Stars season two contestant Alyssa Edwards. Alyssa Edwards has confirmed that the spin-off's title is Beyond Belief (later retitled as Dancing Queen), and that his dance company in Mesquite, Texas is the setting. The series aired on Netflix on October 5, 2018.
Feature film: In August 2015, RuPaul revealed that a movie featuring all of the contestants was in the works. "We've got a director for it, we've got a light script, but it just needs a little more retooling and scheduling."
RuPaul's Drag Race: The Mobile Game is an upcoming mobile app by World of Wonder and Leaf Mobile's subsidiary East Side Games.
International versions
The Switch Drag Race (2015–2018): This licensed glocalization of Drag Race premiered in October 2015 on Chilean television channel Mega. As in Drag Race, queens compete in "mini-challenges" and a main challenge and are evaluated by a panel of judges. Similar to Drag Race, The Switch requires contestants to lip-sync, dance, and perform impersonations.
Drag Race Thailand (2018–present): In October 2017, Kantana Group acquired the rights to produce its own version of Drag Race. Season 1 of Drag Race Thailand was met with successful ratings on Thai television. It was later announced that the first season will premiere in the U.S. in May 2018. The first season also made stirs in the Asian LGBT community, the most prominent of which was a campaign to establish versions of Drag Race in the Philippines and Taiwan as well, two of the most LGBT-accepting nations in Asia.
RuPaul's Drag Race UK (2019–present): On December 5, 2018, it was announced that the British version of RuPaul's Drag Race would be an eight-part series filmed in London based on local drag queens and would air on BBC Three in 2019. Visage confirmed via social media that she would appear as a judge.
Canada's Drag Race (2020–present): On June 27, 2019, OutTV and Bell Media's streaming service Crave announced that they had co-commissioned a Canadian version of Drag Race. Rights to the series, as well as the U.S. and British versions, will be shared by OutTV and Crave. Additionally, season 11 runner-up Brooke Lynn Hytes was confirmed as one of the judges, becoming the first Drag Race contestant to serve as a permanent judge. The show premiered on July 2, 2020.
Drag Race Holland (2020–present): A Dutch version of Drag Race was announced on July 26, 2020. The series debuted on Videoland in The Netherlands, and aired on WOW Presents Plus internationally. The show is hosted by Fred van Leer and premiered .
RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under (2021–present): On August 26, 2019, an Oceanic version was announced to be in production and said to air in 2020, but was likely delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Filming began in Auckland, New Zealand in January 2021. The series premiered on TVNZ 2 and TVNZ OnDemand in New Zealand, Stan in Australia, and on WOW Presents Plus internationally on 1 May 2021.
Drag Race España (2021–present): On November 16, 2020, Atresmedia announced that they would produce a Spanish version of Drag Race together with Buendía Estudios after reaching an agreement with Passion Distribution in favour of World of Wonder. The series debuted on Atresmedia's pay streaming service ATRESplayer Premium on 30 May 2021, and aired on WOW Presents Plus internationally. It is hosted by Supremme de Luxe.
Drag Race Italia (2021–present): An Italian version of Drag Race was announced on June 30, 2021. The series will debut in November 2021 on Discovery+.
RuPaul's Drag Race: UK Versus the World (2022): On December 21, 2021, World of Wonder announced that a spin-off series of RuPaul's Drag Race UK would premiere in February 2022. Filmed in the United Kingdom, The series will feature international queens who have competed in the Drag Race franchise around the world.
Drag Race Philippines (2022–present): On August 17, 2021, a Filipino version of Drag Race was announced.
Drag Race France (2022–present): On November 17, 2021, a French version of Drag Race was announced.
Home media
Full seasons of shows in the Drag Race franchise are available to stream on WOW Presents Plus in over 200 territories. The show is also currently available on the following streaming platforms:
United States — Hulu (seasons 3–8; All Stars 1–4); Paramount Plus (seasons 1–12, All Stars 1–6, Untucked seasons 9–11, All Stars Untucked seasons 5–6), WOW Presents Plus (Untucked seasons 7–8, Thailand season 2, and all other international series)
Canada — Netflix (seasons 1–12, All Stars 4, Untucked seasons 11 and 12), Crave (all seasons, All Stars 1–6, UK series 1–3, Canada season 1 and 2, Down Under season 1), WOW Presents Plus (seasons 1–10, Untucked seasons 1–10, All Stars 1–4)
UK & Ireland — Netflix (all seasons, Untucked seasons 11–12, All Stars 4 & 5, Celebrity season 1), BBC iPlayer (UK series 1 and 2, Canada season 1, Down Under season 1), WOW Presents Plus (seasons 1–10, Untucked seasons 1–10, all episodes of All Stars and Holland)
Australia — Stan (all seasons of original, All Stars, Untucked, UK, Canada, Down Under and Thailand Season 2), WOW Presents Plus (UK series 1, Canada season 1)
Awards and nominations
RuPaul's Drag Race has been nominated for thirty-nine Emmy Awards, and won nineteen. It has also been nominated for nine Reality Television Awards, winning three, and nominated for six NewNowNext Awards, winning three.
Critical reception
Thrillist called Drag Race "the closest gay culture gets to a sports league." In 2019, the TV series was ranked 93rd on The Guardians list of the 100 best TV shows of the 21st century.
Controversy
In March 2014, Drag Race sparked controversy over the use of the term "shemale" in the season 6 mini challenge "Female or She-male?". Logo has since removed the segment from all platforms and addressed the allegations of transphobia by removing the "You've got she-mail" intro from new episodes of the series. This was replaced with, "She done already done had herses!" RuPaul additionally came under fire for comments made in an interview with The Guardian, in which he stated he would "probably not" allow a transgender contestant to compete. He compared transgender drag performers to doping athletes on his Twitter, and has since apologized. Sasha Velour (season 9) disagreed, tweeting "My drag was born in a community full of trans women, trans men, and gender non-conforming folks doing drag. That's the real world of drag, like it or not. I thinks it's fabulous and I will fight my entire life to protect and uplift it".
Relationship with trans community
For the first twelve seasons, RuPaul would say, "Gentlemen, start your engines, and may the best woman win," before the contestants' runway looks for the episode were shown. When season 13 introduced the show's first ever transgender male contestant, Gottmik, RuPaul's catchphrase was changed in order to promote inclusivity: "Racers, start your engines, and may the best drag queen win." In season 6 of All Stars, an altered version of the shows opening theme was introduced with the new tag line.
Performers of any sexual orientation and gender identity are eligible to audition, although most contestants to date have been gay, cisgender men. Transgender competitors have become more common as seasons have progressed; Sonique, a season two contestant, became the first openly trans contestant when she came out as a woman during the reunion special. Sonique later won All Stars 6, becoming the first trans woman to win an English-language version of the show and the second overall. Monica Beverly Hillz (season 5) became the first contestant to come out as a trans woman during the competition. Peppermint (season 9) is the first contestant who was out as a trans woman prior to the airing of her season. Other trans contestants came out as women after their elimination, including Carmen Carrera, Kenya Michaels, Stacy Layne Matthews, Jiggly Caliente, Gia Gunn, Laganja Estranja and Gigi Goode. Additionally, Gottmik (season 13) was the first AFAB and currently the only openly transgender male contestant in the franchise's history.
Season 14 is the first regular season to feature four transgender women in the cast—Kerri Colby, Kornbread "The Snack" Jeté, Bosco and Jasmine Kennedie. While Colby was cast after transitioning, Kornbread, Bosco and Jasmine came out after the show's taping.
Broadcast
Australia: In Australia, lifestyle channel LifeStyle YOU regularly shows and re-screens seasons 1–7, including Untucked. In addition, free-to-air channel SBS2 began screening the first season on August 31, 2013. On March 13, 2017, it was announced that on-demand service Stan would fast-track season 9 (including Untucked). As of 2020, Stan streams all seasons since Season 1, as well as Untucked, All Stars, All Stars Untucked, Canada's Drag Race, Secret Celebrity, Drag Race UK and Season 2 of Drag Race Thailand.
Canada: The series airs on OutTV in Canada at the same time as the US airing. Unlike Logo, OutTV continues to broadcast Untucked immediately after each Drag Race episode. Beginning with season 12, OutTV has shared its first-run rights to the main series (but not Untucked) with the more widely subscribed Crave streaming service, with episodes available on Crave shortly after they premiere on OutTV, in connection with Crave and OutTV's co-production of Canada's Drag Race. Past seasons are also available on Netflix in Canada, with each season released there shortly before the next season begins.
Ireland: In Ireland, season 2 to season 8 of the programme were available on Netflix; as of the release of Season 10, only seasons 8 & 9 are available. Netflix has started airing season 10 episodes one day after they air in the USA. All seasons of the show have been made available on Netflix since October 2018
Indonesia: In Indonesia, season 1 to season 13 of the programme were available on Netflix, alongside the Christmas spectacular; As of the release of All Stars, only season 4 and 5 is available. Netflix also aired Untucked season 10 episodes one day after they air in the USA.
UK: E4 aired season 1 in 2009, followed by season 2 in 2010. Since its success on Netflix in the UK, TruTV acquired the broadcast rights for all eight seasons of the show including Untucked episodes. In June 2015, TruTV started airing two episodes of the show a week, starting with season 4, followed by All Stars, then season 5. As of May 2018, the series airs on VH1 UK Monday–Thursday at 11pm, beginning with All Stars season 3.Israel''': Yes has broadcast all seasons and Untucked episodes. Seasons 1–12, All Stars seasons 4–5 and Untucked'' seasons 11–12 are also available on Netflix.
See also
List of reality television programs with LGBT cast members
List of Rusicals
LGBT culture in New York City
Paris Is Burning (film)
References
External links
Edgar, E. (2011). "Xtravaganza!": Drag Representation and Articulation in "RuPaul's Drag Race". Studies in Popular Culture,34(1), 133–146. Retrieved from "Xtravaganza!": Drag Representation and Articulation in "RuPaul's Drag Race"
2009 American television series debuts
2000s American reality television series
2000s LGBT-related reality television series
2010s American reality television series
2010s LGBT-related reality television series
2020s American reality television series
2020s LGBT-related reality television series
American LGBT-related reality television series
English-language television shows
Logo TV original programming
Primetime Emmy Award-winning television series
Television series by World of Wonder (company)
Transgender-related television shows
VH1 original programming
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality Program winners
2000s American LGBT-related television series
2010s American LGBT-related television series
2020s American LGBT-related television series | false | [
"This is a list of bills sponsored by John McCain in the United States Senate.\n\nNumber by Congress \n100th United States Congress: 39 bills sponsored\n101st United States Congress: 63 bills sponsored\n102nd United States Congress: 211 bills sponsored\n103rd United States Congress: 144 bills sponsored\n104th United States Congress: 217 bills sponsored – 8 became law\n105th United States Congress: 224 bills sponsored – 3 became law.\n106th United States Congress: 167 bills sponsored\n107th United States Congress: 232 bills sponsored\n108th United States Congress: 189 bills sponsored – 2 became law.\n109th United States Congress: 143 bills sponsored – 4 became law.\n110th United States Congress: 38 bills sponsored\n\nSpecific bills and acts \nClimate Stewardship Acts: Co-sponsor Joe Lieberman. (failed)\nBipartisan Campaign Reform Act: Co-sponsor Russ Feingold.\nDetainee Treatment Act\n\nSee also \nHouse and Senate career of John McCain, until 2000\nSenate career of John McCain, 2001–present\n\nLegislation\nMcCain, John",
"BAFTA Cymru (or BAFTA in Wales or WAFTA ) is the Welsh branch of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) and was founded in 1987.\n\nThe British Academy Cymru Awards were established in 1991, with the first annual awards ceremony held on 30 November 1991. The annual ceremony takes place in Cardiff to recognise achievement in production, performance and craft categories in Welsh-made films and television programmes and by those of Welsh birth or residence. These are separate from the UK-wide British Academy Television Awards and British Academy Film Awards, although films and programmes recognised by BAFTA Cymru may also feature at BAFTA's national awards.\n\nCategories \n Television Drama (sponsored by Bad Wolf) \n Factual Series \n Entertainment Programme (sponsored by University of Wales Trinity Saint David) \n News and Current Affairs (sponsored by Working Word) \n Children's Programme (sponsored by FOR Cardiff) \n Single Documentary (sponsored by Aberystwyth University) \n Short Film (sponsored by University of South Wales) \n Game (sponsored by Games Design at Glyndŵr University) \n Presenter (sponsored by Deloitte) \n Director: Fiction (sponsored by Champagne Taittinger) \n Writer (sponsored by The Social Club. Agency) \n Editing (sponsored by Gorilla) \n Actor (sponsored by AUDI) \n Actress (sponsored by Waterstone Homes) \n Photography Factual (sponsored by Genero) \n Photography and Lighting (sponsored by ELP) \n Sound (sponsored by AB Acoustics) \n Original Music (sponsored by Yr Egin) \n Costume Design (sponsored by DRESD) \n Siân Phillips Award (sponsored by Pinewood Studios Group) \n Outstanding Contribution to Television\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nBritish Academy Cymru Awards (BAFTA official website)\nBAFTA official website\n\nOrganizations established in 1987\n1987 establishments in Wales\nTelevision in Wales\nCinema of Wales\n\nWelsh awards"
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"RuPaul's Drag Race",
"Untucked",
"What is Untucked?",
"In this companion series, RuPaul presents a documentary of contestants' conversation in the green room, replays pertinent moments from Drag Race,",
"When did it air?",
"LOGOonline published a webisode of Under the Hood after each episode of Drag Race.",
"When did it begin?",
"Starting with the second season of Drag Race in 2010, Logo reformatted Under the Hood, increased its production budget, moved it from the web to television,",
"Were there prizes?",
"I don't know.",
"What happens in Untucked?",
"renovated version also follows contestants following their elimination from the show, documenting them packing their belongings and leaving",
"How many seasons are there?",
"For the show's tenth season, Untucked returned to television.",
"Anything else interesting about it?",
"Untucked replaces the basic green room of Under the Hood with two decorated rooms that were until season 6 sponsored by Absolut Vodka and Interior Illusions, Inc.:",
"Who sponsored it after 6?",
"the Interior Illusions Lounge and the Gold Bar. FormDecor sponsored the Lounge for season 6. These"
] | C_2bdaab02168043d394ffbc0451581d47_0 | What did you find most interesting about the article? | 9 | What did you find most interesting about the article? | RuPaul's Drag Race | The first season of Drag Race was accompanied by a seven-episode web series, titled Under the Hood of RuPaul's Drag Race. LOGOonline published a webisode of Under the Hood after each episode of Drag Race. In this companion series, RuPaul presents a documentary of contestants' conversation in the green room, replays pertinent moments from Drag Race, and airs deleted footage. Starting with the second season of Drag Race in 2010, Logo reformatted Under the Hood, increased its production budget, moved it from the web to television, and re-titled it to RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked. Logo broadcast an episode of Untucked after each episode of Drag Race. Untucked replaces the basic green room of Under the Hood with two decorated rooms that were until season 6 sponsored by Absolut Vodka and Interior Illusions, Inc.: the Interior Illusions Lounge and the Gold Bar. FormDecor sponsored the Lounge for season 6. These two backstage areas allow for separated group conversation. At the start of the seventh season of the Drag Race, Untucked reverted to a webseries, as part of the World of Wonder YouTube page. Instead of two decorated rooms, Untucked was moved back to the one room, an empty backstage space that connects to the main stage and work room, with couches for contestants to chat on. The newly renovated version also follows contestants following their elimination from the show, documenting them packing their belongings and leaving the set. The webseries format continued for the eighth and ninth season. For the show's tenth season, Untucked returned to television. CANNOTANSWER | At the start of the seventh season of the Drag Race, Untucked reverted to a webseries, as part of the World of Wonder YouTube page. | RuPaul's Drag Race is an American reality competition television series, the first in the Drag Race franchise, produced by World of Wonder for Logo TV, WOW Presents Plus, and, beginning with the ninth season, VH1. The show documents RuPaul in the search for "America's next drag superstar." RuPaul plays the role of host, mentor, and head judge for this series, as contestants are given different challenges each week. RuPaul's Drag Race employs a panel of judges, including RuPaul, Michelle Visage, an alternating third main judge of either Carson Kressley or Ross Matthews, and a host of other guest judges, who critique contestants' progress throughout the competition. The title of the show is a play on drag queen and drag racing, and the title sequence and song "Drag Race" both have a drag-racing theme. To date, there have been thirteen winners of the show: BeBe Zahara Benet, Tyra Sanchez, Raja, Sharon Needles, Jinkx Monsoon, Bianca Del Rio, Violet Chachki, Bob the Drag Queen, Sasha Velour, Aquaria, Yvie Oddly, Jaida Essence Hall and Symone.
RuPaul's Drag Race has spanned thirteen seasons and inspired the spin-off shows RuPaul's Drag U, RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars, RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked, RuPaul's Secret Celebrity Drag Race, RuPaul's Drag Race UK, and RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under. The show has become the highest-rated television program on Logo TV, and airs internationally, including in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and Israel. The show earned RuPaul six consecutive Emmys (2016 to 2021) for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program. The show itself has been awarded as the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program 4 consecutive times (2018 to 2021), and the Outstanding Reality Program award at the 21st GLAAD Media Awards. It has been nominated for four Critics' Choice Television Award including Best Reality Series – Competition and Best Reality Show Host for RuPaul, and was nominated for a Creative Arts Emmy Award for Outstanding Make-up for a Multi-Camera Series or Special (Non-Prosthetic). Later in 2018, the show became the first show to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program in the same year, a feat it has since repeated three times.
Format
Prospective Drag Race contestants submit video auditions to the show's production company, World of Wonder. RuPaul, the host and head judge, views each tape and selects the season's competitors. Once the chosen pool of performers is on set, they film a series of episodes, each one typically concluding with the removal of one contestant from the competition. Rarely, the outcome of an episode has been a double elimination, no elimination, contestant disqualification or removal of a contestant on medical grounds. Each episode features a so-called maxi challenge that tests competitors' skills in a variety of areas of drag performance. Some episodes also feature a mini challenge, the prize of which is often an advantage or benefit in the upcoming maxi challenge. Following the maxi challenge, contestants present themed looks in a runway walk. RuPaul and a panel of judges then critique each contestant's performance, deliberate amongst themselves, and announce the week's winner and bottom two competitors. The bottom two queens compete in a so-called Lip Sync for Your Life; the winner of the lip sync remains in the competition, and the loser is eliminated. Generally, the contestant that the judges feel has displayed the most "charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent" (C.U.N.T.) is the one who advances. The final three, or four depending on what RuPaul chooses, contestants remaining compete in a special finale episode wherein the season's winner is crowned. In early seasons, the finale was pre-recorded in the studio with no audience. More recently, the finale has taken the form of a lip sync tournament before a live audience. The season 12 finale was filmed remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The whole season is typically filmed in four weeks.
Mini and maxi challenges
Mini challenges are quick, small assignments that RuPaul announces at the beginning of an episode. One of the most popular mini challenges, which recurs from season to season, is the reading challenge. In it, contestants satirically criticize one another in a process called "reading", which was popularized by the film Paris Is Burning. Maxi challenges vary in the skill they test; some are group challenges that involve singing and acting, while others feature comedy, a talent of choice, dancing, or makeovers. The winner receives a material or monetary prize. Until the show's sixth season, the winner sometimes also received immunity against elimination the following week. Drag Races most popular seasonal maxi challenge is Snatch Game, a spoof on Match Game wherein contestants impersonate celebrities or famous fictional personas.
Judging
RuPaul has been the series' head judge since its premiere. For the first two seasons, Merle Ginsberg joined him on the panel; she was replaced in season 3 by longtime friend of RuPaul and co-host of The RuPaul Show Michelle Visage. Santino Rice served as a judge from season 1 through season 6. From season 7 onward, Ross Mathews and Carson Kressley have occupied Rice's former seat. New York City makeup artist Billy B held a regular judging spot in the third and fourth seasons when Rice was absent. Most weeks, one or two celebrity guest judges join the panel.
Companion series
The first season of Drag Race was accompanied by a seven-episode web series titled Under the Hood of RuPaul's Drag Race, which Logo TV made available for streaming on its website. The series featured behind-the-scenes and deleted footage from the main show's tapes. From season 2 onward, a companion show called RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked, which has the same premise, has aired instead. Untucked largely focuses on conversations and drama that occur between contestants backstage while the judges deliberate on each episode's results. In most seasons, it has aired on TV following the main show, but it was available only online for season 7 through season 9. A number of smaller web series also accompany each episode of Drag Race. Whatcha Packin, which began at the start of the sixth season, features Michelle Visage interviewing the most recently eliminated queen about their run on the show and showcasing runway outfits they had brought but did not have the opportunity to wear. In 2014, the web-series Fashion Photo Ruview aired for the first time, co-hosted by Raja Gemini and Raven who evaluate the runway looks of the main show. Since season 8, a five- to fifteen-minute aftershow called The Pit Stop has also been produced. It involves a host and guest, typically past competitors of Drag Race, discussing the recently aired episode. Each season's host (or hosts) are different; to date, these have included the YouTuber Kingsley, Raja Gemini, Bob the Drag Queen, Alaska Thunderfuck, Trixie Mattel, Manila Luzon, and Monét X Change.
Series overview
Seasons 1–8 (2009–2016): Logo TV
Season 1 premiered in the U.S. on February 2, 2009, on Logo TV. Nine contestants competed to become "America's Next Drag Superstar". The winner won a lifetime supply of MAC Cosmetics, was featured on the cover of Paper and in an LA Eyeworks campaign, joined the Absolut Pride tour, and won a cash prize of $20,000. One of the nine, Nina Flowers, was determined by an audience vote via the show's official website. The winner of season 1 was BeBe Zahara Benet, with Nina Flowers winning Miss Congeniality. In late 2013, Logo re-aired the season as RuPaul's Drag Race: The Lost Season Ru-Vealed, featuring commentary from RuPaul.
For season 2 (2010), 12 contestants competed for a lifetime supply of NYX Cosmetics and be the face of nyxcosmetics.com, an exclusive one year public relations contract with LGBT firm Project Publicity, be featured in an LA Eyeworks campaign, join the Logo Drag Race Tour, and a cash prize of $25,000. A new tradition of writing a farewell message in lipstick on the workstation mirror was started by the first eliminated queen, Shangela. Each week's episode is followed by a behind-the-scenes show, RuPaul's Drag Race Untucked. The winner of season 2 was Tyra Sanchez, with Pandora Boxx winning Miss Congeniality. On December 6, 2011, Amazon.com released season 2 on DVD via the CreateSpace program.
Season 3 (2011) had Michelle Visage replacing Merle Ginsberg on the judging panel as well as Billy Brasfield (commonly known as Billy B), Mike Ruiz, and Jeffrey Moran (courtesy of Absolut Vodka) filling in for Santino Rice's absence during several episodes. Due to Billy B's continued appearances, he and Rice are considered to have been alternate judges for the same seat on judges panel. Other changes made included the introduction of a wildcard contestant from the past season, Shangela; an episode with no elimination; and a contestant, Carmen Carrera, being brought back into the competition after having been eliminated a few episodes prior. A new pit crew was also introduced consisting of Jason Carter and Shawn Morales. As with the previous season, each week's episode was followed by a behind-the-scenes show, RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked. The winner of the season 3 was Raja, with Yara Sofia winning Miss Congeniality. On December 6, 2011, Amazon.com released this season on DVD via their CreateSpace program.
Season 4 began airing on January 30, 2012, with cast members announced November 13, 2011. The winner headlined Logo's Drag Race Tour featuring Absolut Vodka, won a one-of-a-kind trip, a lifetime supply of NYX Cosmetics, a cash prize of $100,000, and the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar." Like the previous season, Rice and Billy B (Billy Brasfield), shared the same seat at the judges table alternatively, with Brasfield filling in for Rice when needed. The winner of season 4 was Sharon Needles, with Latrice Royale winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 5 began airing on January 28, 2013, with a 90-minute premiere episode. Fourteen contestants competed for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar" along with a lifetime supply of Colorevolution Cosmetics, a one-of-a-kind trip courtesy of AlandChuck.travel, a headlining spot on Logo's Drag Race Tour featuring Absolut Vodka and a cash prize of $100,000. Rice and Visage were back as judges on the panel. The winner of season 5 was Jinkx Monsoon, with Ivy Winters winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 6 began airing February 24, 2014. Like season 5, season 6 saw 14 contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar". For the first time in the show's history, the season premiere was split into two episodes; the fourteen queens are split into two groups and the seven queens in each group compete against one another before being united as one group in the third episode. Rice and Visage returned as judges at the panel. Two new pit crew members, Miles Moody and Simon Sherry-Wood, joined Carter and Morales. The winner won a prize package that included a supply from Colorevolution Cosmetics and a cash prize of $100,000. The winner of season 6 was Bianca Del Rio, with BenDeLaCreme winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 7 began airing on March 2, 2015. Returning judges included RuPaul and Visage, while the space previously occupied by Rice was filled by new additions Ross Mathews and Carson Kressley. Mathews and Kressley were both present for the season premiere and then took turns sharing judging responsibilities. Morales and Simon Sherry-Wood did not appear this season and were replaced by Bryce Eilenberg. Like the previous two seasons, this one featured fourteen contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. The season premiere debuted with a live and same-day viewership of 348,000, a 20 percent increase from the previous season. On March 20, 2015, it was announced that Logo had given the series an early renewal for an eighth season. The winner of season 7 was Violet Chachki, with Katya winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 8 on began airing on March 7, 2016, with cast members announced during the NewNowNext Honors on February 1, 2016. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. The first episode celebrated the 100th taping of the show, and the 100th drag queen to compete. Similar to season 2, this season had twelve contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. The winner of season 8 was Bob the Drag Queen, with Cynthia Lee Fontaine winning Miss Congeniality.
Seasons 9–14 (2017–present): VH1
Season 9 began airing on March 24, 2017 on VH1, with cast members being announced on February 2, 2017. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. This season features fourteen contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. The ninth season aired on VH1, with encore presentations continuing to air on Logo. This season featured the return of Cynthia Lee Fontaine, who previously participated in the season 8. Season 9 featured a top four in the finale episode, as opposed to the top three, which was previously established in season 4. The winner of season 9 was Sasha Velour, with Valentina winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 10 began airing on March 22, 2018. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. This season features thirteen new contestants, and one returning contestant, competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. Eureka O'Hara, who was removed from the ninth season due to an injury, returned to the show after she accepted an open invitation. Season 10 premiered alongside the televised return of Untucked. The tenth season featured a top four following the previous season's finale format. The winner of season 10 was Aquaria, with Monét X Change winning Miss Congeniality.
Season 11 began airing February 28, 2019. This season had fifteen contestants, whereas previous seasons typically had fourteen contestants. Visage returned as a main judge, while Kressley and Mathews returned as rotating main judges. This season features fourteen new contestants, and one returning contestant, competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics, and a cash prize of $100,000. This season saw the return of Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, who was the first contestant eliminated in season 10. Season 11 again featured a top four in the finale. As with season 10, each week's episode was followed by an episode of the televised return of RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked. The winner of season 11 was Yvie Oddly, with Nina West winning Miss Congeniality.
On January 22, 2019, casting for Season 12 (2020) was announced via YouTube and Twitter and was closed on March 1, 2019. On August 19, 2019, it was announced that the series had been renewed for a twelfth season. The season began airing on February 28, 2020. This is the first and only season to have the reunion and finale recorded virtually from the contestants' homes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The winner of season 12 was Jaida Essence Hall, with Heidi N Closet winning Miss Congeniality.
On December 2, 2019, casting for Season 13 (2021) was announced via YouTube and Twitter. The casting call closed on January 24, 2020. On August 20, 2020, it was announced the thirteenth season had been ordered by VH1. It began airing on January 1, 2021. The winner of season 13 was Symone, with Kandy Muse as runner-up, and LaLa Ri as Miss Congeniality.
Casting for Season 14 began on November 23, 2020. In August 2021, it was announced the fourteenth season had been ordered by VH1. The cast for the fourteenth season was revealed through VH1 on December 2, 2021. The season will start airing on January 7, 2022.
Casting for season 15 began on November 4, 2021, and will close January 7, 2022.
Contestants
More than 150 contestants have competed on the U.S. version of the show.
Specials
RuPaul's Drag Race: Green Screen Christmas (2015): On December 13, 2015, Logo aired a seasonal themed episode of Drag Race. The non-competitive special was released in conjunction with RuPaul's holiday album Slay Belles and featured music videos for songs from the album. The cast included RuPaul, Michelle Visage, Siedah Garrett, and Todrick Hall, and former contestants Alyssa Edwards, Laganja Estranja, Latrice Royale, Raja, and Shangela.
RuPaul's Drag Race Holi-slay Spectacular (2018): On November 1, 2018, VH1 announced a seasonal themed special episode of Drag Race scheduled to air on December 7, 2018. The special saw eight former contestants compete for the title of "America's first Drag Race Christmas Queen". Competitors included Eureka O'Hara, Jasmine Masters, Kim Chi, Latrice Royale, Mayhem Miller, Shangela, Sonique, and Trixie Mattel.
RuPaul's Secret Celebrity Drag Race (2020): On April 10, 2020, VH1 announced a celebrity edition of Drag Race scheduled to air for four weeks beginning on April 24, 2020. The series featured a trio of celebrities receiving makeovers from former contestants. After receiving help from "Queen Supremes" Alyssa Edwards, Asia O'Hara, Bob the Drag Queen, Kim Chi, Monét X Change, Monique Heart, Nina West, Trinity the Tuck, Trixie Mattel and Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, the celebrities competed in fan-favorite challenges and on the runway to be named "America's Next Celebrity Drag Race Superstar" and prize money for choice charities.
RuPaul's Drag Race: Vegas Revue (2020): On July 22, 2020, it was announced that a docu-series would premiere on August 21, 2020.
RuPaul's Drag Race: Corona Can't Keep a Good Queen Down (2021): On February 26, 2021, the one hour special aired on VH1 in between episodes 8 and 9 of Season 13 and detailed the contestants' journeys with filming the season amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Spin-offs
RuPaul's Drag U (2010–2012): In each episode, three women are paired with former Drag Race contestants ("Drag Professors"), who give them drag makeovers and help them to access their "inner divas".
RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars (2012–present): Past contestants return and compete for a spot in the Drag Race Hall of Fame. The show's format is similar to that of RuPaul's Drag Race, with challenges and a panel of judges.
Dancing Queen (2018): In April 2013, RuPaul confirmed that he planned to executive-produce a spin-off of Drag Race that stars season five and All Stars season two contestant Alyssa Edwards. Alyssa Edwards has confirmed that the spin-off's title is Beyond Belief (later retitled as Dancing Queen), and that his dance company in Mesquite, Texas is the setting. The series aired on Netflix on October 5, 2018.
Feature film: In August 2015, RuPaul revealed that a movie featuring all of the contestants was in the works. "We've got a director for it, we've got a light script, but it just needs a little more retooling and scheduling."
RuPaul's Drag Race: The Mobile Game is an upcoming mobile app by World of Wonder and Leaf Mobile's subsidiary East Side Games.
International versions
The Switch Drag Race (2015–2018): This licensed glocalization of Drag Race premiered in October 2015 on Chilean television channel Mega. As in Drag Race, queens compete in "mini-challenges" and a main challenge and are evaluated by a panel of judges. Similar to Drag Race, The Switch requires contestants to lip-sync, dance, and perform impersonations.
Drag Race Thailand (2018–present): In October 2017, Kantana Group acquired the rights to produce its own version of Drag Race. Season 1 of Drag Race Thailand was met with successful ratings on Thai television. It was later announced that the first season will premiere in the U.S. in May 2018. The first season also made stirs in the Asian LGBT community, the most prominent of which was a campaign to establish versions of Drag Race in the Philippines and Taiwan as well, two of the most LGBT-accepting nations in Asia.
RuPaul's Drag Race UK (2019–present): On December 5, 2018, it was announced that the British version of RuPaul's Drag Race would be an eight-part series filmed in London based on local drag queens and would air on BBC Three in 2019. Visage confirmed via social media that she would appear as a judge.
Canada's Drag Race (2020–present): On June 27, 2019, OutTV and Bell Media's streaming service Crave announced that they had co-commissioned a Canadian version of Drag Race. Rights to the series, as well as the U.S. and British versions, will be shared by OutTV and Crave. Additionally, season 11 runner-up Brooke Lynn Hytes was confirmed as one of the judges, becoming the first Drag Race contestant to serve as a permanent judge. The show premiered on July 2, 2020.
Drag Race Holland (2020–present): A Dutch version of Drag Race was announced on July 26, 2020. The series debuted on Videoland in The Netherlands, and aired on WOW Presents Plus internationally. The show is hosted by Fred van Leer and premiered .
RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under (2021–present): On August 26, 2019, an Oceanic version was announced to be in production and said to air in 2020, but was likely delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Filming began in Auckland, New Zealand in January 2021. The series premiered on TVNZ 2 and TVNZ OnDemand in New Zealand, Stan in Australia, and on WOW Presents Plus internationally on 1 May 2021.
Drag Race España (2021–present): On November 16, 2020, Atresmedia announced that they would produce a Spanish version of Drag Race together with Buendía Estudios after reaching an agreement with Passion Distribution in favour of World of Wonder. The series debuted on Atresmedia's pay streaming service ATRESplayer Premium on 30 May 2021, and aired on WOW Presents Plus internationally. It is hosted by Supremme de Luxe.
Drag Race Italia (2021–present): An Italian version of Drag Race was announced on June 30, 2021. The series will debut in November 2021 on Discovery+.
RuPaul's Drag Race: UK Versus the World (2022): On December 21, 2021, World of Wonder announced that a spin-off series of RuPaul's Drag Race UK would premiere in February 2022. Filmed in the United Kingdom, The series will feature international queens who have competed in the Drag Race franchise around the world.
Drag Race Philippines (2022–present): On August 17, 2021, a Filipino version of Drag Race was announced.
Drag Race France (2022–present): On November 17, 2021, a French version of Drag Race was announced.
Home media
Full seasons of shows in the Drag Race franchise are available to stream on WOW Presents Plus in over 200 territories. The show is also currently available on the following streaming platforms:
United States — Hulu (seasons 3–8; All Stars 1–4); Paramount Plus (seasons 1–12, All Stars 1–6, Untucked seasons 9–11, All Stars Untucked seasons 5–6), WOW Presents Plus (Untucked seasons 7–8, Thailand season 2, and all other international series)
Canada — Netflix (seasons 1–12, All Stars 4, Untucked seasons 11 and 12), Crave (all seasons, All Stars 1–6, UK series 1–3, Canada season 1 and 2, Down Under season 1), WOW Presents Plus (seasons 1–10, Untucked seasons 1–10, All Stars 1–4)
UK & Ireland — Netflix (all seasons, Untucked seasons 11–12, All Stars 4 & 5, Celebrity season 1), BBC iPlayer (UK series 1 and 2, Canada season 1, Down Under season 1), WOW Presents Plus (seasons 1–10, Untucked seasons 1–10, all episodes of All Stars and Holland)
Australia — Stan (all seasons of original, All Stars, Untucked, UK, Canada, Down Under and Thailand Season 2), WOW Presents Plus (UK series 1, Canada season 1)
Awards and nominations
RuPaul's Drag Race has been nominated for thirty-nine Emmy Awards, and won nineteen. It has also been nominated for nine Reality Television Awards, winning three, and nominated for six NewNowNext Awards, winning three.
Critical reception
Thrillist called Drag Race "the closest gay culture gets to a sports league." In 2019, the TV series was ranked 93rd on The Guardians list of the 100 best TV shows of the 21st century.
Controversy
In March 2014, Drag Race sparked controversy over the use of the term "shemale" in the season 6 mini challenge "Female or She-male?". Logo has since removed the segment from all platforms and addressed the allegations of transphobia by removing the "You've got she-mail" intro from new episodes of the series. This was replaced with, "She done already done had herses!" RuPaul additionally came under fire for comments made in an interview with The Guardian, in which he stated he would "probably not" allow a transgender contestant to compete. He compared transgender drag performers to doping athletes on his Twitter, and has since apologized. Sasha Velour (season 9) disagreed, tweeting "My drag was born in a community full of trans women, trans men, and gender non-conforming folks doing drag. That's the real world of drag, like it or not. I thinks it's fabulous and I will fight my entire life to protect and uplift it".
Relationship with trans community
For the first twelve seasons, RuPaul would say, "Gentlemen, start your engines, and may the best woman win," before the contestants' runway looks for the episode were shown. When season 13 introduced the show's first ever transgender male contestant, Gottmik, RuPaul's catchphrase was changed in order to promote inclusivity: "Racers, start your engines, and may the best drag queen win." In season 6 of All Stars, an altered version of the shows opening theme was introduced with the new tag line.
Performers of any sexual orientation and gender identity are eligible to audition, although most contestants to date have been gay, cisgender men. Transgender competitors have become more common as seasons have progressed; Sonique, a season two contestant, became the first openly trans contestant when she came out as a woman during the reunion special. Sonique later won All Stars 6, becoming the first trans woman to win an English-language version of the show and the second overall. Monica Beverly Hillz (season 5) became the first contestant to come out as a trans woman during the competition. Peppermint (season 9) is the first contestant who was out as a trans woman prior to the airing of her season. Other trans contestants came out as women after their elimination, including Carmen Carrera, Kenya Michaels, Stacy Layne Matthews, Jiggly Caliente, Gia Gunn, Laganja Estranja and Gigi Goode. Additionally, Gottmik (season 13) was the first AFAB and currently the only openly transgender male contestant in the franchise's history.
Season 14 is the first regular season to feature four transgender women in the cast—Kerri Colby, Kornbread "The Snack" Jeté, Bosco and Jasmine Kennedie. While Colby was cast after transitioning, Kornbread, Bosco and Jasmine came out after the show's taping.
Broadcast
Australia: In Australia, lifestyle channel LifeStyle YOU regularly shows and re-screens seasons 1–7, including Untucked. In addition, free-to-air channel SBS2 began screening the first season on August 31, 2013. On March 13, 2017, it was announced that on-demand service Stan would fast-track season 9 (including Untucked). As of 2020, Stan streams all seasons since Season 1, as well as Untucked, All Stars, All Stars Untucked, Canada's Drag Race, Secret Celebrity, Drag Race UK and Season 2 of Drag Race Thailand.
Canada: The series airs on OutTV in Canada at the same time as the US airing. Unlike Logo, OutTV continues to broadcast Untucked immediately after each Drag Race episode. Beginning with season 12, OutTV has shared its first-run rights to the main series (but not Untucked) with the more widely subscribed Crave streaming service, with episodes available on Crave shortly after they premiere on OutTV, in connection with Crave and OutTV's co-production of Canada's Drag Race. Past seasons are also available on Netflix in Canada, with each season released there shortly before the next season begins.
Ireland: In Ireland, season 2 to season 8 of the programme were available on Netflix; as of the release of Season 10, only seasons 8 & 9 are available. Netflix has started airing season 10 episodes one day after they air in the USA. All seasons of the show have been made available on Netflix since October 2018
Indonesia: In Indonesia, season 1 to season 13 of the programme were available on Netflix, alongside the Christmas spectacular; As of the release of All Stars, only season 4 and 5 is available. Netflix also aired Untucked season 10 episodes one day after they air in the USA.
UK: E4 aired season 1 in 2009, followed by season 2 in 2010. Since its success on Netflix in the UK, TruTV acquired the broadcast rights for all eight seasons of the show including Untucked episodes. In June 2015, TruTV started airing two episodes of the show a week, starting with season 4, followed by All Stars, then season 5. As of May 2018, the series airs on VH1 UK Monday–Thursday at 11pm, beginning with All Stars season 3.Israel''': Yes has broadcast all seasons and Untucked episodes. Seasons 1–12, All Stars seasons 4–5 and Untucked'' seasons 11–12 are also available on Netflix.
See also
List of reality television programs with LGBT cast members
List of Rusicals
LGBT culture in New York City
Paris Is Burning (film)
References
External links
Edgar, E. (2011). "Xtravaganza!": Drag Representation and Articulation in "RuPaul's Drag Race". Studies in Popular Culture,34(1), 133–146. Retrieved from "Xtravaganza!": Drag Representation and Articulation in "RuPaul's Drag Race"
2009 American television series debuts
2000s American reality television series
2000s LGBT-related reality television series
2010s American reality television series
2010s LGBT-related reality television series
2020s American reality television series
2020s LGBT-related reality television series
American LGBT-related reality television series
English-language television shows
Logo TV original programming
Primetime Emmy Award-winning television series
Television series by World of Wonder (company)
Transgender-related television shows
VH1 original programming
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality Program winners
2000s American LGBT-related television series
2010s American LGBT-related television series
2020s American LGBT-related television series | false | [
"Beyond the Tesseract is a text-based adventure game developed in 1983 by Canadian author David Lo for the TRS-80. The game was notable for its unique take on the genre and approach to mathematical entities and abstract concepts.\nIn one section the player must navigate a text adventure game, inside the text adventure game. In another the player, while asleep, derives a proof using physical representations of various symbolic logic components.\n\nThe game is intentionally vague using a VERB NOUN gameplay mechanic with a vocabulary of just 200.\n\nIn 1988 the game was ported to Atari ST, MS-DOS and Solaris environments and, in 2003, to interactive fiction standard of machine-independent Z-code.\n\nOriginal release notes \n\nScenario:\n\"You have reached the final part of your mission. You have\ngained access to the complex, and all but the last procedure has\nbeen performed. Now comes a time of waiting, in which you must\nsearch for the hidden 12-word message that will aid you at the\nfinal step. But what choice will you make when that time comes?\"\n\nThe scenario for the adventure is meant to be vague. Once the\nadventure has been completed, the scenario will hopefully become\nclear.\n\nInstructions:\nThis adventure recognizes the standard commands for moving\n(N, E, S, W), taking inventory (I), manipulating objects (GET,\nDROP, LOOK), and saving games (SAVE, LOAD), as well as many\nothers. Use 2-word 'verb noun' commands, such as 'use stack' or\n'get all'. Only the first four letters of each word are\nsignificant. The adventure recognizes about 200 words, so if\none word does not work, try another.\n\nNotes:\n\"The \"stack\" is an acronym for Space Time Activated Continuum\nKey. You will find this object very useful. Try the command\n\"use stack\".\"\n\nThis adventure is abstract and a bit on the technical side.\nBasic knowledge of the names of interesting mathematical objects\nwould be a definite asset in solving the puzzles. However,\ndetailed knowledge of the technical background is not necessary,\nalthough it will make the adventure more enjoyable and reduce\nthe amount of comments of the form \"Was that supposed to be funny\nor what? I don't get it.\"\n\nThere is no carry limit, no death traps, and over 200 words in\nthe program's vocabulary, so the player can hopefully concentrate on\nsolving the adventure instead of solving the program. The map\nof the adventure can be draw on a grid. All it takes is a\nlittle experimenting to put all the subsets of locations\ntogether \"logically\".\n\nHistory:\nThe idea of a mathematically abstract adventure came about\nduring the summer of 1983, when I was reading the book \"Godel,\nEscher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid\". I had just read an\narticle on writing adventures, and I thought about doing my own\narticle on adventure writing. I did start on the article, and\none of the examples of how varied puzzles can be is a\nmathematical adventure where the player has to \"use a\nprobability function to cross a field of improbability to get to\na vortex.\" Sadly the article was never finished, although\nremnants of it can be found in the ADV.DOC file. I started\nthinking more and more about a mathematically abstract\nadventure, and Tesseract was born!\n\nThe very first adventure that I wrote was in 1982, titled \"Hall\nof the Mountain King\" (find the Crystal of Light). Tesseract\nVersion 1.0 was the second of the three TRS-80 BASIC adventures\nthat I wrote in a two-month adventure-frenzy during the summer\nof 1983. The first was \"Project Triad\" (defuse the bomb on the\nspace station), and the third was \"Codename Intrepid\" (deliver a\npackage to another agent).\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n Various versions of the game are available for free legal download\n\n1980s interactive fiction\n1983 video games\nAtari ST games\nDOS games\nTRS-80 games\nVideo games about video games\nVideo games developed in Canada",
"a TEN Talk (originally 10Talk) is a short presentation on a topic of the speaker's choosing given at a BarCamp type conference. It derives from a TED Talk and originated at the 2012 RefreshCache v4 developer conference (now defunct) in Gilbert, Arizona during the open floor demo time with a description of \"Fast paced 10 minute presentations by the you and the other leaders among us.\" Since the term was still somewhat new at the time, a \"What is a Ten-Talk?\" page was created on the RefreshCache site with the following abbreviated description so potential Ten-Talk presenters would know exactly what was expected of them:\n \n A Ten-Talk is a fast-paced, ten minute POLISHED presentation on an interesting topic that you think will appeal to the Church IT / Web Developer audiences.\n \n Here are some examples of Ten-Talk topics:\n (1) Have you implemented something at your church that has been a radical success or epic failure? We can learn from either of these!\n (2) Do you have an inspirational message that can lead others to action? Even better if you can share how this message inspired you to action and then show us what you did.\n (3) Have you spent time researching and understanding something in the world of ministry software or Church IT? Maybe you are an expert in [redacted]. Present this to the Church IT Network /RefreshCache community and share what you know. Your research may help another church find the solution to a problem they are facing, or save them the trouble of doing all the research you just did by realizing it won't work for them.\n\nIt was later adopted at the national Church IT Round Table conference held in February 2013 in Phoenix, Arizona when the two events began to intermingle and used again in 2014 at the Peoria, Illinois event where it was re-described as \"10Talks (or TEN-Talks) are 10 minute, fast paced talks on a topic. These are perfect sessions for raising awareness about a topic, tool, or idea that you think your peers should know.\"\n\nIts use outside of CITRT conferences is thought to begin with the WLAN professionals summit in February 2014.\n\nReferences\n\nPresentation"
] |
[
"Kitty Pryde",
"Fictional character biography"
] | C_fee4a42a8e0247dca5e9a34ebd4a2c3d_0 | How did Kitty Pryde get her superpowers? | 1 | How did Kitty Pryde get her superpowers? | Kitty Pryde | Katherine Anne "Kitty" Pryde was born in Deerfield, Illinois, to Carmen and Theresa Pryde. Of Jewish descent, her paternal grandfather, Samuel Prydeman, was held in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. Kitty started to have headaches at age thirteen, signaling the emergence of her mutant powers. She was approached by both the X-Men's Charles Xavier and the Hellfire Club's White Queen, Emma Frost, both of whom hoped to recruit her for their respective causes. Kitty was unnerved by Frost, observing that the White Queen looked at her as if she were "something good to eat." She got along better with Xavier and the three X-Men who escorted him, quickly becoming friends with Ororo Munroe. Ororo told Kitty who she really was and about the X-Men, which made the teenager even more enthusiastic about attending Xavier's school. Their conversation was cut short when they (along with Wolverine and Colossus) were attacked by armored mercenaries in the employ of Frost and the Hellfire Club. The X-Men defeated their assailants, but were subdued by the White Queen's telepathic powers immediately after. In the confusion, Kitty was separated from the X-Men, and not captured along with them. She managed to contact Cyclops, Phoenix, and Nightcrawler. With the help of Dazzler and Pryde, those X-Men rescued their teammates from the Hellfire Club. The White Queen appeared to perish in the battle, which meant she was no longer competing with Xavier for the approval of Kitty's parents. Kitty's parents had not heard from her in more than a day, because during that time she was first being pursued by the Hellfire Club's men and then working with the X-Men to save their friends. All they knew was Kitty had left with Xavier's "students" to get a soda, there had been reports that the soda shop had been blown up, and Kitty had been missing since. Therefore, they were angry at Xavier when he finally returned with Kitty in tow. At first, it seemed like there was no chance of Kitty being allowed to attend the school and join the X-Men. Phoenix then used her considerable telepathic power to erase the memories of Kitty's parents and plant false ones, resulting in a complete shift in their attitude towards Xavier. Kitty was then allowed to enroll at Xavier's school with her parents' blessing, becoming the youngest member of the team. CANNOTANSWER | Kitty started to have headaches at age thirteen, signaling the emergence of her mutant powers. | Katherine Anne "Kitty" Pryde is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, commonly in association with the X-Men. The character first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #129 (January 1980) and was co-created by writer-artist John Byrne and Chris Claremont.
A mutant, Pryde possesses a "phasing" ability that allows her, as well as objects or people she is in contact with, to become intangible. This power also disrupts any electrical field she passes through, and lets her simulate levitation.
The youngest to join the X-Men, she was first portrayed as a "kid sister" to many older members of the group, filling the role of literary foil to the more established characters. She occasionally used the codenames Sprite and Ariel, cycling through several uniforms until settling for her trademark black-and-gold costume. During the miniseries Kitty Pryde and Wolverine, she was renamed Shadowcat, the alias she would be most associated with, and shifted to a more mature depiction in her subsequent appearances. Pryde would eventually abandon her nickname, "Kitty", and switch to "Kate". She was one of the main cast of characters depicted in the original Excalibur title. After momentarily joining the Guardians of the Galaxy, she assumed her then-fiancé's superhero identity as the Star-Lord (Star-Lady). As of the series Marauders, she is now informally known as Captain Kate Pryde and the Red Queen of the Hellfire Trading Company.
In the X-Men film series, Kitty Pryde was initially portrayed by young actresses in cameos; Sumela Kay in X-Men (2000) and Katie Stuart in X2 (2003). Later, a pre-transition Elliot Page portrayed the character in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) and X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) in full-length appearances. Pryde is ranked #47 in IGN's Top 100 Comic Book Heroes.
Publication history
Kitty Pryde was introduced into the X-Men title as the result of an editorial dictate that the book was supposed to depict a school for mutants. Uncanny X-Men artist John Byrne named Kitty Pryde after a classmate he met in art school, Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary in 1973. He had told Pryde he liked her name and asked for permission to use it, promising to name his first original comics character after her. Byrne drew the character to slightly resemble an adolescent Sigourney Weaver.
The fictional Kitty Pryde first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #129 (January 1980), by writer Chris Claremont and artist Byrne, as a highly intelligent 13-year-old girl. Claremont said several elements of the character's personality were derived from those of X-Men editor Louise Simonson's daughter, Julie. Claremont and Byrne made the new character a full-fledged X-Man in issue #139, where she was codenamed "Sprite". She was the main character in issues #141–142, the "Days of Future Past" storyline, where she is possessed by her older self, whose consciousness time travels to the past to prevent a mass extermination of mutants. The six-issue miniseries Kitty Pryde and Wolverine (1984–1985), written by Claremont, is a coming-of-age storyline in which she matures from a girl to a young woman, adopting the new name "Shadowcat".
In the late 1980s, Kitty joined the British-based super team, Excalibur, where she remained for roughly ten years before coming back to the X-Men. In the early 2000s, she disappeared from the spotlight after semi-retiring from superhero work. She was featured in the 2002 mini-series Mekanix and came back to the main X-Men books in 2004 under the pen of Joss Whedon in Astonishing X-Men. She remained a part of the X-Men books until 2008 when she left again for roughly 2 years. After coming back, she was featured in Jason Aaron's Wolverine and the X-Men and Brian Michael Bendis' All-New X-Men books.
In early 2015, she joined the Guardians of the Galaxy. After the Secret Wars event, she adopted her new alias, Star-Lord (first believed to be Star-Lady).
In 2020, Kitty Pryde was revealed to be bisexual. Her co-creator, Chris Claremont, had always intended this to be the case, considering Rachel Summers as a possible love interest for Pryde. However, Claremont wasn't allowed to show this at the time due to censorship, as he revealed on the "Xplain the X-Men" podcast in 2016.
Shadowcat's popularity had a profound effect on the real-life Kitty Pryde: the latter became so overwhelmed by attention from Shadowcat fans, she abbreviated her name to K.D. Pryde to avoid association with her fictional counterpart. She has since stated she has mixed feelings about her fame, saying she values Byrne's comics for their entertainment and artistic value, but wishes more people would appreciate her as more than just Shadowcat's namesake.
Fictional character biography
Katherine Anne "Kitty" Pryde was born in Deerfield, Illinois, to Carmen and Theresa Pryde. She is an Ashkenazi Jewish-American and her paternal grandfather, Samuel Prydeman, was held in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. Kitty started to have headaches at age thirteen, signaling the emergence of her mutant powers. She was approached by both the X-Men's Charles Xavier and the Hellfire Club's White Queen, Emma Frost, both of whom hoped to recruit her for their respective causes. Kitty was unnerved by Frost, observing that the White Queen looked at her as if she were "something good to eat." She got along better with Xavier and the three X-Men who escorted him, quickly becoming friends with Ororo Munroe. Ororo told Kitty who she really was and about the X-Men, which made the teenager even more enthusiastic about attending Xavier's school.
Their conversation was cut short when they (along with Wolverine and Colossus) were attacked by armored mercenaries in the employ of Frost and the Hellfire Club. The X-Men defeated their assailants, but were subdued by the White Queen's telepathic powers immediately after. In the confusion, Kitty was separated from the X-Men, and not captured along with them. She managed to contact Cyclops, Phoenix, and Nightcrawler. With the help of Dazzler and Pryde, those X-Men rescued their teammates from the Hellfire Club.
The White Queen appeared to perish in the battle, which meant she was no longer competing with Xavier for the approval of Kitty's parents. Kitty's parents had not heard from her in more than a day, because during that time she was first being pursued by the Hellfire Club's men and then working with the X-Men to save their friends. All they knew was Kitty had left with Xavier's "students" to get a soda, there had been reports that the soda shop had been blown up, and Kitty had been missing since. Therefore, they were angry at Xavier when he finally returned with Kitty in tow. At first, it seemed like there was no chance of Kitty being allowed to attend the school and join the X-Men. Phoenix then used her considerable telepathic power to erase the memories of Kitty's parents and plant false ones, resulting in a complete shift in their attitude towards Xavier. Kitty was then allowed to enroll at Xavier's school with her parents' blessing, becoming the youngest member of the team.
Joining the X-Men
Kitty joined the X-Men, and assumed the costumed identity of Sprite. Early in her career as an X-Man, Kitty's adult self from an alternate future took possession of her body in the present to help X-Men thwart the assassination of Senator Robert Kelly by the second Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Kitty then singlehandedly defeated a N'Garai demon. Kitty also briefly attended the White Queen's Massachusetts Academy when her parents became convinced that she needed to be with students of her own age, but following a failed attempt to subdue the X-Men, Frost revoked Kitty's admission.
During her teen years, Kitty fostered a number of close relationships with others at the school and in the X-Men. She developed a crush on Colossus and became close friends with his little sister Illyana Rasputin. Initially uneasy around Nightcrawler and other mutants with physical deformities, Kitty finally overcame her fears and became close friends with him. Kitty also befriended Lockheed, a highly intelligent alien resembling a dragon, who followed her home after a mission in outer space. Lockheed is extremely loyal to Kitty, and the two of them share a psychic bond. Wolverine became something of a mentor to Kitty despite his usually gruff personality. Storm came to view Kitty as the daughter she never had.
Though Xavier has threatened to reassign Kitty to the New Mutants, a team of younger mutants he established in the absence of the X-Men, ever since the X-Men returned from outer space, she never ended up joining the group, who she derisively calls the "X-Babies". Kitty was later abducted by the Morlocks and nearly forced to wed Caliban. She was then abducted by the White Queen, but rescued by the New Mutants.
During this time, Kitty began to date Colossus, although this did not last long. Colossus developed feelings for an alien woman named Zsaji whom he met on the Beyonder's planet in the first Secret Wars. Colossus' feelings toward Zsaji were primarily a side effect of her own unique healing abilities, which she had used on him after he became injured. Regardless, Colossus' feelings were real and he returned to Earth consumed with grief after Zsaji's death. He admitted to Kitty that he loved Zsaji, which hurt her deeply and ended the budding romantic relationship. Kitty had made good friends with a local boy from Salem Central named Doug Ramsey around this time, but her feelings for him never went as deep as his for her, and they never actually dated, though they remained close, even more so after Doug's status as a mutant was revealed and he joined the New Mutants under the codename Cypher. They remained friends until his death some time later.
Ogun
During the 1984–1985 Kitty Pryde and Wolverine miniseries, Kitty is possessed by a demon, the ninja Ogun. Ogun psychically bestows upon Kitty a virtual lifetime of martial arts training. Kitty was brainwashed by Ogun into becoming a ninja assassin, and was sent to attack Wolverine. Kitty is able to resist Ogun's influence with Wolverine's help, and the two form a strong teacher/student bond, which helps them in vanquishing Ogun. Kitty returns to the X-Men, no longer the innocent girl they once knew, and officially adopts the codename Shadowcat.
Morlock Massacre
While trying to save Rogue, Kitty was badly injured by Harpoon's energy spear during the Mutant Massacre story arc, in the massacre of the Morlocks, with the result that she lost control of her power and was stuck in an intangible state and could not regain her solidity. She was rushed to Muir Island along with other surviving casualties of the Massacre to be tended to by Moira MacTaggert. MacTaggert was able to keep Kitty's condition from deteriorating to the point where she completely lost physical substance and ceased to exist, but was not able to do any more to help her.
At this time, Kitty's natural state was to be intangible. Where she once had to make a conscious effort to phase, she could now only maintain her solidity through an act of conscious will. The X-Men went to Reed Richards, Mister Fantastic of the Fantastic Four, for aid, but Richards initially refused because he was not sure he would be able to help.
Having nowhere else to go, the X-Men turned to Richards' enemy Doctor Doom. This created a moral dilemma for both the X-Men and the Fantastic Four, and both teams fought each other because the Fantastic Four were trying to stop the treatment while the X-Men were determined to save Kitty's life. In the end, both the personal crisis of the Fantastic Four and the life of Shadowcat were saved after Franklin Richards, with the help of Lockheed, brought both teams to their senses. Kitty has since recovered from this state and now has full control over her power again.
Excalibur
Among the others injured and brought to Muir Isle were Colossus and Nightcrawler, although Colossus left the United Kingdom shortly after being released from MacTaggert's care to join the rest of the X-Men on their mission to battle the Adversary. The X-Men sacrificed their lives to defeat the Adversary, the battle and their sacrifice was televised and broadcast across the world. The X-Men were resurrected later in the same issue, unknown to the world at large, but chose to keep a low profile and perpetuate the belief that they were still dead. This strategy was enforced to more effectively fight their enemies. This meant avoiding contact with friends and family, including Kitty. Thinking the X-Men were dead, Kitty and Nightcrawler joined Rachel Summers, Captain Britain, and Meggan to form the Britain-based team Excalibur. For a brief time, Kitty studied at St. Searle's School for Girls in Britain. During her time with Excalibur, Kitty developed a crush on Professor Alistaire Stuart which went unreciprocated since Alistaire was attracted to Rachel. Later, she was romantically involved with former Black Air agent Pete Wisdom. At some point Kitty was recruited by the international law enforcement agency S.H.I.E.L.D. to repair the computer system of their flying headquarters. Kitty discovered the problem was due to Ogun's spirit having infiltrated the computer system, and with the aid of Wolverine, she managed to purge Ogun's presence. During this time, Kitty was attracted to a S.H.I.E.L.D. intern her own age, and this made her begin to doubt her relationship with Wisdom. Soon after, she broke off their relationship.
Back to the X-Men
After Excalibur's dissolution, Shadowcat, Nightcrawler, and Colossus return to the X-Men. While returning, they faced a group of imposters following Cerebro, in the guise of Professor X. While tracking Mystique, she stumbles onto prophetic diaries that belonged to Irene Adler, a precognitive. During the six-month gap, Kitty visited Genosha. Whatever she experienced there is unknown (although presumably connected to her father, living on Genosha at the time), but it had a profound effect on her. She cut her hair and began to act rebelliously, also using one of Wolverine's bone claws broken off during battle as a weapon. Kitty remained with the X-Men for a while before leaving after the apparent death of Colossus. Trying to give herself a normal life, she attended the University of Chicago. During this time, her father was killed when Cassandra Nova’s Sentinels destroyed Genosha. Kitty later finds a recording of his death due to exploring footage of the attack. She is also kidnapped by William Stryker, but the X-Treme X-Men team helped her escape, and she assisted them on several missions.
At the start of Joss Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men, Kitty once again rejoins the X-Men, despite having extreme reservations about working with the former White Queen, given their history. This was the primary reason why Frost herself wanted Kitty on the team, as a sort of "safety" should Frost ever revert to type. Frost reasoned that the person who trusted her least would be most likely to spot such behavior. On one of the team's first missions, Shadowcat discovered Colossus was alive. After some initial awkwardness, Kitty and Colossus resumed dating.
Kitty Pryde appeared alongside Colossus in the "Blinded by the Light" arc in X-Men. They are the two X-Men left to look after the students while the rest of the X-Men leave for Mystique's home in Mississippi to check up on Rogue, during which they are ambushed by the Marauders. Kitty and Colossus, meanwhile, attempt to protect the students from a faction of the Marauders led by Exodus. It is revealed over the course of the story that Kitty, worried of the Destiny Diaries' safety, devised a plan with Cyclops and Emma Frost to hide them and have Emma wipe the location from her mind. The location could only be revealed by a code word spoken to Kitty. The arc concludes with a battle between Iceman and Cannonball against the Marauders for the diaries, during which they are destroyed by Gambit.
In the "Torn" arc, the latest incarnation of the Hellfire Club begin an assault on Xavier's School. Kitty fulfilled the role that Emma Frost envisioned, personally taking down Frost and imprisoning her, only to fall under a telepathic delusion created by Hellfire member Perfection, who claimed to be the true, unreformed Emma Frost. Under this delusion, Kitty was made to believe that she and Colossus had conceived a child, which was later taken away by the X-Men because its potential mutant abilities were supposedly dangerous. Kitty reacts in the delusion by attempting to rescue the child from a near-inescapable "box" in the depths of the school, unaware that in reality she is freeing an alien entity, Stuff, who contains the trapped consciousness of Cassandra Nova, the apparent ringleader of this new Hellfire Club. A newly awakened Cyclops revealed that the new Hellfire Club, including Perfection and Nova, are actually mental projections created by a piece of Cassandra Nova's consciousness; which became lodged in Emma's mind during the X-Men's last confrontation with her, playing on her survivor's guilt over the Genoshan massacre, and utilizing Emma's telepathy to both confound the X-Men and orchestrate her (Nova's) escape from the Stuff body. As Cyclops killed the mental projections, Emma tried to force Kitty to kill her to get rid of Nova. Undeterred, Cassandra Nova switched her focus to attempt to transfer her mind to Hisako Ichiki. It appears that Nova did not succeed, as the team was transported to S.W.O.R.D.'s air station en route to Ord's Breakworld for the "Unstoppable" arc that concludes Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men.
Breakworld
As the team prepares to end the confrontation with the Breakworld leader, the team splits up—with Kitty on the team appointed to stop the missile pointed at Earth. Kitty phases into the missile to disrupt its circuitry noting that it is composed of the same material as the rest of Breakworld, a material that is difficult and exhausting for her to phase through. After phasing for a mile into the missile, Kitty finds the center only to discover it empty. The missile is fired, causing Kitty to pass out inside of it as Beast discovers too late that due to its shape, trajectory, and lack of internal circuitry, the Breakworld's weapon is not a missile, but a bullet. As the bullet hurtles toward Earth, Kitty lies unconscious within it.
As the situation becomes increasingly dire, Emma establishes mental contact with Kitty, reassuring her that she will come out of this fine, though it eventually becomes clear to both that the situation will be grim. Kitty and Emma come to an understanding and reconciliation, Emma stating that she never wanted something like this to happen to her. Kitty then phases the bullet through Earth, but is trapped within. At the end of Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men, Scott Summers mentions that Doctor Strange, Reed Richards, and some "top men" tried to save her, but believe she has fused to the bullet, as it continues to hurtle through space. Whether she is alive or dead is unknown, though the X-Men consider her lost to them.
As a result of these events Kitty does not appear in the X-Men crossover event X-Men: Messiah Complex, since this takes place after the events of Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men. She is briefly mentioned in the aftermath of the Messiah Complex, by Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Wolverine, as the three of them discuss "losing her."
To cope with Kitty's loss, Colossus takes down a group of Russian criminals dealing in human trafficking, and gets a tattoo of the name 'Katya' on his chest. Emma begins having a recurring dream in which she hears a voice whom she believes is Kitty's trying to reach out to her.
It was later confirmed by Abigail Brand that Kitty Pryde was still alive within the bullet, but because the bullet's design would harden as time went on, it would become increasingly difficult to break the bullet open.
Return
After the X-Men move to the island of Utopia, Magneto arrives on the island professing his desire to join and support the X-Men in their effort to unite the world's remaining mutants. The X-Men reluctantly let him stay, remaining wary of him despite his efforts to gain their trust. In a final bid to gain their trust, Magneto focuses his powers, attempting to divert the interstellar path of the metal bullet Kitty is trapped in and bring her home to Earth. Meanwhile, inside the bullet, Kitty is revealed to still be alive. Unbeknownst to the others, Magneto had encountered the bullet earlier while attempting to regain his powers with the High Evolutionary and surmised that Kitty was inside. Despite this and the High Evolutionary's apparent ability to retrieve the bullet and Kitty, Magneto chose to focus on regaining his powers, secretly keeping tabs on the bullet until his decision to draw it back to Earth. During her time trapped inside the bullet, Kitty keeps herself and the bullet phased to avoid collisions with any inhabited objects in its path.
Magneto brings Kitty Pryde safely down to Earth by cracking the bullet in two and levitating Kitty to the ground. When she and Colossus try to touch, it is revealed that she is trapped in her intangible form, unable to speak, and the X-Men place her in a protective chamber similar to the one used for her following the events of the Mutant Massacre. How Kitty survived her time in the bullet is unclear to the X-Men's science team, where the X-Men discover that all her bodily functions halted. An analysis by Kavita Rao hypothesizes that Kitty created an intense muscle memory to keep herself and the bullet phased and has "forgotten" how to un-phase.
During a conversation with Colossus, with Emma Frost acting as the psi-conduit, Kitty picks up Emma's stray thoughts on killing the captive Sebastian Shaw, to prevent Namor from discovering she previously lied to him. While disgusted at Emma's intentions, Kitty offers a compromise. Due to her current ghost state, she is the perfect tool for making Shaw disappear.
In a storyline in Uncanny X-Men, the Breakworlders make their way to Earth. During the conflict between the Breakworlder Kr'uun and the X-Men, Kitty is slain and resurrected by Kr'uun's mate in an alien ritual, which results in her powers returning to normal.
Regenesis
Shortly thereafter, Kitty breaks up with Colossus, and decides to return with Wolverine to Westchester to open the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning. In Wolverine and the X-Men #4, she appears to be suddenly pregnant, but the pregnancy was revealed to be a Brood infestation, and it was swiftly dealt with by a team of X-Men. Since returning to Westchester, Kitty has shared several kisses with Iceman. During the events of Avengers vs. X-Men, Kitty does not take a side, but instead decides to stay at the school to work with the students. Once Bobby returned from working with the X-Men after realizing that the Phoenix had corrupted them, he and Kitty finally decide to go on a date.
All-New X-Men
After Beast brings the original five X-Men into the future to stop Cyclops in the present, Kitty volunteers to take responsibility for the temporally relocated X-Men while they work to undo this dark future. This soon puts her at odds with the rest of her team as they believed the original five should go back to their own time in order to prevent any damage to the space-time continuity. Eventually, this leads Kitty to take the decision of abandoning the school with the time-displaced X-Men and join Cyclops's X-Men at the New Xavier School. During the first few weeks at the New Xavier School, Jean Grey is abducted by the Shiar Empire to stand trial for her future self's crimes. Kitty and the time-displaced X-Men team up with the Guardians of the Galaxy and succeed in rescuing Jean from the Shiar. At the conclusion of the storyline, Kitty begins a long-distance, flirtatious relationship with Starlord, Peter Quill.
The Black Vortex
In the following weeks, Kitty's relationship with Peter Quill evolves more and more as they developed stronger feelings for each other every day. At one point, Quill gets captured during one of their dates and she has no option but to go to his rescue, despite her fear of space as a result of her being trapped on the giant space bullet. After rescuing Peter, she decides to stay in space with him. Then, Kitty convinces Peter to steal a powerful artifact called the Black Vortex from his father J'son. Soon, they find themselves being chased by J'son's assassination squad, the Slaughter Lords. In despair, they request the aid of the X-Men and the Guardians of the Galaxy to protect the Vortex. After a few of their own friends can't resist the temptation and submit to the Vortex, betray the team, and escape with the artifact; the team splits and Kitty stays in Spartax to help an orphanage. She is encased in amber after Thane (who was allied with J'son) freezes the whole planet along with the people inside it; but thanks to her phasing powers, she manages to get out of the amber. Then the Brood attacks Spartax, planning to use every encased person to lay eggs and create an army of Brood to start invading other planets and conquering them. Kitty feels the only way to stop them is by submitting to the Vortex herself as she's the only one who can resist the cosmic corruption. She reluctantly submits and becomes a being of unlimited power. After being reminded of the love between her and Peter Quill, she goes back and phases all the amber that encased Spartax, along with the Broods trying to infect the people, and sends them all to another dimension. Kitty doesn't give up the cosmic power but admits to Peter that she is afraid of it. Peter promises her that he will never abandon her no matter how much she changes. Then, Peter kneels and proposes marriage to Kitty. She, with tears in her eyes, accepts. Later when Star Lord is declared Emperor of Spartax she is told she will become the first lady of Spartax.
Guardians of the Galaxy
Kitty takes on the mantle of Star Lord and joins the Guardians of the Galaxy in Peter Quill's place so he can take on his royal duties. When Hala the Accuser massacres Spartax in an attempt to make Quill pay for J'son's actions against her people, she initially easily lays waste to the capitol and overpowers the Guardians. After the Guardians regroup and formulate a strategy to defeat her, Kitty manages to partially phase Hala into the ground so the rest of the Guardians can knock her out and separate her from her weapon. After Quill loses his title as king he and Kitty end up on a mission with the rest of the Guardians on a concentration camp prison planet owned by the Badoon after Gamora gave them information on it so they can free Angela. Once there, Kitty has a personal reaction upon seeing the prisoners and makes it her mission to liberate everyone there and defeat the captors, as it reminds her of Nazi concentration camps. After Quill gets captured and sentenced to death in an arena battle, Kitty finds and kills one of the Badoon leaders by phasing his heart out of his body. When Captain Marvel summons the Guardians to Earth to help her address Tony Stark, Kitty learns that Thanos is a prisoner on Earth and tries to convince Quill to tell Gamora. When fighting starts Kitty woefully realizes that some of her former students are on Tony Stark's side instead of fighting with Captain Marvel. During the battle the Guardians' ship was destroyed, effectively stranding them on Earth. After helping the Guardians stop Thanos from leading an invasion from the Negative Zone the Guardians are given a new ship; however, Kitty decides to stay on Earth and ends her time with the Guardians and Quill.
Leading the X-Men
Upon returning to Earth, Kitty hopes to finally regain a semblance of a normal life but ends up approached by Storm, who informs Kitty of everything the X-Men have gone through while Kitty was away. Storm announces to Kitty that she intends to step down as leader of the X-Men due to the guilt that she feels for leading the X-Men to war and offers Kitty her position. After touring X-Haven and seeing how much things have changed and how much things need to change for the better, Kitty agrees to lead the X-Men as long as Storm remains on the team. Her next act is to relocate the mansion from Limbo to Central Park, New York so the X-Men can refocus on being part of the world instead of fearing it under the belief that if the X-Men truly are to be seen as heroes, then they need to actually live in the world that they are trying to save instead of constantly worrying about their own survival.
Under Kitty's new leadership, the X-Men go through some small changes in order to shed their past history and make new names for themselves, such as convincing Rachel Summers to change her code name to Prestige and renaming the mansion as The Xavier Institute for Mutant Education and Outreach. Kitty learns first-hand how hard it is to balance leading the X-Men as well as managing the mansion when there are many political factors trying to deliberately get in the way of the X-Men. She also begins to have awkward one-on-one moments with Colossus; they try to remain friends, but given their long history their interactions swiftly become complicated. Kitty's first case as field leader of the X-Men sees her and her team taking on a new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. After discovering that an outspoken anti-mutant politician brainwashed this new Brotherhood to work for her to publicly discredit mutants, Kitty threatened to expose her if she continued exploiting mutants for her own personal gain.
Dawn of X
After Krakoa became a new sovereign nation for Mutants, Kitty Pryde, now going by Captain Kate Pryde, discovers she is the sole mutant who is, for unknown reasons, unable to use the various warp gates leading to Krakoa. It is implied that she has done something to anger Krakoa, but that restriction does not mean Kitty cannot use other means to reach the mutant homeland. She steals a boat and sets sail for the island. Kitty's time on Krakoa proves to be just as fruitless, as the island's natural resources (like flowers that grow into biome homes) are similarly prohibited to Kitty. Emma Frost comes asking Kitty to take up a special mission: taking a bigger boat out to serve as pirate captain on the X-Men's mission to liberate mutants trapped in oppressive countries that do not recognize mutant sovereignty, while also smuggling and supplying for Emma's Hellfire Trading Company the lifesaving drugs the X-Men provide to humans. Kate Pryde is later appointed the new Red Queen of the Hellfire Trading Company by Emma Frost, to the dismay of Sebastian Shaw. Seeing Pryde as an obstacle to his complete control of the Hellfire Corporation, Shaw began plotting against Kate and her crew. After taking notice how Emma became overprotective of the newly crowned Red Queen, Shaw realized that for the same reason she can't travel through Krakoa's gates nor read or understand the Krakoan language until Emma implanted it in her brain, the X-Men's Resurrection Protocols also won't apply to her, which means Kate cannot be resurrected if she died. He orchestrated a distraction by paying off human supremacists Homines Verendi to stage an attack on his own son. Once Kate was defenseless, Shaw emerged from below deck and ensnared Lockheed with a net gun, making him a helpless hostage. He then released Krakoan seeds at her feet, which wrapped around her and prevented her from using her powers. He then dropped her and Lockheed into the sea. While Lockheed was able to survive, Kate sank helplessly, and once her head dropped under the surface, she had no air left and drowned instantly. Her death is later confirmed by Bishop as he retrieves Kate's body, as it was also established that the Resurrection Protocols indeed do not apply to Kate, as the Five, for reasons unknown, cannot resurrect her. However, she is later resurrected, as Emma Frost realized that it was due to the nature of Kate's intangibility powers that her mindless body was unable to break out of the egg.
Powers and abilities
Kitty is a mutant with the ability to pass through solid matter by passing her atomic particles through the spaces between the atoms of the object through which she is moving. In this way she and the object through which she is passing can temporarily merge without interacting, and each is unharmed when Shadowcat has finished passing through the object. This process is called "phasing" or quantum tunneling and it renders her almost completely intangible to physical touch. Shadowcat passes through objects at the same speed at which she is moving before she enters them. Since she is unable to breathe while inside an object, she can only continuously phase through solid objects (as when she travels underground) as long as she can hold her breath. However, contrary depictions of the duration of her phasing ability have been presented, such as when she has phased miles within an object. The use of her abilities also interferes with any electrical systems as she passes through by disrupting the flow of electrons from atom to atom, including the bio-electric systems of living bodies if she concentrates in the right way. This typically causes machines to malfunction or be destroyed as she phases through them, and can induce shock and unconsciousness in living beings.
Using her power began as an optional ability, but for a period (over ten years of published comics, approximately two years in-continuity) Kitty existed in a naturally "phased" state, and had to consciously choose to become solid. Kitty has returned to her original form and is normally solid and must choose to use her power. While phasing, she does not physically walk on surfaces, but rather interacts with the molecules of air above them, allowing her to ascend and descend, causing her to seemingly walk on air. While phased, she is immune to most physical attacks, and has inconsistent showings of some resistance to telepathy. The density of some materials (such as adamantium) can prove deleterious to her phasing, causing her to be severely disoriented or experience pain if she tries to pass through them. Some energy attacks also prove problematic for Kitty. For example, an energy blast fired by Harpoon, a member of the Marauders, caused her to lose her ability to become fully tangible for months. Magic and magical beings can also harm her in her phased state, as demonstrated in a battle with a N'Garai demon whose claws left no visible marks, but caused Kitty severe pain as they passed through her intangible body.
Kitty can also extend her powers to phase other people and objects. She is able to phase at least six other people (or objects of similar mass) with her, so long as they establish and maintain physical contact with her. She can extend her phasing effect to her own clothing or any other object with mass up to that of a small truck, as long as she remains in contact with it. Kitty can also make objects intangible by maintaining contact with them. She has threatened to leave people phased into a wall, and used her power offensively to harm the Technarch Magus, and Danger.
Kitty's powers seem to have increased over the years. During an X-Treme X-Men story arc in which she is kidnapped by Reverend William Stryker, she phases out of sync with Earth's rotation to move from one place in the world (only east or west) to another seemingly instantaneously. At the climax of Astonishing X-Men, Kitty phases a 10 mi (16 km) long "bullet" composed of super-dense alien metals through the entire planet Earth. This feat caused her considerable strain, but she is unable to phase out of the bullet. Moreover, originally Kitty found it difficult or impossible to phase only part of her body at a time. In the Days of Future Past story arc, she is possessed by her older future self, allowing her to solidify only her shoulder while phasing the rest of her body through Destiny—a feat explicitly beyond the 13-year-old Kitty's abilities. By contrast, the Kitty Pryde of Joss Whedon's run can punch and kick someone standing on the other side of a wall, selectively phasing and unphasing body parts as necessary. She can even run and leap through an armed opponent, grabbing their weapon as she passes by, which presumably requires her to solidify only the surface area of the palms of her hands and then immediately phase both her palms and the weapon.
Besides her mutant powers, Kitty is a genius in the field of applied technology and computer science. She is highly talented in the design and use of computer hardware. She is a skilled pilot of piston and jet engine aircraft, and a competent pilot of certain advanced interstellar vehicles. She has previously shown a unique ability to wield the Soulsword and also be harmed by it. Since her possession by the ninja demon Ogun, she has been consistently shown to be an excellent hand-to-hand combatant, having since been endowed with a lifetime of training in the martial arts of Japanese ninja and samurai.
She is a professional-level dancer in both ballet and modern dance. She speaks fluent English, Japanese, Russian, and the royal and standard languages of the alien Shi'ar and Skrull, and has moderate expertise in Gaelic, Hebrew, and German.
Kitty also shares a mental/empathic connection with her pet dragon Lockheed; both she and the alien dragon can "sense" each other's presence at times and generally understand one another's thoughts and actions.
When Kitty used the Black Vortex, her powers were augmented to a cosmic scale making her a god-like being. She can phase through any material of any density and can even phase a planet out of Thane's amber, whereas in her normal state it is an extremely difficult task to simply phase herself out of the amber. She can also apparently transverse between the planes of the multiverse and is immune to the effects of space. Her appearance can be changed but her natural form appears to be rather gaseous in look.
Other versions
In addition to her mainstream incarnation, Kitty Pryde has been depicted in other fictional universes.
Age of Apocalypse
In the Age of Apocalypse reality, Kitty grows up under harsh circumstances and her nature reflects it. She has short hair, tight clothes, and chain smokes cigarettes. Her parents are killed in the Chicago Cullings, and she is forcibly recruited into Apocalypse's army, but is later rescued by Colossus. Magneto puts Shadowcat under Weapon X's training, hoping to turn her into the X-Men's assassin, and she is given a set of retractable artificial claws around each wrist to better imitate her teacher's fighting style. After the fallout between Colossus and Magneto, Shadowcat sides with Colossus, whom she has married. Instead of leaving the fight against Apocalypse altogether, the couple become the teachers of Generation Next. The two submit their trainees to harsh situations, giving them little comfort despite the fact that Shadowcat is close to the age of her students.
Shadowcat assists the team in rescuing Illyana Rasputin from the Seattle Core, and, at Colossus' behest, abandons her students after Illyana is saved. She is killed by Colossus in his ruthless obsession to protect his sister, Illyana; coming between an enraged Colossus and his endangered sister, Shadowcat never believed he would harm her.
Days of Future Past
In the Days of Future Past timeline (Earth-811), Shadowcat goes by the name Kate Pryde. Kate attempts to go back in time to prevent the assassination of Senator Robert Kelly by Mystique and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. She succeeds, only to create a separate timeline where the events of her past still come to pass. After returning to her own time Kate helps Rachel Summers escape back to the timeline she just created. Captured by Sentinels, Kate escapes by phasing through her inhibitor collar and fell into a time warp, causing her to merge with the Sentinel that was scanning her, and arrives in the timeline Rachel is inhabiting. Kate's mind settles in a small, metal, off-spherical body and becomes known as Widget. After a few adventures in that timeline, mostly in company with her Earth-616 counterpart's team Excalibur, Kate regains her memory and returns to her original timeline where she is able to reprogram the ruling Sentinels to protect life, ending their tyranny.
Earth X
In Earth X it is revealed in the appendix of issue six that Kitty Pryde is killed saving Colossus while he could not shift into his metal form. Instead of phasing the bullet through her, she heroically takes the bullet and is killed.
Exiles
A version of Kitty Pryde codenamed Cat first appeared in Exiles #96. She is younger than her Earth-616 counterpart. She has the appearance and powers of the normal Shadowcat although she wears a different costume. Prior to her joining the Exiles, this version of Kitty had been recruited by Emma Frost as one of the core agents of the Hellfire Club's strike force. She helps Psylocke defeat Doom's soldiers who have invaded the Panoptichron. She helps retrieve Blink, Morph, and Sabretooth from being scattered across the multiverse. She works as a computer expert for the team and is a full member of the Exiles.
Cat's skill with using her powers means she is not tied to any dimension and can see through various realities, including those of the mind (for instance seeing the various personalities in Sage's mind as "ghosts" surrounding her). Her arrival in the Crystal Palace and connection to its computers has increased this, giving her the ability to "cascade" through different alternative versions of herself, altering her appearance and details of her powers. Amongst other versions, she has assumed the form of a Kitty Pryde with the appearance and powers of Tigra. During the New Exiles' last mission Cat faced off against Madame Hydra (Sue Storm) and killed her at the cost of her own life.
There has been another version of Kitty that appeared in the King Hyperion story arc (Exiles #38-40). She had survived an attack on the X-Mansion by the Sentinels. The Colossus from her universe had been killed in the attack but she had the same feelings towards Weapon X's Colossus even though he was not her Colossus. The two eventually fell in love with each other. Unfortunately this did not last since she died with Colossus when they were shot into the empty vacuum of space by Hyperion.
House of M
When the Scarlet Witch altered reality in the 616 Universe, creating the reality known as House of M where mutants were the dominant population, Kitty Pryde was a teacher in a public middle school in Cincinnati, Ohio. Like many of the heroes of Earth 616, she is reminded of the true reality by Layla Miller and recruited in the fight to restore reality.
Magik
In the limited series Magik (Illyana and Storm), an alternative reality Kitty renames herself "Cat" after she is mutated by the demonic sorcerer Belasco into a more feline form, with cat eyes, whiskers, a tail, and enhanced physical abilities and senses. Trapped in Belasco's Limbo, Cat takes a militant view towards defeating the sorcerer, eschewing the magic that her reality's Storm embraces, instead turning to skills in swordplay and physical combat. She tries to save the Illyana Rasputin of Earth-616 from corruption through magic by taking Illyana into the wilderness of Limbo and teaching the child to fight and survive. Like the Kitty Pryde of Earth-616 eventually would, Cat became Illyana's best friend, but more in the role of an older sister due to the difference in their ages.
Cat's plan goes awry when the pair's attempt to confront Belasco fails, at the cost of the life of an enslaved Nightcrawler; Illyana falls under Belasco's influence and Cat is further transformed towards a feline, with a semi-animalistic mind completely loyal to Belasco. Cat is eventually slain by Illyana when Belasco sets Cat upon his rebellious apprentice; facing death at Cat's hands and knowing that, deep down, a part of Kitty still exists and hates her enslavement, Illyana broke Cat's neck in self-defense.
Long after Illyana overthrows Belasco, escapes Limbo, and becomes a member of the junior X-Men team known as the New Mutants, Cat's remains are found by the team in Limbo's throne room. By then she had completely decomposed to a skeleton. Illyana, facing a rebellion of Limbo's demon population that threatened to overrun Earth, smashed Cat's skull in rage over the demonic taint that Belasco left on her soul and frustration over the horrible choice she had to make to kill Cat.
Marvel Zombies
Kitty is briefly shown in the background as a zombie in Ultimate Fantastic Four #23, despite her mutant phasing powers. She is also seen in Marvel Zombies: Dead Days, when zombie Alpha Flight attack the X-Men. This would appear to have been retconned, though, as of Marvel Zombies: Halloween, which depicts her and her son Peter with Colossus surviving for several years in an out of the way house farm, encountering zombies, but, fortunately, being rescued by Mephisto, who dispatched the remaining zombies.
The Earth-91126/Earth-Z Kitty is recruited by Earth-2149/Marvel Zombies Spider-Man to help him develop a cure for the zombie hunger, on the grounds that her powers mean that she would be in no danger from him if he should succumb to his zombie instincts, but she is later seemingly killed when the zombie Quasar holds her underwater until she is forced to become solid once more, allowing the infected Namor to eat her flesh (much to the rage of the zombie Wolverine, of Earth-2149).
Mutant X
Storm was taken by the vampire Dracula and unlike Earth 616, she does not return. Kitty goes off to battle her, either to save or kill her. Kitty slays several vampires in the way but Storm proves too much for her and Kitty becomes her unwilling slave for some time. She later shows up as the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club and seems to be none too happy with Storm. It's also hinted that she was engaged or going to be engaged to Colossus. Her ultimate fate at the end of the series is unknown.
Lightning Force
In the reality of Earth-597, an alternative universe where World War II was won by Nazi Germany, Kitty is forced to serve as Shadowcat alongside Nightcrawler, Meggan, and Hauptmann Englande as a member of the Lightning Force (a version of Excalibur), made a virtual slave because of her Jewish heritage. She leads a sad existence and is easily identified by her shaved head and the Star of David tattooed on her forehead. It is indicated, from her own statements and those made by her reality's counterpart of Moira MacTaggert, that this Shadowcat is a true ghost, raised from the dead by a combination of science and magic and bound to serve the Nazi regime. This Shadowcat had the added ability to disrupt life force with her phasing power, knocking her victims unconscious, much like how her counterpart in the "prime" Marvel Universe (Earth-616) can disrupt technology that she phases through. She is also able to alter her facial features to a "demonic" aspect when attacking enemies or else responding to aggressive, commanding behavior from her superiors.
Pirate Kitty
Kitty tells Illyana a bedtime story and casts herself as Pirate Kitty Pryde, captain of the Abdul Alhazred, who operated in a magical world. Unlike her mainstream counterpart, she did not have any mutant powers and wore a classic pirate outfit which also included her Star of David necklace. She was also sometimes known as Colleen. Kitty was good friends of her version of Colossus, the Bamfs (Nightcrawler), Windrider (Storm), the "Fiend-with-no-name" (later revealed to be named "Mean") (Wolverine) and Lockheed (an alternative version of the X-Jet). Kitty also helped her versions of Professor X and Cyclops capture and cure that universe's version of Dark Phoenix.
At first she was only a fairy tale character, but later it is revealed that her fairy tale is actually an alternative universe. (In fact, several members of this universe, the Bamfs, would later come to Earth-616 to cause trouble.) When Earth-616's Nightcrawler was temporarily stranded in her world, Kitty helped him defeat the sorcerer Shagreen and also encountered the Earth-616 versions of Illyana, Lockheed, and herself.
Professor W's X-Men
In the native universe of the Exiles member Nocturne, Kitty is a senior member of the X-Men led by Nightcrawler. She is a teacher and TJ refers to her as "Aunt Kate". During a fight with Apocalypse Kitty gets exposed to a machine that reverts her to a younger stage of her life when she had only been with the X-Men a few weeks. Nocturne helps Kitty fit into the school and becomes her best friend. She also proves useful in the fight against the Brotherhood led by Cyclops.
Ruins
Imprisoned alongside other mutants at a prison camp in Texas by President X, Kitty attempted to use her phasing powers to escape, only to get stuck halfway through her cell door, losing three feet of intestines in the process.
Secret Wars (2015)
During the Secret Wars storyline, a version of Kitty named Kitten resides in the wuxia-inspired K'un-L'un region of Battleworld. In this reality, Kitten is a martial artist who joins Callisto's band of outcasts after being expelled from her school for attempting a forbidden technique, a side effect of which left her intangible. Kitten and her fellow outcasts became pupils of Shang-Chi, the exiled son of Emperor Zheng Zu. Dubbing their new school The Lowest Caste, Shang-Chi represents the group as their master for the tournament deciding the next Emperor of K'un-L'un, hoping to usurp his father's tyrannical rule. Kitten accompanies Shang-Chi for each of his fights in the Thirteen Chambers. During his final fight with Zu, Shang-Chi uses Kitten's technique of intangibility, which leads to his eventual victory and replaces his father as the new Emperor of K'un-L'un.
Ultimate Marvel
The Ultimate version of Shadowcat (Kitty Pryde) first appears as a 14-year-old girl in Ultimate X-Men #21. She is also Jewish and wears the Star of David around her neck, but does not appear to possess the same genius IQ as her mainstream (Earth-616) counterpart.
Kitty's mother, worried about Kitty's mutation, seeks help from Professor Charles Xavier. Kitty becomes a student at Xavier's school, when her mother allows her to attend under the condition she does not take part in any X-Men missions, nor train in any "Danger Room" simulations. Kitty soon rebels against this and joins the X-Men as their youngest member. She idolizes Spider-Man and has a crush on him; she even dates Peter Parker for a time. After a fierce argument with Professor Xavier concerning Peter's secret identity, which his Aunt May had just found out about, Kitty leaves the X-Men and enrolls in Peter's school. Their relationship is strained after their romantic involvement (as superheroes) becomes publicly known, making it impossible for them to date anymore in their civilian identities, and eventually comes to an end when Peter realizes he cannot get over his feelings for Mary Jane. However, Kitty still retains strong feelings for him.
Following the disastrous flood triggered by Magneto and the subsequent ban of public use of mutant powers, Kitty assumes the identity of the Shroud. Kitty also discovers that she can also decrease the space between her atoms make herself super-dense, giving her both superhuman strength and durability. When the authorities see Kitty as a threat, she enters into a fierce rage and demonstrates these powers for the first time to her friends. She is strong and angry enough to punch Spider-Man several feet through the air. She eventually escapes and goes into hiding in the now abandoned Morlock Tunnel with Iceman and the Human Torch after Peter Parker's death.
Kitty makes an appearance in Ultimate Comics: X, locating Jimmy Hudson, who is revealed to be Wolverine's son. Kitty was charged by Logan before his death to locate Jimmy and reveal his true origins to him.
After the death of Spider-Man she formed new team of X-Men consisting of herself, Iceman and the Human Torch. They soon rescued the mutant Rogue from the mutant-hunting Nimrod robots, going on to recruit Jimmy Hudson into their group as well. After killing the mutant-hunting William Stryker, Kitty decided to leave New York for the Southwest along with Bobby, Rogue, and Jimmy (leaving only Johnny behind) in order to save the mutants there and defeat the Nimrods, now controlled by the deceased Stryker's consciousness.
Spider-Gwen
In the reality where Gwen Stacy is Spider-Woman, Kitty is an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Black Ops department, where she works closely with Wolverine to keep him in check and to help him fight his immortal curse. Like the Age of Apocalypse version, she also wields artificial claws on her wrists. It's revealed that she works with Logan out of guilt, as Stryker forced her to use her powers to subject Logan to the Weapon X experiment.
What If
In What if Phoenix Had Not Died, Kitty is obliterated by Dark Phoenix before she destroyed the Earth.
In What If the X-Men had Lost Inferno?, Kitty is one of the last eight remaining superheroes on the planet. She is slain by a demonic Wolverine, but her death makes Wolverine come to his senses and he fights against Baron Mordo, who had joined up with the demon hordes.
In What If... Wolverine: Enemy of the State, Kitty is the only hero left to kill a Hydra-programmed Wolverine after he has taken down the Marvel Universe. Kitty was the last remaining member of the team assembled to recapture Wolverine. The initial plan failed and Kitty was forced to phase her hand into Wolverine's brain. She then solidified her hand killing Wolverine instantly although she lost her hand in the process.
In What if Magneto and Professor X Had Formed The X-Men Together, Kitty is the tech guru at the Good Shepard clinic (That reality's version of the X-Mansion). She is very similar to her mainstream counterpart. But unlike the mainstream version this Kitty Pryde would wear different coloured wigs and cut her natural hair short. She also had trouble with her powers since she would phase herself through a solid object and accidentally leave her clothes behind. She was also friends with Lockheed although she only called him Dragon.
In What if Astonishing X-Men, Kitty is amongst the X-Men who fight a Phoenix powered Emma Frost. She phased Emma's heart from her chest but a Phoenix fire flares up from her body killing Kitty instantly. In the second story during the events of Astonishing X-Men #6-#12 Elixir had not been able to heal Kitty after being impaled and she dies.
In "What if the Dark Phoenix Rose Again", Kitty has Colossus "set up a fastball special" to help her phase into a Master Mold. She is killed after solidifying inside the Master Mold's head destroying it in the process.
In What if Storm Had the Power of the Phoenix, Kitty helps revive the 'real' Storm (the Phoenix being the cosmic entity in Storm's shape) by phasing inside her body and getting her internal organs working again.
X-Babies
An X-Baby version of Shadowcat appears briefly in the X-Babies one-shot comic. She is wearing her original costume and is younger than the other X-Babies. She is named as Shadowkitty rather than Shadowcat or Kitty Pryde. She also doesn't seem to have a strong bond with the X-Baby version of Lockheed.
X-Men Forever
In the X-Men Forever series, Kitty and Nightcrawler have left Excalibur and rejoined the X-Men after the events of X-Men #1-3. Of the X-Men, she undergoes the most drastic changes from the events of X-Men Forever #1. During the battle with Fabian Cortez, she phases through Wolverine while he is being affected by Cortez's power. This drives her powers haywire as well, and somehow she ends up with one of Wolverine's claws in her wrist. Claremont has also hinted in dialogue throughout the title so far that she may have also undergone psychological or psychic changes as a result of the event. From Forever #4 to the current issue, she is shown to be able to use the claw in the exact method Wolverine would manifest it, with no apparent ill effects (the mechanism for this has not yet been made clear) outside of excruciating pain. Because of the merger with Logan's DNA she has begun to develop a healing factor, slower than Wolverine's but it heals faster when she is intangible. She has also slightly enhanced senses, she also can produce a set of five retractable claws on her left hand like Sabretooth. She has also begun to take on Logan's personality and memories as well. And because of this she is beginning to wonder what part of her truly remains the same.
X-Men: Misfits
In the X-Men: Misfits original English language manga one-shot graphic novel from Marvel and DelRay, Kitty is the newest and only female student of the all-male Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters, which is now experimenting with having a co-ed student body. As the sole girl, she becomes the center of attention and attraction for the rest of the students. She becomes a member and the mascot of the elitist fraternity, The Hellfire Club, and has a short-lived romantic relationship with the school troublemaker Pyro.
X-Men: The End
In the X-Men: The End future, Kitty Pryde becomes the mayor of Chicago and then President of the United States. She has three children: her eldest daughter, named Meredith, and twins 10 years younger than Meredith, Sara and Doug, with an unnamed partner who died protecting her from an assassination attempt.
Miscellaneous
In Excalibur #103, we see many alternative versions of Shadowcat. Many of these variations have appeared in other comics, such as Age of Apocalypse, but there were other variations, including one of her as a Phalanx convert, a sex dominatrix, a homeless person, a nun, a version wearing a costume similar to Phantom Girl, and a normal person who owns an Olde Curiosity Shoppe.
In New Mutants #63 Illyana (Magik), along with Lockheed, gets trapped on an alien spaceship that has been invaded by a Brood Queen. On this ship the Brood Queen created clones of the X-Men, including Kitty. This one had the Ariel suit on, but it was green, instead of the typical blue. These X-Men are implanted with Brood eggs. Her memories were altered by the Brood Queen like the other X-Men, but eventually they rebel against her and are free. Illyana uses the soulsword to eliminate the Brood Eggs from their bodies. The X-Men stay on the ship; whether they are still on it is unknown.
During the Cross Time Caper storyline a few different appearances of Kitty appear. One was a princess who was gifted with magic abilities. She eventually married a short dashing prince (who had originally fallen in love with the mainstream version of Kitty). A second version was a crime boss who was betrayed and killed by her partner in crime Illiyana Rasputin. A third was from a world of sentient dinosaurs. She went by the name of Shadowcompsognathus.
Collected editions
Several of Kitty Pryde's earlier adventures were collected in paperback form.
In other media
Music
Kitty Pryde is referenced in Weezer's song "In the Garage" from their "Blue Album".
Television
Kitty Pryde appeared as Sprite in "The X-Men Adventure" episode of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, which guest-starred the X-Men. She was voiced by Melissa Sue Anderson. She also appeared in her short-lived "Ariel" costume in the X-Men group cameo at the end of the episode "The Education of a Superhero".
Kitty Pryde (voiced by Kath Soucie) was a viewpoint character in the animated television one-shot Pryde of the X-Men, as the newest member of the team. She is a new recruit of the team and is initially frightened of Nightcrawler, due to his demonic appearance. She and Nightcrawler later succeed in defeating Magneto. Once Nightcrawler seemingly dies as a result of having apparently sacrificed himself, Kitty begins to cry until discovering that he is alive and is met with positive relations by her teammates, except Wolverine. As the pilot was a failure, and the character had lost prominence in comics at the time, she was not used in the next X-Men TV series, not even in cameos. Jubilee replaced her as the young viewpoint character, and in the adaptations of stories that involved her.
In the animated series X-Men: Evolution, Shadowcat is a main character, who is shown as the teenybopper of the team and who has a romantic interest in Brotherhood member Lance Alvers. Shadowcat saves Wolverine in the season one episode "Grim Reminder", where she unintentionally stows away with Nightcrawler while on the Blackbird without the knowledge that he was beginning to pilot the jet. She is also shown to have developed a close friendship with Nightcrawler, despite the fact that she at first displayed a dislike for his appearance. Besides Nightcrawler, she is shown to have formed a friendship with Rogue and Spyke. Her initial dislike of his appearance changes after he is severely wounded by Rogue, while she and the rest of the X-Men tried to recruit her. In this series, she does not have Lockheed for a pet, but she is shown preferring to sleep with a stuffed dragon instead of a teddy bear. Though she has an on-and-off interest in the delinquent mutant boy Lance Alvers, early in the series she displays interest in Cyclops. After Rogue is recruited, she serves as her support in beginning a romantic relationship with Scott and develops a friendship with her, despite their differences. When Avalanche tries to join the X-Men in the season two episode "Joyride", she tries to help him and shows additional attraction to him as she grades him and the other members of the junior team. After he informs her that some members of the group have started a joyride on the Blackbird and helps her avert catastrophe, she staunchly defends him once he is accused by Cyclops of being responsible. When Avalanche starts to leave, Shadowcat gives him a brief kiss before his departure. Their relationship continues with the two of them going to a school dance, talking on the phone and going to the mall. Despite being with the Brotherhood, Avalanche tries to protect Kitty in the fight against the Scarlet Witch. In season 3, Kitty and Lance's relationship briefly ends after the Brotherhood and Mystique blow up the X Mansion and are in part responsible for the exposure of mutants. Kitty calls Lance a "hood" after he attacks the high school and he says "he will never be good enough for her". Both look sad at these comments. In the fourth season, the X-Men try to use her powers to damage one of Apocalypse's domes and fails, instead being electrocuted briefly. In the fiftieth episode of the series, entitled "Ghost of a Chance", she comes across Danielle Moonstar once she depicts herself in a dream sequence to her. Once she wakes out of it, she tries to and successfully finds her, becoming friends with the girl after learning she had been in suspended animation for two years. Prior to this, it is discovered that her fear is phasing repeatedly into the ground and going further without any control of where she is going. Shadowcat plays a key role in the defeat of Apocalypse and asks the Brotherhood for help. They come to her aid; as Lance and Kitty resume their romantic relationship. Of the six main X-Men from the first season of the series, she is one of the four that is still a member of the team in the future Charles Xavier saw while in the mind of Apocalypse. Shadowcat was voiced by Maggie Blue O'Hara.
Shadowcat appears in Wolverine and the X-Men, voiced by Danielle Judovits and was a student at the Xavier Institute before the destruction of the X-Mansion and disappearance of Professor X. When Wolverine reformed the X-Men to take down the Mutant Response Division and save the dismal future controlled by the Sentinels, Kitty was on her way to the "mutant paradise" Genosha. The X-Men came to re-recruit her and she immediately rejoined the team. Shadowcat appears as the youngest member of the team and she seems to have a crush on Iceman as she is jealous when his attention is taken by Emma Frost and is shown with a love-struck face when she lands on Bobby during a Danger Room training session, though she quickly moves away from him when Angel arrives. She seems to have formed a friendship with Tildie Soames after babysitting her in one episode. In the last episode of the series, she uses her powers to penetrate a Sentinel controlled by Magneto, of which Beast had difficulty with. Her design is inspired by the appearance of the character in the Astonishing X-Men comics, and her costume emulates the design with the appearance of the blue and yellow used on her costume. The shorts she wears are based on the appearances of the original X-Men, and her first appearance when she wore a variant of the uniform.
Shadowcat appears in The Super Hero Squad Show episode "And Lo...A Pilot Shall Come". She appears alongside Colossus at the unveiling of the Great Wall that separates Super Hero City from Villainville and helping citizens into the S.H.I.E.L.D. Shelters. In the episode "Mysterious Mayhem at Mutant Academy", she uses Lockheed to chase Reptil and the hypnotized X-Men out of the girls' bathroom.
Motion comics
Shadowcat appears in the Astonishing X-Men motion comic, voiced by Eileen Stevens and later by Laura Harris.
Film
In the film X-Men, she has a small cameo, played by Sumela Kay. She is referenced as the "girl in Illinois who can walk through walls" by Senator Kelly. She is shown in Xavier's class when Wolverine walks in; she returns for her books which she had left behind, grabs them, and phases through the door on her way out. Xavier responds with a cheerful "Bye, Kitty" while Wolverine looks on, startled.
In X2, she has a brief appearance played by Katie Stuart. She is shown phasing through walls and through people to escape William Stryker's military forces during their attack on the X-Mansion. Another scene shows her falling through her bed to avoid an assault. She shares a room with Siryn; in the novelization it is stated that this is because her phasing ability gives her partial protection from Siryn's scream. When the President of the United States asks Professor Xavier how he got the files he gave him, Xavier replies that he knows a little girl who can walk through walls.
In X-Men: The Last Stand, she is portrayed by a pre-transition Elliot Page, and has a central role. She serves as a rival to Rogue for the romantic attentions of Iceman, since their close friendship and their kiss (deleted scene) make Rogue increasingly jealous and frustrated. She also joins the X-Men in the battle on Alcatraz Island, breaking off from the battle to save Leech from the Juggernaut. In the novelization of the film, it is hinted that at some point Kitty had a romantic relationship with Colossus, but that it had long since run its course, although Colossus appears to still retain feelings towards her.
Page reprised the role in X-Men: Days of Future Past. Pryde is the prime facilitator because she has developed a new power. In this film, she can send the consciousness of another person back into his or her body in the past. At the beginning of the film, she has been using this ability to repeatedly send Bishop four days back in time whenever the Sentinels attack, thus; preventing her group from ever engaging them by having him warn the past team before they are detected. In order to prevent the Sentinels' creation, she sends Wolverine back to 1973 (chosen as the strain of sending someone else back that far would snap their mind, with Logan's healing factor the only thing that makes such a trip survivable for him) and was gravely injured when Wolverine becomes violent; due to provocation from events in 1973. After the timeline was successfully altered, Kitty is seen teaching a class at the X-Mansion with Colossus. In the film's alternate release, called The Rogue Cut, Kitty's injuries from sending Wolverine back to the past result in the X-Men rescuing Rogue to take over for her. Rogue absorbs Kitty's powers and takes over, stabilizing Wolverine and Kitty helps Magneto flee a Sentinel attack.
In January 2018, a Kitty Pryde solo movie was announced to be in development, with Tim Miller attached as the director and Brian Michael Bendis as the writer, but in March 2019, after Disney's purchase of 21st Century Fox, Fox executive Emma Watts described The New Mutants as the final film in the X-Men series, thus; ending the development of the Kitty Pryde film.
Video games
Kitty Pryde appears in Konami's 1992 X-Men video arcade game, as a non-playable character (NPC). In this game, she is not known as "Sprite"; instead, she plays the "damsel in distress" role as it is based on "Pryde of the X-Men". In the 2010 re-release of the game she is voiced by Mela Lee.
Shadowcat is a playable character in the game X-Men II: The Fall of the Mutants.
Shadowcat appears as an NPC in the X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, voiced by Kim Mai Guest. She has special dialogue with Colossus (who she scolds for flirting with Scarlet Witch).
Shadowcat appears in X-Men: The Official Game, with Kim Mai Guest reprising her role.
Shadowcat is a playable character in Marvel Super Hero Squad Online, voiced by Tara Strong.
In X-Men: Destiny, Gambit mentions that the U-Men had captured Kitty and extracted bits of her power. Gambit obtains a vial of a substance which temporarily lets the character fall through the roof (if the player chose the correct option).
Kitty Pryde is a playable character in the Facebook game Marvel: Avengers Alliance.
Kitty Pryde is a playable character in the X-Men: Days of Future Past app game.
Kitty Pryde is a playable character in the online MMO Marvel Heroes, with Danielle Judovits reprising her role.
Kitty Pryde appears as a playable character in Marvel Future Fight.
Kitty Pryde appears as a playable character in Marvel Puzzle Quest.
Kitty Pryde appears as a playable character in Marvel Strike Force.
Novels
Kitty Pryde appears in the X-Men/Star Trek crossover novel Planet X. In it, she is examined by Geordi La Forge, who notes the similarities between her ability and the chroniton displacement he and Ro Laren experienced in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Next Phase".
Reception
Kitty Pryde has been well received as a comic book character and as a member of the X-Men. Wizard magazine put her at number #13 in 200 Greatest Comic Characters of All Time. She was the highest female comic character in the list beating rivals such as Wonder Woman, Buffy Summers, and She-Hulk. IGN ranked her as the 47th greatest comic book hero of all time stating that "as X-Men writers have often found it useful to introduce younger teen recruits to offset the experienced members of the team, Kitty Pryde set the standard when she debuted, and none have surpassed her". IGN rated Kitty Pryde #3 on its list of the Top 25 X-Men from the Past 40 Years describing her as the mutant everyman, the common girl turned superhero; IGN also stated that as her pet dragon, Lockheed, "became instantly attached to Kitty, [they] were hooked early on". Marvel.com ranked her as the tenth greatest X-Men member stating that "unquestionably, the dynamic of the X-Men shifted entirely when teenage whiz kid Kitty Pryde joined the team in the early 1980s"; Marvel.com also stated that even though Kitty has since blossomed into a young woman of considerable maturity and power, she remains the access point to the X-Men for countless readers. A later list on Marvel's website, ranking the top 50 X-Men characters, placed her in first place, citing the ease of identifying with her for the audience, and her development over the years.
Notes
References
External links
Kitty Pryde at Marvel.com
UncannyXmen.net Spotlight on Shadowcat
American superheroes
Characters created by Chris Claremont
Characters created by John Byrne (comics)
Comics characters introduced in 1980
Excalibur (comics)
Female characters in animation
Female characters in film
Female characters in television
Fictional American Jews in comics
Fictional bisexual females
Fictional characters from Illinois
Fictional characters who can turn intangible
Fictional dancers
Fictional female ninja
Fictional linguists
Fictional mayors
Fictional schoolteachers
Fictional secret agents and spies
Fictional women soldiers and warriors
Jewish superheroes
Marvel Comics female superheroes
Marvel Comics film characters
Marvel Comics LGBT superheroes
Marvel Comics martial artists
Marvel Comics mutants
S.H.I.E.L.D. agents
Teenage characters in comics
X-Men members | true | [
"Kitty Pryde and Wolverine is a six-issue comic book limited series written by Chris Claremont and illustrated by Al Milgrom, and published by Marvel Comics between November 1984 and April 1985.\n\nA spin-off of the series Uncanny X-Men, it chronicles a Japanese adventure of two of the most popular X-Men of the time, Kitty Pryde and Wolverine.\n\nPublication history\nIn the introductory pages of the hardcover edition of Kitty Pryde and Wolverine (published 2008), Milgrom explains that the mini-series was powered by three main ideas. Firstly, Wolverine was the \"hottest property around\" that the X-Men franchise had, so stories with him would sell well. Secondly, Kitty Pryde was \"Chris' [Claremont] baby\", and Claremont was eager to develop this character further. Thirdly, Milgrom himself saw this as a unique chance to work with Marvel Comics legend Claremont.<ref name=editorial>Kitty Pryde and Wolverine, hardcover edition (2008), \"Introduction with Al Milgrom\"</ref>\n\nClaremont then wrote a story in which he could bring in new angles on the two characters. Kitty Pryde — previously little more than a sweet and innocent \"kid sister\" for the older X-Men, a literary foil to provide light-hearted moments — was portrayed as troubled with \"teenager self-doubt and self-deprecation\", \"searching for her very soul\" and going through the coming of age. Wolverine was put into the honor-driven, mystical Japanese culture, in which he was no longer the X-Men's campy hardman but \"grim and gritty\".\n\nTo express the atypically dark and personal story, Milgrom also adapted his drawing style, using bolder, darker and more dynamic strokes. In the end, he was very satisfied with the project.\n\nIn six issues, writer Chris Claremont takes Kitty Pryde fresh from her breakup with Colossus in Uncanny X-Men #183 and puts her through a trial of fire in which she confronts her inner demons and emerges victorious. Claremont also plays off the contrast between Kitty and the battle-hardened Wolverine, and the two very different characters establish a platonic, brother-and-sister-like rapport (beginning a tradition of sorts for Wolverine and young female sidekicks). A testament to his newfound esteem for her character, Wolverine would even consider Kitty as a potential leader for the X-Men, were it not for her sheer youth, in later issues of the regular series.Kitty Pryde and Wolverine is also responsible for establishing Kitty's superhero image, finally settling on a costume which she would wear into the early 1990s, and choosing the codename \"Shadowcat\" (having previously flitted between \"Ariel\" and \"Sprite\"), which she took on after this adventure and has held on until today.\n\nPlot summary\nKitty Pryde's father Carmen has run into trouble with the Japanese Yakuza. In order to help him, Kitty follows him on a business trip but is captured by mob boss Shigematsu and the evil ninja Ogun, who brainwashes her into becoming a deadly ninja assassin. After she has perfected her skills, Ogun orders her to kill Wolverine, Ogun's former student, who has come to Japan to look for Kitty. \n\nA masked Kitty almost kills Wolverine, before she is knocked out by Logan's friend Yukio and comes to her senses. Terrified at having been turned into a killing machine, Kitty wants to flee, but Logan challenges her to overcome her conditioning by focusing on her inner strength. When Kitty, Yukio and Logan vanquish their opponents, Kitty has the chance to kill Ogun. But she balks, stating she cannot do it. For Wolverine, it is the proof that she is truly herself again. When Ogun tries to kill her, Wolverine impales him on his claws. Carmen Pryde exposes Shigematsu's schemes, turning himself in, and they return to the United States.\n\nCollected editions\nThe story was reprinted several times; once in Wolverine And Gambit (issues 62 to 68), then later in June 2008 (in premiere hardback form, ), in 2009's Wolverine Omnibus Volume 1, and also as part of the Marvel's Mightiest Heroes partworks series, in issue No. 117, simply titled Kitty Pryde''.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Kitty Pryde and Wolverine plot summaries and covers @ uncannyxmen.net\n\nComics by Chris Claremont\nWolverine (comics) titles",
"Kitty Pryde, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. is a comic book limited series published by Marvel Comics. The series was written by Larry Hama.\n\nPublication history \nThe series began publication in 1997 and ended in 1998.\n\n\"The Calling\" (December, 1997)\n\"The Mission\" (January, 1998)\n\"Pryde Goeth Before a Fall\" (February, 1998)\n\nPlot \nKitty Pryde is called in by S.H.I.E.L.D. to investigate a virus infection in the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier's computer, only to discover that it is her old nemesis, Ogun.\n\nThe series also features Wolverine as a secondary character and there is information revealed about his past such as that he used to work for the Puzzle Palace with Nick Fury during the Cold War. (The Puzzle Palace was the nickname for the National Security Agency (NSA), the cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States that was founded in 1952.) We also see Logan meet a very young Carol Danvers, for the first time in the past.\n\nReception \nCharlie Jane Anders of io9.gizmodo believes the series would be a good series to adapt into the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. television series and ranked it at sixth place on her list.\n\nSee also \n 1997 in comics\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Kitty Pryde, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. at the Comic Book DB\n \n\nS.H.I.E.L.D. titles\nX-Men titles"
] |
[
"Kitty Pryde",
"Fictional character biography",
"How did Kitty Pryde get her superpowers?",
"Kitty started to have headaches at age thirteen, signaling the emergence of her mutant powers."
] | C_fee4a42a8e0247dca5e9a34ebd4a2c3d_0 | Where was she born? | 2 | Where was Kitty Pryde born? | Kitty Pryde | Katherine Anne "Kitty" Pryde was born in Deerfield, Illinois, to Carmen and Theresa Pryde. Of Jewish descent, her paternal grandfather, Samuel Prydeman, was held in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. Kitty started to have headaches at age thirteen, signaling the emergence of her mutant powers. She was approached by both the X-Men's Charles Xavier and the Hellfire Club's White Queen, Emma Frost, both of whom hoped to recruit her for their respective causes. Kitty was unnerved by Frost, observing that the White Queen looked at her as if she were "something good to eat." She got along better with Xavier and the three X-Men who escorted him, quickly becoming friends with Ororo Munroe. Ororo told Kitty who she really was and about the X-Men, which made the teenager even more enthusiastic about attending Xavier's school. Their conversation was cut short when they (along with Wolverine and Colossus) were attacked by armored mercenaries in the employ of Frost and the Hellfire Club. The X-Men defeated their assailants, but were subdued by the White Queen's telepathic powers immediately after. In the confusion, Kitty was separated from the X-Men, and not captured along with them. She managed to contact Cyclops, Phoenix, and Nightcrawler. With the help of Dazzler and Pryde, those X-Men rescued their teammates from the Hellfire Club. The White Queen appeared to perish in the battle, which meant she was no longer competing with Xavier for the approval of Kitty's parents. Kitty's parents had not heard from her in more than a day, because during that time she was first being pursued by the Hellfire Club's men and then working with the X-Men to save their friends. All they knew was Kitty had left with Xavier's "students" to get a soda, there had been reports that the soda shop had been blown up, and Kitty had been missing since. Therefore, they were angry at Xavier when he finally returned with Kitty in tow. At first, it seemed like there was no chance of Kitty being allowed to attend the school and join the X-Men. Phoenix then used her considerable telepathic power to erase the memories of Kitty's parents and plant false ones, resulting in a complete shift in their attitude towards Xavier. Kitty was then allowed to enroll at Xavier's school with her parents' blessing, becoming the youngest member of the team. CANNOTANSWER | Katherine Anne "Kitty" Pryde was born in Deerfield, Illinois, to Carmen and Theresa Pryde. | Katherine Anne "Kitty" Pryde is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, commonly in association with the X-Men. The character first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #129 (January 1980) and was co-created by writer-artist John Byrne and Chris Claremont.
A mutant, Pryde possesses a "phasing" ability that allows her, as well as objects or people she is in contact with, to become intangible. This power also disrupts any electrical field she passes through, and lets her simulate levitation.
The youngest to join the X-Men, she was first portrayed as a "kid sister" to many older members of the group, filling the role of literary foil to the more established characters. She occasionally used the codenames Sprite and Ariel, cycling through several uniforms until settling for her trademark black-and-gold costume. During the miniseries Kitty Pryde and Wolverine, she was renamed Shadowcat, the alias she would be most associated with, and shifted to a more mature depiction in her subsequent appearances. Pryde would eventually abandon her nickname, "Kitty", and switch to "Kate". She was one of the main cast of characters depicted in the original Excalibur title. After momentarily joining the Guardians of the Galaxy, she assumed her then-fiancé's superhero identity as the Star-Lord (Star-Lady). As of the series Marauders, she is now informally known as Captain Kate Pryde and the Red Queen of the Hellfire Trading Company.
In the X-Men film series, Kitty Pryde was initially portrayed by young actresses in cameos; Sumela Kay in X-Men (2000) and Katie Stuart in X2 (2003). Later, a pre-transition Elliot Page portrayed the character in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) and X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) in full-length appearances. Pryde is ranked #47 in IGN's Top 100 Comic Book Heroes.
Publication history
Kitty Pryde was introduced into the X-Men title as the result of an editorial dictate that the book was supposed to depict a school for mutants. Uncanny X-Men artist John Byrne named Kitty Pryde after a classmate he met in art school, Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary in 1973. He had told Pryde he liked her name and asked for permission to use it, promising to name his first original comics character after her. Byrne drew the character to slightly resemble an adolescent Sigourney Weaver.
The fictional Kitty Pryde first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #129 (January 1980), by writer Chris Claremont and artist Byrne, as a highly intelligent 13-year-old girl. Claremont said several elements of the character's personality were derived from those of X-Men editor Louise Simonson's daughter, Julie. Claremont and Byrne made the new character a full-fledged X-Man in issue #139, where she was codenamed "Sprite". She was the main character in issues #141–142, the "Days of Future Past" storyline, where she is possessed by her older self, whose consciousness time travels to the past to prevent a mass extermination of mutants. The six-issue miniseries Kitty Pryde and Wolverine (1984–1985), written by Claremont, is a coming-of-age storyline in which she matures from a girl to a young woman, adopting the new name "Shadowcat".
In the late 1980s, Kitty joined the British-based super team, Excalibur, where she remained for roughly ten years before coming back to the X-Men. In the early 2000s, she disappeared from the spotlight after semi-retiring from superhero work. She was featured in the 2002 mini-series Mekanix and came back to the main X-Men books in 2004 under the pen of Joss Whedon in Astonishing X-Men. She remained a part of the X-Men books until 2008 when she left again for roughly 2 years. After coming back, she was featured in Jason Aaron's Wolverine and the X-Men and Brian Michael Bendis' All-New X-Men books.
In early 2015, she joined the Guardians of the Galaxy. After the Secret Wars event, she adopted her new alias, Star-Lord (first believed to be Star-Lady).
In 2020, Kitty Pryde was revealed to be bisexual. Her co-creator, Chris Claremont, had always intended this to be the case, considering Rachel Summers as a possible love interest for Pryde. However, Claremont wasn't allowed to show this at the time due to censorship, as he revealed on the "Xplain the X-Men" podcast in 2016.
Shadowcat's popularity had a profound effect on the real-life Kitty Pryde: the latter became so overwhelmed by attention from Shadowcat fans, she abbreviated her name to K.D. Pryde to avoid association with her fictional counterpart. She has since stated she has mixed feelings about her fame, saying she values Byrne's comics for their entertainment and artistic value, but wishes more people would appreciate her as more than just Shadowcat's namesake.
Fictional character biography
Katherine Anne "Kitty" Pryde was born in Deerfield, Illinois, to Carmen and Theresa Pryde. She is an Ashkenazi Jewish-American and her paternal grandfather, Samuel Prydeman, was held in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. Kitty started to have headaches at age thirteen, signaling the emergence of her mutant powers. She was approached by both the X-Men's Charles Xavier and the Hellfire Club's White Queen, Emma Frost, both of whom hoped to recruit her for their respective causes. Kitty was unnerved by Frost, observing that the White Queen looked at her as if she were "something good to eat." She got along better with Xavier and the three X-Men who escorted him, quickly becoming friends with Ororo Munroe. Ororo told Kitty who she really was and about the X-Men, which made the teenager even more enthusiastic about attending Xavier's school.
Their conversation was cut short when they (along with Wolverine and Colossus) were attacked by armored mercenaries in the employ of Frost and the Hellfire Club. The X-Men defeated their assailants, but were subdued by the White Queen's telepathic powers immediately after. In the confusion, Kitty was separated from the X-Men, and not captured along with them. She managed to contact Cyclops, Phoenix, and Nightcrawler. With the help of Dazzler and Pryde, those X-Men rescued their teammates from the Hellfire Club.
The White Queen appeared to perish in the battle, which meant she was no longer competing with Xavier for the approval of Kitty's parents. Kitty's parents had not heard from her in more than a day, because during that time she was first being pursued by the Hellfire Club's men and then working with the X-Men to save their friends. All they knew was Kitty had left with Xavier's "students" to get a soda, there had been reports that the soda shop had been blown up, and Kitty had been missing since. Therefore, they were angry at Xavier when he finally returned with Kitty in tow. At first, it seemed like there was no chance of Kitty being allowed to attend the school and join the X-Men. Phoenix then used her considerable telepathic power to erase the memories of Kitty's parents and plant false ones, resulting in a complete shift in their attitude towards Xavier. Kitty was then allowed to enroll at Xavier's school with her parents' blessing, becoming the youngest member of the team.
Joining the X-Men
Kitty joined the X-Men, and assumed the costumed identity of Sprite. Early in her career as an X-Man, Kitty's adult self from an alternate future took possession of her body in the present to help X-Men thwart the assassination of Senator Robert Kelly by the second Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Kitty then singlehandedly defeated a N'Garai demon. Kitty also briefly attended the White Queen's Massachusetts Academy when her parents became convinced that she needed to be with students of her own age, but following a failed attempt to subdue the X-Men, Frost revoked Kitty's admission.
During her teen years, Kitty fostered a number of close relationships with others at the school and in the X-Men. She developed a crush on Colossus and became close friends with his little sister Illyana Rasputin. Initially uneasy around Nightcrawler and other mutants with physical deformities, Kitty finally overcame her fears and became close friends with him. Kitty also befriended Lockheed, a highly intelligent alien resembling a dragon, who followed her home after a mission in outer space. Lockheed is extremely loyal to Kitty, and the two of them share a psychic bond. Wolverine became something of a mentor to Kitty despite his usually gruff personality. Storm came to view Kitty as the daughter she never had.
Though Xavier has threatened to reassign Kitty to the New Mutants, a team of younger mutants he established in the absence of the X-Men, ever since the X-Men returned from outer space, she never ended up joining the group, who she derisively calls the "X-Babies". Kitty was later abducted by the Morlocks and nearly forced to wed Caliban. She was then abducted by the White Queen, but rescued by the New Mutants.
During this time, Kitty began to date Colossus, although this did not last long. Colossus developed feelings for an alien woman named Zsaji whom he met on the Beyonder's planet in the first Secret Wars. Colossus' feelings toward Zsaji were primarily a side effect of her own unique healing abilities, which she had used on him after he became injured. Regardless, Colossus' feelings were real and he returned to Earth consumed with grief after Zsaji's death. He admitted to Kitty that he loved Zsaji, which hurt her deeply and ended the budding romantic relationship. Kitty had made good friends with a local boy from Salem Central named Doug Ramsey around this time, but her feelings for him never went as deep as his for her, and they never actually dated, though they remained close, even more so after Doug's status as a mutant was revealed and he joined the New Mutants under the codename Cypher. They remained friends until his death some time later.
Ogun
During the 1984–1985 Kitty Pryde and Wolverine miniseries, Kitty is possessed by a demon, the ninja Ogun. Ogun psychically bestows upon Kitty a virtual lifetime of martial arts training. Kitty was brainwashed by Ogun into becoming a ninja assassin, and was sent to attack Wolverine. Kitty is able to resist Ogun's influence with Wolverine's help, and the two form a strong teacher/student bond, which helps them in vanquishing Ogun. Kitty returns to the X-Men, no longer the innocent girl they once knew, and officially adopts the codename Shadowcat.
Morlock Massacre
While trying to save Rogue, Kitty was badly injured by Harpoon's energy spear during the Mutant Massacre story arc, in the massacre of the Morlocks, with the result that she lost control of her power and was stuck in an intangible state and could not regain her solidity. She was rushed to Muir Island along with other surviving casualties of the Massacre to be tended to by Moira MacTaggert. MacTaggert was able to keep Kitty's condition from deteriorating to the point where she completely lost physical substance and ceased to exist, but was not able to do any more to help her.
At this time, Kitty's natural state was to be intangible. Where she once had to make a conscious effort to phase, she could now only maintain her solidity through an act of conscious will. The X-Men went to Reed Richards, Mister Fantastic of the Fantastic Four, for aid, but Richards initially refused because he was not sure he would be able to help.
Having nowhere else to go, the X-Men turned to Richards' enemy Doctor Doom. This created a moral dilemma for both the X-Men and the Fantastic Four, and both teams fought each other because the Fantastic Four were trying to stop the treatment while the X-Men were determined to save Kitty's life. In the end, both the personal crisis of the Fantastic Four and the life of Shadowcat were saved after Franklin Richards, with the help of Lockheed, brought both teams to their senses. Kitty has since recovered from this state and now has full control over her power again.
Excalibur
Among the others injured and brought to Muir Isle were Colossus and Nightcrawler, although Colossus left the United Kingdom shortly after being released from MacTaggert's care to join the rest of the X-Men on their mission to battle the Adversary. The X-Men sacrificed their lives to defeat the Adversary, the battle and their sacrifice was televised and broadcast across the world. The X-Men were resurrected later in the same issue, unknown to the world at large, but chose to keep a low profile and perpetuate the belief that they were still dead. This strategy was enforced to more effectively fight their enemies. This meant avoiding contact with friends and family, including Kitty. Thinking the X-Men were dead, Kitty and Nightcrawler joined Rachel Summers, Captain Britain, and Meggan to form the Britain-based team Excalibur. For a brief time, Kitty studied at St. Searle's School for Girls in Britain. During her time with Excalibur, Kitty developed a crush on Professor Alistaire Stuart which went unreciprocated since Alistaire was attracted to Rachel. Later, she was romantically involved with former Black Air agent Pete Wisdom. At some point Kitty was recruited by the international law enforcement agency S.H.I.E.L.D. to repair the computer system of their flying headquarters. Kitty discovered the problem was due to Ogun's spirit having infiltrated the computer system, and with the aid of Wolverine, she managed to purge Ogun's presence. During this time, Kitty was attracted to a S.H.I.E.L.D. intern her own age, and this made her begin to doubt her relationship with Wisdom. Soon after, she broke off their relationship.
Back to the X-Men
After Excalibur's dissolution, Shadowcat, Nightcrawler, and Colossus return to the X-Men. While returning, they faced a group of imposters following Cerebro, in the guise of Professor X. While tracking Mystique, she stumbles onto prophetic diaries that belonged to Irene Adler, a precognitive. During the six-month gap, Kitty visited Genosha. Whatever she experienced there is unknown (although presumably connected to her father, living on Genosha at the time), but it had a profound effect on her. She cut her hair and began to act rebelliously, also using one of Wolverine's bone claws broken off during battle as a weapon. Kitty remained with the X-Men for a while before leaving after the apparent death of Colossus. Trying to give herself a normal life, she attended the University of Chicago. During this time, her father was killed when Cassandra Nova’s Sentinels destroyed Genosha. Kitty later finds a recording of his death due to exploring footage of the attack. She is also kidnapped by William Stryker, but the X-Treme X-Men team helped her escape, and she assisted them on several missions.
At the start of Joss Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men, Kitty once again rejoins the X-Men, despite having extreme reservations about working with the former White Queen, given their history. This was the primary reason why Frost herself wanted Kitty on the team, as a sort of "safety" should Frost ever revert to type. Frost reasoned that the person who trusted her least would be most likely to spot such behavior. On one of the team's first missions, Shadowcat discovered Colossus was alive. After some initial awkwardness, Kitty and Colossus resumed dating.
Kitty Pryde appeared alongside Colossus in the "Blinded by the Light" arc in X-Men. They are the two X-Men left to look after the students while the rest of the X-Men leave for Mystique's home in Mississippi to check up on Rogue, during which they are ambushed by the Marauders. Kitty and Colossus, meanwhile, attempt to protect the students from a faction of the Marauders led by Exodus. It is revealed over the course of the story that Kitty, worried of the Destiny Diaries' safety, devised a plan with Cyclops and Emma Frost to hide them and have Emma wipe the location from her mind. The location could only be revealed by a code word spoken to Kitty. The arc concludes with a battle between Iceman and Cannonball against the Marauders for the diaries, during which they are destroyed by Gambit.
In the "Torn" arc, the latest incarnation of the Hellfire Club begin an assault on Xavier's School. Kitty fulfilled the role that Emma Frost envisioned, personally taking down Frost and imprisoning her, only to fall under a telepathic delusion created by Hellfire member Perfection, who claimed to be the true, unreformed Emma Frost. Under this delusion, Kitty was made to believe that she and Colossus had conceived a child, which was later taken away by the X-Men because its potential mutant abilities were supposedly dangerous. Kitty reacts in the delusion by attempting to rescue the child from a near-inescapable "box" in the depths of the school, unaware that in reality she is freeing an alien entity, Stuff, who contains the trapped consciousness of Cassandra Nova, the apparent ringleader of this new Hellfire Club. A newly awakened Cyclops revealed that the new Hellfire Club, including Perfection and Nova, are actually mental projections created by a piece of Cassandra Nova's consciousness; which became lodged in Emma's mind during the X-Men's last confrontation with her, playing on her survivor's guilt over the Genoshan massacre, and utilizing Emma's telepathy to both confound the X-Men and orchestrate her (Nova's) escape from the Stuff body. As Cyclops killed the mental projections, Emma tried to force Kitty to kill her to get rid of Nova. Undeterred, Cassandra Nova switched her focus to attempt to transfer her mind to Hisako Ichiki. It appears that Nova did not succeed, as the team was transported to S.W.O.R.D.'s air station en route to Ord's Breakworld for the "Unstoppable" arc that concludes Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men.
Breakworld
As the team prepares to end the confrontation with the Breakworld leader, the team splits up—with Kitty on the team appointed to stop the missile pointed at Earth. Kitty phases into the missile to disrupt its circuitry noting that it is composed of the same material as the rest of Breakworld, a material that is difficult and exhausting for her to phase through. After phasing for a mile into the missile, Kitty finds the center only to discover it empty. The missile is fired, causing Kitty to pass out inside of it as Beast discovers too late that due to its shape, trajectory, and lack of internal circuitry, the Breakworld's weapon is not a missile, but a bullet. As the bullet hurtles toward Earth, Kitty lies unconscious within it.
As the situation becomes increasingly dire, Emma establishes mental contact with Kitty, reassuring her that she will come out of this fine, though it eventually becomes clear to both that the situation will be grim. Kitty and Emma come to an understanding and reconciliation, Emma stating that she never wanted something like this to happen to her. Kitty then phases the bullet through Earth, but is trapped within. At the end of Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men, Scott Summers mentions that Doctor Strange, Reed Richards, and some "top men" tried to save her, but believe she has fused to the bullet, as it continues to hurtle through space. Whether she is alive or dead is unknown, though the X-Men consider her lost to them.
As a result of these events Kitty does not appear in the X-Men crossover event X-Men: Messiah Complex, since this takes place after the events of Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men. She is briefly mentioned in the aftermath of the Messiah Complex, by Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Wolverine, as the three of them discuss "losing her."
To cope with Kitty's loss, Colossus takes down a group of Russian criminals dealing in human trafficking, and gets a tattoo of the name 'Katya' on his chest. Emma begins having a recurring dream in which she hears a voice whom she believes is Kitty's trying to reach out to her.
It was later confirmed by Abigail Brand that Kitty Pryde was still alive within the bullet, but because the bullet's design would harden as time went on, it would become increasingly difficult to break the bullet open.
Return
After the X-Men move to the island of Utopia, Magneto arrives on the island professing his desire to join and support the X-Men in their effort to unite the world's remaining mutants. The X-Men reluctantly let him stay, remaining wary of him despite his efforts to gain their trust. In a final bid to gain their trust, Magneto focuses his powers, attempting to divert the interstellar path of the metal bullet Kitty is trapped in and bring her home to Earth. Meanwhile, inside the bullet, Kitty is revealed to still be alive. Unbeknownst to the others, Magneto had encountered the bullet earlier while attempting to regain his powers with the High Evolutionary and surmised that Kitty was inside. Despite this and the High Evolutionary's apparent ability to retrieve the bullet and Kitty, Magneto chose to focus on regaining his powers, secretly keeping tabs on the bullet until his decision to draw it back to Earth. During her time trapped inside the bullet, Kitty keeps herself and the bullet phased to avoid collisions with any inhabited objects in its path.
Magneto brings Kitty Pryde safely down to Earth by cracking the bullet in two and levitating Kitty to the ground. When she and Colossus try to touch, it is revealed that she is trapped in her intangible form, unable to speak, and the X-Men place her in a protective chamber similar to the one used for her following the events of the Mutant Massacre. How Kitty survived her time in the bullet is unclear to the X-Men's science team, where the X-Men discover that all her bodily functions halted. An analysis by Kavita Rao hypothesizes that Kitty created an intense muscle memory to keep herself and the bullet phased and has "forgotten" how to un-phase.
During a conversation with Colossus, with Emma Frost acting as the psi-conduit, Kitty picks up Emma's stray thoughts on killing the captive Sebastian Shaw, to prevent Namor from discovering she previously lied to him. While disgusted at Emma's intentions, Kitty offers a compromise. Due to her current ghost state, she is the perfect tool for making Shaw disappear.
In a storyline in Uncanny X-Men, the Breakworlders make their way to Earth. During the conflict between the Breakworlder Kr'uun and the X-Men, Kitty is slain and resurrected by Kr'uun's mate in an alien ritual, which results in her powers returning to normal.
Regenesis
Shortly thereafter, Kitty breaks up with Colossus, and decides to return with Wolverine to Westchester to open the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning. In Wolverine and the X-Men #4, she appears to be suddenly pregnant, but the pregnancy was revealed to be a Brood infestation, and it was swiftly dealt with by a team of X-Men. Since returning to Westchester, Kitty has shared several kisses with Iceman. During the events of Avengers vs. X-Men, Kitty does not take a side, but instead decides to stay at the school to work with the students. Once Bobby returned from working with the X-Men after realizing that the Phoenix had corrupted them, he and Kitty finally decide to go on a date.
All-New X-Men
After Beast brings the original five X-Men into the future to stop Cyclops in the present, Kitty volunteers to take responsibility for the temporally relocated X-Men while they work to undo this dark future. This soon puts her at odds with the rest of her team as they believed the original five should go back to their own time in order to prevent any damage to the space-time continuity. Eventually, this leads Kitty to take the decision of abandoning the school with the time-displaced X-Men and join Cyclops's X-Men at the New Xavier School. During the first few weeks at the New Xavier School, Jean Grey is abducted by the Shiar Empire to stand trial for her future self's crimes. Kitty and the time-displaced X-Men team up with the Guardians of the Galaxy and succeed in rescuing Jean from the Shiar. At the conclusion of the storyline, Kitty begins a long-distance, flirtatious relationship with Starlord, Peter Quill.
The Black Vortex
In the following weeks, Kitty's relationship with Peter Quill evolves more and more as they developed stronger feelings for each other every day. At one point, Quill gets captured during one of their dates and she has no option but to go to his rescue, despite her fear of space as a result of her being trapped on the giant space bullet. After rescuing Peter, she decides to stay in space with him. Then, Kitty convinces Peter to steal a powerful artifact called the Black Vortex from his father J'son. Soon, they find themselves being chased by J'son's assassination squad, the Slaughter Lords. In despair, they request the aid of the X-Men and the Guardians of the Galaxy to protect the Vortex. After a few of their own friends can't resist the temptation and submit to the Vortex, betray the team, and escape with the artifact; the team splits and Kitty stays in Spartax to help an orphanage. She is encased in amber after Thane (who was allied with J'son) freezes the whole planet along with the people inside it; but thanks to her phasing powers, she manages to get out of the amber. Then the Brood attacks Spartax, planning to use every encased person to lay eggs and create an army of Brood to start invading other planets and conquering them. Kitty feels the only way to stop them is by submitting to the Vortex herself as she's the only one who can resist the cosmic corruption. She reluctantly submits and becomes a being of unlimited power. After being reminded of the love between her and Peter Quill, she goes back and phases all the amber that encased Spartax, along with the Broods trying to infect the people, and sends them all to another dimension. Kitty doesn't give up the cosmic power but admits to Peter that she is afraid of it. Peter promises her that he will never abandon her no matter how much she changes. Then, Peter kneels and proposes marriage to Kitty. She, with tears in her eyes, accepts. Later when Star Lord is declared Emperor of Spartax she is told she will become the first lady of Spartax.
Guardians of the Galaxy
Kitty takes on the mantle of Star Lord and joins the Guardians of the Galaxy in Peter Quill's place so he can take on his royal duties. When Hala the Accuser massacres Spartax in an attempt to make Quill pay for J'son's actions against her people, she initially easily lays waste to the capitol and overpowers the Guardians. After the Guardians regroup and formulate a strategy to defeat her, Kitty manages to partially phase Hala into the ground so the rest of the Guardians can knock her out and separate her from her weapon. After Quill loses his title as king he and Kitty end up on a mission with the rest of the Guardians on a concentration camp prison planet owned by the Badoon after Gamora gave them information on it so they can free Angela. Once there, Kitty has a personal reaction upon seeing the prisoners and makes it her mission to liberate everyone there and defeat the captors, as it reminds her of Nazi concentration camps. After Quill gets captured and sentenced to death in an arena battle, Kitty finds and kills one of the Badoon leaders by phasing his heart out of his body. When Captain Marvel summons the Guardians to Earth to help her address Tony Stark, Kitty learns that Thanos is a prisoner on Earth and tries to convince Quill to tell Gamora. When fighting starts Kitty woefully realizes that some of her former students are on Tony Stark's side instead of fighting with Captain Marvel. During the battle the Guardians' ship was destroyed, effectively stranding them on Earth. After helping the Guardians stop Thanos from leading an invasion from the Negative Zone the Guardians are given a new ship; however, Kitty decides to stay on Earth and ends her time with the Guardians and Quill.
Leading the X-Men
Upon returning to Earth, Kitty hopes to finally regain a semblance of a normal life but ends up approached by Storm, who informs Kitty of everything the X-Men have gone through while Kitty was away. Storm announces to Kitty that she intends to step down as leader of the X-Men due to the guilt that she feels for leading the X-Men to war and offers Kitty her position. After touring X-Haven and seeing how much things have changed and how much things need to change for the better, Kitty agrees to lead the X-Men as long as Storm remains on the team. Her next act is to relocate the mansion from Limbo to Central Park, New York so the X-Men can refocus on being part of the world instead of fearing it under the belief that if the X-Men truly are to be seen as heroes, then they need to actually live in the world that they are trying to save instead of constantly worrying about their own survival.
Under Kitty's new leadership, the X-Men go through some small changes in order to shed their past history and make new names for themselves, such as convincing Rachel Summers to change her code name to Prestige and renaming the mansion as The Xavier Institute for Mutant Education and Outreach. Kitty learns first-hand how hard it is to balance leading the X-Men as well as managing the mansion when there are many political factors trying to deliberately get in the way of the X-Men. She also begins to have awkward one-on-one moments with Colossus; they try to remain friends, but given their long history their interactions swiftly become complicated. Kitty's first case as field leader of the X-Men sees her and her team taking on a new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. After discovering that an outspoken anti-mutant politician brainwashed this new Brotherhood to work for her to publicly discredit mutants, Kitty threatened to expose her if she continued exploiting mutants for her own personal gain.
Dawn of X
After Krakoa became a new sovereign nation for Mutants, Kitty Pryde, now going by Captain Kate Pryde, discovers she is the sole mutant who is, for unknown reasons, unable to use the various warp gates leading to Krakoa. It is implied that she has done something to anger Krakoa, but that restriction does not mean Kitty cannot use other means to reach the mutant homeland. She steals a boat and sets sail for the island. Kitty's time on Krakoa proves to be just as fruitless, as the island's natural resources (like flowers that grow into biome homes) are similarly prohibited to Kitty. Emma Frost comes asking Kitty to take up a special mission: taking a bigger boat out to serve as pirate captain on the X-Men's mission to liberate mutants trapped in oppressive countries that do not recognize mutant sovereignty, while also smuggling and supplying for Emma's Hellfire Trading Company the lifesaving drugs the X-Men provide to humans. Kate Pryde is later appointed the new Red Queen of the Hellfire Trading Company by Emma Frost, to the dismay of Sebastian Shaw. Seeing Pryde as an obstacle to his complete control of the Hellfire Corporation, Shaw began plotting against Kate and her crew. After taking notice how Emma became overprotective of the newly crowned Red Queen, Shaw realized that for the same reason she can't travel through Krakoa's gates nor read or understand the Krakoan language until Emma implanted it in her brain, the X-Men's Resurrection Protocols also won't apply to her, which means Kate cannot be resurrected if she died. He orchestrated a distraction by paying off human supremacists Homines Verendi to stage an attack on his own son. Once Kate was defenseless, Shaw emerged from below deck and ensnared Lockheed with a net gun, making him a helpless hostage. He then released Krakoan seeds at her feet, which wrapped around her and prevented her from using her powers. He then dropped her and Lockheed into the sea. While Lockheed was able to survive, Kate sank helplessly, and once her head dropped under the surface, she had no air left and drowned instantly. Her death is later confirmed by Bishop as he retrieves Kate's body, as it was also established that the Resurrection Protocols indeed do not apply to Kate, as the Five, for reasons unknown, cannot resurrect her. However, she is later resurrected, as Emma Frost realized that it was due to the nature of Kate's intangibility powers that her mindless body was unable to break out of the egg.
Powers and abilities
Kitty is a mutant with the ability to pass through solid matter by passing her atomic particles through the spaces between the atoms of the object through which she is moving. In this way she and the object through which she is passing can temporarily merge without interacting, and each is unharmed when Shadowcat has finished passing through the object. This process is called "phasing" or quantum tunneling and it renders her almost completely intangible to physical touch. Shadowcat passes through objects at the same speed at which she is moving before she enters them. Since she is unable to breathe while inside an object, she can only continuously phase through solid objects (as when she travels underground) as long as she can hold her breath. However, contrary depictions of the duration of her phasing ability have been presented, such as when she has phased miles within an object. The use of her abilities also interferes with any electrical systems as she passes through by disrupting the flow of electrons from atom to atom, including the bio-electric systems of living bodies if she concentrates in the right way. This typically causes machines to malfunction or be destroyed as she phases through them, and can induce shock and unconsciousness in living beings.
Using her power began as an optional ability, but for a period (over ten years of published comics, approximately two years in-continuity) Kitty existed in a naturally "phased" state, and had to consciously choose to become solid. Kitty has returned to her original form and is normally solid and must choose to use her power. While phasing, she does not physically walk on surfaces, but rather interacts with the molecules of air above them, allowing her to ascend and descend, causing her to seemingly walk on air. While phased, she is immune to most physical attacks, and has inconsistent showings of some resistance to telepathy. The density of some materials (such as adamantium) can prove deleterious to her phasing, causing her to be severely disoriented or experience pain if she tries to pass through them. Some energy attacks also prove problematic for Kitty. For example, an energy blast fired by Harpoon, a member of the Marauders, caused her to lose her ability to become fully tangible for months. Magic and magical beings can also harm her in her phased state, as demonstrated in a battle with a N'Garai demon whose claws left no visible marks, but caused Kitty severe pain as they passed through her intangible body.
Kitty can also extend her powers to phase other people and objects. She is able to phase at least six other people (or objects of similar mass) with her, so long as they establish and maintain physical contact with her. She can extend her phasing effect to her own clothing or any other object with mass up to that of a small truck, as long as she remains in contact with it. Kitty can also make objects intangible by maintaining contact with them. She has threatened to leave people phased into a wall, and used her power offensively to harm the Technarch Magus, and Danger.
Kitty's powers seem to have increased over the years. During an X-Treme X-Men story arc in which she is kidnapped by Reverend William Stryker, she phases out of sync with Earth's rotation to move from one place in the world (only east or west) to another seemingly instantaneously. At the climax of Astonishing X-Men, Kitty phases a 10 mi (16 km) long "bullet" composed of super-dense alien metals through the entire planet Earth. This feat caused her considerable strain, but she is unable to phase out of the bullet. Moreover, originally Kitty found it difficult or impossible to phase only part of her body at a time. In the Days of Future Past story arc, she is possessed by her older future self, allowing her to solidify only her shoulder while phasing the rest of her body through Destiny—a feat explicitly beyond the 13-year-old Kitty's abilities. By contrast, the Kitty Pryde of Joss Whedon's run can punch and kick someone standing on the other side of a wall, selectively phasing and unphasing body parts as necessary. She can even run and leap through an armed opponent, grabbing their weapon as she passes by, which presumably requires her to solidify only the surface area of the palms of her hands and then immediately phase both her palms and the weapon.
Besides her mutant powers, Kitty is a genius in the field of applied technology and computer science. She is highly talented in the design and use of computer hardware. She is a skilled pilot of piston and jet engine aircraft, and a competent pilot of certain advanced interstellar vehicles. She has previously shown a unique ability to wield the Soulsword and also be harmed by it. Since her possession by the ninja demon Ogun, she has been consistently shown to be an excellent hand-to-hand combatant, having since been endowed with a lifetime of training in the martial arts of Japanese ninja and samurai.
She is a professional-level dancer in both ballet and modern dance. She speaks fluent English, Japanese, Russian, and the royal and standard languages of the alien Shi'ar and Skrull, and has moderate expertise in Gaelic, Hebrew, and German.
Kitty also shares a mental/empathic connection with her pet dragon Lockheed; both she and the alien dragon can "sense" each other's presence at times and generally understand one another's thoughts and actions.
When Kitty used the Black Vortex, her powers were augmented to a cosmic scale making her a god-like being. She can phase through any material of any density and can even phase a planet out of Thane's amber, whereas in her normal state it is an extremely difficult task to simply phase herself out of the amber. She can also apparently transverse between the planes of the multiverse and is immune to the effects of space. Her appearance can be changed but her natural form appears to be rather gaseous in look.
Other versions
In addition to her mainstream incarnation, Kitty Pryde has been depicted in other fictional universes.
Age of Apocalypse
In the Age of Apocalypse reality, Kitty grows up under harsh circumstances and her nature reflects it. She has short hair, tight clothes, and chain smokes cigarettes. Her parents are killed in the Chicago Cullings, and she is forcibly recruited into Apocalypse's army, but is later rescued by Colossus. Magneto puts Shadowcat under Weapon X's training, hoping to turn her into the X-Men's assassin, and she is given a set of retractable artificial claws around each wrist to better imitate her teacher's fighting style. After the fallout between Colossus and Magneto, Shadowcat sides with Colossus, whom she has married. Instead of leaving the fight against Apocalypse altogether, the couple become the teachers of Generation Next. The two submit their trainees to harsh situations, giving them little comfort despite the fact that Shadowcat is close to the age of her students.
Shadowcat assists the team in rescuing Illyana Rasputin from the Seattle Core, and, at Colossus' behest, abandons her students after Illyana is saved. She is killed by Colossus in his ruthless obsession to protect his sister, Illyana; coming between an enraged Colossus and his endangered sister, Shadowcat never believed he would harm her.
Days of Future Past
In the Days of Future Past timeline (Earth-811), Shadowcat goes by the name Kate Pryde. Kate attempts to go back in time to prevent the assassination of Senator Robert Kelly by Mystique and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. She succeeds, only to create a separate timeline where the events of her past still come to pass. After returning to her own time Kate helps Rachel Summers escape back to the timeline she just created. Captured by Sentinels, Kate escapes by phasing through her inhibitor collar and fell into a time warp, causing her to merge with the Sentinel that was scanning her, and arrives in the timeline Rachel is inhabiting. Kate's mind settles in a small, metal, off-spherical body and becomes known as Widget. After a few adventures in that timeline, mostly in company with her Earth-616 counterpart's team Excalibur, Kate regains her memory and returns to her original timeline where she is able to reprogram the ruling Sentinels to protect life, ending their tyranny.
Earth X
In Earth X it is revealed in the appendix of issue six that Kitty Pryde is killed saving Colossus while he could not shift into his metal form. Instead of phasing the bullet through her, she heroically takes the bullet and is killed.
Exiles
A version of Kitty Pryde codenamed Cat first appeared in Exiles #96. She is younger than her Earth-616 counterpart. She has the appearance and powers of the normal Shadowcat although she wears a different costume. Prior to her joining the Exiles, this version of Kitty had been recruited by Emma Frost as one of the core agents of the Hellfire Club's strike force. She helps Psylocke defeat Doom's soldiers who have invaded the Panoptichron. She helps retrieve Blink, Morph, and Sabretooth from being scattered across the multiverse. She works as a computer expert for the team and is a full member of the Exiles.
Cat's skill with using her powers means she is not tied to any dimension and can see through various realities, including those of the mind (for instance seeing the various personalities in Sage's mind as "ghosts" surrounding her). Her arrival in the Crystal Palace and connection to its computers has increased this, giving her the ability to "cascade" through different alternative versions of herself, altering her appearance and details of her powers. Amongst other versions, she has assumed the form of a Kitty Pryde with the appearance and powers of Tigra. During the New Exiles' last mission Cat faced off against Madame Hydra (Sue Storm) and killed her at the cost of her own life.
There has been another version of Kitty that appeared in the King Hyperion story arc (Exiles #38-40). She had survived an attack on the X-Mansion by the Sentinels. The Colossus from her universe had been killed in the attack but she had the same feelings towards Weapon X's Colossus even though he was not her Colossus. The two eventually fell in love with each other. Unfortunately this did not last since she died with Colossus when they were shot into the empty vacuum of space by Hyperion.
House of M
When the Scarlet Witch altered reality in the 616 Universe, creating the reality known as House of M where mutants were the dominant population, Kitty Pryde was a teacher in a public middle school in Cincinnati, Ohio. Like many of the heroes of Earth 616, she is reminded of the true reality by Layla Miller and recruited in the fight to restore reality.
Magik
In the limited series Magik (Illyana and Storm), an alternative reality Kitty renames herself "Cat" after she is mutated by the demonic sorcerer Belasco into a more feline form, with cat eyes, whiskers, a tail, and enhanced physical abilities and senses. Trapped in Belasco's Limbo, Cat takes a militant view towards defeating the sorcerer, eschewing the magic that her reality's Storm embraces, instead turning to skills in swordplay and physical combat. She tries to save the Illyana Rasputin of Earth-616 from corruption through magic by taking Illyana into the wilderness of Limbo and teaching the child to fight and survive. Like the Kitty Pryde of Earth-616 eventually would, Cat became Illyana's best friend, but more in the role of an older sister due to the difference in their ages.
Cat's plan goes awry when the pair's attempt to confront Belasco fails, at the cost of the life of an enslaved Nightcrawler; Illyana falls under Belasco's influence and Cat is further transformed towards a feline, with a semi-animalistic mind completely loyal to Belasco. Cat is eventually slain by Illyana when Belasco sets Cat upon his rebellious apprentice; facing death at Cat's hands and knowing that, deep down, a part of Kitty still exists and hates her enslavement, Illyana broke Cat's neck in self-defense.
Long after Illyana overthrows Belasco, escapes Limbo, and becomes a member of the junior X-Men team known as the New Mutants, Cat's remains are found by the team in Limbo's throne room. By then she had completely decomposed to a skeleton. Illyana, facing a rebellion of Limbo's demon population that threatened to overrun Earth, smashed Cat's skull in rage over the demonic taint that Belasco left on her soul and frustration over the horrible choice she had to make to kill Cat.
Marvel Zombies
Kitty is briefly shown in the background as a zombie in Ultimate Fantastic Four #23, despite her mutant phasing powers. She is also seen in Marvel Zombies: Dead Days, when zombie Alpha Flight attack the X-Men. This would appear to have been retconned, though, as of Marvel Zombies: Halloween, which depicts her and her son Peter with Colossus surviving for several years in an out of the way house farm, encountering zombies, but, fortunately, being rescued by Mephisto, who dispatched the remaining zombies.
The Earth-91126/Earth-Z Kitty is recruited by Earth-2149/Marvel Zombies Spider-Man to help him develop a cure for the zombie hunger, on the grounds that her powers mean that she would be in no danger from him if he should succumb to his zombie instincts, but she is later seemingly killed when the zombie Quasar holds her underwater until she is forced to become solid once more, allowing the infected Namor to eat her flesh (much to the rage of the zombie Wolverine, of Earth-2149).
Mutant X
Storm was taken by the vampire Dracula and unlike Earth 616, she does not return. Kitty goes off to battle her, either to save or kill her. Kitty slays several vampires in the way but Storm proves too much for her and Kitty becomes her unwilling slave for some time. She later shows up as the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club and seems to be none too happy with Storm. It's also hinted that she was engaged or going to be engaged to Colossus. Her ultimate fate at the end of the series is unknown.
Lightning Force
In the reality of Earth-597, an alternative universe where World War II was won by Nazi Germany, Kitty is forced to serve as Shadowcat alongside Nightcrawler, Meggan, and Hauptmann Englande as a member of the Lightning Force (a version of Excalibur), made a virtual slave because of her Jewish heritage. She leads a sad existence and is easily identified by her shaved head and the Star of David tattooed on her forehead. It is indicated, from her own statements and those made by her reality's counterpart of Moira MacTaggert, that this Shadowcat is a true ghost, raised from the dead by a combination of science and magic and bound to serve the Nazi regime. This Shadowcat had the added ability to disrupt life force with her phasing power, knocking her victims unconscious, much like how her counterpart in the "prime" Marvel Universe (Earth-616) can disrupt technology that she phases through. She is also able to alter her facial features to a "demonic" aspect when attacking enemies or else responding to aggressive, commanding behavior from her superiors.
Pirate Kitty
Kitty tells Illyana a bedtime story and casts herself as Pirate Kitty Pryde, captain of the Abdul Alhazred, who operated in a magical world. Unlike her mainstream counterpart, she did not have any mutant powers and wore a classic pirate outfit which also included her Star of David necklace. She was also sometimes known as Colleen. Kitty was good friends of her version of Colossus, the Bamfs (Nightcrawler), Windrider (Storm), the "Fiend-with-no-name" (later revealed to be named "Mean") (Wolverine) and Lockheed (an alternative version of the X-Jet). Kitty also helped her versions of Professor X and Cyclops capture and cure that universe's version of Dark Phoenix.
At first she was only a fairy tale character, but later it is revealed that her fairy tale is actually an alternative universe. (In fact, several members of this universe, the Bamfs, would later come to Earth-616 to cause trouble.) When Earth-616's Nightcrawler was temporarily stranded in her world, Kitty helped him defeat the sorcerer Shagreen and also encountered the Earth-616 versions of Illyana, Lockheed, and herself.
Professor W's X-Men
In the native universe of the Exiles member Nocturne, Kitty is a senior member of the X-Men led by Nightcrawler. She is a teacher and TJ refers to her as "Aunt Kate". During a fight with Apocalypse Kitty gets exposed to a machine that reverts her to a younger stage of her life when she had only been with the X-Men a few weeks. Nocturne helps Kitty fit into the school and becomes her best friend. She also proves useful in the fight against the Brotherhood led by Cyclops.
Ruins
Imprisoned alongside other mutants at a prison camp in Texas by President X, Kitty attempted to use her phasing powers to escape, only to get stuck halfway through her cell door, losing three feet of intestines in the process.
Secret Wars (2015)
During the Secret Wars storyline, a version of Kitty named Kitten resides in the wuxia-inspired K'un-L'un region of Battleworld. In this reality, Kitten is a martial artist who joins Callisto's band of outcasts after being expelled from her school for attempting a forbidden technique, a side effect of which left her intangible. Kitten and her fellow outcasts became pupils of Shang-Chi, the exiled son of Emperor Zheng Zu. Dubbing their new school The Lowest Caste, Shang-Chi represents the group as their master for the tournament deciding the next Emperor of K'un-L'un, hoping to usurp his father's tyrannical rule. Kitten accompanies Shang-Chi for each of his fights in the Thirteen Chambers. During his final fight with Zu, Shang-Chi uses Kitten's technique of intangibility, which leads to his eventual victory and replaces his father as the new Emperor of K'un-L'un.
Ultimate Marvel
The Ultimate version of Shadowcat (Kitty Pryde) first appears as a 14-year-old girl in Ultimate X-Men #21. She is also Jewish and wears the Star of David around her neck, but does not appear to possess the same genius IQ as her mainstream (Earth-616) counterpart.
Kitty's mother, worried about Kitty's mutation, seeks help from Professor Charles Xavier. Kitty becomes a student at Xavier's school, when her mother allows her to attend under the condition she does not take part in any X-Men missions, nor train in any "Danger Room" simulations. Kitty soon rebels against this and joins the X-Men as their youngest member. She idolizes Spider-Man and has a crush on him; she even dates Peter Parker for a time. After a fierce argument with Professor Xavier concerning Peter's secret identity, which his Aunt May had just found out about, Kitty leaves the X-Men and enrolls in Peter's school. Their relationship is strained after their romantic involvement (as superheroes) becomes publicly known, making it impossible for them to date anymore in their civilian identities, and eventually comes to an end when Peter realizes he cannot get over his feelings for Mary Jane. However, Kitty still retains strong feelings for him.
Following the disastrous flood triggered by Magneto and the subsequent ban of public use of mutant powers, Kitty assumes the identity of the Shroud. Kitty also discovers that she can also decrease the space between her atoms make herself super-dense, giving her both superhuman strength and durability. When the authorities see Kitty as a threat, she enters into a fierce rage and demonstrates these powers for the first time to her friends. She is strong and angry enough to punch Spider-Man several feet through the air. She eventually escapes and goes into hiding in the now abandoned Morlock Tunnel with Iceman and the Human Torch after Peter Parker's death.
Kitty makes an appearance in Ultimate Comics: X, locating Jimmy Hudson, who is revealed to be Wolverine's son. Kitty was charged by Logan before his death to locate Jimmy and reveal his true origins to him.
After the death of Spider-Man she formed new team of X-Men consisting of herself, Iceman and the Human Torch. They soon rescued the mutant Rogue from the mutant-hunting Nimrod robots, going on to recruit Jimmy Hudson into their group as well. After killing the mutant-hunting William Stryker, Kitty decided to leave New York for the Southwest along with Bobby, Rogue, and Jimmy (leaving only Johnny behind) in order to save the mutants there and defeat the Nimrods, now controlled by the deceased Stryker's consciousness.
Spider-Gwen
In the reality where Gwen Stacy is Spider-Woman, Kitty is an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Black Ops department, where she works closely with Wolverine to keep him in check and to help him fight his immortal curse. Like the Age of Apocalypse version, she also wields artificial claws on her wrists. It's revealed that she works with Logan out of guilt, as Stryker forced her to use her powers to subject Logan to the Weapon X experiment.
What If
In What if Phoenix Had Not Died, Kitty is obliterated by Dark Phoenix before she destroyed the Earth.
In What If the X-Men had Lost Inferno?, Kitty is one of the last eight remaining superheroes on the planet. She is slain by a demonic Wolverine, but her death makes Wolverine come to his senses and he fights against Baron Mordo, who had joined up with the demon hordes.
In What If... Wolverine: Enemy of the State, Kitty is the only hero left to kill a Hydra-programmed Wolverine after he has taken down the Marvel Universe. Kitty was the last remaining member of the team assembled to recapture Wolverine. The initial plan failed and Kitty was forced to phase her hand into Wolverine's brain. She then solidified her hand killing Wolverine instantly although she lost her hand in the process.
In What if Magneto and Professor X Had Formed The X-Men Together, Kitty is the tech guru at the Good Shepard clinic (That reality's version of the X-Mansion). She is very similar to her mainstream counterpart. But unlike the mainstream version this Kitty Pryde would wear different coloured wigs and cut her natural hair short. She also had trouble with her powers since she would phase herself through a solid object and accidentally leave her clothes behind. She was also friends with Lockheed although she only called him Dragon.
In What if Astonishing X-Men, Kitty is amongst the X-Men who fight a Phoenix powered Emma Frost. She phased Emma's heart from her chest but a Phoenix fire flares up from her body killing Kitty instantly. In the second story during the events of Astonishing X-Men #6-#12 Elixir had not been able to heal Kitty after being impaled and she dies.
In "What if the Dark Phoenix Rose Again", Kitty has Colossus "set up a fastball special" to help her phase into a Master Mold. She is killed after solidifying inside the Master Mold's head destroying it in the process.
In What if Storm Had the Power of the Phoenix, Kitty helps revive the 'real' Storm (the Phoenix being the cosmic entity in Storm's shape) by phasing inside her body and getting her internal organs working again.
X-Babies
An X-Baby version of Shadowcat appears briefly in the X-Babies one-shot comic. She is wearing her original costume and is younger than the other X-Babies. She is named as Shadowkitty rather than Shadowcat or Kitty Pryde. She also doesn't seem to have a strong bond with the X-Baby version of Lockheed.
X-Men Forever
In the X-Men Forever series, Kitty and Nightcrawler have left Excalibur and rejoined the X-Men after the events of X-Men #1-3. Of the X-Men, she undergoes the most drastic changes from the events of X-Men Forever #1. During the battle with Fabian Cortez, she phases through Wolverine while he is being affected by Cortez's power. This drives her powers haywire as well, and somehow she ends up with one of Wolverine's claws in her wrist. Claremont has also hinted in dialogue throughout the title so far that she may have also undergone psychological or psychic changes as a result of the event. From Forever #4 to the current issue, she is shown to be able to use the claw in the exact method Wolverine would manifest it, with no apparent ill effects (the mechanism for this has not yet been made clear) outside of excruciating pain. Because of the merger with Logan's DNA she has begun to develop a healing factor, slower than Wolverine's but it heals faster when she is intangible. She has also slightly enhanced senses, she also can produce a set of five retractable claws on her left hand like Sabretooth. She has also begun to take on Logan's personality and memories as well. And because of this she is beginning to wonder what part of her truly remains the same.
X-Men: Misfits
In the X-Men: Misfits original English language manga one-shot graphic novel from Marvel and DelRay, Kitty is the newest and only female student of the all-male Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters, which is now experimenting with having a co-ed student body. As the sole girl, she becomes the center of attention and attraction for the rest of the students. She becomes a member and the mascot of the elitist fraternity, The Hellfire Club, and has a short-lived romantic relationship with the school troublemaker Pyro.
X-Men: The End
In the X-Men: The End future, Kitty Pryde becomes the mayor of Chicago and then President of the United States. She has three children: her eldest daughter, named Meredith, and twins 10 years younger than Meredith, Sara and Doug, with an unnamed partner who died protecting her from an assassination attempt.
Miscellaneous
In Excalibur #103, we see many alternative versions of Shadowcat. Many of these variations have appeared in other comics, such as Age of Apocalypse, but there were other variations, including one of her as a Phalanx convert, a sex dominatrix, a homeless person, a nun, a version wearing a costume similar to Phantom Girl, and a normal person who owns an Olde Curiosity Shoppe.
In New Mutants #63 Illyana (Magik), along with Lockheed, gets trapped on an alien spaceship that has been invaded by a Brood Queen. On this ship the Brood Queen created clones of the X-Men, including Kitty. This one had the Ariel suit on, but it was green, instead of the typical blue. These X-Men are implanted with Brood eggs. Her memories were altered by the Brood Queen like the other X-Men, but eventually they rebel against her and are free. Illyana uses the soulsword to eliminate the Brood Eggs from their bodies. The X-Men stay on the ship; whether they are still on it is unknown.
During the Cross Time Caper storyline a few different appearances of Kitty appear. One was a princess who was gifted with magic abilities. She eventually married a short dashing prince (who had originally fallen in love with the mainstream version of Kitty). A second version was a crime boss who was betrayed and killed by her partner in crime Illiyana Rasputin. A third was from a world of sentient dinosaurs. She went by the name of Shadowcompsognathus.
Collected editions
Several of Kitty Pryde's earlier adventures were collected in paperback form.
In other media
Music
Kitty Pryde is referenced in Weezer's song "In the Garage" from their "Blue Album".
Television
Kitty Pryde appeared as Sprite in "The X-Men Adventure" episode of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, which guest-starred the X-Men. She was voiced by Melissa Sue Anderson. She also appeared in her short-lived "Ariel" costume in the X-Men group cameo at the end of the episode "The Education of a Superhero".
Kitty Pryde (voiced by Kath Soucie) was a viewpoint character in the animated television one-shot Pryde of the X-Men, as the newest member of the team. She is a new recruit of the team and is initially frightened of Nightcrawler, due to his demonic appearance. She and Nightcrawler later succeed in defeating Magneto. Once Nightcrawler seemingly dies as a result of having apparently sacrificed himself, Kitty begins to cry until discovering that he is alive and is met with positive relations by her teammates, except Wolverine. As the pilot was a failure, and the character had lost prominence in comics at the time, she was not used in the next X-Men TV series, not even in cameos. Jubilee replaced her as the young viewpoint character, and in the adaptations of stories that involved her.
In the animated series X-Men: Evolution, Shadowcat is a main character, who is shown as the teenybopper of the team and who has a romantic interest in Brotherhood member Lance Alvers. Shadowcat saves Wolverine in the season one episode "Grim Reminder", where she unintentionally stows away with Nightcrawler while on the Blackbird without the knowledge that he was beginning to pilot the jet. She is also shown to have developed a close friendship with Nightcrawler, despite the fact that she at first displayed a dislike for his appearance. Besides Nightcrawler, she is shown to have formed a friendship with Rogue and Spyke. Her initial dislike of his appearance changes after he is severely wounded by Rogue, while she and the rest of the X-Men tried to recruit her. In this series, she does not have Lockheed for a pet, but she is shown preferring to sleep with a stuffed dragon instead of a teddy bear. Though she has an on-and-off interest in the delinquent mutant boy Lance Alvers, early in the series she displays interest in Cyclops. After Rogue is recruited, she serves as her support in beginning a romantic relationship with Scott and develops a friendship with her, despite their differences. When Avalanche tries to join the X-Men in the season two episode "Joyride", she tries to help him and shows additional attraction to him as she grades him and the other members of the junior team. After he informs her that some members of the group have started a joyride on the Blackbird and helps her avert catastrophe, she staunchly defends him once he is accused by Cyclops of being responsible. When Avalanche starts to leave, Shadowcat gives him a brief kiss before his departure. Their relationship continues with the two of them going to a school dance, talking on the phone and going to the mall. Despite being with the Brotherhood, Avalanche tries to protect Kitty in the fight against the Scarlet Witch. In season 3, Kitty and Lance's relationship briefly ends after the Brotherhood and Mystique blow up the X Mansion and are in part responsible for the exposure of mutants. Kitty calls Lance a "hood" after he attacks the high school and he says "he will never be good enough for her". Both look sad at these comments. In the fourth season, the X-Men try to use her powers to damage one of Apocalypse's domes and fails, instead being electrocuted briefly. In the fiftieth episode of the series, entitled "Ghost of a Chance", she comes across Danielle Moonstar once she depicts herself in a dream sequence to her. Once she wakes out of it, she tries to and successfully finds her, becoming friends with the girl after learning she had been in suspended animation for two years. Prior to this, it is discovered that her fear is phasing repeatedly into the ground and going further without any control of where she is going. Shadowcat plays a key role in the defeat of Apocalypse and asks the Brotherhood for help. They come to her aid; as Lance and Kitty resume their romantic relationship. Of the six main X-Men from the first season of the series, she is one of the four that is still a member of the team in the future Charles Xavier saw while in the mind of Apocalypse. Shadowcat was voiced by Maggie Blue O'Hara.
Shadowcat appears in Wolverine and the X-Men, voiced by Danielle Judovits and was a student at the Xavier Institute before the destruction of the X-Mansion and disappearance of Professor X. When Wolverine reformed the X-Men to take down the Mutant Response Division and save the dismal future controlled by the Sentinels, Kitty was on her way to the "mutant paradise" Genosha. The X-Men came to re-recruit her and she immediately rejoined the team. Shadowcat appears as the youngest member of the team and she seems to have a crush on Iceman as she is jealous when his attention is taken by Emma Frost and is shown with a love-struck face when she lands on Bobby during a Danger Room training session, though she quickly moves away from him when Angel arrives. She seems to have formed a friendship with Tildie Soames after babysitting her in one episode. In the last episode of the series, she uses her powers to penetrate a Sentinel controlled by Magneto, of which Beast had difficulty with. Her design is inspired by the appearance of the character in the Astonishing X-Men comics, and her costume emulates the design with the appearance of the blue and yellow used on her costume. The shorts she wears are based on the appearances of the original X-Men, and her first appearance when she wore a variant of the uniform.
Shadowcat appears in The Super Hero Squad Show episode "And Lo...A Pilot Shall Come". She appears alongside Colossus at the unveiling of the Great Wall that separates Super Hero City from Villainville and helping citizens into the S.H.I.E.L.D. Shelters. In the episode "Mysterious Mayhem at Mutant Academy", she uses Lockheed to chase Reptil and the hypnotized X-Men out of the girls' bathroom.
Motion comics
Shadowcat appears in the Astonishing X-Men motion comic, voiced by Eileen Stevens and later by Laura Harris.
Film
In the film X-Men, she has a small cameo, played by Sumela Kay. She is referenced as the "girl in Illinois who can walk through walls" by Senator Kelly. She is shown in Xavier's class when Wolverine walks in; she returns for her books which she had left behind, grabs them, and phases through the door on her way out. Xavier responds with a cheerful "Bye, Kitty" while Wolverine looks on, startled.
In X2, she has a brief appearance played by Katie Stuart. She is shown phasing through walls and through people to escape William Stryker's military forces during their attack on the X-Mansion. Another scene shows her falling through her bed to avoid an assault. She shares a room with Siryn; in the novelization it is stated that this is because her phasing ability gives her partial protection from Siryn's scream. When the President of the United States asks Professor Xavier how he got the files he gave him, Xavier replies that he knows a little girl who can walk through walls.
In X-Men: The Last Stand, she is portrayed by a pre-transition Elliot Page, and has a central role. She serves as a rival to Rogue for the romantic attentions of Iceman, since their close friendship and their kiss (deleted scene) make Rogue increasingly jealous and frustrated. She also joins the X-Men in the battle on Alcatraz Island, breaking off from the battle to save Leech from the Juggernaut. In the novelization of the film, it is hinted that at some point Kitty had a romantic relationship with Colossus, but that it had long since run its course, although Colossus appears to still retain feelings towards her.
Page reprised the role in X-Men: Days of Future Past. Pryde is the prime facilitator because she has developed a new power. In this film, she can send the consciousness of another person back into his or her body in the past. At the beginning of the film, she has been using this ability to repeatedly send Bishop four days back in time whenever the Sentinels attack, thus; preventing her group from ever engaging them by having him warn the past team before they are detected. In order to prevent the Sentinels' creation, she sends Wolverine back to 1973 (chosen as the strain of sending someone else back that far would snap their mind, with Logan's healing factor the only thing that makes such a trip survivable for him) and was gravely injured when Wolverine becomes violent; due to provocation from events in 1973. After the timeline was successfully altered, Kitty is seen teaching a class at the X-Mansion with Colossus. In the film's alternate release, called The Rogue Cut, Kitty's injuries from sending Wolverine back to the past result in the X-Men rescuing Rogue to take over for her. Rogue absorbs Kitty's powers and takes over, stabilizing Wolverine and Kitty helps Magneto flee a Sentinel attack.
In January 2018, a Kitty Pryde solo movie was announced to be in development, with Tim Miller attached as the director and Brian Michael Bendis as the writer, but in March 2019, after Disney's purchase of 21st Century Fox, Fox executive Emma Watts described The New Mutants as the final film in the X-Men series, thus; ending the development of the Kitty Pryde film.
Video games
Kitty Pryde appears in Konami's 1992 X-Men video arcade game, as a non-playable character (NPC). In this game, she is not known as "Sprite"; instead, she plays the "damsel in distress" role as it is based on "Pryde of the X-Men". In the 2010 re-release of the game she is voiced by Mela Lee.
Shadowcat is a playable character in the game X-Men II: The Fall of the Mutants.
Shadowcat appears as an NPC in the X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, voiced by Kim Mai Guest. She has special dialogue with Colossus (who she scolds for flirting with Scarlet Witch).
Shadowcat appears in X-Men: The Official Game, with Kim Mai Guest reprising her role.
Shadowcat is a playable character in Marvel Super Hero Squad Online, voiced by Tara Strong.
In X-Men: Destiny, Gambit mentions that the U-Men had captured Kitty and extracted bits of her power. Gambit obtains a vial of a substance which temporarily lets the character fall through the roof (if the player chose the correct option).
Kitty Pryde is a playable character in the Facebook game Marvel: Avengers Alliance.
Kitty Pryde is a playable character in the X-Men: Days of Future Past app game.
Kitty Pryde is a playable character in the online MMO Marvel Heroes, with Danielle Judovits reprising her role.
Kitty Pryde appears as a playable character in Marvel Future Fight.
Kitty Pryde appears as a playable character in Marvel Puzzle Quest.
Kitty Pryde appears as a playable character in Marvel Strike Force.
Novels
Kitty Pryde appears in the X-Men/Star Trek crossover novel Planet X. In it, she is examined by Geordi La Forge, who notes the similarities between her ability and the chroniton displacement he and Ro Laren experienced in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Next Phase".
Reception
Kitty Pryde has been well received as a comic book character and as a member of the X-Men. Wizard magazine put her at number #13 in 200 Greatest Comic Characters of All Time. She was the highest female comic character in the list beating rivals such as Wonder Woman, Buffy Summers, and She-Hulk. IGN ranked her as the 47th greatest comic book hero of all time stating that "as X-Men writers have often found it useful to introduce younger teen recruits to offset the experienced members of the team, Kitty Pryde set the standard when she debuted, and none have surpassed her". IGN rated Kitty Pryde #3 on its list of the Top 25 X-Men from the Past 40 Years describing her as the mutant everyman, the common girl turned superhero; IGN also stated that as her pet dragon, Lockheed, "became instantly attached to Kitty, [they] were hooked early on". Marvel.com ranked her as the tenth greatest X-Men member stating that "unquestionably, the dynamic of the X-Men shifted entirely when teenage whiz kid Kitty Pryde joined the team in the early 1980s"; Marvel.com also stated that even though Kitty has since blossomed into a young woman of considerable maturity and power, she remains the access point to the X-Men for countless readers. A later list on Marvel's website, ranking the top 50 X-Men characters, placed her in first place, citing the ease of identifying with her for the audience, and her development over the years.
Notes
References
External links
Kitty Pryde at Marvel.com
UncannyXmen.net Spotlight on Shadowcat
American superheroes
Characters created by Chris Claremont
Characters created by John Byrne (comics)
Comics characters introduced in 1980
Excalibur (comics)
Female characters in animation
Female characters in film
Female characters in television
Fictional American Jews in comics
Fictional bisexual females
Fictional characters from Illinois
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Teenage characters in comics
X-Men members | true | [
"María José Maza (born October 9, 1990 in Guayaquil) is a model and beauty pageant contestant.\n\nBiography\n\nEarly life\nShe was born in Guayaquil, María José speaks Spanish and English, and she is graduated Engineering in Sales Administration at Universidad Católica de Santiago de Guayaquil.\n\nPageantry\n\nMiss Ecuador 2011 \nMaza competed in Miss Ecuador 2011 where she was a favorite but at the end of final night she was unplaced.\n\nMiss Bikini International 2011 \nAs Miss Ecuador 2011's contestant she was designed by Miss Ecuador Organization the represent to the country at Miss Bikini International 2011 where she was on top 12 in Qingdao, China. 94 countries participated.\n\nMiss Panamerican 2013 \nShe was the Ecuadorian represent to Miss Panamerican International 2013 in Los Angeles, California, USA, and she won the second crown to Ecuador.\n\nMiss Caraibes Hibiscus 2013 \nIn 2013 she was designed to represent Ecuador in Miss Caraibes Habicus 2013 in Saint Maarten where she placed as 2nd Runner-up.\n\nMiss Earth Ecuador 2014 \nShe was designated on August, 2014 by José Hidalgo, the director of Miss Earth Ecuador, as the national representative to compete in Miss Earth 2014.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial Miss Ecuador website\n\n1990 births\nLiving people\nEcuadorian beauty pageant winners\nEcuadorian people of Spanish descent\nMiss Earth 2014 contestants\nEcuadorian female models\n21st-century Ecuadorian women",
"Lidia Lwow-Eberle nom de guerre \"Ewa\" (14 November 1920 – 5 January 2021) was a Russian born Polish nationalist and paramedic. She was arrested by the communist authorities and she was imprisoned \"for life\". She later married and became an archaeologist.\n\nLife\nLwow-Eberle was born in the Russian town of Plyos in 1920. Her parents were Barbara (born Tuganove) and Leon Lvov. In 1921 her family moved to Poland where her father taught in a secondary school. In time her father became an agronomist. After 1930 her family moved again where her father worked near Vilnius. She graduated in 1939 when she got to know Janina Wasałojć and Zygmunt Szendzielarz.\n\nBy 1943 she was part of a unit commanded by Antoni Burzynski where she was known as \"Ewa\". The unit was captured and some of the force were killed. Although she was born a Russian, this was not important at the time. The important point was that she was working to create a Polish state.\n\nDuring the war she served as a paramedic in one unit who were captured and then she joined her friend Janina Wasałojć as a nurse in the Home Army 5th Wilno Brigade which was commanded by another acquaintance Major Zygmunt Szendzielarz. She rose to be a second lieutenant after fighting the Germans near Worziany in 1944 and then three days later a Soviet partisan group. She was wounded in the battle with the Germans. In February 1945, Major Szendzielarz's wife died and after that time he became her partner. \n\nThey were both arrested by the communist authorities. They were arrested on 30 June 1948. She was in Osielec when she was arrested and the others arrested included and his wife , Captain Henryk Borowski and Lt. Col. Antoni Olechnowicz. She was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1950 and Major Szendzielarz was sentenced to death. He was killed on 9 February 1951 in Mokotów Prison. \n\nShe and Wanda Czarnecka-Minkiewicz were released in 1956 and she set out on a new career as an archaeologist. She married a historian Jan Eberle in 1961 and she graduated in archaeoloogy in 1962. She worked at the Museum of Warsaw taking credit for setting up the Museum of the Guild of Leather-based Crafts.\n\nIn 2013 it was announced that the authorities had discovered unmarked graves in \"Meadows in Powązki\" in Warsaw. Amongst them was her post war partner who was identified using DNA comparisons with his close relatives.\n\nLwow-Eberle died in Warsaw aged 100 years old on 5 January 2021. Her military funeral was in Warsaw on 22 January at the Powązki Military Cemetery.\n\nReferences\n\n1920 births\n2021 deaths\nPeople from Privolzhsky District, Ivanovo Oblast\nPolish archaeologists\nPolish centenarians\nHome Army members\nPolish women in World War II resistance\nBurials at Powązki Military Cemetery"
] |
[
"Kitty Pryde",
"Fictional character biography",
"How did Kitty Pryde get her superpowers?",
"Kitty started to have headaches at age thirteen, signaling the emergence of her mutant powers.",
"Where was she born?",
"Katherine Anne \"Kitty\" Pryde was born in Deerfield, Illinois, to Carmen and Theresa Pryde."
] | C_fee4a42a8e0247dca5e9a34ebd4a2c3d_0 | How did she meet the X-men? | 3 | How did Kitty Pryde meet the X-men? | Kitty Pryde | Katherine Anne "Kitty" Pryde was born in Deerfield, Illinois, to Carmen and Theresa Pryde. Of Jewish descent, her paternal grandfather, Samuel Prydeman, was held in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. Kitty started to have headaches at age thirteen, signaling the emergence of her mutant powers. She was approached by both the X-Men's Charles Xavier and the Hellfire Club's White Queen, Emma Frost, both of whom hoped to recruit her for their respective causes. Kitty was unnerved by Frost, observing that the White Queen looked at her as if she were "something good to eat." She got along better with Xavier and the three X-Men who escorted him, quickly becoming friends with Ororo Munroe. Ororo told Kitty who she really was and about the X-Men, which made the teenager even more enthusiastic about attending Xavier's school. Their conversation was cut short when they (along with Wolverine and Colossus) were attacked by armored mercenaries in the employ of Frost and the Hellfire Club. The X-Men defeated their assailants, but were subdued by the White Queen's telepathic powers immediately after. In the confusion, Kitty was separated from the X-Men, and not captured along with them. She managed to contact Cyclops, Phoenix, and Nightcrawler. With the help of Dazzler and Pryde, those X-Men rescued their teammates from the Hellfire Club. The White Queen appeared to perish in the battle, which meant she was no longer competing with Xavier for the approval of Kitty's parents. Kitty's parents had not heard from her in more than a day, because during that time she was first being pursued by the Hellfire Club's men and then working with the X-Men to save their friends. All they knew was Kitty had left with Xavier's "students" to get a soda, there had been reports that the soda shop had been blown up, and Kitty had been missing since. Therefore, they were angry at Xavier when he finally returned with Kitty in tow. At first, it seemed like there was no chance of Kitty being allowed to attend the school and join the X-Men. Phoenix then used her considerable telepathic power to erase the memories of Kitty's parents and plant false ones, resulting in a complete shift in their attitude towards Xavier. Kitty was then allowed to enroll at Xavier's school with her parents' blessing, becoming the youngest member of the team. CANNOTANSWER | She was approached by both the X-Men's Charles Xavier and the Hellfire Club's White Queen, | Katherine Anne "Kitty" Pryde is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, commonly in association with the X-Men. The character first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #129 (January 1980) and was co-created by writer-artist John Byrne and Chris Claremont.
A mutant, Pryde possesses a "phasing" ability that allows her, as well as objects or people she is in contact with, to become intangible. This power also disrupts any electrical field she passes through, and lets her simulate levitation.
The youngest to join the X-Men, she was first portrayed as a "kid sister" to many older members of the group, filling the role of literary foil to the more established characters. She occasionally used the codenames Sprite and Ariel, cycling through several uniforms until settling for her trademark black-and-gold costume. During the miniseries Kitty Pryde and Wolverine, she was renamed Shadowcat, the alias she would be most associated with, and shifted to a more mature depiction in her subsequent appearances. Pryde would eventually abandon her nickname, "Kitty", and switch to "Kate". She was one of the main cast of characters depicted in the original Excalibur title. After momentarily joining the Guardians of the Galaxy, she assumed her then-fiancé's superhero identity as the Star-Lord (Star-Lady). As of the series Marauders, she is now informally known as Captain Kate Pryde and the Red Queen of the Hellfire Trading Company.
In the X-Men film series, Kitty Pryde was initially portrayed by young actresses in cameos; Sumela Kay in X-Men (2000) and Katie Stuart in X2 (2003). Later, a pre-transition Elliot Page portrayed the character in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) and X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) in full-length appearances. Pryde is ranked #47 in IGN's Top 100 Comic Book Heroes.
Publication history
Kitty Pryde was introduced into the X-Men title as the result of an editorial dictate that the book was supposed to depict a school for mutants. Uncanny X-Men artist John Byrne named Kitty Pryde after a classmate he met in art school, Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary in 1973. He had told Pryde he liked her name and asked for permission to use it, promising to name his first original comics character after her. Byrne drew the character to slightly resemble an adolescent Sigourney Weaver.
The fictional Kitty Pryde first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #129 (January 1980), by writer Chris Claremont and artist Byrne, as a highly intelligent 13-year-old girl. Claremont said several elements of the character's personality were derived from those of X-Men editor Louise Simonson's daughter, Julie. Claremont and Byrne made the new character a full-fledged X-Man in issue #139, where she was codenamed "Sprite". She was the main character in issues #141–142, the "Days of Future Past" storyline, where she is possessed by her older self, whose consciousness time travels to the past to prevent a mass extermination of mutants. The six-issue miniseries Kitty Pryde and Wolverine (1984–1985), written by Claremont, is a coming-of-age storyline in which she matures from a girl to a young woman, adopting the new name "Shadowcat".
In the late 1980s, Kitty joined the British-based super team, Excalibur, where she remained for roughly ten years before coming back to the X-Men. In the early 2000s, she disappeared from the spotlight after semi-retiring from superhero work. She was featured in the 2002 mini-series Mekanix and came back to the main X-Men books in 2004 under the pen of Joss Whedon in Astonishing X-Men. She remained a part of the X-Men books until 2008 when she left again for roughly 2 years. After coming back, she was featured in Jason Aaron's Wolverine and the X-Men and Brian Michael Bendis' All-New X-Men books.
In early 2015, she joined the Guardians of the Galaxy. After the Secret Wars event, she adopted her new alias, Star-Lord (first believed to be Star-Lady).
In 2020, Kitty Pryde was revealed to be bisexual. Her co-creator, Chris Claremont, had always intended this to be the case, considering Rachel Summers as a possible love interest for Pryde. However, Claremont wasn't allowed to show this at the time due to censorship, as he revealed on the "Xplain the X-Men" podcast in 2016.
Shadowcat's popularity had a profound effect on the real-life Kitty Pryde: the latter became so overwhelmed by attention from Shadowcat fans, she abbreviated her name to K.D. Pryde to avoid association with her fictional counterpart. She has since stated she has mixed feelings about her fame, saying she values Byrne's comics for their entertainment and artistic value, but wishes more people would appreciate her as more than just Shadowcat's namesake.
Fictional character biography
Katherine Anne "Kitty" Pryde was born in Deerfield, Illinois, to Carmen and Theresa Pryde. She is an Ashkenazi Jewish-American and her paternal grandfather, Samuel Prydeman, was held in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. Kitty started to have headaches at age thirteen, signaling the emergence of her mutant powers. She was approached by both the X-Men's Charles Xavier and the Hellfire Club's White Queen, Emma Frost, both of whom hoped to recruit her for their respective causes. Kitty was unnerved by Frost, observing that the White Queen looked at her as if she were "something good to eat." She got along better with Xavier and the three X-Men who escorted him, quickly becoming friends with Ororo Munroe. Ororo told Kitty who she really was and about the X-Men, which made the teenager even more enthusiastic about attending Xavier's school.
Their conversation was cut short when they (along with Wolverine and Colossus) were attacked by armored mercenaries in the employ of Frost and the Hellfire Club. The X-Men defeated their assailants, but were subdued by the White Queen's telepathic powers immediately after. In the confusion, Kitty was separated from the X-Men, and not captured along with them. She managed to contact Cyclops, Phoenix, and Nightcrawler. With the help of Dazzler and Pryde, those X-Men rescued their teammates from the Hellfire Club.
The White Queen appeared to perish in the battle, which meant she was no longer competing with Xavier for the approval of Kitty's parents. Kitty's parents had not heard from her in more than a day, because during that time she was first being pursued by the Hellfire Club's men and then working with the X-Men to save their friends. All they knew was Kitty had left with Xavier's "students" to get a soda, there had been reports that the soda shop had been blown up, and Kitty had been missing since. Therefore, they were angry at Xavier when he finally returned with Kitty in tow. At first, it seemed like there was no chance of Kitty being allowed to attend the school and join the X-Men. Phoenix then used her considerable telepathic power to erase the memories of Kitty's parents and plant false ones, resulting in a complete shift in their attitude towards Xavier. Kitty was then allowed to enroll at Xavier's school with her parents' blessing, becoming the youngest member of the team.
Joining the X-Men
Kitty joined the X-Men, and assumed the costumed identity of Sprite. Early in her career as an X-Man, Kitty's adult self from an alternate future took possession of her body in the present to help X-Men thwart the assassination of Senator Robert Kelly by the second Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Kitty then singlehandedly defeated a N'Garai demon. Kitty also briefly attended the White Queen's Massachusetts Academy when her parents became convinced that she needed to be with students of her own age, but following a failed attempt to subdue the X-Men, Frost revoked Kitty's admission.
During her teen years, Kitty fostered a number of close relationships with others at the school and in the X-Men. She developed a crush on Colossus and became close friends with his little sister Illyana Rasputin. Initially uneasy around Nightcrawler and other mutants with physical deformities, Kitty finally overcame her fears and became close friends with him. Kitty also befriended Lockheed, a highly intelligent alien resembling a dragon, who followed her home after a mission in outer space. Lockheed is extremely loyal to Kitty, and the two of them share a psychic bond. Wolverine became something of a mentor to Kitty despite his usually gruff personality. Storm came to view Kitty as the daughter she never had.
Though Xavier has threatened to reassign Kitty to the New Mutants, a team of younger mutants he established in the absence of the X-Men, ever since the X-Men returned from outer space, she never ended up joining the group, who she derisively calls the "X-Babies". Kitty was later abducted by the Morlocks and nearly forced to wed Caliban. She was then abducted by the White Queen, but rescued by the New Mutants.
During this time, Kitty began to date Colossus, although this did not last long. Colossus developed feelings for an alien woman named Zsaji whom he met on the Beyonder's planet in the first Secret Wars. Colossus' feelings toward Zsaji were primarily a side effect of her own unique healing abilities, which she had used on him after he became injured. Regardless, Colossus' feelings were real and he returned to Earth consumed with grief after Zsaji's death. He admitted to Kitty that he loved Zsaji, which hurt her deeply and ended the budding romantic relationship. Kitty had made good friends with a local boy from Salem Central named Doug Ramsey around this time, but her feelings for him never went as deep as his for her, and they never actually dated, though they remained close, even more so after Doug's status as a mutant was revealed and he joined the New Mutants under the codename Cypher. They remained friends until his death some time later.
Ogun
During the 1984–1985 Kitty Pryde and Wolverine miniseries, Kitty is possessed by a demon, the ninja Ogun. Ogun psychically bestows upon Kitty a virtual lifetime of martial arts training. Kitty was brainwashed by Ogun into becoming a ninja assassin, and was sent to attack Wolverine. Kitty is able to resist Ogun's influence with Wolverine's help, and the two form a strong teacher/student bond, which helps them in vanquishing Ogun. Kitty returns to the X-Men, no longer the innocent girl they once knew, and officially adopts the codename Shadowcat.
Morlock Massacre
While trying to save Rogue, Kitty was badly injured by Harpoon's energy spear during the Mutant Massacre story arc, in the massacre of the Morlocks, with the result that she lost control of her power and was stuck in an intangible state and could not regain her solidity. She was rushed to Muir Island along with other surviving casualties of the Massacre to be tended to by Moira MacTaggert. MacTaggert was able to keep Kitty's condition from deteriorating to the point where she completely lost physical substance and ceased to exist, but was not able to do any more to help her.
At this time, Kitty's natural state was to be intangible. Where she once had to make a conscious effort to phase, she could now only maintain her solidity through an act of conscious will. The X-Men went to Reed Richards, Mister Fantastic of the Fantastic Four, for aid, but Richards initially refused because he was not sure he would be able to help.
Having nowhere else to go, the X-Men turned to Richards' enemy Doctor Doom. This created a moral dilemma for both the X-Men and the Fantastic Four, and both teams fought each other because the Fantastic Four were trying to stop the treatment while the X-Men were determined to save Kitty's life. In the end, both the personal crisis of the Fantastic Four and the life of Shadowcat were saved after Franklin Richards, with the help of Lockheed, brought both teams to their senses. Kitty has since recovered from this state and now has full control over her power again.
Excalibur
Among the others injured and brought to Muir Isle were Colossus and Nightcrawler, although Colossus left the United Kingdom shortly after being released from MacTaggert's care to join the rest of the X-Men on their mission to battle the Adversary. The X-Men sacrificed their lives to defeat the Adversary, the battle and their sacrifice was televised and broadcast across the world. The X-Men were resurrected later in the same issue, unknown to the world at large, but chose to keep a low profile and perpetuate the belief that they were still dead. This strategy was enforced to more effectively fight their enemies. This meant avoiding contact with friends and family, including Kitty. Thinking the X-Men were dead, Kitty and Nightcrawler joined Rachel Summers, Captain Britain, and Meggan to form the Britain-based team Excalibur. For a brief time, Kitty studied at St. Searle's School for Girls in Britain. During her time with Excalibur, Kitty developed a crush on Professor Alistaire Stuart which went unreciprocated since Alistaire was attracted to Rachel. Later, she was romantically involved with former Black Air agent Pete Wisdom. At some point Kitty was recruited by the international law enforcement agency S.H.I.E.L.D. to repair the computer system of their flying headquarters. Kitty discovered the problem was due to Ogun's spirit having infiltrated the computer system, and with the aid of Wolverine, she managed to purge Ogun's presence. During this time, Kitty was attracted to a S.H.I.E.L.D. intern her own age, and this made her begin to doubt her relationship with Wisdom. Soon after, she broke off their relationship.
Back to the X-Men
After Excalibur's dissolution, Shadowcat, Nightcrawler, and Colossus return to the X-Men. While returning, they faced a group of imposters following Cerebro, in the guise of Professor X. While tracking Mystique, she stumbles onto prophetic diaries that belonged to Irene Adler, a precognitive. During the six-month gap, Kitty visited Genosha. Whatever she experienced there is unknown (although presumably connected to her father, living on Genosha at the time), but it had a profound effect on her. She cut her hair and began to act rebelliously, also using one of Wolverine's bone claws broken off during battle as a weapon. Kitty remained with the X-Men for a while before leaving after the apparent death of Colossus. Trying to give herself a normal life, she attended the University of Chicago. During this time, her father was killed when Cassandra Nova’s Sentinels destroyed Genosha. Kitty later finds a recording of his death due to exploring footage of the attack. She is also kidnapped by William Stryker, but the X-Treme X-Men team helped her escape, and she assisted them on several missions.
At the start of Joss Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men, Kitty once again rejoins the X-Men, despite having extreme reservations about working with the former White Queen, given their history. This was the primary reason why Frost herself wanted Kitty on the team, as a sort of "safety" should Frost ever revert to type. Frost reasoned that the person who trusted her least would be most likely to spot such behavior. On one of the team's first missions, Shadowcat discovered Colossus was alive. After some initial awkwardness, Kitty and Colossus resumed dating.
Kitty Pryde appeared alongside Colossus in the "Blinded by the Light" arc in X-Men. They are the two X-Men left to look after the students while the rest of the X-Men leave for Mystique's home in Mississippi to check up on Rogue, during which they are ambushed by the Marauders. Kitty and Colossus, meanwhile, attempt to protect the students from a faction of the Marauders led by Exodus. It is revealed over the course of the story that Kitty, worried of the Destiny Diaries' safety, devised a plan with Cyclops and Emma Frost to hide them and have Emma wipe the location from her mind. The location could only be revealed by a code word spoken to Kitty. The arc concludes with a battle between Iceman and Cannonball against the Marauders for the diaries, during which they are destroyed by Gambit.
In the "Torn" arc, the latest incarnation of the Hellfire Club begin an assault on Xavier's School. Kitty fulfilled the role that Emma Frost envisioned, personally taking down Frost and imprisoning her, only to fall under a telepathic delusion created by Hellfire member Perfection, who claimed to be the true, unreformed Emma Frost. Under this delusion, Kitty was made to believe that she and Colossus had conceived a child, which was later taken away by the X-Men because its potential mutant abilities were supposedly dangerous. Kitty reacts in the delusion by attempting to rescue the child from a near-inescapable "box" in the depths of the school, unaware that in reality she is freeing an alien entity, Stuff, who contains the trapped consciousness of Cassandra Nova, the apparent ringleader of this new Hellfire Club. A newly awakened Cyclops revealed that the new Hellfire Club, including Perfection and Nova, are actually mental projections created by a piece of Cassandra Nova's consciousness; which became lodged in Emma's mind during the X-Men's last confrontation with her, playing on her survivor's guilt over the Genoshan massacre, and utilizing Emma's telepathy to both confound the X-Men and orchestrate her (Nova's) escape from the Stuff body. As Cyclops killed the mental projections, Emma tried to force Kitty to kill her to get rid of Nova. Undeterred, Cassandra Nova switched her focus to attempt to transfer her mind to Hisako Ichiki. It appears that Nova did not succeed, as the team was transported to S.W.O.R.D.'s air station en route to Ord's Breakworld for the "Unstoppable" arc that concludes Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men.
Breakworld
As the team prepares to end the confrontation with the Breakworld leader, the team splits up—with Kitty on the team appointed to stop the missile pointed at Earth. Kitty phases into the missile to disrupt its circuitry noting that it is composed of the same material as the rest of Breakworld, a material that is difficult and exhausting for her to phase through. After phasing for a mile into the missile, Kitty finds the center only to discover it empty. The missile is fired, causing Kitty to pass out inside of it as Beast discovers too late that due to its shape, trajectory, and lack of internal circuitry, the Breakworld's weapon is not a missile, but a bullet. As the bullet hurtles toward Earth, Kitty lies unconscious within it.
As the situation becomes increasingly dire, Emma establishes mental contact with Kitty, reassuring her that she will come out of this fine, though it eventually becomes clear to both that the situation will be grim. Kitty and Emma come to an understanding and reconciliation, Emma stating that she never wanted something like this to happen to her. Kitty then phases the bullet through Earth, but is trapped within. At the end of Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men, Scott Summers mentions that Doctor Strange, Reed Richards, and some "top men" tried to save her, but believe she has fused to the bullet, as it continues to hurtle through space. Whether she is alive or dead is unknown, though the X-Men consider her lost to them.
As a result of these events Kitty does not appear in the X-Men crossover event X-Men: Messiah Complex, since this takes place after the events of Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men. She is briefly mentioned in the aftermath of the Messiah Complex, by Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Wolverine, as the three of them discuss "losing her."
To cope with Kitty's loss, Colossus takes down a group of Russian criminals dealing in human trafficking, and gets a tattoo of the name 'Katya' on his chest. Emma begins having a recurring dream in which she hears a voice whom she believes is Kitty's trying to reach out to her.
It was later confirmed by Abigail Brand that Kitty Pryde was still alive within the bullet, but because the bullet's design would harden as time went on, it would become increasingly difficult to break the bullet open.
Return
After the X-Men move to the island of Utopia, Magneto arrives on the island professing his desire to join and support the X-Men in their effort to unite the world's remaining mutants. The X-Men reluctantly let him stay, remaining wary of him despite his efforts to gain their trust. In a final bid to gain their trust, Magneto focuses his powers, attempting to divert the interstellar path of the metal bullet Kitty is trapped in and bring her home to Earth. Meanwhile, inside the bullet, Kitty is revealed to still be alive. Unbeknownst to the others, Magneto had encountered the bullet earlier while attempting to regain his powers with the High Evolutionary and surmised that Kitty was inside. Despite this and the High Evolutionary's apparent ability to retrieve the bullet and Kitty, Magneto chose to focus on regaining his powers, secretly keeping tabs on the bullet until his decision to draw it back to Earth. During her time trapped inside the bullet, Kitty keeps herself and the bullet phased to avoid collisions with any inhabited objects in its path.
Magneto brings Kitty Pryde safely down to Earth by cracking the bullet in two and levitating Kitty to the ground. When she and Colossus try to touch, it is revealed that she is trapped in her intangible form, unable to speak, and the X-Men place her in a protective chamber similar to the one used for her following the events of the Mutant Massacre. How Kitty survived her time in the bullet is unclear to the X-Men's science team, where the X-Men discover that all her bodily functions halted. An analysis by Kavita Rao hypothesizes that Kitty created an intense muscle memory to keep herself and the bullet phased and has "forgotten" how to un-phase.
During a conversation with Colossus, with Emma Frost acting as the psi-conduit, Kitty picks up Emma's stray thoughts on killing the captive Sebastian Shaw, to prevent Namor from discovering she previously lied to him. While disgusted at Emma's intentions, Kitty offers a compromise. Due to her current ghost state, she is the perfect tool for making Shaw disappear.
In a storyline in Uncanny X-Men, the Breakworlders make their way to Earth. During the conflict between the Breakworlder Kr'uun and the X-Men, Kitty is slain and resurrected by Kr'uun's mate in an alien ritual, which results in her powers returning to normal.
Regenesis
Shortly thereafter, Kitty breaks up with Colossus, and decides to return with Wolverine to Westchester to open the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning. In Wolverine and the X-Men #4, she appears to be suddenly pregnant, but the pregnancy was revealed to be a Brood infestation, and it was swiftly dealt with by a team of X-Men. Since returning to Westchester, Kitty has shared several kisses with Iceman. During the events of Avengers vs. X-Men, Kitty does not take a side, but instead decides to stay at the school to work with the students. Once Bobby returned from working with the X-Men after realizing that the Phoenix had corrupted them, he and Kitty finally decide to go on a date.
All-New X-Men
After Beast brings the original five X-Men into the future to stop Cyclops in the present, Kitty volunteers to take responsibility for the temporally relocated X-Men while they work to undo this dark future. This soon puts her at odds with the rest of her team as they believed the original five should go back to their own time in order to prevent any damage to the space-time continuity. Eventually, this leads Kitty to take the decision of abandoning the school with the time-displaced X-Men and join Cyclops's X-Men at the New Xavier School. During the first few weeks at the New Xavier School, Jean Grey is abducted by the Shiar Empire to stand trial for her future self's crimes. Kitty and the time-displaced X-Men team up with the Guardians of the Galaxy and succeed in rescuing Jean from the Shiar. At the conclusion of the storyline, Kitty begins a long-distance, flirtatious relationship with Starlord, Peter Quill.
The Black Vortex
In the following weeks, Kitty's relationship with Peter Quill evolves more and more as they developed stronger feelings for each other every day. At one point, Quill gets captured during one of their dates and she has no option but to go to his rescue, despite her fear of space as a result of her being trapped on the giant space bullet. After rescuing Peter, she decides to stay in space with him. Then, Kitty convinces Peter to steal a powerful artifact called the Black Vortex from his father J'son. Soon, they find themselves being chased by J'son's assassination squad, the Slaughter Lords. In despair, they request the aid of the X-Men and the Guardians of the Galaxy to protect the Vortex. After a few of their own friends can't resist the temptation and submit to the Vortex, betray the team, and escape with the artifact; the team splits and Kitty stays in Spartax to help an orphanage. She is encased in amber after Thane (who was allied with J'son) freezes the whole planet along with the people inside it; but thanks to her phasing powers, she manages to get out of the amber. Then the Brood attacks Spartax, planning to use every encased person to lay eggs and create an army of Brood to start invading other planets and conquering them. Kitty feels the only way to stop them is by submitting to the Vortex herself as she's the only one who can resist the cosmic corruption. She reluctantly submits and becomes a being of unlimited power. After being reminded of the love between her and Peter Quill, she goes back and phases all the amber that encased Spartax, along with the Broods trying to infect the people, and sends them all to another dimension. Kitty doesn't give up the cosmic power but admits to Peter that she is afraid of it. Peter promises her that he will never abandon her no matter how much she changes. Then, Peter kneels and proposes marriage to Kitty. She, with tears in her eyes, accepts. Later when Star Lord is declared Emperor of Spartax she is told she will become the first lady of Spartax.
Guardians of the Galaxy
Kitty takes on the mantle of Star Lord and joins the Guardians of the Galaxy in Peter Quill's place so he can take on his royal duties. When Hala the Accuser massacres Spartax in an attempt to make Quill pay for J'son's actions against her people, she initially easily lays waste to the capitol and overpowers the Guardians. After the Guardians regroup and formulate a strategy to defeat her, Kitty manages to partially phase Hala into the ground so the rest of the Guardians can knock her out and separate her from her weapon. After Quill loses his title as king he and Kitty end up on a mission with the rest of the Guardians on a concentration camp prison planet owned by the Badoon after Gamora gave them information on it so they can free Angela. Once there, Kitty has a personal reaction upon seeing the prisoners and makes it her mission to liberate everyone there and defeat the captors, as it reminds her of Nazi concentration camps. After Quill gets captured and sentenced to death in an arena battle, Kitty finds and kills one of the Badoon leaders by phasing his heart out of his body. When Captain Marvel summons the Guardians to Earth to help her address Tony Stark, Kitty learns that Thanos is a prisoner on Earth and tries to convince Quill to tell Gamora. When fighting starts Kitty woefully realizes that some of her former students are on Tony Stark's side instead of fighting with Captain Marvel. During the battle the Guardians' ship was destroyed, effectively stranding them on Earth. After helping the Guardians stop Thanos from leading an invasion from the Negative Zone the Guardians are given a new ship; however, Kitty decides to stay on Earth and ends her time with the Guardians and Quill.
Leading the X-Men
Upon returning to Earth, Kitty hopes to finally regain a semblance of a normal life but ends up approached by Storm, who informs Kitty of everything the X-Men have gone through while Kitty was away. Storm announces to Kitty that she intends to step down as leader of the X-Men due to the guilt that she feels for leading the X-Men to war and offers Kitty her position. After touring X-Haven and seeing how much things have changed and how much things need to change for the better, Kitty agrees to lead the X-Men as long as Storm remains on the team. Her next act is to relocate the mansion from Limbo to Central Park, New York so the X-Men can refocus on being part of the world instead of fearing it under the belief that if the X-Men truly are to be seen as heroes, then they need to actually live in the world that they are trying to save instead of constantly worrying about their own survival.
Under Kitty's new leadership, the X-Men go through some small changes in order to shed their past history and make new names for themselves, such as convincing Rachel Summers to change her code name to Prestige and renaming the mansion as The Xavier Institute for Mutant Education and Outreach. Kitty learns first-hand how hard it is to balance leading the X-Men as well as managing the mansion when there are many political factors trying to deliberately get in the way of the X-Men. She also begins to have awkward one-on-one moments with Colossus; they try to remain friends, but given their long history their interactions swiftly become complicated. Kitty's first case as field leader of the X-Men sees her and her team taking on a new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. After discovering that an outspoken anti-mutant politician brainwashed this new Brotherhood to work for her to publicly discredit mutants, Kitty threatened to expose her if she continued exploiting mutants for her own personal gain.
Dawn of X
After Krakoa became a new sovereign nation for Mutants, Kitty Pryde, now going by Captain Kate Pryde, discovers she is the sole mutant who is, for unknown reasons, unable to use the various warp gates leading to Krakoa. It is implied that she has done something to anger Krakoa, but that restriction does not mean Kitty cannot use other means to reach the mutant homeland. She steals a boat and sets sail for the island. Kitty's time on Krakoa proves to be just as fruitless, as the island's natural resources (like flowers that grow into biome homes) are similarly prohibited to Kitty. Emma Frost comes asking Kitty to take up a special mission: taking a bigger boat out to serve as pirate captain on the X-Men's mission to liberate mutants trapped in oppressive countries that do not recognize mutant sovereignty, while also smuggling and supplying for Emma's Hellfire Trading Company the lifesaving drugs the X-Men provide to humans. Kate Pryde is later appointed the new Red Queen of the Hellfire Trading Company by Emma Frost, to the dismay of Sebastian Shaw. Seeing Pryde as an obstacle to his complete control of the Hellfire Corporation, Shaw began plotting against Kate and her crew. After taking notice how Emma became overprotective of the newly crowned Red Queen, Shaw realized that for the same reason she can't travel through Krakoa's gates nor read or understand the Krakoan language until Emma implanted it in her brain, the X-Men's Resurrection Protocols also won't apply to her, which means Kate cannot be resurrected if she died. He orchestrated a distraction by paying off human supremacists Homines Verendi to stage an attack on his own son. Once Kate was defenseless, Shaw emerged from below deck and ensnared Lockheed with a net gun, making him a helpless hostage. He then released Krakoan seeds at her feet, which wrapped around her and prevented her from using her powers. He then dropped her and Lockheed into the sea. While Lockheed was able to survive, Kate sank helplessly, and once her head dropped under the surface, she had no air left and drowned instantly. Her death is later confirmed by Bishop as he retrieves Kate's body, as it was also established that the Resurrection Protocols indeed do not apply to Kate, as the Five, for reasons unknown, cannot resurrect her. However, she is later resurrected, as Emma Frost realized that it was due to the nature of Kate's intangibility powers that her mindless body was unable to break out of the egg.
Powers and abilities
Kitty is a mutant with the ability to pass through solid matter by passing her atomic particles through the spaces between the atoms of the object through which she is moving. In this way she and the object through which she is passing can temporarily merge without interacting, and each is unharmed when Shadowcat has finished passing through the object. This process is called "phasing" or quantum tunneling and it renders her almost completely intangible to physical touch. Shadowcat passes through objects at the same speed at which she is moving before she enters them. Since she is unable to breathe while inside an object, she can only continuously phase through solid objects (as when she travels underground) as long as she can hold her breath. However, contrary depictions of the duration of her phasing ability have been presented, such as when she has phased miles within an object. The use of her abilities also interferes with any electrical systems as she passes through by disrupting the flow of electrons from atom to atom, including the bio-electric systems of living bodies if she concentrates in the right way. This typically causes machines to malfunction or be destroyed as she phases through them, and can induce shock and unconsciousness in living beings.
Using her power began as an optional ability, but for a period (over ten years of published comics, approximately two years in-continuity) Kitty existed in a naturally "phased" state, and had to consciously choose to become solid. Kitty has returned to her original form and is normally solid and must choose to use her power. While phasing, she does not physically walk on surfaces, but rather interacts with the molecules of air above them, allowing her to ascend and descend, causing her to seemingly walk on air. While phased, she is immune to most physical attacks, and has inconsistent showings of some resistance to telepathy. The density of some materials (such as adamantium) can prove deleterious to her phasing, causing her to be severely disoriented or experience pain if she tries to pass through them. Some energy attacks also prove problematic for Kitty. For example, an energy blast fired by Harpoon, a member of the Marauders, caused her to lose her ability to become fully tangible for months. Magic and magical beings can also harm her in her phased state, as demonstrated in a battle with a N'Garai demon whose claws left no visible marks, but caused Kitty severe pain as they passed through her intangible body.
Kitty can also extend her powers to phase other people and objects. She is able to phase at least six other people (or objects of similar mass) with her, so long as they establish and maintain physical contact with her. She can extend her phasing effect to her own clothing or any other object with mass up to that of a small truck, as long as she remains in contact with it. Kitty can also make objects intangible by maintaining contact with them. She has threatened to leave people phased into a wall, and used her power offensively to harm the Technarch Magus, and Danger.
Kitty's powers seem to have increased over the years. During an X-Treme X-Men story arc in which she is kidnapped by Reverend William Stryker, she phases out of sync with Earth's rotation to move from one place in the world (only east or west) to another seemingly instantaneously. At the climax of Astonishing X-Men, Kitty phases a 10 mi (16 km) long "bullet" composed of super-dense alien metals through the entire planet Earth. This feat caused her considerable strain, but she is unable to phase out of the bullet. Moreover, originally Kitty found it difficult or impossible to phase only part of her body at a time. In the Days of Future Past story arc, she is possessed by her older future self, allowing her to solidify only her shoulder while phasing the rest of her body through Destiny—a feat explicitly beyond the 13-year-old Kitty's abilities. By contrast, the Kitty Pryde of Joss Whedon's run can punch and kick someone standing on the other side of a wall, selectively phasing and unphasing body parts as necessary. She can even run and leap through an armed opponent, grabbing their weapon as she passes by, which presumably requires her to solidify only the surface area of the palms of her hands and then immediately phase both her palms and the weapon.
Besides her mutant powers, Kitty is a genius in the field of applied technology and computer science. She is highly talented in the design and use of computer hardware. She is a skilled pilot of piston and jet engine aircraft, and a competent pilot of certain advanced interstellar vehicles. She has previously shown a unique ability to wield the Soulsword and also be harmed by it. Since her possession by the ninja demon Ogun, she has been consistently shown to be an excellent hand-to-hand combatant, having since been endowed with a lifetime of training in the martial arts of Japanese ninja and samurai.
She is a professional-level dancer in both ballet and modern dance. She speaks fluent English, Japanese, Russian, and the royal and standard languages of the alien Shi'ar and Skrull, and has moderate expertise in Gaelic, Hebrew, and German.
Kitty also shares a mental/empathic connection with her pet dragon Lockheed; both she and the alien dragon can "sense" each other's presence at times and generally understand one another's thoughts and actions.
When Kitty used the Black Vortex, her powers were augmented to a cosmic scale making her a god-like being. She can phase through any material of any density and can even phase a planet out of Thane's amber, whereas in her normal state it is an extremely difficult task to simply phase herself out of the amber. She can also apparently transverse between the planes of the multiverse and is immune to the effects of space. Her appearance can be changed but her natural form appears to be rather gaseous in look.
Other versions
In addition to her mainstream incarnation, Kitty Pryde has been depicted in other fictional universes.
Age of Apocalypse
In the Age of Apocalypse reality, Kitty grows up under harsh circumstances and her nature reflects it. She has short hair, tight clothes, and chain smokes cigarettes. Her parents are killed in the Chicago Cullings, and she is forcibly recruited into Apocalypse's army, but is later rescued by Colossus. Magneto puts Shadowcat under Weapon X's training, hoping to turn her into the X-Men's assassin, and she is given a set of retractable artificial claws around each wrist to better imitate her teacher's fighting style. After the fallout between Colossus and Magneto, Shadowcat sides with Colossus, whom she has married. Instead of leaving the fight against Apocalypse altogether, the couple become the teachers of Generation Next. The two submit their trainees to harsh situations, giving them little comfort despite the fact that Shadowcat is close to the age of her students.
Shadowcat assists the team in rescuing Illyana Rasputin from the Seattle Core, and, at Colossus' behest, abandons her students after Illyana is saved. She is killed by Colossus in his ruthless obsession to protect his sister, Illyana; coming between an enraged Colossus and his endangered sister, Shadowcat never believed he would harm her.
Days of Future Past
In the Days of Future Past timeline (Earth-811), Shadowcat goes by the name Kate Pryde. Kate attempts to go back in time to prevent the assassination of Senator Robert Kelly by Mystique and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. She succeeds, only to create a separate timeline where the events of her past still come to pass. After returning to her own time Kate helps Rachel Summers escape back to the timeline she just created. Captured by Sentinels, Kate escapes by phasing through her inhibitor collar and fell into a time warp, causing her to merge with the Sentinel that was scanning her, and arrives in the timeline Rachel is inhabiting. Kate's mind settles in a small, metal, off-spherical body and becomes known as Widget. After a few adventures in that timeline, mostly in company with her Earth-616 counterpart's team Excalibur, Kate regains her memory and returns to her original timeline where she is able to reprogram the ruling Sentinels to protect life, ending their tyranny.
Earth X
In Earth X it is revealed in the appendix of issue six that Kitty Pryde is killed saving Colossus while he could not shift into his metal form. Instead of phasing the bullet through her, she heroically takes the bullet and is killed.
Exiles
A version of Kitty Pryde codenamed Cat first appeared in Exiles #96. She is younger than her Earth-616 counterpart. She has the appearance and powers of the normal Shadowcat although she wears a different costume. Prior to her joining the Exiles, this version of Kitty had been recruited by Emma Frost as one of the core agents of the Hellfire Club's strike force. She helps Psylocke defeat Doom's soldiers who have invaded the Panoptichron. She helps retrieve Blink, Morph, and Sabretooth from being scattered across the multiverse. She works as a computer expert for the team and is a full member of the Exiles.
Cat's skill with using her powers means she is not tied to any dimension and can see through various realities, including those of the mind (for instance seeing the various personalities in Sage's mind as "ghosts" surrounding her). Her arrival in the Crystal Palace and connection to its computers has increased this, giving her the ability to "cascade" through different alternative versions of herself, altering her appearance and details of her powers. Amongst other versions, she has assumed the form of a Kitty Pryde with the appearance and powers of Tigra. During the New Exiles' last mission Cat faced off against Madame Hydra (Sue Storm) and killed her at the cost of her own life.
There has been another version of Kitty that appeared in the King Hyperion story arc (Exiles #38-40). She had survived an attack on the X-Mansion by the Sentinels. The Colossus from her universe had been killed in the attack but she had the same feelings towards Weapon X's Colossus even though he was not her Colossus. The two eventually fell in love with each other. Unfortunately this did not last since she died with Colossus when they were shot into the empty vacuum of space by Hyperion.
House of M
When the Scarlet Witch altered reality in the 616 Universe, creating the reality known as House of M where mutants were the dominant population, Kitty Pryde was a teacher in a public middle school in Cincinnati, Ohio. Like many of the heroes of Earth 616, she is reminded of the true reality by Layla Miller and recruited in the fight to restore reality.
Magik
In the limited series Magik (Illyana and Storm), an alternative reality Kitty renames herself "Cat" after she is mutated by the demonic sorcerer Belasco into a more feline form, with cat eyes, whiskers, a tail, and enhanced physical abilities and senses. Trapped in Belasco's Limbo, Cat takes a militant view towards defeating the sorcerer, eschewing the magic that her reality's Storm embraces, instead turning to skills in swordplay and physical combat. She tries to save the Illyana Rasputin of Earth-616 from corruption through magic by taking Illyana into the wilderness of Limbo and teaching the child to fight and survive. Like the Kitty Pryde of Earth-616 eventually would, Cat became Illyana's best friend, but more in the role of an older sister due to the difference in their ages.
Cat's plan goes awry when the pair's attempt to confront Belasco fails, at the cost of the life of an enslaved Nightcrawler; Illyana falls under Belasco's influence and Cat is further transformed towards a feline, with a semi-animalistic mind completely loyal to Belasco. Cat is eventually slain by Illyana when Belasco sets Cat upon his rebellious apprentice; facing death at Cat's hands and knowing that, deep down, a part of Kitty still exists and hates her enslavement, Illyana broke Cat's neck in self-defense.
Long after Illyana overthrows Belasco, escapes Limbo, and becomes a member of the junior X-Men team known as the New Mutants, Cat's remains are found by the team in Limbo's throne room. By then she had completely decomposed to a skeleton. Illyana, facing a rebellion of Limbo's demon population that threatened to overrun Earth, smashed Cat's skull in rage over the demonic taint that Belasco left on her soul and frustration over the horrible choice she had to make to kill Cat.
Marvel Zombies
Kitty is briefly shown in the background as a zombie in Ultimate Fantastic Four #23, despite her mutant phasing powers. She is also seen in Marvel Zombies: Dead Days, when zombie Alpha Flight attack the X-Men. This would appear to have been retconned, though, as of Marvel Zombies: Halloween, which depicts her and her son Peter with Colossus surviving for several years in an out of the way house farm, encountering zombies, but, fortunately, being rescued by Mephisto, who dispatched the remaining zombies.
The Earth-91126/Earth-Z Kitty is recruited by Earth-2149/Marvel Zombies Spider-Man to help him develop a cure for the zombie hunger, on the grounds that her powers mean that she would be in no danger from him if he should succumb to his zombie instincts, but she is later seemingly killed when the zombie Quasar holds her underwater until she is forced to become solid once more, allowing the infected Namor to eat her flesh (much to the rage of the zombie Wolverine, of Earth-2149).
Mutant X
Storm was taken by the vampire Dracula and unlike Earth 616, she does not return. Kitty goes off to battle her, either to save or kill her. Kitty slays several vampires in the way but Storm proves too much for her and Kitty becomes her unwilling slave for some time. She later shows up as the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club and seems to be none too happy with Storm. It's also hinted that she was engaged or going to be engaged to Colossus. Her ultimate fate at the end of the series is unknown.
Lightning Force
In the reality of Earth-597, an alternative universe where World War II was won by Nazi Germany, Kitty is forced to serve as Shadowcat alongside Nightcrawler, Meggan, and Hauptmann Englande as a member of the Lightning Force (a version of Excalibur), made a virtual slave because of her Jewish heritage. She leads a sad existence and is easily identified by her shaved head and the Star of David tattooed on her forehead. It is indicated, from her own statements and those made by her reality's counterpart of Moira MacTaggert, that this Shadowcat is a true ghost, raised from the dead by a combination of science and magic and bound to serve the Nazi regime. This Shadowcat had the added ability to disrupt life force with her phasing power, knocking her victims unconscious, much like how her counterpart in the "prime" Marvel Universe (Earth-616) can disrupt technology that she phases through. She is also able to alter her facial features to a "demonic" aspect when attacking enemies or else responding to aggressive, commanding behavior from her superiors.
Pirate Kitty
Kitty tells Illyana a bedtime story and casts herself as Pirate Kitty Pryde, captain of the Abdul Alhazred, who operated in a magical world. Unlike her mainstream counterpart, she did not have any mutant powers and wore a classic pirate outfit which also included her Star of David necklace. She was also sometimes known as Colleen. Kitty was good friends of her version of Colossus, the Bamfs (Nightcrawler), Windrider (Storm), the "Fiend-with-no-name" (later revealed to be named "Mean") (Wolverine) and Lockheed (an alternative version of the X-Jet). Kitty also helped her versions of Professor X and Cyclops capture and cure that universe's version of Dark Phoenix.
At first she was only a fairy tale character, but later it is revealed that her fairy tale is actually an alternative universe. (In fact, several members of this universe, the Bamfs, would later come to Earth-616 to cause trouble.) When Earth-616's Nightcrawler was temporarily stranded in her world, Kitty helped him defeat the sorcerer Shagreen and also encountered the Earth-616 versions of Illyana, Lockheed, and herself.
Professor W's X-Men
In the native universe of the Exiles member Nocturne, Kitty is a senior member of the X-Men led by Nightcrawler. She is a teacher and TJ refers to her as "Aunt Kate". During a fight with Apocalypse Kitty gets exposed to a machine that reverts her to a younger stage of her life when she had only been with the X-Men a few weeks. Nocturne helps Kitty fit into the school and becomes her best friend. She also proves useful in the fight against the Brotherhood led by Cyclops.
Ruins
Imprisoned alongside other mutants at a prison camp in Texas by President X, Kitty attempted to use her phasing powers to escape, only to get stuck halfway through her cell door, losing three feet of intestines in the process.
Secret Wars (2015)
During the Secret Wars storyline, a version of Kitty named Kitten resides in the wuxia-inspired K'un-L'un region of Battleworld. In this reality, Kitten is a martial artist who joins Callisto's band of outcasts after being expelled from her school for attempting a forbidden technique, a side effect of which left her intangible. Kitten and her fellow outcasts became pupils of Shang-Chi, the exiled son of Emperor Zheng Zu. Dubbing their new school The Lowest Caste, Shang-Chi represents the group as their master for the tournament deciding the next Emperor of K'un-L'un, hoping to usurp his father's tyrannical rule. Kitten accompanies Shang-Chi for each of his fights in the Thirteen Chambers. During his final fight with Zu, Shang-Chi uses Kitten's technique of intangibility, which leads to his eventual victory and replaces his father as the new Emperor of K'un-L'un.
Ultimate Marvel
The Ultimate version of Shadowcat (Kitty Pryde) first appears as a 14-year-old girl in Ultimate X-Men #21. She is also Jewish and wears the Star of David around her neck, but does not appear to possess the same genius IQ as her mainstream (Earth-616) counterpart.
Kitty's mother, worried about Kitty's mutation, seeks help from Professor Charles Xavier. Kitty becomes a student at Xavier's school, when her mother allows her to attend under the condition she does not take part in any X-Men missions, nor train in any "Danger Room" simulations. Kitty soon rebels against this and joins the X-Men as their youngest member. She idolizes Spider-Man and has a crush on him; she even dates Peter Parker for a time. After a fierce argument with Professor Xavier concerning Peter's secret identity, which his Aunt May had just found out about, Kitty leaves the X-Men and enrolls in Peter's school. Their relationship is strained after their romantic involvement (as superheroes) becomes publicly known, making it impossible for them to date anymore in their civilian identities, and eventually comes to an end when Peter realizes he cannot get over his feelings for Mary Jane. However, Kitty still retains strong feelings for him.
Following the disastrous flood triggered by Magneto and the subsequent ban of public use of mutant powers, Kitty assumes the identity of the Shroud. Kitty also discovers that she can also decrease the space between her atoms make herself super-dense, giving her both superhuman strength and durability. When the authorities see Kitty as a threat, she enters into a fierce rage and demonstrates these powers for the first time to her friends. She is strong and angry enough to punch Spider-Man several feet through the air. She eventually escapes and goes into hiding in the now abandoned Morlock Tunnel with Iceman and the Human Torch after Peter Parker's death.
Kitty makes an appearance in Ultimate Comics: X, locating Jimmy Hudson, who is revealed to be Wolverine's son. Kitty was charged by Logan before his death to locate Jimmy and reveal his true origins to him.
After the death of Spider-Man she formed new team of X-Men consisting of herself, Iceman and the Human Torch. They soon rescued the mutant Rogue from the mutant-hunting Nimrod robots, going on to recruit Jimmy Hudson into their group as well. After killing the mutant-hunting William Stryker, Kitty decided to leave New York for the Southwest along with Bobby, Rogue, and Jimmy (leaving only Johnny behind) in order to save the mutants there and defeat the Nimrods, now controlled by the deceased Stryker's consciousness.
Spider-Gwen
In the reality where Gwen Stacy is Spider-Woman, Kitty is an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Black Ops department, where she works closely with Wolverine to keep him in check and to help him fight his immortal curse. Like the Age of Apocalypse version, she also wields artificial claws on her wrists. It's revealed that she works with Logan out of guilt, as Stryker forced her to use her powers to subject Logan to the Weapon X experiment.
What If
In What if Phoenix Had Not Died, Kitty is obliterated by Dark Phoenix before she destroyed the Earth.
In What If the X-Men had Lost Inferno?, Kitty is one of the last eight remaining superheroes on the planet. She is slain by a demonic Wolverine, but her death makes Wolverine come to his senses and he fights against Baron Mordo, who had joined up with the demon hordes.
In What If... Wolverine: Enemy of the State, Kitty is the only hero left to kill a Hydra-programmed Wolverine after he has taken down the Marvel Universe. Kitty was the last remaining member of the team assembled to recapture Wolverine. The initial plan failed and Kitty was forced to phase her hand into Wolverine's brain. She then solidified her hand killing Wolverine instantly although she lost her hand in the process.
In What if Magneto and Professor X Had Formed The X-Men Together, Kitty is the tech guru at the Good Shepard clinic (That reality's version of the X-Mansion). She is very similar to her mainstream counterpart. But unlike the mainstream version this Kitty Pryde would wear different coloured wigs and cut her natural hair short. She also had trouble with her powers since she would phase herself through a solid object and accidentally leave her clothes behind. She was also friends with Lockheed although she only called him Dragon.
In What if Astonishing X-Men, Kitty is amongst the X-Men who fight a Phoenix powered Emma Frost. She phased Emma's heart from her chest but a Phoenix fire flares up from her body killing Kitty instantly. In the second story during the events of Astonishing X-Men #6-#12 Elixir had not been able to heal Kitty after being impaled and she dies.
In "What if the Dark Phoenix Rose Again", Kitty has Colossus "set up a fastball special" to help her phase into a Master Mold. She is killed after solidifying inside the Master Mold's head destroying it in the process.
In What if Storm Had the Power of the Phoenix, Kitty helps revive the 'real' Storm (the Phoenix being the cosmic entity in Storm's shape) by phasing inside her body and getting her internal organs working again.
X-Babies
An X-Baby version of Shadowcat appears briefly in the X-Babies one-shot comic. She is wearing her original costume and is younger than the other X-Babies. She is named as Shadowkitty rather than Shadowcat or Kitty Pryde. She also doesn't seem to have a strong bond with the X-Baby version of Lockheed.
X-Men Forever
In the X-Men Forever series, Kitty and Nightcrawler have left Excalibur and rejoined the X-Men after the events of X-Men #1-3. Of the X-Men, she undergoes the most drastic changes from the events of X-Men Forever #1. During the battle with Fabian Cortez, she phases through Wolverine while he is being affected by Cortez's power. This drives her powers haywire as well, and somehow she ends up with one of Wolverine's claws in her wrist. Claremont has also hinted in dialogue throughout the title so far that she may have also undergone psychological or psychic changes as a result of the event. From Forever #4 to the current issue, she is shown to be able to use the claw in the exact method Wolverine would manifest it, with no apparent ill effects (the mechanism for this has not yet been made clear) outside of excruciating pain. Because of the merger with Logan's DNA she has begun to develop a healing factor, slower than Wolverine's but it heals faster when she is intangible. She has also slightly enhanced senses, she also can produce a set of five retractable claws on her left hand like Sabretooth. She has also begun to take on Logan's personality and memories as well. And because of this she is beginning to wonder what part of her truly remains the same.
X-Men: Misfits
In the X-Men: Misfits original English language manga one-shot graphic novel from Marvel and DelRay, Kitty is the newest and only female student of the all-male Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters, which is now experimenting with having a co-ed student body. As the sole girl, she becomes the center of attention and attraction for the rest of the students. She becomes a member and the mascot of the elitist fraternity, The Hellfire Club, and has a short-lived romantic relationship with the school troublemaker Pyro.
X-Men: The End
In the X-Men: The End future, Kitty Pryde becomes the mayor of Chicago and then President of the United States. She has three children: her eldest daughter, named Meredith, and twins 10 years younger than Meredith, Sara and Doug, with an unnamed partner who died protecting her from an assassination attempt.
Miscellaneous
In Excalibur #103, we see many alternative versions of Shadowcat. Many of these variations have appeared in other comics, such as Age of Apocalypse, but there were other variations, including one of her as a Phalanx convert, a sex dominatrix, a homeless person, a nun, a version wearing a costume similar to Phantom Girl, and a normal person who owns an Olde Curiosity Shoppe.
In New Mutants #63 Illyana (Magik), along with Lockheed, gets trapped on an alien spaceship that has been invaded by a Brood Queen. On this ship the Brood Queen created clones of the X-Men, including Kitty. This one had the Ariel suit on, but it was green, instead of the typical blue. These X-Men are implanted with Brood eggs. Her memories were altered by the Brood Queen like the other X-Men, but eventually they rebel against her and are free. Illyana uses the soulsword to eliminate the Brood Eggs from their bodies. The X-Men stay on the ship; whether they are still on it is unknown.
During the Cross Time Caper storyline a few different appearances of Kitty appear. One was a princess who was gifted with magic abilities. She eventually married a short dashing prince (who had originally fallen in love with the mainstream version of Kitty). A second version was a crime boss who was betrayed and killed by her partner in crime Illiyana Rasputin. A third was from a world of sentient dinosaurs. She went by the name of Shadowcompsognathus.
Collected editions
Several of Kitty Pryde's earlier adventures were collected in paperback form.
In other media
Music
Kitty Pryde is referenced in Weezer's song "In the Garage" from their "Blue Album".
Television
Kitty Pryde appeared as Sprite in "The X-Men Adventure" episode of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, which guest-starred the X-Men. She was voiced by Melissa Sue Anderson. She also appeared in her short-lived "Ariel" costume in the X-Men group cameo at the end of the episode "The Education of a Superhero".
Kitty Pryde (voiced by Kath Soucie) was a viewpoint character in the animated television one-shot Pryde of the X-Men, as the newest member of the team. She is a new recruit of the team and is initially frightened of Nightcrawler, due to his demonic appearance. She and Nightcrawler later succeed in defeating Magneto. Once Nightcrawler seemingly dies as a result of having apparently sacrificed himself, Kitty begins to cry until discovering that he is alive and is met with positive relations by her teammates, except Wolverine. As the pilot was a failure, and the character had lost prominence in comics at the time, she was not used in the next X-Men TV series, not even in cameos. Jubilee replaced her as the young viewpoint character, and in the adaptations of stories that involved her.
In the animated series X-Men: Evolution, Shadowcat is a main character, who is shown as the teenybopper of the team and who has a romantic interest in Brotherhood member Lance Alvers. Shadowcat saves Wolverine in the season one episode "Grim Reminder", where she unintentionally stows away with Nightcrawler while on the Blackbird without the knowledge that he was beginning to pilot the jet. She is also shown to have developed a close friendship with Nightcrawler, despite the fact that she at first displayed a dislike for his appearance. Besides Nightcrawler, she is shown to have formed a friendship with Rogue and Spyke. Her initial dislike of his appearance changes after he is severely wounded by Rogue, while she and the rest of the X-Men tried to recruit her. In this series, she does not have Lockheed for a pet, but she is shown preferring to sleep with a stuffed dragon instead of a teddy bear. Though she has an on-and-off interest in the delinquent mutant boy Lance Alvers, early in the series she displays interest in Cyclops. After Rogue is recruited, she serves as her support in beginning a romantic relationship with Scott and develops a friendship with her, despite their differences. When Avalanche tries to join the X-Men in the season two episode "Joyride", she tries to help him and shows additional attraction to him as she grades him and the other members of the junior team. After he informs her that some members of the group have started a joyride on the Blackbird and helps her avert catastrophe, she staunchly defends him once he is accused by Cyclops of being responsible. When Avalanche starts to leave, Shadowcat gives him a brief kiss before his departure. Their relationship continues with the two of them going to a school dance, talking on the phone and going to the mall. Despite being with the Brotherhood, Avalanche tries to protect Kitty in the fight against the Scarlet Witch. In season 3, Kitty and Lance's relationship briefly ends after the Brotherhood and Mystique blow up the X Mansion and are in part responsible for the exposure of mutants. Kitty calls Lance a "hood" after he attacks the high school and he says "he will never be good enough for her". Both look sad at these comments. In the fourth season, the X-Men try to use her powers to damage one of Apocalypse's domes and fails, instead being electrocuted briefly. In the fiftieth episode of the series, entitled "Ghost of a Chance", she comes across Danielle Moonstar once she depicts herself in a dream sequence to her. Once she wakes out of it, she tries to and successfully finds her, becoming friends with the girl after learning she had been in suspended animation for two years. Prior to this, it is discovered that her fear is phasing repeatedly into the ground and going further without any control of where she is going. Shadowcat plays a key role in the defeat of Apocalypse and asks the Brotherhood for help. They come to her aid; as Lance and Kitty resume their romantic relationship. Of the six main X-Men from the first season of the series, she is one of the four that is still a member of the team in the future Charles Xavier saw while in the mind of Apocalypse. Shadowcat was voiced by Maggie Blue O'Hara.
Shadowcat appears in Wolverine and the X-Men, voiced by Danielle Judovits and was a student at the Xavier Institute before the destruction of the X-Mansion and disappearance of Professor X. When Wolverine reformed the X-Men to take down the Mutant Response Division and save the dismal future controlled by the Sentinels, Kitty was on her way to the "mutant paradise" Genosha. The X-Men came to re-recruit her and she immediately rejoined the team. Shadowcat appears as the youngest member of the team and she seems to have a crush on Iceman as she is jealous when his attention is taken by Emma Frost and is shown with a love-struck face when she lands on Bobby during a Danger Room training session, though she quickly moves away from him when Angel arrives. She seems to have formed a friendship with Tildie Soames after babysitting her in one episode. In the last episode of the series, she uses her powers to penetrate a Sentinel controlled by Magneto, of which Beast had difficulty with. Her design is inspired by the appearance of the character in the Astonishing X-Men comics, and her costume emulates the design with the appearance of the blue and yellow used on her costume. The shorts she wears are based on the appearances of the original X-Men, and her first appearance when she wore a variant of the uniform.
Shadowcat appears in The Super Hero Squad Show episode "And Lo...A Pilot Shall Come". She appears alongside Colossus at the unveiling of the Great Wall that separates Super Hero City from Villainville and helping citizens into the S.H.I.E.L.D. Shelters. In the episode "Mysterious Mayhem at Mutant Academy", she uses Lockheed to chase Reptil and the hypnotized X-Men out of the girls' bathroom.
Motion comics
Shadowcat appears in the Astonishing X-Men motion comic, voiced by Eileen Stevens and later by Laura Harris.
Film
In the film X-Men, she has a small cameo, played by Sumela Kay. She is referenced as the "girl in Illinois who can walk through walls" by Senator Kelly. She is shown in Xavier's class when Wolverine walks in; she returns for her books which she had left behind, grabs them, and phases through the door on her way out. Xavier responds with a cheerful "Bye, Kitty" while Wolverine looks on, startled.
In X2, she has a brief appearance played by Katie Stuart. She is shown phasing through walls and through people to escape William Stryker's military forces during their attack on the X-Mansion. Another scene shows her falling through her bed to avoid an assault. She shares a room with Siryn; in the novelization it is stated that this is because her phasing ability gives her partial protection from Siryn's scream. When the President of the United States asks Professor Xavier how he got the files he gave him, Xavier replies that he knows a little girl who can walk through walls.
In X-Men: The Last Stand, she is portrayed by a pre-transition Elliot Page, and has a central role. She serves as a rival to Rogue for the romantic attentions of Iceman, since their close friendship and their kiss (deleted scene) make Rogue increasingly jealous and frustrated. She also joins the X-Men in the battle on Alcatraz Island, breaking off from the battle to save Leech from the Juggernaut. In the novelization of the film, it is hinted that at some point Kitty had a romantic relationship with Colossus, but that it had long since run its course, although Colossus appears to still retain feelings towards her.
Page reprised the role in X-Men: Days of Future Past. Pryde is the prime facilitator because she has developed a new power. In this film, she can send the consciousness of another person back into his or her body in the past. At the beginning of the film, she has been using this ability to repeatedly send Bishop four days back in time whenever the Sentinels attack, thus; preventing her group from ever engaging them by having him warn the past team before they are detected. In order to prevent the Sentinels' creation, she sends Wolverine back to 1973 (chosen as the strain of sending someone else back that far would snap their mind, with Logan's healing factor the only thing that makes such a trip survivable for him) and was gravely injured when Wolverine becomes violent; due to provocation from events in 1973. After the timeline was successfully altered, Kitty is seen teaching a class at the X-Mansion with Colossus. In the film's alternate release, called The Rogue Cut, Kitty's injuries from sending Wolverine back to the past result in the X-Men rescuing Rogue to take over for her. Rogue absorbs Kitty's powers and takes over, stabilizing Wolverine and Kitty helps Magneto flee a Sentinel attack.
In January 2018, a Kitty Pryde solo movie was announced to be in development, with Tim Miller attached as the director and Brian Michael Bendis as the writer, but in March 2019, after Disney's purchase of 21st Century Fox, Fox executive Emma Watts described The New Mutants as the final film in the X-Men series, thus; ending the development of the Kitty Pryde film.
Video games
Kitty Pryde appears in Konami's 1992 X-Men video arcade game, as a non-playable character (NPC). In this game, she is not known as "Sprite"; instead, she plays the "damsel in distress" role as it is based on "Pryde of the X-Men". In the 2010 re-release of the game she is voiced by Mela Lee.
Shadowcat is a playable character in the game X-Men II: The Fall of the Mutants.
Shadowcat appears as an NPC in the X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, voiced by Kim Mai Guest. She has special dialogue with Colossus (who she scolds for flirting with Scarlet Witch).
Shadowcat appears in X-Men: The Official Game, with Kim Mai Guest reprising her role.
Shadowcat is a playable character in Marvel Super Hero Squad Online, voiced by Tara Strong.
In X-Men: Destiny, Gambit mentions that the U-Men had captured Kitty and extracted bits of her power. Gambit obtains a vial of a substance which temporarily lets the character fall through the roof (if the player chose the correct option).
Kitty Pryde is a playable character in the Facebook game Marvel: Avengers Alliance.
Kitty Pryde is a playable character in the X-Men: Days of Future Past app game.
Kitty Pryde is a playable character in the online MMO Marvel Heroes, with Danielle Judovits reprising her role.
Kitty Pryde appears as a playable character in Marvel Future Fight.
Kitty Pryde appears as a playable character in Marvel Puzzle Quest.
Kitty Pryde appears as a playable character in Marvel Strike Force.
Novels
Kitty Pryde appears in the X-Men/Star Trek crossover novel Planet X. In it, she is examined by Geordi La Forge, who notes the similarities between her ability and the chroniton displacement he and Ro Laren experienced in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Next Phase".
Reception
Kitty Pryde has been well received as a comic book character and as a member of the X-Men. Wizard magazine put her at number #13 in 200 Greatest Comic Characters of All Time. She was the highest female comic character in the list beating rivals such as Wonder Woman, Buffy Summers, and She-Hulk. IGN ranked her as the 47th greatest comic book hero of all time stating that "as X-Men writers have often found it useful to introduce younger teen recruits to offset the experienced members of the team, Kitty Pryde set the standard when she debuted, and none have surpassed her". IGN rated Kitty Pryde #3 on its list of the Top 25 X-Men from the Past 40 Years describing her as the mutant everyman, the common girl turned superhero; IGN also stated that as her pet dragon, Lockheed, "became instantly attached to Kitty, [they] were hooked early on". Marvel.com ranked her as the tenth greatest X-Men member stating that "unquestionably, the dynamic of the X-Men shifted entirely when teenage whiz kid Kitty Pryde joined the team in the early 1980s"; Marvel.com also stated that even though Kitty has since blossomed into a young woman of considerable maturity and power, she remains the access point to the X-Men for countless readers. A later list on Marvel's website, ranking the top 50 X-Men characters, placed her in first place, citing the ease of identifying with her for the audience, and her development over the years.
Notes
References
External links
Kitty Pryde at Marvel.com
UncannyXmen.net Spotlight on Shadowcat
American superheroes
Characters created by Chris Claremont
Characters created by John Byrne (comics)
Comics characters introduced in 1980
Excalibur (comics)
Female characters in animation
Female characters in film
Female characters in television
Fictional American Jews in comics
Fictional bisexual females
Fictional characters from Illinois
Fictional characters who can turn intangible
Fictional dancers
Fictional female ninja
Fictional linguists
Fictional mayors
Fictional schoolteachers
Fictional secret agents and spies
Fictional women soldiers and warriors
Jewish superheroes
Marvel Comics female superheroes
Marvel Comics film characters
Marvel Comics LGBT superheroes
Marvel Comics martial artists
Marvel Comics mutants
S.H.I.E.L.D. agents
Teenage characters in comics
X-Men members | true | [
"Sarah Kramer is a Canadian vegan cookbook author. She is the best-selling author of How It All Vegan, The Garden of Vegan, La Dolce Vegan! and Vegan A Go-Go!. In 2012, she released Go Vegan! w/Sarah Kramer, one of the world's first vegan cookbook iPhone/iPad apps. \nKramer has written for publications such as Herbivore Magazine, Veg News and Shared Vision. She runs a popular vegan website/blog at govegan.net. She had a small vegan boutique called Sarah's Place that opened in 2011 and closed 2 years later after a diagnosis of breast cancer. Sarah did treatment in 2013 and now works full time at the business Tattoo Zoo that she co-owns with her wife, Geri Kramer in Victoria, BC. Sarah and Geri have a podcast called Meet The Kramers in which they discuss their 25-year marriage in relation to Geri's coming out as a trans woman in 2019.\n\nBooks\n How It All Vegan (with Tanya Barnard) (1999) \n The Garden Of Vegan (with Tanya Barnard) (2003) \n La Dolce Vegan (2005) \n Vegan A Go-Go! (2008) \n How It All Vegan: 10th Anniversary Edition (2009)\n\nPodcast \n\n Meet The Kramers podcast\n\nSee also\n Vegan\n List of vegans\n\nReferences\n\nInterviews and articles\n Article in Shared Vision\n Podcast Interview on Vegan Freak Radio\n Interview with The Cookbook Store\n Interview with Abebooks.com\n\nExternal links\n Meet The Kramers podcast\n Tattoo Zoo\n Sarah's Blog\n GoVegan.net, Sarah's website\n Arsenal Pulp Press, Sarah's publisher\n\nChefs of vegan cuisine\nCanadian women chefs\nCanadian food writers\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nLiving people\nWriters from Regina, Saskatchewan\nCanadian cookbook writers\nVegan cookbook writers",
"The 1980 United States Olympic trials for track and field were held at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon. These were the first such trials organized by the new national governing body for the sport of track and field, The Athletics Congress formed one year earlier as required by the Amateur Sports Act of 1978. Previous trials had been organized by the AAU. The eight-day competition lasted from June 21 until June 29.\n\nUnlike any of the previous or subsequent years, the Olympic trials in 1980 did not select representatives to the 1980 Summer Olympics. By this point in the year, President Jimmy Carter had already announced the 1980 Summer Olympics boycott in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and its flagrant human rights violations. This affected the competition. Some athletes did not compete or did not persevere through illness or injury as they might have if Olympic bids were on the line. Subsequently, some athletes, notably Tom Hintnaus and Gary Fanelli, chose to compete for other countries. Others like Franklin Jacobs retired.\n\nThe only qualifiers to another meet from this meet came from two women's exhibition events, the 400 m hurdles and 5000 meters, who were invited to the 1980 World Championships in Athletics. Many of the top 3 from this meet ran in the alternative to the Olympics, the Liberty Bell Classic, a few weeks later.\n\nThe trials for the men's and women's marathon were held May 24 in Buffalo, New York, and the trials for the men's 50 km race walk were held May 10 in Niagara Falls, New York.\n\nMen's results\nKey:\n.\n\nMen track events\n\nMen field events\n\nNotes\n\nWomen's results\n\nWomen track events\n\nWomen field events\n\nExternal links\nMen's 5000m Highlights \nHeptathlon and women's shot put Highlights\n\nReferences\n\nUS Olympic Trials\nTrack, Outdoor\nUnited States Summer Olympics Trials\nOlympic Trials (track and field)\nOlympic Trials (track and field)"
] |
[
"Kitty Pryde",
"Fictional character biography",
"How did Kitty Pryde get her superpowers?",
"Kitty started to have headaches at age thirteen, signaling the emergence of her mutant powers.",
"Where was she born?",
"Katherine Anne \"Kitty\" Pryde was born in Deerfield, Illinois, to Carmen and Theresa Pryde.",
"How did she meet the X-men?",
"She was approached by both the X-Men's Charles Xavier and the Hellfire Club's White Queen,"
] | C_fee4a42a8e0247dca5e9a34ebd4a2c3d_0 | What did Charles Xavier tell her about the X-men? | 4 | What did Charles Xavier tell Kitty Pryde about the X-men? | Kitty Pryde | Katherine Anne "Kitty" Pryde was born in Deerfield, Illinois, to Carmen and Theresa Pryde. Of Jewish descent, her paternal grandfather, Samuel Prydeman, was held in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. Kitty started to have headaches at age thirteen, signaling the emergence of her mutant powers. She was approached by both the X-Men's Charles Xavier and the Hellfire Club's White Queen, Emma Frost, both of whom hoped to recruit her for their respective causes. Kitty was unnerved by Frost, observing that the White Queen looked at her as if she were "something good to eat." She got along better with Xavier and the three X-Men who escorted him, quickly becoming friends with Ororo Munroe. Ororo told Kitty who she really was and about the X-Men, which made the teenager even more enthusiastic about attending Xavier's school. Their conversation was cut short when they (along with Wolverine and Colossus) were attacked by armored mercenaries in the employ of Frost and the Hellfire Club. The X-Men defeated their assailants, but were subdued by the White Queen's telepathic powers immediately after. In the confusion, Kitty was separated from the X-Men, and not captured along with them. She managed to contact Cyclops, Phoenix, and Nightcrawler. With the help of Dazzler and Pryde, those X-Men rescued their teammates from the Hellfire Club. The White Queen appeared to perish in the battle, which meant she was no longer competing with Xavier for the approval of Kitty's parents. Kitty's parents had not heard from her in more than a day, because during that time she was first being pursued by the Hellfire Club's men and then working with the X-Men to save their friends. All they knew was Kitty had left with Xavier's "students" to get a soda, there had been reports that the soda shop had been blown up, and Kitty had been missing since. Therefore, they were angry at Xavier when he finally returned with Kitty in tow. At first, it seemed like there was no chance of Kitty being allowed to attend the school and join the X-Men. Phoenix then used her considerable telepathic power to erase the memories of Kitty's parents and plant false ones, resulting in a complete shift in their attitude towards Xavier. Kitty was then allowed to enroll at Xavier's school with her parents' blessing, becoming the youngest member of the team. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Katherine Anne "Kitty" Pryde is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, commonly in association with the X-Men. The character first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #129 (January 1980) and was co-created by writer-artist John Byrne and Chris Claremont.
A mutant, Pryde possesses a "phasing" ability that allows her, as well as objects or people she is in contact with, to become intangible. This power also disrupts any electrical field she passes through, and lets her simulate levitation.
The youngest to join the X-Men, she was first portrayed as a "kid sister" to many older members of the group, filling the role of literary foil to the more established characters. She occasionally used the codenames Sprite and Ariel, cycling through several uniforms until settling for her trademark black-and-gold costume. During the miniseries Kitty Pryde and Wolverine, she was renamed Shadowcat, the alias she would be most associated with, and shifted to a more mature depiction in her subsequent appearances. Pryde would eventually abandon her nickname, "Kitty", and switch to "Kate". She was one of the main cast of characters depicted in the original Excalibur title. After momentarily joining the Guardians of the Galaxy, she assumed her then-fiancé's superhero identity as the Star-Lord (Star-Lady). As of the series Marauders, she is now informally known as Captain Kate Pryde and the Red Queen of the Hellfire Trading Company.
In the X-Men film series, Kitty Pryde was initially portrayed by young actresses in cameos; Sumela Kay in X-Men (2000) and Katie Stuart in X2 (2003). Later, a pre-transition Elliot Page portrayed the character in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) and X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) in full-length appearances. Pryde is ranked #47 in IGN's Top 100 Comic Book Heroes.
Publication history
Kitty Pryde was introduced into the X-Men title as the result of an editorial dictate that the book was supposed to depict a school for mutants. Uncanny X-Men artist John Byrne named Kitty Pryde after a classmate he met in art school, Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary in 1973. He had told Pryde he liked her name and asked for permission to use it, promising to name his first original comics character after her. Byrne drew the character to slightly resemble an adolescent Sigourney Weaver.
The fictional Kitty Pryde first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #129 (January 1980), by writer Chris Claremont and artist Byrne, as a highly intelligent 13-year-old girl. Claremont said several elements of the character's personality were derived from those of X-Men editor Louise Simonson's daughter, Julie. Claremont and Byrne made the new character a full-fledged X-Man in issue #139, where she was codenamed "Sprite". She was the main character in issues #141–142, the "Days of Future Past" storyline, where she is possessed by her older self, whose consciousness time travels to the past to prevent a mass extermination of mutants. The six-issue miniseries Kitty Pryde and Wolverine (1984–1985), written by Claremont, is a coming-of-age storyline in which she matures from a girl to a young woman, adopting the new name "Shadowcat".
In the late 1980s, Kitty joined the British-based super team, Excalibur, where she remained for roughly ten years before coming back to the X-Men. In the early 2000s, she disappeared from the spotlight after semi-retiring from superhero work. She was featured in the 2002 mini-series Mekanix and came back to the main X-Men books in 2004 under the pen of Joss Whedon in Astonishing X-Men. She remained a part of the X-Men books until 2008 when she left again for roughly 2 years. After coming back, she was featured in Jason Aaron's Wolverine and the X-Men and Brian Michael Bendis' All-New X-Men books.
In early 2015, she joined the Guardians of the Galaxy. After the Secret Wars event, she adopted her new alias, Star-Lord (first believed to be Star-Lady).
In 2020, Kitty Pryde was revealed to be bisexual. Her co-creator, Chris Claremont, had always intended this to be the case, considering Rachel Summers as a possible love interest for Pryde. However, Claremont wasn't allowed to show this at the time due to censorship, as he revealed on the "Xplain the X-Men" podcast in 2016.
Shadowcat's popularity had a profound effect on the real-life Kitty Pryde: the latter became so overwhelmed by attention from Shadowcat fans, she abbreviated her name to K.D. Pryde to avoid association with her fictional counterpart. She has since stated she has mixed feelings about her fame, saying she values Byrne's comics for their entertainment and artistic value, but wishes more people would appreciate her as more than just Shadowcat's namesake.
Fictional character biography
Katherine Anne "Kitty" Pryde was born in Deerfield, Illinois, to Carmen and Theresa Pryde. She is an Ashkenazi Jewish-American and her paternal grandfather, Samuel Prydeman, was held in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. Kitty started to have headaches at age thirteen, signaling the emergence of her mutant powers. She was approached by both the X-Men's Charles Xavier and the Hellfire Club's White Queen, Emma Frost, both of whom hoped to recruit her for their respective causes. Kitty was unnerved by Frost, observing that the White Queen looked at her as if she were "something good to eat." She got along better with Xavier and the three X-Men who escorted him, quickly becoming friends with Ororo Munroe. Ororo told Kitty who she really was and about the X-Men, which made the teenager even more enthusiastic about attending Xavier's school.
Their conversation was cut short when they (along with Wolverine and Colossus) were attacked by armored mercenaries in the employ of Frost and the Hellfire Club. The X-Men defeated their assailants, but were subdued by the White Queen's telepathic powers immediately after. In the confusion, Kitty was separated from the X-Men, and not captured along with them. She managed to contact Cyclops, Phoenix, and Nightcrawler. With the help of Dazzler and Pryde, those X-Men rescued their teammates from the Hellfire Club.
The White Queen appeared to perish in the battle, which meant she was no longer competing with Xavier for the approval of Kitty's parents. Kitty's parents had not heard from her in more than a day, because during that time she was first being pursued by the Hellfire Club's men and then working with the X-Men to save their friends. All they knew was Kitty had left with Xavier's "students" to get a soda, there had been reports that the soda shop had been blown up, and Kitty had been missing since. Therefore, they were angry at Xavier when he finally returned with Kitty in tow. At first, it seemed like there was no chance of Kitty being allowed to attend the school and join the X-Men. Phoenix then used her considerable telepathic power to erase the memories of Kitty's parents and plant false ones, resulting in a complete shift in their attitude towards Xavier. Kitty was then allowed to enroll at Xavier's school with her parents' blessing, becoming the youngest member of the team.
Joining the X-Men
Kitty joined the X-Men, and assumed the costumed identity of Sprite. Early in her career as an X-Man, Kitty's adult self from an alternate future took possession of her body in the present to help X-Men thwart the assassination of Senator Robert Kelly by the second Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Kitty then singlehandedly defeated a N'Garai demon. Kitty also briefly attended the White Queen's Massachusetts Academy when her parents became convinced that she needed to be with students of her own age, but following a failed attempt to subdue the X-Men, Frost revoked Kitty's admission.
During her teen years, Kitty fostered a number of close relationships with others at the school and in the X-Men. She developed a crush on Colossus and became close friends with his little sister Illyana Rasputin. Initially uneasy around Nightcrawler and other mutants with physical deformities, Kitty finally overcame her fears and became close friends with him. Kitty also befriended Lockheed, a highly intelligent alien resembling a dragon, who followed her home after a mission in outer space. Lockheed is extremely loyal to Kitty, and the two of them share a psychic bond. Wolverine became something of a mentor to Kitty despite his usually gruff personality. Storm came to view Kitty as the daughter she never had.
Though Xavier has threatened to reassign Kitty to the New Mutants, a team of younger mutants he established in the absence of the X-Men, ever since the X-Men returned from outer space, she never ended up joining the group, who she derisively calls the "X-Babies". Kitty was later abducted by the Morlocks and nearly forced to wed Caliban. She was then abducted by the White Queen, but rescued by the New Mutants.
During this time, Kitty began to date Colossus, although this did not last long. Colossus developed feelings for an alien woman named Zsaji whom he met on the Beyonder's planet in the first Secret Wars. Colossus' feelings toward Zsaji were primarily a side effect of her own unique healing abilities, which she had used on him after he became injured. Regardless, Colossus' feelings were real and he returned to Earth consumed with grief after Zsaji's death. He admitted to Kitty that he loved Zsaji, which hurt her deeply and ended the budding romantic relationship. Kitty had made good friends with a local boy from Salem Central named Doug Ramsey around this time, but her feelings for him never went as deep as his for her, and they never actually dated, though they remained close, even more so after Doug's status as a mutant was revealed and he joined the New Mutants under the codename Cypher. They remained friends until his death some time later.
Ogun
During the 1984–1985 Kitty Pryde and Wolverine miniseries, Kitty is possessed by a demon, the ninja Ogun. Ogun psychically bestows upon Kitty a virtual lifetime of martial arts training. Kitty was brainwashed by Ogun into becoming a ninja assassin, and was sent to attack Wolverine. Kitty is able to resist Ogun's influence with Wolverine's help, and the two form a strong teacher/student bond, which helps them in vanquishing Ogun. Kitty returns to the X-Men, no longer the innocent girl they once knew, and officially adopts the codename Shadowcat.
Morlock Massacre
While trying to save Rogue, Kitty was badly injured by Harpoon's energy spear during the Mutant Massacre story arc, in the massacre of the Morlocks, with the result that she lost control of her power and was stuck in an intangible state and could not regain her solidity. She was rushed to Muir Island along with other surviving casualties of the Massacre to be tended to by Moira MacTaggert. MacTaggert was able to keep Kitty's condition from deteriorating to the point where she completely lost physical substance and ceased to exist, but was not able to do any more to help her.
At this time, Kitty's natural state was to be intangible. Where she once had to make a conscious effort to phase, she could now only maintain her solidity through an act of conscious will. The X-Men went to Reed Richards, Mister Fantastic of the Fantastic Four, for aid, but Richards initially refused because he was not sure he would be able to help.
Having nowhere else to go, the X-Men turned to Richards' enemy Doctor Doom. This created a moral dilemma for both the X-Men and the Fantastic Four, and both teams fought each other because the Fantastic Four were trying to stop the treatment while the X-Men were determined to save Kitty's life. In the end, both the personal crisis of the Fantastic Four and the life of Shadowcat were saved after Franklin Richards, with the help of Lockheed, brought both teams to their senses. Kitty has since recovered from this state and now has full control over her power again.
Excalibur
Among the others injured and brought to Muir Isle were Colossus and Nightcrawler, although Colossus left the United Kingdom shortly after being released from MacTaggert's care to join the rest of the X-Men on their mission to battle the Adversary. The X-Men sacrificed their lives to defeat the Adversary, the battle and their sacrifice was televised and broadcast across the world. The X-Men were resurrected later in the same issue, unknown to the world at large, but chose to keep a low profile and perpetuate the belief that they were still dead. This strategy was enforced to more effectively fight their enemies. This meant avoiding contact with friends and family, including Kitty. Thinking the X-Men were dead, Kitty and Nightcrawler joined Rachel Summers, Captain Britain, and Meggan to form the Britain-based team Excalibur. For a brief time, Kitty studied at St. Searle's School for Girls in Britain. During her time with Excalibur, Kitty developed a crush on Professor Alistaire Stuart which went unreciprocated since Alistaire was attracted to Rachel. Later, she was romantically involved with former Black Air agent Pete Wisdom. At some point Kitty was recruited by the international law enforcement agency S.H.I.E.L.D. to repair the computer system of their flying headquarters. Kitty discovered the problem was due to Ogun's spirit having infiltrated the computer system, and with the aid of Wolverine, she managed to purge Ogun's presence. During this time, Kitty was attracted to a S.H.I.E.L.D. intern her own age, and this made her begin to doubt her relationship with Wisdom. Soon after, she broke off their relationship.
Back to the X-Men
After Excalibur's dissolution, Shadowcat, Nightcrawler, and Colossus return to the X-Men. While returning, they faced a group of imposters following Cerebro, in the guise of Professor X. While tracking Mystique, she stumbles onto prophetic diaries that belonged to Irene Adler, a precognitive. During the six-month gap, Kitty visited Genosha. Whatever she experienced there is unknown (although presumably connected to her father, living on Genosha at the time), but it had a profound effect on her. She cut her hair and began to act rebelliously, also using one of Wolverine's bone claws broken off during battle as a weapon. Kitty remained with the X-Men for a while before leaving after the apparent death of Colossus. Trying to give herself a normal life, she attended the University of Chicago. During this time, her father was killed when Cassandra Nova’s Sentinels destroyed Genosha. Kitty later finds a recording of his death due to exploring footage of the attack. She is also kidnapped by William Stryker, but the X-Treme X-Men team helped her escape, and she assisted them on several missions.
At the start of Joss Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men, Kitty once again rejoins the X-Men, despite having extreme reservations about working with the former White Queen, given their history. This was the primary reason why Frost herself wanted Kitty on the team, as a sort of "safety" should Frost ever revert to type. Frost reasoned that the person who trusted her least would be most likely to spot such behavior. On one of the team's first missions, Shadowcat discovered Colossus was alive. After some initial awkwardness, Kitty and Colossus resumed dating.
Kitty Pryde appeared alongside Colossus in the "Blinded by the Light" arc in X-Men. They are the two X-Men left to look after the students while the rest of the X-Men leave for Mystique's home in Mississippi to check up on Rogue, during which they are ambushed by the Marauders. Kitty and Colossus, meanwhile, attempt to protect the students from a faction of the Marauders led by Exodus. It is revealed over the course of the story that Kitty, worried of the Destiny Diaries' safety, devised a plan with Cyclops and Emma Frost to hide them and have Emma wipe the location from her mind. The location could only be revealed by a code word spoken to Kitty. The arc concludes with a battle between Iceman and Cannonball against the Marauders for the diaries, during which they are destroyed by Gambit.
In the "Torn" arc, the latest incarnation of the Hellfire Club begin an assault on Xavier's School. Kitty fulfilled the role that Emma Frost envisioned, personally taking down Frost and imprisoning her, only to fall under a telepathic delusion created by Hellfire member Perfection, who claimed to be the true, unreformed Emma Frost. Under this delusion, Kitty was made to believe that she and Colossus had conceived a child, which was later taken away by the X-Men because its potential mutant abilities were supposedly dangerous. Kitty reacts in the delusion by attempting to rescue the child from a near-inescapable "box" in the depths of the school, unaware that in reality she is freeing an alien entity, Stuff, who contains the trapped consciousness of Cassandra Nova, the apparent ringleader of this new Hellfire Club. A newly awakened Cyclops revealed that the new Hellfire Club, including Perfection and Nova, are actually mental projections created by a piece of Cassandra Nova's consciousness; which became lodged in Emma's mind during the X-Men's last confrontation with her, playing on her survivor's guilt over the Genoshan massacre, and utilizing Emma's telepathy to both confound the X-Men and orchestrate her (Nova's) escape from the Stuff body. As Cyclops killed the mental projections, Emma tried to force Kitty to kill her to get rid of Nova. Undeterred, Cassandra Nova switched her focus to attempt to transfer her mind to Hisako Ichiki. It appears that Nova did not succeed, as the team was transported to S.W.O.R.D.'s air station en route to Ord's Breakworld for the "Unstoppable" arc that concludes Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men.
Breakworld
As the team prepares to end the confrontation with the Breakworld leader, the team splits up—with Kitty on the team appointed to stop the missile pointed at Earth. Kitty phases into the missile to disrupt its circuitry noting that it is composed of the same material as the rest of Breakworld, a material that is difficult and exhausting for her to phase through. After phasing for a mile into the missile, Kitty finds the center only to discover it empty. The missile is fired, causing Kitty to pass out inside of it as Beast discovers too late that due to its shape, trajectory, and lack of internal circuitry, the Breakworld's weapon is not a missile, but a bullet. As the bullet hurtles toward Earth, Kitty lies unconscious within it.
As the situation becomes increasingly dire, Emma establishes mental contact with Kitty, reassuring her that she will come out of this fine, though it eventually becomes clear to both that the situation will be grim. Kitty and Emma come to an understanding and reconciliation, Emma stating that she never wanted something like this to happen to her. Kitty then phases the bullet through Earth, but is trapped within. At the end of Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men, Scott Summers mentions that Doctor Strange, Reed Richards, and some "top men" tried to save her, but believe she has fused to the bullet, as it continues to hurtle through space. Whether she is alive or dead is unknown, though the X-Men consider her lost to them.
As a result of these events Kitty does not appear in the X-Men crossover event X-Men: Messiah Complex, since this takes place after the events of Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men. She is briefly mentioned in the aftermath of the Messiah Complex, by Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Wolverine, as the three of them discuss "losing her."
To cope with Kitty's loss, Colossus takes down a group of Russian criminals dealing in human trafficking, and gets a tattoo of the name 'Katya' on his chest. Emma begins having a recurring dream in which she hears a voice whom she believes is Kitty's trying to reach out to her.
It was later confirmed by Abigail Brand that Kitty Pryde was still alive within the bullet, but because the bullet's design would harden as time went on, it would become increasingly difficult to break the bullet open.
Return
After the X-Men move to the island of Utopia, Magneto arrives on the island professing his desire to join and support the X-Men in their effort to unite the world's remaining mutants. The X-Men reluctantly let him stay, remaining wary of him despite his efforts to gain their trust. In a final bid to gain their trust, Magneto focuses his powers, attempting to divert the interstellar path of the metal bullet Kitty is trapped in and bring her home to Earth. Meanwhile, inside the bullet, Kitty is revealed to still be alive. Unbeknownst to the others, Magneto had encountered the bullet earlier while attempting to regain his powers with the High Evolutionary and surmised that Kitty was inside. Despite this and the High Evolutionary's apparent ability to retrieve the bullet and Kitty, Magneto chose to focus on regaining his powers, secretly keeping tabs on the bullet until his decision to draw it back to Earth. During her time trapped inside the bullet, Kitty keeps herself and the bullet phased to avoid collisions with any inhabited objects in its path.
Magneto brings Kitty Pryde safely down to Earth by cracking the bullet in two and levitating Kitty to the ground. When she and Colossus try to touch, it is revealed that she is trapped in her intangible form, unable to speak, and the X-Men place her in a protective chamber similar to the one used for her following the events of the Mutant Massacre. How Kitty survived her time in the bullet is unclear to the X-Men's science team, where the X-Men discover that all her bodily functions halted. An analysis by Kavita Rao hypothesizes that Kitty created an intense muscle memory to keep herself and the bullet phased and has "forgotten" how to un-phase.
During a conversation with Colossus, with Emma Frost acting as the psi-conduit, Kitty picks up Emma's stray thoughts on killing the captive Sebastian Shaw, to prevent Namor from discovering she previously lied to him. While disgusted at Emma's intentions, Kitty offers a compromise. Due to her current ghost state, she is the perfect tool for making Shaw disappear.
In a storyline in Uncanny X-Men, the Breakworlders make their way to Earth. During the conflict between the Breakworlder Kr'uun and the X-Men, Kitty is slain and resurrected by Kr'uun's mate in an alien ritual, which results in her powers returning to normal.
Regenesis
Shortly thereafter, Kitty breaks up with Colossus, and decides to return with Wolverine to Westchester to open the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning. In Wolverine and the X-Men #4, she appears to be suddenly pregnant, but the pregnancy was revealed to be a Brood infestation, and it was swiftly dealt with by a team of X-Men. Since returning to Westchester, Kitty has shared several kisses with Iceman. During the events of Avengers vs. X-Men, Kitty does not take a side, but instead decides to stay at the school to work with the students. Once Bobby returned from working with the X-Men after realizing that the Phoenix had corrupted them, he and Kitty finally decide to go on a date.
All-New X-Men
After Beast brings the original five X-Men into the future to stop Cyclops in the present, Kitty volunteers to take responsibility for the temporally relocated X-Men while they work to undo this dark future. This soon puts her at odds with the rest of her team as they believed the original five should go back to their own time in order to prevent any damage to the space-time continuity. Eventually, this leads Kitty to take the decision of abandoning the school with the time-displaced X-Men and join Cyclops's X-Men at the New Xavier School. During the first few weeks at the New Xavier School, Jean Grey is abducted by the Shiar Empire to stand trial for her future self's crimes. Kitty and the time-displaced X-Men team up with the Guardians of the Galaxy and succeed in rescuing Jean from the Shiar. At the conclusion of the storyline, Kitty begins a long-distance, flirtatious relationship with Starlord, Peter Quill.
The Black Vortex
In the following weeks, Kitty's relationship with Peter Quill evolves more and more as they developed stronger feelings for each other every day. At one point, Quill gets captured during one of their dates and she has no option but to go to his rescue, despite her fear of space as a result of her being trapped on the giant space bullet. After rescuing Peter, she decides to stay in space with him. Then, Kitty convinces Peter to steal a powerful artifact called the Black Vortex from his father J'son. Soon, they find themselves being chased by J'son's assassination squad, the Slaughter Lords. In despair, they request the aid of the X-Men and the Guardians of the Galaxy to protect the Vortex. After a few of their own friends can't resist the temptation and submit to the Vortex, betray the team, and escape with the artifact; the team splits and Kitty stays in Spartax to help an orphanage. She is encased in amber after Thane (who was allied with J'son) freezes the whole planet along with the people inside it; but thanks to her phasing powers, she manages to get out of the amber. Then the Brood attacks Spartax, planning to use every encased person to lay eggs and create an army of Brood to start invading other planets and conquering them. Kitty feels the only way to stop them is by submitting to the Vortex herself as she's the only one who can resist the cosmic corruption. She reluctantly submits and becomes a being of unlimited power. After being reminded of the love between her and Peter Quill, she goes back and phases all the amber that encased Spartax, along with the Broods trying to infect the people, and sends them all to another dimension. Kitty doesn't give up the cosmic power but admits to Peter that she is afraid of it. Peter promises her that he will never abandon her no matter how much she changes. Then, Peter kneels and proposes marriage to Kitty. She, with tears in her eyes, accepts. Later when Star Lord is declared Emperor of Spartax she is told she will become the first lady of Spartax.
Guardians of the Galaxy
Kitty takes on the mantle of Star Lord and joins the Guardians of the Galaxy in Peter Quill's place so he can take on his royal duties. When Hala the Accuser massacres Spartax in an attempt to make Quill pay for J'son's actions against her people, she initially easily lays waste to the capitol and overpowers the Guardians. After the Guardians regroup and formulate a strategy to defeat her, Kitty manages to partially phase Hala into the ground so the rest of the Guardians can knock her out and separate her from her weapon. After Quill loses his title as king he and Kitty end up on a mission with the rest of the Guardians on a concentration camp prison planet owned by the Badoon after Gamora gave them information on it so they can free Angela. Once there, Kitty has a personal reaction upon seeing the prisoners and makes it her mission to liberate everyone there and defeat the captors, as it reminds her of Nazi concentration camps. After Quill gets captured and sentenced to death in an arena battle, Kitty finds and kills one of the Badoon leaders by phasing his heart out of his body. When Captain Marvel summons the Guardians to Earth to help her address Tony Stark, Kitty learns that Thanos is a prisoner on Earth and tries to convince Quill to tell Gamora. When fighting starts Kitty woefully realizes that some of her former students are on Tony Stark's side instead of fighting with Captain Marvel. During the battle the Guardians' ship was destroyed, effectively stranding them on Earth. After helping the Guardians stop Thanos from leading an invasion from the Negative Zone the Guardians are given a new ship; however, Kitty decides to stay on Earth and ends her time with the Guardians and Quill.
Leading the X-Men
Upon returning to Earth, Kitty hopes to finally regain a semblance of a normal life but ends up approached by Storm, who informs Kitty of everything the X-Men have gone through while Kitty was away. Storm announces to Kitty that she intends to step down as leader of the X-Men due to the guilt that she feels for leading the X-Men to war and offers Kitty her position. After touring X-Haven and seeing how much things have changed and how much things need to change for the better, Kitty agrees to lead the X-Men as long as Storm remains on the team. Her next act is to relocate the mansion from Limbo to Central Park, New York so the X-Men can refocus on being part of the world instead of fearing it under the belief that if the X-Men truly are to be seen as heroes, then they need to actually live in the world that they are trying to save instead of constantly worrying about their own survival.
Under Kitty's new leadership, the X-Men go through some small changes in order to shed their past history and make new names for themselves, such as convincing Rachel Summers to change her code name to Prestige and renaming the mansion as The Xavier Institute for Mutant Education and Outreach. Kitty learns first-hand how hard it is to balance leading the X-Men as well as managing the mansion when there are many political factors trying to deliberately get in the way of the X-Men. She also begins to have awkward one-on-one moments with Colossus; they try to remain friends, but given their long history their interactions swiftly become complicated. Kitty's first case as field leader of the X-Men sees her and her team taking on a new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. After discovering that an outspoken anti-mutant politician brainwashed this new Brotherhood to work for her to publicly discredit mutants, Kitty threatened to expose her if she continued exploiting mutants for her own personal gain.
Dawn of X
After Krakoa became a new sovereign nation for Mutants, Kitty Pryde, now going by Captain Kate Pryde, discovers she is the sole mutant who is, for unknown reasons, unable to use the various warp gates leading to Krakoa. It is implied that she has done something to anger Krakoa, but that restriction does not mean Kitty cannot use other means to reach the mutant homeland. She steals a boat and sets sail for the island. Kitty's time on Krakoa proves to be just as fruitless, as the island's natural resources (like flowers that grow into biome homes) are similarly prohibited to Kitty. Emma Frost comes asking Kitty to take up a special mission: taking a bigger boat out to serve as pirate captain on the X-Men's mission to liberate mutants trapped in oppressive countries that do not recognize mutant sovereignty, while also smuggling and supplying for Emma's Hellfire Trading Company the lifesaving drugs the X-Men provide to humans. Kate Pryde is later appointed the new Red Queen of the Hellfire Trading Company by Emma Frost, to the dismay of Sebastian Shaw. Seeing Pryde as an obstacle to his complete control of the Hellfire Corporation, Shaw began plotting against Kate and her crew. After taking notice how Emma became overprotective of the newly crowned Red Queen, Shaw realized that for the same reason she can't travel through Krakoa's gates nor read or understand the Krakoan language until Emma implanted it in her brain, the X-Men's Resurrection Protocols also won't apply to her, which means Kate cannot be resurrected if she died. He orchestrated a distraction by paying off human supremacists Homines Verendi to stage an attack on his own son. Once Kate was defenseless, Shaw emerged from below deck and ensnared Lockheed with a net gun, making him a helpless hostage. He then released Krakoan seeds at her feet, which wrapped around her and prevented her from using her powers. He then dropped her and Lockheed into the sea. While Lockheed was able to survive, Kate sank helplessly, and once her head dropped under the surface, she had no air left and drowned instantly. Her death is later confirmed by Bishop as he retrieves Kate's body, as it was also established that the Resurrection Protocols indeed do not apply to Kate, as the Five, for reasons unknown, cannot resurrect her. However, she is later resurrected, as Emma Frost realized that it was due to the nature of Kate's intangibility powers that her mindless body was unable to break out of the egg.
Powers and abilities
Kitty is a mutant with the ability to pass through solid matter by passing her atomic particles through the spaces between the atoms of the object through which she is moving. In this way she and the object through which she is passing can temporarily merge without interacting, and each is unharmed when Shadowcat has finished passing through the object. This process is called "phasing" or quantum tunneling and it renders her almost completely intangible to physical touch. Shadowcat passes through objects at the same speed at which she is moving before she enters them. Since she is unable to breathe while inside an object, she can only continuously phase through solid objects (as when she travels underground) as long as she can hold her breath. However, contrary depictions of the duration of her phasing ability have been presented, such as when she has phased miles within an object. The use of her abilities also interferes with any electrical systems as she passes through by disrupting the flow of electrons from atom to atom, including the bio-electric systems of living bodies if she concentrates in the right way. This typically causes machines to malfunction or be destroyed as she phases through them, and can induce shock and unconsciousness in living beings.
Using her power began as an optional ability, but for a period (over ten years of published comics, approximately two years in-continuity) Kitty existed in a naturally "phased" state, and had to consciously choose to become solid. Kitty has returned to her original form and is normally solid and must choose to use her power. While phasing, she does not physically walk on surfaces, but rather interacts with the molecules of air above them, allowing her to ascend and descend, causing her to seemingly walk on air. While phased, she is immune to most physical attacks, and has inconsistent showings of some resistance to telepathy. The density of some materials (such as adamantium) can prove deleterious to her phasing, causing her to be severely disoriented or experience pain if she tries to pass through them. Some energy attacks also prove problematic for Kitty. For example, an energy blast fired by Harpoon, a member of the Marauders, caused her to lose her ability to become fully tangible for months. Magic and magical beings can also harm her in her phased state, as demonstrated in a battle with a N'Garai demon whose claws left no visible marks, but caused Kitty severe pain as they passed through her intangible body.
Kitty can also extend her powers to phase other people and objects. She is able to phase at least six other people (or objects of similar mass) with her, so long as they establish and maintain physical contact with her. She can extend her phasing effect to her own clothing or any other object with mass up to that of a small truck, as long as she remains in contact with it. Kitty can also make objects intangible by maintaining contact with them. She has threatened to leave people phased into a wall, and used her power offensively to harm the Technarch Magus, and Danger.
Kitty's powers seem to have increased over the years. During an X-Treme X-Men story arc in which she is kidnapped by Reverend William Stryker, she phases out of sync with Earth's rotation to move from one place in the world (only east or west) to another seemingly instantaneously. At the climax of Astonishing X-Men, Kitty phases a 10 mi (16 km) long "bullet" composed of super-dense alien metals through the entire planet Earth. This feat caused her considerable strain, but she is unable to phase out of the bullet. Moreover, originally Kitty found it difficult or impossible to phase only part of her body at a time. In the Days of Future Past story arc, she is possessed by her older future self, allowing her to solidify only her shoulder while phasing the rest of her body through Destiny—a feat explicitly beyond the 13-year-old Kitty's abilities. By contrast, the Kitty Pryde of Joss Whedon's run can punch and kick someone standing on the other side of a wall, selectively phasing and unphasing body parts as necessary. She can even run and leap through an armed opponent, grabbing their weapon as she passes by, which presumably requires her to solidify only the surface area of the palms of her hands and then immediately phase both her palms and the weapon.
Besides her mutant powers, Kitty is a genius in the field of applied technology and computer science. She is highly talented in the design and use of computer hardware. She is a skilled pilot of piston and jet engine aircraft, and a competent pilot of certain advanced interstellar vehicles. She has previously shown a unique ability to wield the Soulsword and also be harmed by it. Since her possession by the ninja demon Ogun, she has been consistently shown to be an excellent hand-to-hand combatant, having since been endowed with a lifetime of training in the martial arts of Japanese ninja and samurai.
She is a professional-level dancer in both ballet and modern dance. She speaks fluent English, Japanese, Russian, and the royal and standard languages of the alien Shi'ar and Skrull, and has moderate expertise in Gaelic, Hebrew, and German.
Kitty also shares a mental/empathic connection with her pet dragon Lockheed; both she and the alien dragon can "sense" each other's presence at times and generally understand one another's thoughts and actions.
When Kitty used the Black Vortex, her powers were augmented to a cosmic scale making her a god-like being. She can phase through any material of any density and can even phase a planet out of Thane's amber, whereas in her normal state it is an extremely difficult task to simply phase herself out of the amber. She can also apparently transverse between the planes of the multiverse and is immune to the effects of space. Her appearance can be changed but her natural form appears to be rather gaseous in look.
Other versions
In addition to her mainstream incarnation, Kitty Pryde has been depicted in other fictional universes.
Age of Apocalypse
In the Age of Apocalypse reality, Kitty grows up under harsh circumstances and her nature reflects it. She has short hair, tight clothes, and chain smokes cigarettes. Her parents are killed in the Chicago Cullings, and she is forcibly recruited into Apocalypse's army, but is later rescued by Colossus. Magneto puts Shadowcat under Weapon X's training, hoping to turn her into the X-Men's assassin, and she is given a set of retractable artificial claws around each wrist to better imitate her teacher's fighting style. After the fallout between Colossus and Magneto, Shadowcat sides with Colossus, whom she has married. Instead of leaving the fight against Apocalypse altogether, the couple become the teachers of Generation Next. The two submit their trainees to harsh situations, giving them little comfort despite the fact that Shadowcat is close to the age of her students.
Shadowcat assists the team in rescuing Illyana Rasputin from the Seattle Core, and, at Colossus' behest, abandons her students after Illyana is saved. She is killed by Colossus in his ruthless obsession to protect his sister, Illyana; coming between an enraged Colossus and his endangered sister, Shadowcat never believed he would harm her.
Days of Future Past
In the Days of Future Past timeline (Earth-811), Shadowcat goes by the name Kate Pryde. Kate attempts to go back in time to prevent the assassination of Senator Robert Kelly by Mystique and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. She succeeds, only to create a separate timeline where the events of her past still come to pass. After returning to her own time Kate helps Rachel Summers escape back to the timeline she just created. Captured by Sentinels, Kate escapes by phasing through her inhibitor collar and fell into a time warp, causing her to merge with the Sentinel that was scanning her, and arrives in the timeline Rachel is inhabiting. Kate's mind settles in a small, metal, off-spherical body and becomes known as Widget. After a few adventures in that timeline, mostly in company with her Earth-616 counterpart's team Excalibur, Kate regains her memory and returns to her original timeline where she is able to reprogram the ruling Sentinels to protect life, ending their tyranny.
Earth X
In Earth X it is revealed in the appendix of issue six that Kitty Pryde is killed saving Colossus while he could not shift into his metal form. Instead of phasing the bullet through her, she heroically takes the bullet and is killed.
Exiles
A version of Kitty Pryde codenamed Cat first appeared in Exiles #96. She is younger than her Earth-616 counterpart. She has the appearance and powers of the normal Shadowcat although she wears a different costume. Prior to her joining the Exiles, this version of Kitty had been recruited by Emma Frost as one of the core agents of the Hellfire Club's strike force. She helps Psylocke defeat Doom's soldiers who have invaded the Panoptichron. She helps retrieve Blink, Morph, and Sabretooth from being scattered across the multiverse. She works as a computer expert for the team and is a full member of the Exiles.
Cat's skill with using her powers means she is not tied to any dimension and can see through various realities, including those of the mind (for instance seeing the various personalities in Sage's mind as "ghosts" surrounding her). Her arrival in the Crystal Palace and connection to its computers has increased this, giving her the ability to "cascade" through different alternative versions of herself, altering her appearance and details of her powers. Amongst other versions, she has assumed the form of a Kitty Pryde with the appearance and powers of Tigra. During the New Exiles' last mission Cat faced off against Madame Hydra (Sue Storm) and killed her at the cost of her own life.
There has been another version of Kitty that appeared in the King Hyperion story arc (Exiles #38-40). She had survived an attack on the X-Mansion by the Sentinels. The Colossus from her universe had been killed in the attack but she had the same feelings towards Weapon X's Colossus even though he was not her Colossus. The two eventually fell in love with each other. Unfortunately this did not last since she died with Colossus when they were shot into the empty vacuum of space by Hyperion.
House of M
When the Scarlet Witch altered reality in the 616 Universe, creating the reality known as House of M where mutants were the dominant population, Kitty Pryde was a teacher in a public middle school in Cincinnati, Ohio. Like many of the heroes of Earth 616, she is reminded of the true reality by Layla Miller and recruited in the fight to restore reality.
Magik
In the limited series Magik (Illyana and Storm), an alternative reality Kitty renames herself "Cat" after she is mutated by the demonic sorcerer Belasco into a more feline form, with cat eyes, whiskers, a tail, and enhanced physical abilities and senses. Trapped in Belasco's Limbo, Cat takes a militant view towards defeating the sorcerer, eschewing the magic that her reality's Storm embraces, instead turning to skills in swordplay and physical combat. She tries to save the Illyana Rasputin of Earth-616 from corruption through magic by taking Illyana into the wilderness of Limbo and teaching the child to fight and survive. Like the Kitty Pryde of Earth-616 eventually would, Cat became Illyana's best friend, but more in the role of an older sister due to the difference in their ages.
Cat's plan goes awry when the pair's attempt to confront Belasco fails, at the cost of the life of an enslaved Nightcrawler; Illyana falls under Belasco's influence and Cat is further transformed towards a feline, with a semi-animalistic mind completely loyal to Belasco. Cat is eventually slain by Illyana when Belasco sets Cat upon his rebellious apprentice; facing death at Cat's hands and knowing that, deep down, a part of Kitty still exists and hates her enslavement, Illyana broke Cat's neck in self-defense.
Long after Illyana overthrows Belasco, escapes Limbo, and becomes a member of the junior X-Men team known as the New Mutants, Cat's remains are found by the team in Limbo's throne room. By then she had completely decomposed to a skeleton. Illyana, facing a rebellion of Limbo's demon population that threatened to overrun Earth, smashed Cat's skull in rage over the demonic taint that Belasco left on her soul and frustration over the horrible choice she had to make to kill Cat.
Marvel Zombies
Kitty is briefly shown in the background as a zombie in Ultimate Fantastic Four #23, despite her mutant phasing powers. She is also seen in Marvel Zombies: Dead Days, when zombie Alpha Flight attack the X-Men. This would appear to have been retconned, though, as of Marvel Zombies: Halloween, which depicts her and her son Peter with Colossus surviving for several years in an out of the way house farm, encountering zombies, but, fortunately, being rescued by Mephisto, who dispatched the remaining zombies.
The Earth-91126/Earth-Z Kitty is recruited by Earth-2149/Marvel Zombies Spider-Man to help him develop a cure for the zombie hunger, on the grounds that her powers mean that she would be in no danger from him if he should succumb to his zombie instincts, but she is later seemingly killed when the zombie Quasar holds her underwater until she is forced to become solid once more, allowing the infected Namor to eat her flesh (much to the rage of the zombie Wolverine, of Earth-2149).
Mutant X
Storm was taken by the vampire Dracula and unlike Earth 616, she does not return. Kitty goes off to battle her, either to save or kill her. Kitty slays several vampires in the way but Storm proves too much for her and Kitty becomes her unwilling slave for some time. She later shows up as the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club and seems to be none too happy with Storm. It's also hinted that she was engaged or going to be engaged to Colossus. Her ultimate fate at the end of the series is unknown.
Lightning Force
In the reality of Earth-597, an alternative universe where World War II was won by Nazi Germany, Kitty is forced to serve as Shadowcat alongside Nightcrawler, Meggan, and Hauptmann Englande as a member of the Lightning Force (a version of Excalibur), made a virtual slave because of her Jewish heritage. She leads a sad existence and is easily identified by her shaved head and the Star of David tattooed on her forehead. It is indicated, from her own statements and those made by her reality's counterpart of Moira MacTaggert, that this Shadowcat is a true ghost, raised from the dead by a combination of science and magic and bound to serve the Nazi regime. This Shadowcat had the added ability to disrupt life force with her phasing power, knocking her victims unconscious, much like how her counterpart in the "prime" Marvel Universe (Earth-616) can disrupt technology that she phases through. She is also able to alter her facial features to a "demonic" aspect when attacking enemies or else responding to aggressive, commanding behavior from her superiors.
Pirate Kitty
Kitty tells Illyana a bedtime story and casts herself as Pirate Kitty Pryde, captain of the Abdul Alhazred, who operated in a magical world. Unlike her mainstream counterpart, she did not have any mutant powers and wore a classic pirate outfit which also included her Star of David necklace. She was also sometimes known as Colleen. Kitty was good friends of her version of Colossus, the Bamfs (Nightcrawler), Windrider (Storm), the "Fiend-with-no-name" (later revealed to be named "Mean") (Wolverine) and Lockheed (an alternative version of the X-Jet). Kitty also helped her versions of Professor X and Cyclops capture and cure that universe's version of Dark Phoenix.
At first she was only a fairy tale character, but later it is revealed that her fairy tale is actually an alternative universe. (In fact, several members of this universe, the Bamfs, would later come to Earth-616 to cause trouble.) When Earth-616's Nightcrawler was temporarily stranded in her world, Kitty helped him defeat the sorcerer Shagreen and also encountered the Earth-616 versions of Illyana, Lockheed, and herself.
Professor W's X-Men
In the native universe of the Exiles member Nocturne, Kitty is a senior member of the X-Men led by Nightcrawler. She is a teacher and TJ refers to her as "Aunt Kate". During a fight with Apocalypse Kitty gets exposed to a machine that reverts her to a younger stage of her life when she had only been with the X-Men a few weeks. Nocturne helps Kitty fit into the school and becomes her best friend. She also proves useful in the fight against the Brotherhood led by Cyclops.
Ruins
Imprisoned alongside other mutants at a prison camp in Texas by President X, Kitty attempted to use her phasing powers to escape, only to get stuck halfway through her cell door, losing three feet of intestines in the process.
Secret Wars (2015)
During the Secret Wars storyline, a version of Kitty named Kitten resides in the wuxia-inspired K'un-L'un region of Battleworld. In this reality, Kitten is a martial artist who joins Callisto's band of outcasts after being expelled from her school for attempting a forbidden technique, a side effect of which left her intangible. Kitten and her fellow outcasts became pupils of Shang-Chi, the exiled son of Emperor Zheng Zu. Dubbing their new school The Lowest Caste, Shang-Chi represents the group as their master for the tournament deciding the next Emperor of K'un-L'un, hoping to usurp his father's tyrannical rule. Kitten accompanies Shang-Chi for each of his fights in the Thirteen Chambers. During his final fight with Zu, Shang-Chi uses Kitten's technique of intangibility, which leads to his eventual victory and replaces his father as the new Emperor of K'un-L'un.
Ultimate Marvel
The Ultimate version of Shadowcat (Kitty Pryde) first appears as a 14-year-old girl in Ultimate X-Men #21. She is also Jewish and wears the Star of David around her neck, but does not appear to possess the same genius IQ as her mainstream (Earth-616) counterpart.
Kitty's mother, worried about Kitty's mutation, seeks help from Professor Charles Xavier. Kitty becomes a student at Xavier's school, when her mother allows her to attend under the condition she does not take part in any X-Men missions, nor train in any "Danger Room" simulations. Kitty soon rebels against this and joins the X-Men as their youngest member. She idolizes Spider-Man and has a crush on him; she even dates Peter Parker for a time. After a fierce argument with Professor Xavier concerning Peter's secret identity, which his Aunt May had just found out about, Kitty leaves the X-Men and enrolls in Peter's school. Their relationship is strained after their romantic involvement (as superheroes) becomes publicly known, making it impossible for them to date anymore in their civilian identities, and eventually comes to an end when Peter realizes he cannot get over his feelings for Mary Jane. However, Kitty still retains strong feelings for him.
Following the disastrous flood triggered by Magneto and the subsequent ban of public use of mutant powers, Kitty assumes the identity of the Shroud. Kitty also discovers that she can also decrease the space between her atoms make herself super-dense, giving her both superhuman strength and durability. When the authorities see Kitty as a threat, she enters into a fierce rage and demonstrates these powers for the first time to her friends. She is strong and angry enough to punch Spider-Man several feet through the air. She eventually escapes and goes into hiding in the now abandoned Morlock Tunnel with Iceman and the Human Torch after Peter Parker's death.
Kitty makes an appearance in Ultimate Comics: X, locating Jimmy Hudson, who is revealed to be Wolverine's son. Kitty was charged by Logan before his death to locate Jimmy and reveal his true origins to him.
After the death of Spider-Man she formed new team of X-Men consisting of herself, Iceman and the Human Torch. They soon rescued the mutant Rogue from the mutant-hunting Nimrod robots, going on to recruit Jimmy Hudson into their group as well. After killing the mutant-hunting William Stryker, Kitty decided to leave New York for the Southwest along with Bobby, Rogue, and Jimmy (leaving only Johnny behind) in order to save the mutants there and defeat the Nimrods, now controlled by the deceased Stryker's consciousness.
Spider-Gwen
In the reality where Gwen Stacy is Spider-Woman, Kitty is an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Black Ops department, where she works closely with Wolverine to keep him in check and to help him fight his immortal curse. Like the Age of Apocalypse version, she also wields artificial claws on her wrists. It's revealed that she works with Logan out of guilt, as Stryker forced her to use her powers to subject Logan to the Weapon X experiment.
What If
In What if Phoenix Had Not Died, Kitty is obliterated by Dark Phoenix before she destroyed the Earth.
In What If the X-Men had Lost Inferno?, Kitty is one of the last eight remaining superheroes on the planet. She is slain by a demonic Wolverine, but her death makes Wolverine come to his senses and he fights against Baron Mordo, who had joined up with the demon hordes.
In What If... Wolverine: Enemy of the State, Kitty is the only hero left to kill a Hydra-programmed Wolverine after he has taken down the Marvel Universe. Kitty was the last remaining member of the team assembled to recapture Wolverine. The initial plan failed and Kitty was forced to phase her hand into Wolverine's brain. She then solidified her hand killing Wolverine instantly although she lost her hand in the process.
In What if Magneto and Professor X Had Formed The X-Men Together, Kitty is the tech guru at the Good Shepard clinic (That reality's version of the X-Mansion). She is very similar to her mainstream counterpart. But unlike the mainstream version this Kitty Pryde would wear different coloured wigs and cut her natural hair short. She also had trouble with her powers since she would phase herself through a solid object and accidentally leave her clothes behind. She was also friends with Lockheed although she only called him Dragon.
In What if Astonishing X-Men, Kitty is amongst the X-Men who fight a Phoenix powered Emma Frost. She phased Emma's heart from her chest but a Phoenix fire flares up from her body killing Kitty instantly. In the second story during the events of Astonishing X-Men #6-#12 Elixir had not been able to heal Kitty after being impaled and she dies.
In "What if the Dark Phoenix Rose Again", Kitty has Colossus "set up a fastball special" to help her phase into a Master Mold. She is killed after solidifying inside the Master Mold's head destroying it in the process.
In What if Storm Had the Power of the Phoenix, Kitty helps revive the 'real' Storm (the Phoenix being the cosmic entity in Storm's shape) by phasing inside her body and getting her internal organs working again.
X-Babies
An X-Baby version of Shadowcat appears briefly in the X-Babies one-shot comic. She is wearing her original costume and is younger than the other X-Babies. She is named as Shadowkitty rather than Shadowcat or Kitty Pryde. She also doesn't seem to have a strong bond with the X-Baby version of Lockheed.
X-Men Forever
In the X-Men Forever series, Kitty and Nightcrawler have left Excalibur and rejoined the X-Men after the events of X-Men #1-3. Of the X-Men, she undergoes the most drastic changes from the events of X-Men Forever #1. During the battle with Fabian Cortez, she phases through Wolverine while he is being affected by Cortez's power. This drives her powers haywire as well, and somehow she ends up with one of Wolverine's claws in her wrist. Claremont has also hinted in dialogue throughout the title so far that she may have also undergone psychological or psychic changes as a result of the event. From Forever #4 to the current issue, she is shown to be able to use the claw in the exact method Wolverine would manifest it, with no apparent ill effects (the mechanism for this has not yet been made clear) outside of excruciating pain. Because of the merger with Logan's DNA she has begun to develop a healing factor, slower than Wolverine's but it heals faster when she is intangible. She has also slightly enhanced senses, she also can produce a set of five retractable claws on her left hand like Sabretooth. She has also begun to take on Logan's personality and memories as well. And because of this she is beginning to wonder what part of her truly remains the same.
X-Men: Misfits
In the X-Men: Misfits original English language manga one-shot graphic novel from Marvel and DelRay, Kitty is the newest and only female student of the all-male Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters, which is now experimenting with having a co-ed student body. As the sole girl, she becomes the center of attention and attraction for the rest of the students. She becomes a member and the mascot of the elitist fraternity, The Hellfire Club, and has a short-lived romantic relationship with the school troublemaker Pyro.
X-Men: The End
In the X-Men: The End future, Kitty Pryde becomes the mayor of Chicago and then President of the United States. She has three children: her eldest daughter, named Meredith, and twins 10 years younger than Meredith, Sara and Doug, with an unnamed partner who died protecting her from an assassination attempt.
Miscellaneous
In Excalibur #103, we see many alternative versions of Shadowcat. Many of these variations have appeared in other comics, such as Age of Apocalypse, but there were other variations, including one of her as a Phalanx convert, a sex dominatrix, a homeless person, a nun, a version wearing a costume similar to Phantom Girl, and a normal person who owns an Olde Curiosity Shoppe.
In New Mutants #63 Illyana (Magik), along with Lockheed, gets trapped on an alien spaceship that has been invaded by a Brood Queen. On this ship the Brood Queen created clones of the X-Men, including Kitty. This one had the Ariel suit on, but it was green, instead of the typical blue. These X-Men are implanted with Brood eggs. Her memories were altered by the Brood Queen like the other X-Men, but eventually they rebel against her and are free. Illyana uses the soulsword to eliminate the Brood Eggs from their bodies. The X-Men stay on the ship; whether they are still on it is unknown.
During the Cross Time Caper storyline a few different appearances of Kitty appear. One was a princess who was gifted with magic abilities. She eventually married a short dashing prince (who had originally fallen in love with the mainstream version of Kitty). A second version was a crime boss who was betrayed and killed by her partner in crime Illiyana Rasputin. A third was from a world of sentient dinosaurs. She went by the name of Shadowcompsognathus.
Collected editions
Several of Kitty Pryde's earlier adventures were collected in paperback form.
In other media
Music
Kitty Pryde is referenced in Weezer's song "In the Garage" from their "Blue Album".
Television
Kitty Pryde appeared as Sprite in "The X-Men Adventure" episode of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, which guest-starred the X-Men. She was voiced by Melissa Sue Anderson. She also appeared in her short-lived "Ariel" costume in the X-Men group cameo at the end of the episode "The Education of a Superhero".
Kitty Pryde (voiced by Kath Soucie) was a viewpoint character in the animated television one-shot Pryde of the X-Men, as the newest member of the team. She is a new recruit of the team and is initially frightened of Nightcrawler, due to his demonic appearance. She and Nightcrawler later succeed in defeating Magneto. Once Nightcrawler seemingly dies as a result of having apparently sacrificed himself, Kitty begins to cry until discovering that he is alive and is met with positive relations by her teammates, except Wolverine. As the pilot was a failure, and the character had lost prominence in comics at the time, she was not used in the next X-Men TV series, not even in cameos. Jubilee replaced her as the young viewpoint character, and in the adaptations of stories that involved her.
In the animated series X-Men: Evolution, Shadowcat is a main character, who is shown as the teenybopper of the team and who has a romantic interest in Brotherhood member Lance Alvers. Shadowcat saves Wolverine in the season one episode "Grim Reminder", where she unintentionally stows away with Nightcrawler while on the Blackbird without the knowledge that he was beginning to pilot the jet. She is also shown to have developed a close friendship with Nightcrawler, despite the fact that she at first displayed a dislike for his appearance. Besides Nightcrawler, she is shown to have formed a friendship with Rogue and Spyke. Her initial dislike of his appearance changes after he is severely wounded by Rogue, while she and the rest of the X-Men tried to recruit her. In this series, she does not have Lockheed for a pet, but she is shown preferring to sleep with a stuffed dragon instead of a teddy bear. Though she has an on-and-off interest in the delinquent mutant boy Lance Alvers, early in the series she displays interest in Cyclops. After Rogue is recruited, she serves as her support in beginning a romantic relationship with Scott and develops a friendship with her, despite their differences. When Avalanche tries to join the X-Men in the season two episode "Joyride", she tries to help him and shows additional attraction to him as she grades him and the other members of the junior team. After he informs her that some members of the group have started a joyride on the Blackbird and helps her avert catastrophe, she staunchly defends him once he is accused by Cyclops of being responsible. When Avalanche starts to leave, Shadowcat gives him a brief kiss before his departure. Their relationship continues with the two of them going to a school dance, talking on the phone and going to the mall. Despite being with the Brotherhood, Avalanche tries to protect Kitty in the fight against the Scarlet Witch. In season 3, Kitty and Lance's relationship briefly ends after the Brotherhood and Mystique blow up the X Mansion and are in part responsible for the exposure of mutants. Kitty calls Lance a "hood" after he attacks the high school and he says "he will never be good enough for her". Both look sad at these comments. In the fourth season, the X-Men try to use her powers to damage one of Apocalypse's domes and fails, instead being electrocuted briefly. In the fiftieth episode of the series, entitled "Ghost of a Chance", she comes across Danielle Moonstar once she depicts herself in a dream sequence to her. Once she wakes out of it, she tries to and successfully finds her, becoming friends with the girl after learning she had been in suspended animation for two years. Prior to this, it is discovered that her fear is phasing repeatedly into the ground and going further without any control of where she is going. Shadowcat plays a key role in the defeat of Apocalypse and asks the Brotherhood for help. They come to her aid; as Lance and Kitty resume their romantic relationship. Of the six main X-Men from the first season of the series, she is one of the four that is still a member of the team in the future Charles Xavier saw while in the mind of Apocalypse. Shadowcat was voiced by Maggie Blue O'Hara.
Shadowcat appears in Wolverine and the X-Men, voiced by Danielle Judovits and was a student at the Xavier Institute before the destruction of the X-Mansion and disappearance of Professor X. When Wolverine reformed the X-Men to take down the Mutant Response Division and save the dismal future controlled by the Sentinels, Kitty was on her way to the "mutant paradise" Genosha. The X-Men came to re-recruit her and she immediately rejoined the team. Shadowcat appears as the youngest member of the team and she seems to have a crush on Iceman as she is jealous when his attention is taken by Emma Frost and is shown with a love-struck face when she lands on Bobby during a Danger Room training session, though she quickly moves away from him when Angel arrives. She seems to have formed a friendship with Tildie Soames after babysitting her in one episode. In the last episode of the series, she uses her powers to penetrate a Sentinel controlled by Magneto, of which Beast had difficulty with. Her design is inspired by the appearance of the character in the Astonishing X-Men comics, and her costume emulates the design with the appearance of the blue and yellow used on her costume. The shorts she wears are based on the appearances of the original X-Men, and her first appearance when she wore a variant of the uniform.
Shadowcat appears in The Super Hero Squad Show episode "And Lo...A Pilot Shall Come". She appears alongside Colossus at the unveiling of the Great Wall that separates Super Hero City from Villainville and helping citizens into the S.H.I.E.L.D. Shelters. In the episode "Mysterious Mayhem at Mutant Academy", she uses Lockheed to chase Reptil and the hypnotized X-Men out of the girls' bathroom.
Motion comics
Shadowcat appears in the Astonishing X-Men motion comic, voiced by Eileen Stevens and later by Laura Harris.
Film
In the film X-Men, she has a small cameo, played by Sumela Kay. She is referenced as the "girl in Illinois who can walk through walls" by Senator Kelly. She is shown in Xavier's class when Wolverine walks in; she returns for her books which she had left behind, grabs them, and phases through the door on her way out. Xavier responds with a cheerful "Bye, Kitty" while Wolverine looks on, startled.
In X2, she has a brief appearance played by Katie Stuart. She is shown phasing through walls and through people to escape William Stryker's military forces during their attack on the X-Mansion. Another scene shows her falling through her bed to avoid an assault. She shares a room with Siryn; in the novelization it is stated that this is because her phasing ability gives her partial protection from Siryn's scream. When the President of the United States asks Professor Xavier how he got the files he gave him, Xavier replies that he knows a little girl who can walk through walls.
In X-Men: The Last Stand, she is portrayed by a pre-transition Elliot Page, and has a central role. She serves as a rival to Rogue for the romantic attentions of Iceman, since their close friendship and their kiss (deleted scene) make Rogue increasingly jealous and frustrated. She also joins the X-Men in the battle on Alcatraz Island, breaking off from the battle to save Leech from the Juggernaut. In the novelization of the film, it is hinted that at some point Kitty had a romantic relationship with Colossus, but that it had long since run its course, although Colossus appears to still retain feelings towards her.
Page reprised the role in X-Men: Days of Future Past. Pryde is the prime facilitator because she has developed a new power. In this film, she can send the consciousness of another person back into his or her body in the past. At the beginning of the film, she has been using this ability to repeatedly send Bishop four days back in time whenever the Sentinels attack, thus; preventing her group from ever engaging them by having him warn the past team before they are detected. In order to prevent the Sentinels' creation, she sends Wolverine back to 1973 (chosen as the strain of sending someone else back that far would snap their mind, with Logan's healing factor the only thing that makes such a trip survivable for him) and was gravely injured when Wolverine becomes violent; due to provocation from events in 1973. After the timeline was successfully altered, Kitty is seen teaching a class at the X-Mansion with Colossus. In the film's alternate release, called The Rogue Cut, Kitty's injuries from sending Wolverine back to the past result in the X-Men rescuing Rogue to take over for her. Rogue absorbs Kitty's powers and takes over, stabilizing Wolverine and Kitty helps Magneto flee a Sentinel attack.
In January 2018, a Kitty Pryde solo movie was announced to be in development, with Tim Miller attached as the director and Brian Michael Bendis as the writer, but in March 2019, after Disney's purchase of 21st Century Fox, Fox executive Emma Watts described The New Mutants as the final film in the X-Men series, thus; ending the development of the Kitty Pryde film.
Video games
Kitty Pryde appears in Konami's 1992 X-Men video arcade game, as a non-playable character (NPC). In this game, she is not known as "Sprite"; instead, she plays the "damsel in distress" role as it is based on "Pryde of the X-Men". In the 2010 re-release of the game she is voiced by Mela Lee.
Shadowcat is a playable character in the game X-Men II: The Fall of the Mutants.
Shadowcat appears as an NPC in the X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, voiced by Kim Mai Guest. She has special dialogue with Colossus (who she scolds for flirting with Scarlet Witch).
Shadowcat appears in X-Men: The Official Game, with Kim Mai Guest reprising her role.
Shadowcat is a playable character in Marvel Super Hero Squad Online, voiced by Tara Strong.
In X-Men: Destiny, Gambit mentions that the U-Men had captured Kitty and extracted bits of her power. Gambit obtains a vial of a substance which temporarily lets the character fall through the roof (if the player chose the correct option).
Kitty Pryde is a playable character in the Facebook game Marvel: Avengers Alliance.
Kitty Pryde is a playable character in the X-Men: Days of Future Past app game.
Kitty Pryde is a playable character in the online MMO Marvel Heroes, with Danielle Judovits reprising her role.
Kitty Pryde appears as a playable character in Marvel Future Fight.
Kitty Pryde appears as a playable character in Marvel Puzzle Quest.
Kitty Pryde appears as a playable character in Marvel Strike Force.
Novels
Kitty Pryde appears in the X-Men/Star Trek crossover novel Planet X. In it, she is examined by Geordi La Forge, who notes the similarities between her ability and the chroniton displacement he and Ro Laren experienced in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Next Phase".
Reception
Kitty Pryde has been well received as a comic book character and as a member of the X-Men. Wizard magazine put her at number #13 in 200 Greatest Comic Characters of All Time. She was the highest female comic character in the list beating rivals such as Wonder Woman, Buffy Summers, and She-Hulk. IGN ranked her as the 47th greatest comic book hero of all time stating that "as X-Men writers have often found it useful to introduce younger teen recruits to offset the experienced members of the team, Kitty Pryde set the standard when she debuted, and none have surpassed her". IGN rated Kitty Pryde #3 on its list of the Top 25 X-Men from the Past 40 Years describing her as the mutant everyman, the common girl turned superhero; IGN also stated that as her pet dragon, Lockheed, "became instantly attached to Kitty, [they] were hooked early on". Marvel.com ranked her as the tenth greatest X-Men member stating that "unquestionably, the dynamic of the X-Men shifted entirely when teenage whiz kid Kitty Pryde joined the team in the early 1980s"; Marvel.com also stated that even though Kitty has since blossomed into a young woman of considerable maturity and power, she remains the access point to the X-Men for countless readers. A later list on Marvel's website, ranking the top 50 X-Men characters, placed her in first place, citing the ease of identifying with her for the audience, and her development over the years.
Notes
References
External links
Kitty Pryde at Marvel.com
UncannyXmen.net Spotlight on Shadowcat
American superheroes
Characters created by Chris Claremont
Characters created by John Byrne (comics)
Comics characters introduced in 1980
Excalibur (comics)
Female characters in animation
Female characters in film
Female characters in television
Fictional American Jews in comics
Fictional bisexual females
Fictional characters from Illinois
Fictional characters who can turn intangible
Fictional dancers
Fictional female ninja
Fictional linguists
Fictional mayors
Fictional schoolteachers
Fictional secret agents and spies
Fictional women soldiers and warriors
Jewish superheroes
Marvel Comics female superheroes
Marvel Comics film characters
Marvel Comics LGBT superheroes
Marvel Comics martial artists
Marvel Comics mutants
S.H.I.E.L.D. agents
Teenage characters in comics
X-Men members | false | [
"\"Imperial\" was the second story arc from Grant Morrison's run on the Marvel Comics title New X-Men, running from issues #118-126. It further explored the origin behind the character Cassandra Nova as well as giving more depth to the student body at the Xavier Institute, specifically the Stepford Cuckoos, Beak, and Angel Salvadore.\n\nPlot\n\nAs mutant culture takes center stage in the world media, a new movement propagated by book The Third Species begins to affect human/mutant relations. Several school shootings occur where the assailant takes mutant organs to graft to themselves, believing they will transcend to a higher state of evolution (somehow superior to the natural mutations occurring). Cyclops and Emma investigate the impetus behind this movement by confronting John Sublime, the book's author. He reveals himself to be leader of the U-Men, a radical group that doesn't improve themselves by changing their own genes, but by harvesting mutant parts from unwilling donors. Cyclops and Emma are taken hostage for fatal surgery.\n\nMeanwhile, Wolverine is following a lead on a new mutant, arriving just in time to stop a crew of U-men from killing Angel Salvadore for her insect wings. Despite her reluctance in accepting her mutation, and anyone's help in coming to grips with it, she does follow Wolverine back to the Institute, where several squads of U-men are about to assault and slaughter the student body. Jean Grey, with help from her students, fends off the attack, eventually manifesting a phoenix raptor display in psychic dominance. Emma Frost and Cyclops escape from their captors, with Emma confronting John about the damage done to her cosmetically enhanced face, threatening to drop him from the highrise window his office sits in. John forces himself from Emma's grip, seemingly convinced by Martha Johansson, a floating brain in a jar John used to exert psychic control of his captives.\n\nBack at the mansion, Hank McCoy staggers from his ICU bed onto the front lawn. He cradles Cassandra Nova's body in his arms, revealing that Professor Xavier's mind has been switched and he is trapped. Emma and Jean psychically probe Nova's body, discovering that she and Xavier were fraternal twins, but the instant Xavier became aware, he tried to kill his twin in the womb.\n\nIn the far reaches of space, the Shi'ar empire is being slowly torn apart by the possessed Charles Xavier. Empress Lilandra sends Smasher through 4-space to warn the Earth of the villainess' coming. Smasher arrives in a field populated by cows, and he loses consciousness before finding someone to spread his message.\n\nThe X-Men convene in Cerebra to share what they know about Cassandra Nova. As Jean and Emma's psychic excavation reveals, she is a living entity of pure emotional energy, who used Charles' DNA to form a body. In her mind, the universe and the womb that housed her brother are one and the same. Only she and Charles Xavier are real. Thus, her competition for survival is her twin \"brother,\" and he must be killed. Inside a body booby trapped with numerous degenerative disorders, Xavier telepathically requests a last press conference for the X-Men to communicate his final message to humanity about mutantkind. Cyclops leaves to Xorn, in an attempt to find a way to save Xavier from dying.\n\nDuring the press conference, Beast discovers that the minor annoyance of a flu epidemic is in fact, a systematic nano-Sentinel attack. This news is overshadowed, however, by the sudden reveal that the Imperial Guard is about to sterilize the entirety of mutantkind, starting with the X-Men. Aboard the Shi'ar Superdestroyer, Cyclops pleads with his and Xorn's captors that the Charles Xavier they are allied with is the very same Cassandra Nova entity they seek to fight, to no avail. At the X-mansion, the Stepford Cuckoos ally with Angel to overthrow the invading Shi'ar, while Jean and Beast shelter the rest of the student body and the visiting media. Beast and Wolverine fend off the assaults of the Guardians, when Smasher is finally found and able to convince Gladiator of the X-Men's innocence. As Cassandra Nova drives Lilandra to command her fleet to die, Cyclops and Xorn fight their way to freedom, saving Lilandra in the process.\n\nAngel and the Cuckoos find Beak, who advises using the Guardian Stuff to free Emma Frost. Xorn heals the X-Men of their sentinel infestations. Afterwards, Jean Grey and Charles Xavier trick Cassandra into using Cerebra for her original goal of erasing mutantkind; however, the moment she uses Cerebra to connect to the worldwide mutant population, she finds one thing in common to all of them: Charles. In the same moment, Jean Grey, who at the moment was becoming increasingly more powerful due to a manifestation of the Phoenix Force, psionically attacks Cassandra and forces her out of the Professor's body. With Charles Xavier's mind restored to his body, Emma Frost uses Stuff's malleable body as a trick to entice Cassandra Nova back into her own body, now a mental prison for her boundless energy. Finally, Charles Xavier is now miraculously able to use his legs.\n\nMajor consequences\nIntroduced the characters Angel Salvadore, John Sublime, the U-Men, and the Stepford Cuckoos.\nXorn joins the X-Men.\n\nCollected editions\nThe series has been collected into a trade paperback:\n\nImperial (collects New X-Men #118-126, )\n\nAs well as:\n\nNew X-Men Omnibus (collects New X-Men #114-154 and Annual 2001, 992 pages, December 2006 )\n New X-Men by Grant Morrison Ultimate Collection: Volume 1 (collects New X-Men #114-126, and Annual 2001, 376 pages, May 2008, )\n\nReferences\n\nNew X-Men story arcs\nSterilization in fiction",
"Professor X (Charles Francis Xavier) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character is depicted as the founder and sometimes leader of the X-Men. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist/co-writer Jack Kirby, the character first appeared in The X-Men #1 (September 1963).\n\nXavier is a member of a subspecies of humans known as mutants, who are born with superhuman abilities. He is an exceptionally powerful telepath, who can read and control the minds of others. To both shelter and train mutants from around the world, he runs a private school in the X-Mansion in Salem Center, located in Westchester County, New York. Xavier also strives to serve a greater good by promoting peaceful coexistence and equality between humans and mutants in a world where zealous anti-mutant bigotry is widespread.\n\nThroughout much of the character's history in comics, Xavier is a paraplegic using a standard or modified wheelchair. One of the world's most powerful mutant telepaths, Xavier is a scientific genius and a leading authority in genetics. He has devised Cerebro and other equipment to enhance psionic powers and detect and track people with the mutant gene.\n\nFrom a social policy and philosophical perspective, Xavier deeply resents the violent methods of those like his former close friend and occasional enemy, the supervillain Magneto. Instead, he has presented his platform of uncompromising pacifism to see his dream to fruition – one that seeks to live harmoniously alongside humanity with full civil rights and equality for mutants. Xavier's actions and goals have been compared to those of Martin Luther King Jr. and the American civil rights struggle, whereas Magneto is often compared with the more militant civil rights activist Malcolm X.\n\nThe character's creation and development occurred during the civil rights struggle of the early 1960s; Xavier's first appearance was in 1963. The fictionalized plight of mutantkind faced with intolerance and prejudice was meant to illuminate to audiences of the day what was transpiring across the United States and to promote ideals of tolerance and equality for all.\n\nPatrick Stewart portrayed the character in the first three films in the X-Men film series and in various video games, while James McAvoy portrayed a younger version of the character in the 2011 prequel X-Men: First Class. Both actors reprised the role in the film X-Men: Days of Future Past. Stewart would reprise the role in the film Logan (2017), while McAvoy would further appear as his younger iteration of the character in X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), Deadpool 2 (2018) and Dark Phoenix (2019). Harry Lloyd portrayed the character in the third season of the television series Legion.\n\nPublication history\n\nCreated by writer Stan Lee and artist/co-writer Jack Kirby, Professor X first appeared in X-Men #1 (September 1963).\n\nCreation and influences\nStan Lee has stated that the physical inspiration of Professor Xavier was from Academy Award-winning actor Yul Brynner. Professor Xavier's character development has been inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.\n\nWriter Scott Lobdell established Xavier's middle name to be Francis in Uncanny X-Men #328 (January 1996).\n\nCharacter\nXavier's goals are to promote the peaceful affirmation of mutant rights, to mediate the co-existence of mutants and humans, to protect mutants from violent humans, and to protect society from antagonistic mutants, including his old friend, Magneto. To achieve these aims, he founded Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters (later named the Xavier Institute) to teach mutants to explore and control their powers. Its first group of students was the original X-Men (Cyclops, Iceman, Marvel Girl, Angel, and Beast). Xavier's students consider him a visionary and often refer to their mission as \"Xavier's dream\". He is highly regarded by others in the Marvel Universe, respected by various governments, and trusted by several other superhero teams, including the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. However, he also has a manipulative streak which has resulted in several significant fallings-out with allies and students.\n\nHe often acts as a public advocate for mutant rights and is the authority most of the Marvel superhero community turns to for advice on mutants. Despite this, his status as a mutant himself and originator of the X-Men only became public during the 2001 story \"E Is for Extinction\". He also appears in almost all of the X-Men animated series and in many video games, although usually as a non-playable character. Patrick Stewart plays him in the 2000s X-Men film series, as well as providing his voice in some of the X-Men video games (including some not connected to the film series).\n\nAccording to BusinessWeek, Charles Xavier is listed as one of the top ten most intelligent fictional characters in American comics.\n\nIn a number of comics, Xavier is shown to have a dark side, a part of himself that he struggles to suppress. Perhaps the most notable appearance of this character element is in the Onslaught storyline, in which the crossover event's antagonist is a physical manifestation of that dark side. Also, Onslaught is created in the most violent act Xavier claims to have done: erasing the mind of Magneto. In X-Men #106 (August 1977), the new X-Men fight images of the original team, which have been created by what Xavier says is his \"evil self ... who would use his powers for personal gain and conquest\", which he says he is normally able to keep in check. In the 1984 four-part series titled The X-Men and the Micronauts, Xavier's dark desires manifest themselves as the Entity and threaten to destroy the Micronauts' universe.\n\nIn other instances, Xavier is shown to be secretive and manipulative. During the Onslaught storyline, the X-Men find Xavier's files, the \"Xavier Protocols\", which detail how to kill many of the characters, including Xavier himself, should the need ever arise, such as if they went rogue. Astonishing X-Men vol. 3, #12 (August 2005) reveals that when Xavier realizes that the Danger Room has become sentient, he keeps it trapped and experiments on it for years, an act that Cyclops calls \"the oppression of a new life\" and equates to humanity's treatment of mutants (however, X-Men Legacy #220 - 224 reveals that Xavier did not intend for the Danger Room to become sentient: it was an accident, and Xavier sought a way to free Danger, but was unable to find a way to accomplish this without deleting her sentience as well).\n\nFictional character biography\n\nCharles Francis Xavier was born in New York City to the wealthy Dr. Brian Xavier, a well-respected nuclear scientist, and Sharon Xavier. The family lives in a very grand mansion estate in Westchester County because of the riches his father's nuclear research has brought them. He later grows up to attend Pembroke College at the University of Oxford, where he earns a Professorship in Genetics and other science fields, and goes on to live first in Oxford and then London for a number of years. Crucially, as he enters late adolescence, Xavier inherits the mansion-house he was raised in, enabling him not only to continue to live in it, but also to turn it in to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, which he begins together with the first of the X-Men.\n\nBrian, his father, dies in an accident when Xavier is still very young, and Brian's science partner Kurt Marko comforts and then marries the grieving Sharon. When Xavier's telepathic mutant powers emerge, he discovers Marko cares only about his mother's money.\n\nAfter the wedding, Kurt moves in with the Xaviers, bringing with him his son Cain. Kurt quickly grows neglectful of Sharon, driving her to alcoholism, and abuses both Charles and Cain. Cain takes out his frustrations and insecurities on his stepbrother. Charles uses his telepathic powers to read Cain's mind and explore the extent of his psychological damage, which only leads to Cain becoming more aggressive toward him and the young Xavier feeling Cain's pain firsthand.\n\nSharon dies soon after, and a fight erupts between Cain and Charles that causes some of Kurt's lab equipment to explode. Mortally wounded, Kurt drags the two children out before dying, and admits he was partly responsible for Brian's death.\n\nWith help from his superhuman powers and natural genius, Xavier becomes an excellent student and athlete, though he gives up the latter, believing his powers give him an unfair advantage. Due to his powers, by the time he graduates from high school, Charles loses all of his hair. He graduates with honors at the age of 16 from Bard College. In graduate studies, he receives Ph.D.s in Genetics, Biophysics, Psychology, and Anthropology with a two-year residence at Pembroke College, University of Oxford. He also receives an M.D. in Psychiatry while spending several years in London. He is later appointed Adjunct Professor at Columbia University. Origins of Marvel Comics: X-Men #1 (2010) presents a different version of events, suggesting a scholarship to the University of Oxford rescued him from his abusive home, after which he \"never looked back\", suggesting he began his academic career as a very young man at Oxford. His stepbrother is resentful of him.\n\nAt graduate school, he meets a Scottish girl named Moira Kinross, a fellow genetics student with whom he falls in love. The two agree to get married, but soon, Xavier is drafted into the Korean War. He carves himself a niche as a soldier in search and rescue missions alongside Shadowcat's father, Carmen Pryde, and witnesses Cain's transformation into Juggernaut when he touches a ruby with an inscription on it in an underground temple. During the war, he receives a letter from Moira telling him that she is breaking up with him. He later discovers that Moira married her old boyfriend Joseph MacTaggert, who abuses her.\n\nDeeply depressed when Moira broke off their engagement without explanation, Xavier began traveling around the world as an adventurer after leaving the army. In Cairo, he meets a young girl named Ororo Munroe (later known as Storm), who is a pickpocket, and the Shadow King, a powerful mutant who is posing as Egyptian crime lord Amahl Farouk. Xavier defeats the Shadow King, barely escaping with his life. This encounter leads to Xavier's decision to devote his life to protecting humanity from evil mutants and safeguarding innocent mutants from human oppression.\n\nXavier visits his friend Daniel Shomron, who runs a clinic for traumatized Holocaust victims in Haifa, Israel. There, he meets a man going by the name of Magnus (who would later become Magneto), a Holocaust survivor who works as a volunteer in the clinic, and Gabrielle Haller, a woman driven into a catatonic coma by the trauma she experienced. Xavier uses his mental powers to break her out of her catatonia and the two fall in love. Xavier and Magneto become good friends, although neither immediately reveals to the other that he is a mutant. The two hold lengthy debates hypothesizing what will happen if humanity is faced with a new super-powered race of humans. While Xavier is optimistic, Magneto's experiences in the Holocaust lead him to believe that humanity will ultimately oppress the new race of humans as they have done with other minorities. The two friends reveal their powers to each other when they fight Nazi Baron Wolfgang von Strucker and his Hydra agents, who kidnap Gabrielle because she knows the location of their secret cache of gold. Magneto attempts to kill Strucker but Xavier stops him. Realizing that his and Xavier's views on mutant-human relations are incompatible, Magneto leaves with the gold. Charles stays in Israel for some time, but he and Gabrielle separate on good terms, neither knowing that she is pregnant with his son, who grows up to become the mutant Legion.\n\nIn a strange town near the Himalayas, Xavier encounters an alien calling himself Lucifer, the advance scout for an invasion by his race, and foils his plans. In retaliation, Lucifer drops a huge stone block on Xavier, crippling his legs. After Lucifer leaves, a young woman named Sage hears Xavier's telepathic cries for help and rescues him, bringing him to safety, beginning a long alliance between the two.\n\nIn a hospital in India, he is brought to an American nurse, Amelia Voght, who looks after him and, as she sees to his recovery, they fall in love. When he is released from the hospital, the two moved into an apartment in Bombay together. Amelia is troubled to find Charles studying mutation, as she is a mutant and unsettled by it, though she calms when he reveals himself to be a mutant as well. They eventually move to the United States, living on Xavier's family estate. But the night Scott Summers moves into Xavier's mansion, Amelia leaves him, believing Charles would have changed his view and that mutants should lie low. Yet he is recruiting them to what she believes is a lost cause. Charles tries to force her to stay with his mental powers, but immediately ashamed by this, lets her go. She later becomes a disciple of Magneto.\n\nOver the years, Charles makes a name for himself as geneticist and psychologist, apparently renowned enough that the Greys were referred to him when no other expert could help their catatonic daughter, Jean. Xavier trains her in the use of her telekinesis, while inhibiting her telepathic abilities until she matures. Around this time, he also starts working with fellow mutation expert, Karl Lykos, as well as Moira MacTaggert again, who built a mutant research station on Muir Island. Apparently, Charles had gotten over Moira in his travels to the Greek island of Kirinos. Xavier discusses his candidates for recruitment to his personal strike force, the X-Men, with Moira, including those he passes over, which are Kurt Wagner, Piotr Rasputin, Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, and Ororo Munroe. Xavier also trains Tessa in order to spy on Sebastian Shaw.\n\nXavier founded Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, which provides a safe haven for mutants and teaches them to master their abilities. In addition, he seeks to foster mutant-human relations by providing his superhero team, the X-Men, as an example of mutants acting in good faith, as he told FBI agent Fred Duncan. With his inherited fortune, he uses his ancestral mansion at 1407 Graymalkin Lane in Salem Center, Westchester County, New York as a base of operations with technologically advanced facilities, including the Danger Room - later, Fantomex mentions that Xavier is a billionaire with a net worth of $3.5 billion. Presenting the image of a stern teacher, Xavier makes his students endure a rigorous training regime.\n\nXavier's first five students are Marvel Girl, Cyclops, Beast, Iceman, and Angel, who become the original X-Men. After he completes recruiting the original team of X-Men, he sends them into battle with Magneto.\n\nThroughout most of his time with the team, Xavier uses his telepathic powers to keep in constant contact with his students and provides instructions and advice when needed. In addition, he uses a special machine called Cerebro, which enhances his ability to detect mutants and to allow the team to find new students in need of the school.\n\nAmong the obstacles Xavier faces is his old friend, Magneto, who has grown into an advocate of mutant superiority since their last encounter and who believes the only solution to mutant persecution is domination over humanity.\n\nWhen anthropologist Bolivar Trask resurfaces the \"mutant problem\", Xavier counters him in a televised debate, however, he appears arrogant and Trask sends his mutant-hunting robot Sentinels to terrorize mutants. The X-Men dispatch them, but Trask sees the error in his ways too late as he is killed by his creations.\n\nAt one point, Xavier seemingly dies during the X-Men's battle with the sub-human Grotesk, but it is later revealed that Xavier arranged for a reformed former villain named Changeling to impersonate him while he went into hiding to plan a defense against an invasion by the extraterrestrial Z'Nox, imparting a portion of his telepathic abilities to the Changeling to complete the disguise.\n\nWhen the X-Men are captured by the sentient island Krakoa, Xavier assembles a new team to rescue them, including Cyclops' and Havok's long-lost brother, Vulcan, along with Darwin, Petra, and Sway. This new team, composed of students of Dr. Moira MacTaggert, was sent to rescue the original X-Men from Krakoa. However, after rescuing Cyclops, McTaggert's former students were seemingly killed. Upon Cyclops' return, Xavier removed Cyclops' memories of the death of Vulcan and his teammates; and began assembling yet another team of X-Men.\n\nXavier's subsequent rescue team consists of Banshee, Colossus, Sunfire, Nightcrawler, Storm, Wolverine, and Thunderbird. After the mission, the older team of X-Men, except for Cyclops, leave the school, believing they no longer belong there, and Xavier mentors the new X-Men.\n\nXavier forms a psychic bond across galaxies with Princess Lilandra from the Shi'ar Empire. When they finally meet, it is love at first sight. She implores the professor to stop her mad brother, Shi'ar Emperor D'Ken, and he instantly aids her by deploying his X-Men. When Jean Grey returns from the Savage Land to tell him that all the X-Men are dead, he shuts down the school and travels with Lilandra to her kingdom, where she is crowned Empress and he is treated like a child or a trophy husband.\n\nXavier senses the changes taking place in Jean Grey, and returns to Earth to help and resume leadership of the X-Men. Shortly thereafter he battles his pupil after she becomes Dark Phoenix and destroys a populated planet in the Shi'ar Empire. It hurts Xavier to be on the opposite side of Lilandra, but he has no other choice but to challenge the Shi'ar Imperial Guard to a duel over the fate of the Phoenix. Xavier would have lost against the greater power of the Dark Phoenix, but thanks to the help Jean Grey gives him (fighting her Phoenix persona), Xavier emerges victorious; she later commits suicide in order to prevent herself from endangering more innocent lives.\n\nWhen the X-Men fight members of the extraterrestrial race known as the Brood, Xavier is captured by them, and implanted with a Brood egg, which places Xavier under the Brood's control. During this time, Xavier assembles a team of younger mutants called the New Mutants, secretly intended to be prime hosts for reproduction of the aliens. The X-Men discover this and return to free Xavier, but they are too late to prevent his body from being destroyed with a Brood Queen in its place; however, his soul remains intact. The X-Men and Starjammers subdue this monstrous creature containing Xavier's essence, but the only way to restore him is to clone a new body using tissue samples he donated to the Starjammers and transfer his consciousness into the clone body. This new body possesses functional legs, though the psychosomatic pain Xavier experienced after living so long as a paraplegic takes some time to subside. Subsequently, he even joins the X-Men in the field, but later decides not to continue this practice after realizing that his place is at the school, as the teacher of the New Mutants.\n\nAfter taking a teaching position at Columbia University in Uncanny X-Men #192, Xavier is severely injured and left for dead as the victim of a hate crime. Callisto and her Morlocks, a group of underground-dwelling mutants, get him to safety. One of the Morlocks partially restores Xavier's health, but Callisto warns Xavier that he is not fully healed and that he must spend more time recuperating and restrain himself from exerting his full strength or powers, or his health might fail again. Xavier hides his injuries from the others and resumes his life.\n\nCharles meets with former lover Gabrielle Haller on Muir Isle and discovers that they had a child. The boy, David, is autistic and suffers from dissociative identity disorder and has vast psionic powers like his father. After helping him and his team to escape from David's mind, Xavier promises he will always be there for him.\n\nA reformed Magneto is arrested and put on trial. Xavier attends the trial to defend his friend. Andrea and Andreas Strucker, the children of presumed dead Baron von Strucker, crash the courtroom to attack Magneto and Xavier. Xavier is seriously injured. Dying, he asks a shocked Magneto to look after the X-Men for him. Lilandra, who has a psychic bond with Xavier, feels that he is in great danger and heads to Earth. There, she and Corsair take Xavier with them so Shi'ar advanced technology can heal him.\n\nXavier leaves Magneto in charge of the school, but some of the X-Men are unwilling to forgive their former enemy. Cyclops loses a duel for the leadership of the X-Men against Storm, then leaves them and joins the other four original X-Men to form a new team called X-Factor.\n\nIn the meantime, Charles becomes stranded in space with the Starjammers, but he is reunited with his lover Lilandra and relishes his carefree lifestyle. He serves as a member of the Starjammers aboard the starship Starjammer, mobile in the Shi'ar Galaxy. He becomes consort to the Princess-Majestrix Lilandra while in exile, and when she later resumes her throne he takes up residence with her in the Imperial palace on the Shi'ar homeworld. Xavier joins Lilandra in her cause to overthrow her sister Deathbird, taking on the powers of Phoenix temporarily wherein he is named Bald Phoenix by Corsair, but sees that he must return to help the X-Men.\n\nXavier eventually becomes imprisoned by the Skrulls during their attempted invasion of the Shi'ar Empire. Xavier breaks free from imprisonment by Warskrull Prime, and is reunited with the X-Men. A healthy Xavier returns from the Shi'ar Empire and is reunited with both the current and original X-Men teams, and resumes his leadership responsibilities of the united teams. In a battle with his old foe, the Shadow King, in the \"Muir Island Saga\", Xavier's spine is shattered, returning him to his former paraplegic state, while his son David is seemingly killed. In the following months, Xavier rebuilds the mansion, which previously was rebuilt with Shi'ar technology, and restructures the X-Men into two teams.\n\nWhile holding a mutant rights speech, Xavier is nearly assassinated by Stryfe in the guise of Cable, being infected with a fatal techno-organic virus. For reasons of his own, the villain Apocalypse saves him. As a temporary side-effect, he gains full use of his legs and devotes his precious time to the youngest recruit on his team, Jubilee.\n\nWith all his students now highly trained adults, Professor Xavier renames his school the Xavier Institute For Higher Learning. Also, he assumes control of a private institution, the Massachusetts Academy, making it a new School for Gifted Youngsters. Another group of young mutants is trained here, Generation X, with Banshee and Emma Frost as headmaster and headmistress, respectively.\n\nProfessor X is for a time the unknowing host of the evil psionic entity Onslaught, the result of a previous battle with Magneto. In that battle, Magneto uses his powers to rip out the adamantium bonded to Wolverine's skeleton, and a furious Xavier wipes Magneto's mind, leaving him in a coma. From the psychic trauma of Xavier using his powers so violently and the mixing of Magneto's and Xavier's repressed anger, Onslaught is born. Onslaught wreaks havoc, destroying much of Manhattan, until many of Marvel's superheroes—including the Avengers, the Fantastic Four and the Hulk—destroy him. Xavier is left without his telepathy and, overcome with guilt, leaves the X-Men and is incarcerated for his actions. He later returns to the X-Men after Operation: Zero Tolerance, in which he is shocked by the cruel act of being turned over to the mutant-hating Bastion, following a clash with the sentient Cerebro and a team of impostor X-Men.\n\nXavier questions his dream again and Magneto shortly thereafter is confronted by the X-Men. After the battle, the UN concedes Genosha to Magnus, and Wolverine is angered by Xavier stopping him from getting his revenge on Magneto. Charles and Logan are later trapped in a dimension with different laws of physics, wherein they have to coordinate their moves together and, in the process, gain a better understanding of the other's views.\n\nApocalypse kidnaps the fabled \"Twelve\" special mutants (Xavier included) whose combined energies would grant him omnipotence. After Apocalypse's defeat with the help of Skrull mutants, Xavier goes with the young Skrulls known as Cadre K to train them and free them from their oppressors, and eventually returns to aid in Legacy Virus research.\n\nMystique and her Brotherhood start a deadly assault on Muir Isle by releasing an altered form of the Legacy Virus, all in retaliation against the election campaign of Robert Kelly, a seeming mutant-hater. Mystique blows up Moira MacTaggert's laboratory complex, fatally wounding her. Charles goes to the astral plane to meet with her and retrieve information on the cure to the Legacy Virus, but after gathering the information does not want to leave her alone. If not for Jean and Cable talking him down and pulling him back, the professor would have died with his first love, who states she has no regrets.\n\nAs Beast cures the Legacy Virus, many infected Genoshan mutants recover overnight, providing Magneto, the current ruler of Genosha, with an army to start the third World War. He demands Earth's governments accept him as their leader, and abducts and crucifies Xavier in Magda Square for all to see. A loyal member of Magneto's Acolytes, Amelia Voght, can't stand to see her former lover punished in such a manner and sets him free. Jean Grey and rather untrained newcomers, as most of the team are elsewhere, distract Magneto and Wolverine guts him. Xavier is too late to intervene.\n\nXavier's evil twin Cassandra Nova, whom Xavier attempted to kill while they were both in their mother's womb, orders a group of rogue Sentinels to destroy the independent mutant nation of Genosha. Magneto, who is Genosha's leader, appears to die along with the vast majority of the nation's inhabitants. Nova then takes over Xavier's body. Posing as Xavier, she reveals his mutation to the world, something he needed to do but did not want to sully his reputation over, before going into space and crippling the Shi'ar Empire. The X-Men restore Xavier, but Lilandra, believing that too much disaster has come from the Shi'ar's involvement with the X-Men, annuls her marriage to Xavier. Lilandra previously had gone insane and tried to assassinate Charles on a trip to Mumbai. During this period, a mutant named Xorn joins the X-Men. Xorn uses his healing power to restore Xavier's use of his legs.\n\nWhen the X-Men receive a distress call from a Scottish island, they are surprised to find Juggernaut with nowhere to go, as the island was destroyed by his further-mutated partner in crime, Black Tom Cassidy, who died. Xavier reaches out to his stepbrother and offers him a place in his mansion, with Cain reluctantly accepting. The Juggernaut redeems himself over the next few weeks and joins the X-Men. Xavier finds out that Cain's father preferred him to his own flesh and blood and that they both thought they deserved the abuse they incurred by Kurt; Cain believed this because his father loved someone else's child more than him, and Charles felt guilty about getting in the way. That it is why neither of them stopped Kurt Marko with their powers.\n\nNow outed as a mutant, Xavier makes speeches to the public about mutant tolerance. He also founds the X-Corporation, or X-Corp (not to be confused with the X-Corps), with offices all over the world. The purpose of the X-Corp is to watch over mutant rights and help mutants in need. As a result of being out, the school no longer hides the fact that it is a school for mutants and it opens its doors for more mutant (and even human) students to come in. A student named Quentin Quire and members of his gang start a riot at the Xavier Institute during an open house at the school. As a result, Quire and two other students are killed. Uncertain about his dream's validity, Xavier announces that he will step down as headmaster and be succeeded by Jean Grey. Afterwards, Xorn reveals himself to be Magneto, having apparently not died in the Sentinel raid on Genosha. Magneto undoes the restoration of Xavier's ability to walk, kidnaps him, and destroys the X-Mansion (killing several of the students). Then Xorn/Magneto assaults New York, where Cyclops, Fantomex and a few students confront him. After the rest of the X-Men arrive, Xorn/Magneto kills Jean Grey with an electromagnetically induced stroke, and Wolverine decapitates him. With Jean dead, Xavier leaves the school to Cyclops and Emma Frost, to bury Xorn/Magneto in Genosha. In a retcon of Grant Morrison's storyline, there Xavier meets the \"real\" Magneto, who mysteriously survived Cassandra Nova's assault. The two resolve their differences and attempt to restore their friendship, leading a team of mutants, the Genoshan Excalibur, to rebuild and restore order to the destroyed island nation.\n\nAt the mansion, the Danger Room (the X-Men's simulated reality training chamber) gains sentience, christens itself \"Danger\", assumes a humanoid form, and attacks the X-Men before leaving to kill Xavier. With Magneto's help, Xavier holds off Danger until the X-Men arrive. Danger flees, but not before revealing to Colossus that Xavier has known it to be sentient ever since he upgraded it. Colossus is especially offended by this because he had been held captive and experimented upon by Danger's ally, Ord of the Breakworld. Ashamed, Xavier tries to explain to them that by the time he realized what was happening, he could see no other course. The disgusted X-Men leave.\n\nHouse of M\nIn a prelude to House of M, Magneto's daughter Scarlet Witch suffers a mental breakdown and causes the death of several Avengers. Magneto brings her to Xavier and asks him to use his mental powers to help her. Although aided by Doctor Strange and the appearance of Cassandra Nova, Xavier is unsuccessful. Xavier orders a meeting of the X-Men and Avengers to decide Wanda's fate. Her brother Quicksilver, believing the heroes plan to kill her, speeds off to Genosha and convinces Wanda that she could right the wrongs she inflicted by using her powers to alter reality.\n\nQuicksilver somehow forces a tearful Wanda to reveal to him her heart's desires of Magneto, the assembled New Avengers, and the X-Men, and then uses her powers to make them all real. Thanks to Magneto, though, this re-imagined world is a place where a much more numerous mutant-kind are the dominant species, humans a disenfranchised and oppressed 'silent majority', and Magneto himself rules supreme. In this reality, the only proof that Charles Xavier ever existed is a secret monument in Magneto's palace garden, with the engraved message \"He died so Genosha could live\".\n\nAfter mutant Layla Miller restores the memories of some of the X-Men and Avengers, they head to Genosha where they discover that Magneto has erected a memorial garden for Xavier commemorating his death. Emma is horrified until Cloak fades into the grave and discovers there is no body inside. After a battle, Scarlet Witch again uses her powers to restore reality and, as a slight against her father, causes a large majority mutants to lose their powers, leaving the mutant race on the brink of extinction and causing the lost powers to become an energy mass, the Collective. With reality restored, Xavier is still missing and the X-Men are unable to detect him with Cerebro<ref>House of M #1-8</ref>.\n\nDeadly Genesis\nXavier returns when Cyclops' and Havok's long-lost brother, Vulcan, is revived by the Collective energy released as a result of the \"House of M\" incident. Vulcan then attacks the X-Men. Xavier, now depowered but able to walk in the wake of \"House of M\", reveals that he had gathered and trained another team of X-Men (this one composed of students of Dr. Moira MacTaggert) sometime between the original team and the new X-Men team introduced in Giant Size X-Men #1. This team included Vulcan as a member. Like the \"Giant Size\" X-Men team, McTaggert's former students were sent to rescue the original X-Men from Krakoa, the living island. However, after rescuing Cyclops, McTaggert's former students were seemingly killed. Upon Cyclops' return, Xavier removed Cyclops' memories of the death of Vulcan and his teammates and began assembling the \"Giant Size\" X-Men. Vulcan skirmishes with the X-Men and eventually flees into space.\n\nIn spite of Cyclops' feelings, Xavier forms a new team including Havok and Darwin, the lone other survivors of Moira's students. Xavier seeks to confront Vulcan before he can enact his vengeance against the Shi'ar empire, which killed Vulcan's mother. While en route to the Shi'ar homeworld, Xavier is abducted and is later thrown into the M'Kraan Crystal by Vulcan. Darwin follows Xavier into the crystal and pulls Xavier out. This somehow restores Xavier's lost telepathy. With help from his longtime lover, Lilandra, Xavier escapes back to Earth with several of his X-Men.\n\nUpon Xavier's return to Earth, as seen in the World War Hulk storyline, he begins to search for lost mutants such as Magneto. Charles' search for more mutants is interrupted by the Hulk, who was sent into extraterrestrial exile by the Illuminati, a group of powerful superbeings to which Xavier belongs. Xavier had no part in (and did not know of) the Hulk exile decision, but Xavier admits to Hulk that he would have concurred to a temporary exile so Bruce Banner could be cured of transforming into the Hulk. However, he also tells the Hulk he would not have agreed to permanent exile. Xavier attempts to surrender to the Hulk, but after viewing the X-Mansion's large graveyard dedicated to post-M-Day mutant deaths, The Hulk concludes the mutants have suffered enough and leaves the Mansion grounds on his own accord. While the X-Men tend to the wounded, Cyclops finally forgives Professor X.\n\nMessiah Complex\nWhile using Cerebra and talking to Beast during the Messiah Complex storyline, Charles detects a new mutant so powerful it fries Cerebra's system. He asks Cyclops to send out a team to find out about the mutant. Once the team has come back empty handed, he argues with Scott for not telling him about the team he deployed to find former Acolytes. Scott tells him outright that he doesn't need him to run the X-Men anymore. This upsets Charles and annoys him later on when he overhears Cyclops briefing X-Factor on the situation. He also approaches the New X-Men in an attempt to help them figure out a non-violent way to help against the Purifiers, but is quickly rebuked by Surge, who questions where he was when they were getting attacked the first time, and that they didn't need to learn from him. Charles questions Cyclops' decision to send X-Force to hunt down his own son, Cable, in front of the students. Cyclops then tells Xavier that he is a distraction that will keep getting in the way and that he must leave the mansion. Xavier is contacted by Cable, who lost the mutant newborn to the traitorous actions of Bishop, who in turn lost the child to the Marauders, and tells him that he is the only one who can help Cable save the future. In the final fight, Xavier is accidentally shot in the head by Bishop. Immediately afterward Xavier's body disappears and Cyclops declares that there are no more X-Men.\n\nProfessor Xavier survives Bishop's gunshot but falls into a coma. Xavier is kidnapped by Exodus, Tempo, and Karima Shapandar. Exodus tries to heal Xavier, Xavier mentally fights Exodus. Exodus finally approaches Magneto, who is apparently still depowered, for help. Magneto and Karima Shapandar are able to stir Xavier's memories and coax him out of his coma, though Xavier remains slightly confused and partly amnesiac. Later, Exodus confronts Magneto about Joanna Cargill's injury (Magneto was forced to shoot a laser through her eyeball in order to prevent her attempted an assassination of Xavier). Exodus nearly kills Magneto, and Xavier drags Exodus onto the Astral Plane, putting Xavier's own newly restored mind at stake. Xavier defeats Exodus after a harrowing psionic battle, and Exodus reveals the reason he abducted Xavier and to restore his mind: Exodus wants Xavier to lead the Acolytes and find the mutant messiah child (now under the guardianship of Cable) in order to indoctrinate the child into their cause. Xavier refuses. Emma Frost's telepathy picks up on the psychic fight, and Emma informs Cyclops that Xavier is alive. Xavier parts company with Magneto and Karima to try to regain his lost memories by visiting people from his past.\n\nThe first person Charles visits is Carter Ryking, who had gone insane after losing his powers. Charles reads Carter's memories and discovers that when the two were children they were used as test subjects by Nathan Milbury of the Black Womb Project, with the approval of Charles' father, Doctor Brian Xavier. Xavier makes the connection Milbury and X-Men villain, Mister Sinister, who has apparently long been manipulating Charles' life in addition to other X-Men. Afterwards, he discovers he has been targeted by assassins.\n\nCharles eventually discovers Mister Sinister had set up Charles, Sebastian Shaw, Juggernaut, and Ryking (Hazard) as potential new hosts for Sinister's mind. Bleeding slowly to death, he apparently gives in to Sinister becoming the new Mister Sinister. But in reality, Xavier is still battling Sinister for control of his body. As Sebastian Shaw and Gambit destroy Sinister's Cronus Machine, the device that he used to transfer his consciousness into new hosts, Xavier drives Sinister out of his body permanently. Xavier thanks Shaw and Gambit for their help and declares he must go and see Cyclops immediately. Professor X returns to the X-Mansion to find it destroyed after recent events. Afterwards, Xavier leaves the ruins of the X-Mansion to secretly meet up Cyclops by psychically coercing his former student for the visit. Xavier explains to Cyclops about the recent events with Mr. Sinister and tries to explain to Cyclops how Sinister has been manipulating Scott's and Jean's lives since when they were children. Xavier attempts to have Scott give him permission to scan Scott's mind for traces of Sinister's influences, but instead, Scott turns the tables on Xavier by revealing that he has secretly invited Emma Frost into their entire meeting and also into Xavier's mind.\n\nWhile in his mind, Emma forces Xavier to relive each of his morally ambiguous decisions under altruistic pretenses. As the issue continues, Charles realizes his human arrogance and that while some of his decisions were morally wrong, he must move forward with his life and deal with the consequences. Emma ends her incursion into Xavier's mind by reminding him of Moira MacTaggert's last words. As he reflects on Moira's words, Xavier gives Cyclops his blessing to lead the X-Men and leaves to find his own path. Following his encounter with Wolverine (in the \"Original Sin\" Arc) Professor Xavier seeks out his step-brother, the unstoppable Juggernaut in an attempt to reform him. After a conversation about the meaning of the word \"Juggernaut\" and a review of Juggernaut and Xavier's shared history Xavier offers Cain an empty box as a gift. Confused by Xavier's gift Cain attempts to kill the Professor bringing an entire sports bar down over their heads in the process. Later Cain battles the X-Men in his full Juggernaut armor and conquers the planet. Just as everything appears to be under the Juggernaut's control Xavier reappears and informs him that everything that has just taken place except for Juggernaut destroying the bar took place in Cain's mind. A baffled Cain demands to know how Xavier managed to overcome his psychically shielded helmet to which the Professor replies that he decided to visit Cain in his sleep. Professor Xavier then informs him that he now understands Cain as a person and that he will not attempt to get in his way or reform him again. But Xavier also warns Cain that if he gets in the way of the Professor's path to redemption Xavier will stop him permanently. Following his encounter with Cain it has been revealed that Xavier is now searching for Rogue.\n\nAfter his bruising encounter with Cyclops and Emma Frost, Professor X is forced to revisit the biggest challenge and the biggest failure of his career, Wolverine, when the feral mutant asks for Charles' help in freeing his son from the clutches of the Hellfire Club. As the two search for Daken, Wolverine reveals that when he first joined the X-Men he attempted to assassinate Xavier due to some unknown programming. In response, the Professor broke Logan's mind and rebuilt it so that any and all programming he received was forgotten. Logan also revealed that the real reason Xavier asked him to join the X-Men was that Charles \"needed a weapon\". Eventually Professor Xavier and Wolverine locate Sebastian Shaw's mansion and attack his minions, just as they are about to enter a bomb explodes from within catching them both off guard. From the wreckage emerges an angry Sebastian who immobilizes Wolverine. Meanwhile, Miss Sinister knocks Daken unconscious and has him taken to the med lab in the mansion's basement. As Shaw prepares to deliver a killing blow to Xavier, Wolverine recovers and stops him telling Xavier to rescue his son. Professor Xavier locates the med lab and after a quick psychic battle with Miss Sinister enters Daken's fractured mind. While in Daken's mind Xavier discovers Romulus's psychic tampering and comments that Daken's mind is even more broken than Wolverine's was. Before Xavier can heal Daken a psychic bomb explodes causing Xavier to become comatose and Daken to wake up. Miss Sinister arrives and attempts to manipulate Daken who reveals that the psychic bomb in his head restored his memories and stabs Miss Sinister in the chest. Meanwhile, Wolverine defeats Shaw and enters the mansion to find Daken standing over an unconscious Xavier preparing to kill him. Wolverine tells Daken that he won't let him hurt Xavier and the two fight. Overcome with guilt over what happened to Daken and Itsu, Wolverine allows himself to be beaten. Just as Daken appears to have won Xavier pulls both of them onto the astral plane revealing that the psychic bomb had little effect on him because his psyche was already shattered. Xavier then explains to Wolverine and Daken that Romulus is solely responsible for Itsu's death and that he lied to Daken about everything because he wanted Wolverine to become his weapon. As the three converse, Daken returns to the physical plane and prevents Shaw from killing Xavier. With the truth revealed Wolverine and Daken decide to kill Romulus. As the two depart Wolverine tells Xavier that he forgives him for all of the dark moments in their history. Wolverine acknowledges that Professor Xavier allowed him to become a hero. Wolverine then tells the Professor that he hopes he will one day be able to forgive him for choosing to kill Romulus.\n\nProfessor Xavier recruits Gambit to go with him to Australia to find and help Rogue who is currently staying at the X-Men's old base in the Outback; unaware Danger is using Rogue as a conduit for her revenge against him.\n\nIn a prelude to the \"Secret Invasion\" storyline, Professor X was at the meeting of the Illuminati when it came to the discussion about the Skrulls planning an invasion by taking out Earth's heroes and posing as them. He claims he was unable to distinguish that Black Bolt had been replaced by a Skrull, and his powers were tested quickly by the Black Bolt Skrull. Professor X leaves after learning even he can no longer trust the others, yet appears to have severely restricted the number of people he informs of the forthcoming alien invasion, as the X-Men were not prepared for the Skrulls, at least at first. Xavier has not seen again during the events of Secret Invasion, though his X-Men in San Francisco are successful at repelling the invaders there through the use of the modified Legacy Virus.\n\nDark Reign\nDuring the Dark Reign storyline, Professor X convinces Exodus to disband the Acolytes. A H.A.M.M.E.R. helicopter arrives and from inside appears Norman Osborn, who wants to talk to him. During the Dark Avengers' arrival in San Francisco to enforce martial law and squelch the anti-mutant riots occurring in the city, Xavier appears (back in his wheelchair) in the company of Norman Osborn and publicly denounces Cyclops' actions and urges him to turn himself in. However, this Xavier was revealed to be Mystique who Osborn found to impersonate Xavier in public. The real Xavier is shown in prison on Alcatraz and slowly being stripped of his telepathic powers while in psionic contact with Beast, who was arrested earlier for his part in the anti-mutant riots. It was also revealed by Emma Frost that she and Professor X are both Omega Class Telepaths when she manages to detect the real Professor X. Professor X helps Emma Frost enter Sentry's mind. However, as Emma frees him of the Void's influence, a minute sliver of the entity itself remains in her mind. Xavier quickly tells her to remain in her diamond armor state to prevent the Void from gaining access to her psi-powers. Professor X is later seen with Emma Frost where Beast is recuperating.\n\nAfter what happened at Utopia, Xavier has come to live on the risen Asteroid M, rechristened Utopia, along with the rest of the X-Men, X-Club, and mutant refugees and is also allowed to join the Utopia lead council (Cyclops, Storm, Namor, Iceman, Beast, Wolverine and Emma Frost). While he no longer continues to openly question every move that Cyclops makes, he is still concerned about some of his leadership decisions. Xavier had wanted to return to the mainland in order to clear his name, but in the aftermath of Osborn declaring Utopia as a mutant detention area, Cyclops refused to let him leave, stating that it would be a tactical advantage to have him as an ace in the hole in case the need arose. To that end, he has kept Xavier out of the field and instead relied on Emma Frost, Psylocke and the Stepford Cuckoos respectively for their own psionic talents. While attending the funeral of Yuriko Takiguchi, Magneto arrives at Utopia, apparently under peaceful motives. Xavier does not believe it, and attacks Magneto telepathically, causing Cyclops to force him to stand down. He later apologizes to Magneto for acting out of his old passions from their complicated relationship, which Magneto accepts.\n\nSecond Coming\nDuring the Second Coming storyline, Professor Xavier is seen on Utopia delivering a eulogy at Nightcrawler's funeral. Like the other X-Men, he is deeply saddened by Kurt's death and anxious about the arrival of Cable and Hope. Xavier is seen using his powers to help his son Legion control his many personalities and battle the Nimrods. At the conclusion of Second Coming Professor X is seen surveying the aftermath of the battle from a helicopter. As Hope descends to the ground and cradles Cable's lifeless arm, Xavier reflects on everything that has transpired and states that, while he feels that Hope has indeed come to save mutant kind and revive his dream, she is still only a young woman and will have a long and difficult journey before she can truly achieve her potential.\n\nAvX\nDuring the \"Avengers vs. X-Men\" storyline, the Phoenix Force is split into five pieces and bonded with Cyclops, Emma Frost, Namor, Colossus and Magik (who become known as the Phoenix Five). Eventually, Cyclops and Frost come to possess the full Phoenix Force, and Professor X is instrumental in confronting them both, and dies in the ensuing battle with Cyclops. The Phoenix Force is subsequently forced to abandon Cyclops as a host by the efforts of both Hope Summers and the Scarlet Witch.\n\nXavier's body is later stolen by the Red Skull's S-Men while the group also captures Rogue and Scarlet Witch. Xavier's brain is removed and fused to the brain of the Red Skull. After Rogue and Scarlet Witch snapped out of the fight they were in, they find the lobotomized body of Professor X. Red Skull uses the new powers conferred upon him by Professor X's brain to provoke anti-mutant riots. His plans are foiled by the Avengers and the X-Men, and the Skull escapes.\n\nProfessor X's spirit is later seen in the Heaven dimension along with Nightcrawler's spirit at the time when Azazel invades Heaven.\n\nDuring the AXIS storyline, a fragment of Professor X's psyche (which had escaped the scrubbing of his memories) still existed in Red Skull's mind preventing him from unleashing the full potential of Professor X's powers. During a fight with the Stark Sentinels, Doctor Strange and Scarlet Witch attempt to cast a spell to invert the axis of Red Skull's brain and bring out the fragment of Professor X to defeat Onslaught. Doctor Strange was targeted and captured by the Sentinels before they could cast the spell. When Magneto arrived with his supervillain allies, Doctor Doom and Scarlet Witch attempted to cast the inversion spell again and Red Onslaught was knocked unconscious and reverted to his Red Skull form. Although they did not know whether Professor X was now in control, the Avengers decided to be cautious and take Red Skull to Stark Tower. It was later revealed that the spell had actually caused all the heroes and villains present to undergo a \"moral inversion\" rather than simply bringing out Professor X in the Skull, with the result that the Skull and other villains became heroic while the Avengers and X-Men present became villainous. Eventually, the inversion was undone.\n\nAfter the Skull mounts a telepathic assault that nearly allows him to take control of the Avengers, he is defeated when Deadpool places Magneto's old helmet on Rogue, allowing her to knock out the Skull and take him to Beast. Beast is subsequently able to perform brain surgery on the Skull, extracting the part of Xavier's brain that was grafted onto the villain's own brain without causing any apparent damage to the Skull. Rogers attempts to claim the fragment for himself, but Rogue flies up and incinerates the fragment with the aid of the Human Torch, the two expressing hope that Xavier will rest in peace.\n\nResurrection\nThe astral form of Professor Xavier has since been revealed to be imprisoned in the Astral Plane after Shadow King somehow acquired it upon Professor X's death. After what appeared to be years in the Astral Plane, Professor X is able to trick Shadow King into playing him in a 'game' that lures Rogue, Mystique and Fantomex onto the Astral Plane, while turning others into carriers for the Shadow King's 'contagious' psychic essence. With the Shadow King certain of his victory, he fails to realize that Xavier's apparent 'surrender' to his game was really just him biding his time until the Shadow King's influence was distracted long enough for him to drop his already-subtly-weakened guard long enough for Xavier to break his bonds, luring in the three aforementioned X-Men as their identities were already fundamentally malleable. With the Shadow King defeated, Xavier is apparently returned to the real world in the body of Fantomex, Fantomex reasoning that nobody really knows who he is as an individual beyond his status as one of the X-Men whereas this act of sacrifice will ensure that he is remembered for a great deed.\n\nProteus has spent years trapped in a psionic hellscape of the Astral Plane, where The Shadow King reigned supreme, only to escape last issue. Part of the reason that he could was the escape of Charles Xavier (who now chooses to go by X, since he is now in a younger body after escaping), and now X leads the X-Men directly into an ambush, as Proteus has warped an entire village with his powers, leading to a mind-to-mind battle that leaves X on the receiving end of a psychic beatdown.\n\nProteus has started his garden and his seeds are planted all over the world. Psylocke is in command and has a plan which mainly consists of Archangel using metal and Mystique morphing into his mother. Once they drain him, Rogue and Bishop convert his energy and release him back to the universe. Whilst this all went down Psylocke and X combined forces to burn out the seeds across the planet. As they are working on it they discover they are not enough to accomplish the task. X mentions the network of psychics the Shadow King was using and that Betsy who is in control should tap into it. She agrees and does so yet unbeknownst to her X was possessed by the Shadow King who violently erupts from X's head.\n\nFollowing X's apparent death after the Shadow King exploded from his skull, the psychic villain tears the X-Men apart until X literally pulls himself back together (a feat he later refuses to explain), and he and Psylocke team up to harness the power of all of Earth's psychics to destroy the Shadow King. As Psylocke says she feels no psychic trace of him anywhere, X implants comforting post-hypnotic psychic suggestions in his allies and then erases their memories (including allowing Warren Worthington to switch between his identities at will). Only Psylocke's memory is left intact, with X telling her she will be the one to \"keep him honest\" while he embarks on a new mission.\n\nDawn of X\nX has since made his presence known to his former students and reveals his new plan for all mutantkind. Now clad in a Cerebro-like helmet, Xavier has apparently abandoned his dream for peaceful coexistence, and had turned Krakoa into a sovereign nation state for mutants as well as use it to apparently heal the X-Men from their ordeals during the showdown against the forces of O.N.E. He then leads the X-Men into planting in seeds in strategic locations around the world and Mars, which, overnight, grow into massive plantlike \"Habitats\". As it turns out, these \"Habitats\" – and the plants that grew them – are extensions of Krakoa. Through the advancement of mutant technology combined with Krakoa's unique abilities as a living mutant island, Professor X and the X-Men have embassies around the world. Also through this combination of technology and mutant power, Xavier have developed three drugs that could change human life – a pill that extends human life by five years, an adaptable universal antibiotic, and a pill that cures \"diseases of the mind, in humans\".” In exchange for recognizing the sovereignty of Krakoa, Professor X will give these drugs to mankind, with mutants living in peace on the island.\n\nXavier and Magneto later meet with Raven Darkholm inside his sanctum. The two mutant leaders both greatly pleased with the success of her mission as she presents what they'ed petitioned her to steal. A mysterious USB tab containing sensitive information stolen from Damage Control, Mystique would inquire for her payment as she'd met their demands. However, Xavier mentions that he still had more demands that needed to be met as they were building their protected future of Homo Sapiens Superior, seeming to psychokinetically beckon the contents of her theft into his hands while Mystique questions how much more needed to be done for his ultimate pet project.\n\nXavier and Magneto reveal the contents of the USB drive to Cyclops, which are shown to be information on Orchis, an organization dedicated to responding to a large-scale mutant threat and the plans of a Mother Mold. They believe that the creation of the Mother Mold will herald a new generation of Sentinels and along with it, Nimrod. They task Cyclops with assembling a team to destroy the Mother Mold station. Although the team (composed of Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Husk, Mystique, Archangel, and Monet) is successfully, they are all killed in the process. X mourns them, vowing \"No more.\"\n\nXavier is revealed to have upgraded Cerebro with the help of Forge, which is now able to copy and store the minds of mutants in a database. After the Five (Hope Summers, Goldballs, Elixir, Proteus, and Tempus) are able to grow the bodies of deceased mutants, Xavier is able to copy the minds back in these empty shells. Thus, he is able to resurrect Cyclops's team, thanking them for what they did. At the U.N., Xavier, Beast, and Emma celebrate with other ambassadors for the recognition of Krakoa as a sovereign nation. Xavier telepathically converses with Emma, revealing that he knows that she manipulated the Russian ambassador to abstain from the vote, before thanking her for her service. Two days after the U.N. vote, Xavier, Magneto, and Wolverine are in Krakoa waiting besides several portals. While Wolverine expresses his misgivings about the upcoming event, Xavier and Magneto assure him all will be alright. Soon after, several villainous mutants, including Mister Sinister, Sebastian Shaw, Exodus, Selene (comics) and Apocalypse arrive through the portals. Apocalypse in particular expresses satisfaction at arriving and Krakoa responds in the same way. Magneto and Xavier reveal that they have invited all mutants, even those who have fought against them in the past, to Krakoa, to form a society. The assembled villainous mutants agree to their terms, and Xavier shakes Apocalypse's hand, welcoming him and the others to their home.\"\n\nWhile peace reigns on Krakoa, a mysterious team of assassins HALO drops into the island and assassinates Xavier.\n\nPowers and abilities\nProfessor X is a mutant who possesses vast telepathic powers, and is among the strongest and most powerful telepaths in the Marvel Universe. He is able to perceive the thoughts of others or project his own thoughts within a radius of approximately . Xavier's telepathy once covered the entire world; although following this, Magneto altered the Earth's electromagnetic field to restrict Xavier's telepathic range. While not on Earth, Xavier's natural telepathic abilities have reached across space to make universal mental contact with multiple alien races. With extreme effort, he can also greatly extend the range of his telepathy. He can learn foreign languages by reading the language centers of the brain of someone adept, and alternately \"teach\" languages to others in the same manner. Xavier once trained a new group of mutants mentally, subjectively making them experience months of training together, while only hours passed in the real world.\n\nXavier's vast psionic powers enable him to manipulate the minds of others, warp perceptions to make himself seem invisible, project mental illusions, cause loss of particular memories or total amnesia, and induce pain or temporary mental and/or physical paralysis in others. Within close range, he can manipulate almost any number of minds for such simple feats. However, he can only take full possession of one other mind at a time, and must strictly be within that person's physical presence. He is one of the few telepaths skilled enough to communicate with animals and even share their perceptions. He can also telepathically take away or control people's natural bodily functions and senses, such as sight, hearing, smell, taste, or even mutant powers. A side effect of his telepathy is that he has an eidetic memory and his brain can assimilate and process impossibly huge amounts of raw data in an astonishingly short amount of time. He has displayed telepathic prowess sufficient to confront Ego the Living Planet (while aided by Cadre K) as well as narrowly defeat Exodus. However, he cannot permanently \"reprogram\" human minds to believe what he might want them to believe even if he wanted to do so, explaining that the mind is an organism that would always recall the steps necessary for it to reach the present and thus 'rewrite' itself to its original setting if he tried to change it. However, his initial reprogramming of Wolverine lasted several years, despite Wolverine overcoming the reprogramming much faster than an ordinary human because of his healing factor.\n\nHe is able to project from his mind 'bolts' composed of psychic energy, enabling him to stun the mind of another person into unconsciousness, inflict mental trauma, or even cause death. These 'bolts' inflict damage only upon other minds, having a negligible effect on non-mental beings, if any. The manner in which Xavier's powers function indicates that his telepathy is physical in some way, as it can be enhanced by physical means (for example, Cerebro), but can also be disrupted by physical means (for example, Magneto's alteration of the Earth's magnetic field).\n\nXavier can perceive the distinct mental presence/brain waves of other superhuman mutants within a small radius of himself. To detect mutants to a wider area beyond this radius, he must amplify his powers through Cerebro and subsequently Cerebra, computer devices of his own design which are sensitive to the psychic/physical energies produced by the mind.\n\nProfessor X can project his astral form into a psychic dimension known as the astral plane. There, he can use his powers to create objects, control his surroundings, and even control and destroy the astral forms of others. He cannot project this form over long distances.\n\nUncanny X-Men writer Ed Brubaker has claimed that, after being de-powered by the Scarlet Witch, and then re-powered by the M'Kraan Crystal, Charles' telepathy is more powerful than was previously known. However, the extent of this enhancement is unknown. Years prior to initial publishing, Charles Xavier had an ill-defined level of Telekinesis. This aspect of his powers were potent enough to cause catastrophic system disruption in computerized appliances. Such an attribute would eventually fade over time, contrary to their dissipation, however. His evil counterpart Cassandra Nova Xavier would come into such abilities in her own right, indicating he still possessed the potential for said abilities. An indication later proven true after his death and resurgence within the younger, stronger body of Charlie Cluster 7. Where the Professor, now going by the moniker of X, took to fashioning a Cerebro like a helmet for himself which acts as a focusing device for his psionic powers. Having used it to galvanize latent aspects of his X-Gene in order to stimulate some dormant properties, seemingly using telekinesis to will a flash drive on Mystique's person into his hand.\n\nCharles Xavier is a genius with multiple doctorates. He is a world-renowned geneticist, a leading expert in mutation, possesses considerable knowledge of various life sciences, and is the inventor of Cerebro. He possesses Ph.D.s in Genetics, Biophysics, Psychology, and Anthropology, and an M.D. in Psychiatry. He is highly talented in devising equipment for utilizing and enhancing psionic powers. He is also a great tactician and strategist, effectively evaluating situations and devising swift responses.\n\nDuring his travels in Asia, Xavier learned martial arts, acquiring \"refined combat skills\" according to Magneto. When these skills are coordinated in tandem with his telepathic abilities, Xavier is a dangerous unarmed combatant, capable of sensing the intentions of others and countering them with superhuman efficiency. He also has extensive knowledge of pressure points.\n\nCharles Xavier was also given possession of the Mind Gem. It allows the user to boost mental power and access the thoughts and dreams of other beings. Backed by the Power Gem, it is possible to access all minds in existence simultaneously. Like all other former Illuminati members, Xavier has sworn to never use the gem and to keep its location hidden.\n\nXavier Protocols\nThe Xavier Protocols are a set of doomsday plans created by Professor X. The protocols detail the best way to kill many powerful mutant characters, including the X-Men and Xavier himself, should they become too large of a danger. The Xavier Protocols are first mentioned during the \"Onslaught\" crossover and first seen in Excalibur #100 in Moira MacTaggert's lab. Charles Xavier compiled a list of the Earth's most powerful mutants and plans on how to defeat them if they become a threat to the world. They are first used after Onslaught grows too powerful. Only parts of the actual protocols are ever shown. In the \"Operation: Zero Tolerance\" crossover Bastion obtains an encrypted copy of the protocols, intending to use them against the X-Men. However, Cable infiltrates the X-Mansion and secures all encrypted files before Bastion has a chance to decrypt them. Due to the tampering of Bastion and his Sentinels, the X-Mansion computer system Cerebro gains autonomy and seeks to destroy the X-Men by employing its knowledge of the Xavier Protocols. In a virtual environment created by Professor X, Cerebro executes the Xavier Protocols against the X-Men.\n\nEach protocol is activated by the presence of a different combination of X-Men and were written by Xavier himself:\n Code 0-0-0 (Charles Xavier) was activated by Moira MacTaggert, Cyclops, and Jean Grey. This file is both an entry on Charles Xavier, as well as an introduction to the Xavier Protocols. It contained a holographic image of Charles Xavier, reading the following message: \"Moira, Scott, Jean; if you three are seeing these images, then I have become a mortal threat to my X-Men. In this instance, I must be stopped by any means necessary. Some years ago, I made a study of various forms of possible defense against my own psychic abilities. The image next to me is that of an anti-psionic armor. The wearer should be protected from my talent. When I finish speaking, a blueprint for this armor will be downloaded.\"\n Code 0-2-1 (Wolverine) was activated by Archangel, Cyclops, and Jean Grey.\n Code 1-3-9 (Cable) was activated by Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Cannonball.\n\nOther X-Men who have faced their Xavier Protocols are Colossus, Rogue, Shadowcat, Nightcrawler, Storm, and Gambit.\n\nOther versions\n\n1602\nProfessor X is Carlos Javier in the miniseries Marvel 1602 (set in the alternative reality known as Earth-311), set at the end of the Elizabethan Era in an alternative universe. In this reality Carlos Javier set up a school for the Witchbreed in order to train them and prepare them to survive in a world that distrusted and hated them. He hid them away and would only send them out on mercy missions to retrieve other witchbreed who were in danger. When the young man named Werner – born with angel's wings – was to be burnt at the stake by the Inquisition, Javier sent his team leader, Scotius Summerisle, and Roberto Trefusis to rescue the boy. They did, and brought him back to Javier's school.\n\nNicholas Fury, the Queen of England's spymaster, came to visit Javier at his school and warn him of the danger posed by Elizabeth's death and the eventual rise to power of King James of Scotland, who had no love for witchbreed. Javier acknowledged the threat, but did nothing about it, though he showed Fury his team of super-powered youths. Fury also asked a favor, and requested that Javier use his powers to read the thoughts of a captured assassin. All Javier could tell him what that he was one of three; another was to kill a girl from the colonies, and the third, the queen. Fury later sent his protégé, Peter Parquagh, to Javier's school, to warn him that Fury would be coming for him in the name of King James soon, and that Javier should go quietly, rather than risk a war that would have serious consequences. Javier agreed, and when Fury arrived with an army of men, he and his students went without a fight.\n\nWhile captive, Javier joined a discussion with Fury and Doctor Strange—the physician and magician of Queen Elizabeth. Strange told them that the world was coming to an end and the only way to save it would be to launch an attack on the castle of Otto von Doom, and steal away the treasure of the Templars and the survivors from the Four of the Fantastick. Fury disbelieved him, thinking his friend Sir Richard Reed dead, but Javier read Strange's mind, revealing that Strange thought he was telling the truth; and so it was decided. They traveled upon a ship that Javier's student Jean Grey lifted into the air with her mind, while Javier bolstered her powers with his own, and they flew to Latveria. Javier and Jean remained in meditation the whole way; keeping the ship afloat, for if they set down they would not get airborne again.\n\nAs the battle commenced, Javier led his men. He sent Angel and Scotius down to silence the cannons, while he ordered Roberto to deflect cannonballs, which he himself would try to steer off course via the cannoneer's minds. His beast-like student Henry he asked to protect the ship from the flying minions of Doom that soon boarded the ship from the air. When the Captain of the Fantastick raged against his stone prison beneath Castle Doomstadt, it freed the members of the Captain's crew, along with Donal (Thor) and Matthew Murdoch. Donal quickly used the staff that was his greatest treasure, and turned himself into the Thunder God, Thor. When Thor created a massive storm to use against Doom, Roberto used the sudden moisture in the air to freeze the cannons and save their ship. Doom also used Thor's storm to electrify the golden globe he held-a distraction given to him by Donal-but it exploded in his face; scarring him and bringing him to the brink of death. Victorious, Thor and the members of the Fantastick joined Javier's crew, and with Thor's help they got the boat to sea, as Jean Grey had collapsed.\n\nThe band of heroes set sail for the New World to fix the tear in time that had created the weather anomalies circling the globe, as well as endangering the universe itself. On the way, Jean Grey's body finally gave up under the strain of the use of her powers, and as per her final wish, she was flown into the air and vaporized by Scotius’ eye blasts, falling to the sea as ash; but not before Angel saw an image of an immense, flaming bird in the air. Almost to the Roanoke Colony, Javier sensed a trio of ships making their way to the New World; the first, Virginia Dare returning to the colonies with her time-traveling friend; the second, containing James’ men, set to kill Fury; and the third, the witchbreed Enrique with his two children. Enrique was an old friend of Javier's, later set against him. Javier's group intercepted Enrique's boat first, and Roberto encased it in ice to imprison them, while Javier demanded to know what they were doing. Enrique explained that the winds had taken them to the New World, but Javier did not trust him.\n\nJavier soon participated in another group discussion; this led by the severed head of Doctor Strange, brought from England by his wife, Clea. Strange told them through his head that the faux-Indian Rojhaz was actually a visitor from the future, Captain America, whose arrival had jeopardized the universe itself. In order to fix it, the heroes would have to return him to the rift. They soon found the rift, and Javier had no choice but to make a deal with his old friend, Enrique, who was the only one with the power to open the rift to put the man back. Enrique agreed without hearing the proposal, but demanded that his own terms be meet when his job was done. As Javier had no other choice, he agreed. Together with Enrique, Thor, and Fury, they opened the rift enough for Fury to drag Captain America through, and it closed, healing the universe permanently. Though instead of reverting things back to the way they should have been, it separated the universe from the original, creating a pocket universe where the out-of-time heroes continued to exist.\n\nBefore parting, Enrique explained his terms: that he would head north, and no one would follow him or investigate him; and that Javier would teach his children, Wanda and Petros, but not reveal to them that he was their father, though he would return one day to fetch them. Javier agreed, and parted with his old friend.\n\nAge of Apocalypse\nIn the Age of Apocalypse, Charles Xavier was killed when he sacrificed himself to save Erik Lensherr from his own future son, David Haller (Legion), who had gone back in time to eliminate Magneto in the belief that his father would thus be there for him and succeed in his dream without Magneto to 'hinder' his efforts. As a result, Magneto founded the X-Men and sought human/mutant co-existence in Xavier's name- even naming his new son with Rogue 'Charles' after his friend- but Haller's rampage also prompted Apocalypse to awaken decades before the world was ready for him, resulting in Apocalypse conquering North America and most of the world, eventually forcing Magneto's X-Men to attempt a daring mission to gain the power necessary to go back in time and save Xavier from Haller as they recognised how vital Xavier was to the future.\n\nAmalgam Comics\nIn the Amalgam Comics community, Charles Xavier was combined with DC's Dr. Fate and Marvel's Doctor Strange to create Dr. Strangefate. He was the only character aware of the nature of the Amalgam Comics universe.\n\nHe was also combined with Martian Manhunter to create Mr. X, leader of the JLX (a mash up of the X-Men and Justice League).\n\nDeadpool Corps\nIn the second issue of Prelude to Deadpool Corps, Deadpool visits a universe where Prof. X runs an orphanage for troubled kids that includes Kidpool (kid version of Deadpool), Cyclops, Wolverine, Angel, and Colossus, with Storm being the headmistress and Beast as a teacher. In this universe, the professor has a fondness for Emma Frost who runs an orphanage for girls that includes Jean Grey and Rogue. He tries to get her attention by wearing wigs, throwing a dance for both orphanages, and trying to alter her memory.\n\nExiles\n In the first mission of the Exiles they release an evil Professor X from prison, assuming that he was the 'teacher' who was needed to help the mutants of this world as many of their original realities featured Professor X as a benevolent teacher similar to his mainstream version. Having learned that Magneto was the teacher they were meant to save, they freed the other heroes from prison, with Mimic killing Xavier by getting up-close with a telepathic blocker designed by Forge and impaling him in the head with Wolverine's claws.\n On the world of the Sons of Iron and Daughters of the Dragon, the New Exiles face a squad of alternative 'core X-Men' who are loyal to Lilandra. These X-Men are led by an alternative version of Xavier who is codenamed 'Black Cloak,' which is reference to his clothes. Xavier is able to walk on this world and carries a spear. The astral form of his head appears above his and he tends to mostly use his powers to prey upon the fears of his enemies. Xavier is unable to enter Psylocke's mind.\n\nHouse of M\nWhen the Scarlet Witch altered reality so Magneto ruled over the Earth and mutants were the dominant species, Professor X is initially depicted as missing; Wolverine attempts to locate him but his search turns up fruitless. Later on Genosha, Magneto is seen staring at a grave for the Professor, with the epitaph \"He died so Genosha could live\". However, when the grave is searched by Cloak, he finds there is no body. The question of Xavier's status in this world was left open-ended until House of M: Civil War, detailing the history of Magneto in this world. Xavier, while living, sought out Magneto when the latter was attempting to halt the oppression of mutantkind, declaring war on humans. He saved Magneto's life from a sniper attack and joined him, hoping to influence Magneto's actions into benevolence. He was crippled during the mutant takeover of Genosha and slowly grew more distant from Magneto as the latter's actions grew more bloodthirsty. Ultimately, when the United States sent a team onto Genosha to assassinate Magneto, Xavier found himself trying to appeal to a furious Bucky Barnes, who stabbed Xavier through the chest. What became of his body afterwards is unknown.\n\nMarvel Zombies\nIn the Marvel Zombies one-shot Marvel Zombies: Dead Days, a zombified Alpha Flight attacks the X-Mansion. Storm informs the X-Men during the battle that Alpha Flight has ripped Xavier to pieces. Cyclops, trying not to deal with the fact that Xavier is dead, continues to fight. In the Marvel Zombies/Army of Darkness crossover, a zombified Beast informs Doctor Doom of Xavier's death, and that it was the Zombie Reed Richards who reprogrammed Cerebro to seek out humans.\n\nIn Marvel Zombies Return however, another alternative Xaiver is zombified and turned into a human-detection system, his brain being permanently connected up to Cerebro so that he can find any remaining human beings.\n\nMutant X\nIn the alternative reality known as Mutant X, Professor X believing in harmony between man and mutant, formed, along with his friend Magnus, the X-Men and led the team towards that peaceful goal . However, the day they fought the Shadow King, everything changed. The good in Xavier was corrupted, and he left the team to explore his powers further. When he returned, it was during an attack by the Juggernaut. Xavier fired a blast at Juggernaut, but it missed and killed Magneto's lover Moira MacTaggert, instead. Xavier left the X-Men for good then, and traveled the world seeking out telepaths, whom he captured and incarcerated around the globe. He joined forces with Sinister in a bid to transfer all the mental energy of all the world's telepaths into himself. To that end, they created the X-Man, and Xavier took control of S.H.I.E.L.D., captured Gambit's adopted daughter Raven, and had Fury attempt to kill the X-Men with a nuclear strike. Xavier met up with The Six in New York, \"fleeing\" from Apocalypse and the Four Horsemen. However, when Xavier made several attempts to abduct Scotty, Havok was alerted to the truth by Jean Grey and Magneto, and realized who the true villain was. After a pitched battle, Xavier donned his psychic armor, and he and Sinister released a giant replica of Galactus in order to induce fear in the citizens of Earth, on which Xavier could feed his power. In the end, the replica was destroyed and the Six beat the fear phantoms that had comprised it. Xavier turned on Sinister and destroyed him, and X-Man ran off, leaving Scotty and Raven, who with X-Man were to be Xavier's psychic batteries, to help Havok blast away at Xavier. Xavier was knocked out of his armor and fled the scene, but not before unleashing a blast at Havok that hit Brute when he jumped in front of it to save Alex. Fortunately, the blast temporarily restored Hank to his former levels of intelligence, and he was able to devise cures for his friends before the effect faded away. Xavier was later summoned by Dr. Strange to help fight the Beyonder (Goblin Queen) by adding his psychic power to others to help Havok reach a higher plane of reality. While hooked up to the psychic amplification machine, Xavier was about to be killed by Dracula when he was saved by Bloodstorm, who staked her former master.\n\nRuins\nWarren Ellis' Ruins was set in an alternative version of the Marvel Universe where \"everything went wrong\". In this world, \"President X\" leads a corrupt regime over the United States. He moved the White House from Washington to Westchester, New York, letting the capital fall to waste and corruption. He never formed the X-Men, with only Warren Worthington working for him as a secret serviceman. Some of his would-be X-Men are locked in a Texan prison by his orders and are sometimes forcibly deformed in an effort to keep their powers under control. He was known to frequently visit and verbally abuse them \"leaving them all sobbing and throwing up\". The Avengers were depicted in this world as a Californian pro-secessionist revolutionary cell that opposed Xavier's regime, who were all killed when the Avengers Quinjet was shot down. President X also started the 'Genoshan Police Action', also known as the 'Genoshan War'.\n\nShadow Xavier\nIn the first arc of New Excalibur the team is brought together partly as a response to a clash between Dazzler and a group of homicidal mutants bearing a resemblance to the Original X-Men. It turns out that these are the X-Men of an alternative universe where Charles Xavier is possessed by the Shadow King and has gone on to use his mind-controlled and thoroughly corrupted X-Men to wipe out all the other superhumans. This version of Xavier can walk, and insists that his followers refer to him as 'Master'.\n\nHe, along with the Shadow King, are killed by Lionheart.\n\nUltimate Marvel\nIn the Ultimate Marvel continuity, Professor Charles Xavier is the world's most powerful telepath, the founder and patron of the X-Men and a world-famous lecturer for pacifism and mutant emancipation. In contrast to his mainstream version, he is publicly open about his mutant status from the beginning and also has limited telekinetic abilities. He leaves his wife Moira MacTaggert, whom he collaborated with to create new therapies and surgical techniques for their mutant patients, and their sick son David to pursue Magneto's dream of a mutant society, but Magneto turns on him, crippling him with a shard of metal through his spine.\n\nXavier also repeatedly tampers with other people's minds to reach his goals, but he recognizes his flaws. In one instance, Xavier finds that Iceman has told a girl several secrets about the X-Men and is forced to erase the conversation from their minds. He generally believes that reading minds without permission is unacceptable, or so he leads his students to believe. In Ultimate X-Men #40, when Angel flies away, the Professor sends Storm after him because he telepathically knows that Angel is attracted to her. Similarly, Beast questions whether Xavier has made Storm love him.\n\nIn this timeline, his former love interests include Mystique and Emma Frost. In Ultimate X-Men #77, he tells Cyclops that he is in love with Jean. He also has a pet cat which he has named Mystique.\n\nIn Ultimate X-Men #78, Xavier is apparently killed by Cable who was trying to prevent the horrible events in the future. In Ultimate X-Men #80 it is revealed that he is in fact alive, and a captive of Cable in the future. It has also been revealed that Cable has repaired his spine and is training Xavier to fight against Apocalypse. However, once the battle came, Jean Grey manifested as the Phoenix and destroyed Apocalypse. Jean returned everything back to normal, giving Xavier a \"fresh start\". As she did so however, she undid the repair to his spine that Cable had performed, leaving him once again crippled. Xavier reformed the X-Men upon return as the Headmaster of the Xavier Institute.\n\nSoon after, Xavier left the school temporarily to aid Moira in some research on Muir Island. While he's away, the school is attacked by Alpha Flight whose mutant powers are enhanced by a drug called Banshee. Furthermore, it is revealed that Colossus has been using Banshee during his entire time at the Xavier's School, in order to use his power without pain. Due to the sudden and apparently rampant use of the drug, Xavier and Jean begin screening all the students for traces of Banshee. However, it is later revealed the Banshee drug was created by Xavier himself, during his time in the Savage Land, and that it was created from Wolverine's blood. When Xavier tested Banshee, he was given powers that mimicked Wolverine's, including claws, enhanced senses, and a healing factor. Xavier and Magneto, however, deemed the drug too dangerous and stopped production of it. When Wolverine discovered that he was the source of the drug and that Xavier was responsible for its initial creation, Wolverine attacked Muir Island. Xavier admits to creating the drug but denies that he is responsible for its continued creation and use. It is revealed then that Moira got hold of Xavier's research and began creating and selling the drug in order to finance Muir Island. Moira, who had used the drug to give herself a sonic scream, begins to do battle with Wolverine, and Xavier evacuates the children moments before the research facility explodes.\n\nIn the Ultimatum story arc, Charles informs all mutants that Magneto is behind the actions. Magneto confronts Charles, explaining that he believes that he shall act as God did to cleanse the world and usher in an era of mutant supremacy. When Charles states that Magneto is not God and that he will stop him as he always has in the past, Magneto then snaps Charles's neck, killing him.\n\nHe recently returned, revealed as Rogue's benefactor, secretly sending her on an undercover mission and stating that he doesn't want his former students to know about his plan. It is unconfirmed if this is truly Xavier, as both William Stryker, Alex Summers and Quicksilver have been seen talking to their supposedly dead loved ones, hinting at a foe mentally manipulating several characters.\n\nX-Men Noir\nIn X-Men Noir, Charles Xavier is a psychiatrist who ran the \"Xavier School for Exceptionally Wayward Youth\", in Westchester where he took in juvenile delinquents, but instead of reforming them, he actually further trained them in criminal talents, due to his belief that sociopathy was in fact the next state in human behavioral evolution. The paper in which he stated this led to his expulsion from the American Psychological Association. He is currently in Riker's Island, awaiting charges after the truth about his reform school were made public. Xavier had been framed by Chief of Detectives Eric Magnus for the murder of one of his own students: Warren. Magnus had murdered Warren after Xavier refused to make his X-Men join Magnus' Brotherhood.\n\nX-Treme X-Men\nAn alternative of Earth-616's Professor X is shown, there was seemingly little to distinguish Charles Xavier until the day he was kidnapped by the forces of the Savior (unbeknownst to him, an alternative of himself), who removed his head from his body, placed in a life-giving \"jar\", and placed it with the heads of all the other alternative Xaviers put through the same procedure and made to scan the multiverse for the next mutants to be kidnapped. When the Savior was defeated, the collective of Xavier heads put themselves to work finding a new home for the people of the world they had been kidnapped to. However, in the process, all of the heads exploded, except one. This Xavier head would later aide a cross-dimension X-Men team in defeating ten evil Xaviers who are scattered throughout the multiverse and threaten existence itself. During the X-Termination crossover, AoA Nightcrawler's trip home resulted in the release of three evil beings that destroy anyone they touch. Several casualties resulted, including the AoA's Sabretooth, Horror Show, and Fiend, as well as the X-Treme X-Men's Xavier and Hercules.\n\nIn other media\n\nProfessor X has appeared on a number of animated television shows including the X-Men animated series voiced by Cedric Smith, X-Men: Evolution voiced by David Kaye, and in Wolverine and the X-Men voiced by Jim Ward.\n\nHe has appeared in eleven live-action X-Men feature films to date. He is played by Patrick Stewart in X-Men, X2, X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, The Wolverine, and Logan and by James McAvoy in X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Apocalypse, Deadpool 2 and Dark Phoenix. Both actors play him at different time-periods in X-Men: Days of Future Past.\n\nHarry Lloyd portrays a young Charles Xavier in the television series Legion.\n\nHe has also appeared in a number of books and video games.\n\nReferences\n\nSources\n Sanderson, Peter ( April 17, 2006). X-Men: The Ultimate Guide. DK CHILDREN (3rd ed.). .\n Barney-Hawke, Syd, Moreels, Eric J. ( April 1, 2003). Marvel Encyclopedia Volume 2: X-Men. Marvel Comics. .\n Yaco, Linc, Haber, Karen (February 2004). The Science of the X-Men. I Books/Marvel. .\n Marvel Entertainment ( May 7, 2003). The Marvel Universe Roleplaying Game. Marvel Comics. .\n\nExternal links\n \n UncannyXmen.net Spotlight on Professor X\n \n\nCharacters created by Jack Kirby\nCharacters created by Stan Lee\nComics characters introduced in 1963\nFictional anthropologists\nFictional characters from New York City\nFictional characters with disability\nFictional characters with eidetic memory\nFictional characters with paraplegia\nFictional empaths\nFictional geneticists\nFictional human rights activists\nFictional hypnotists and indoctrinators\nFictional Korean War veterans\nFictional pacifists\nFictional principals and headteachers\nFictional professors\nFictional psychologists\nFictional twins\nFictional University of Oxford people\nMarvel Comics male superheroes\nMarvel Comics martial artists\nMarvel Comics mutants\nMarvel Comics orphans\nMarvel Comics telepaths\nNew Mutants\nSuperhero schoolteachers\nX-Men members\n\nja:X-メン#登場人物"
] |
[
"Thursday (band)",
"No Devolucion and disbandment (2011-2015)"
] | C_22afd1eeb83b49ebbcfaf30037fcc18c_1 | was no devolucion and disbandment an album | 1 | Was No Devolucion and Disbandment an album by the band Thursday? | Thursday (band) | In late May 2002, the group announced they had signed to Island Records, following a bidding war between other major labels. Up to this point, Full Collapse had sold 111,000 copies. On September 9, the group's signing to Island Records was made official following negotiations of an exit agreement with Victory Records. The agreement required parent company Island/Def Jam to buy out Victory's contract claim for the group's next two albums. Rickly said as a result of the deal, Victory Records received $1,200,000, which meant the band would be "[paying off] that bill for as long as we were on the new label." In addition, their next two albums were required to feature the Victory logo. With expectation building for their follow-up album, Rickly wanted their next album to be "really aggressive and progressive ... and have all these boundary pushing ideas". In September and October, the group went on the Plea for Peace Tour, and were planning to work on their next album following its conclusion. They said they had accumulated a lot of ideas but were unable to work on them due touring. In mid-November, the group began writing new material. After an entire writing and recording process that took only six months, the band issued their third album and major label debut, War All the Time, on September 16, 2003 to critical acclaim and strong commercial performance. War All the Time was the first release to feature Andrew Everding on keyboards, though he would not become an official member of the band until December 2004, when he was officially welcomed into the band at a Christmas holiday show held at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, New Jersey. The album's title, coupled with it being released approximately two years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, led many critics to believe it was a political album; however, Rickly has denied this on many accounts, instead claiming that he is speaking about love being a war. The album spawned two singles: "Signals Over the Air" and "War All the Time", though the latter received considerably less attention due to MTV banning the video for controversial material involving a fake news feed that appeared to be real and teenagers being weapon targets. Thursday toured extensively to support War All the Time, featuring dates with acts such as AFI, Thrice, and Coheed and Cambria. On these tours, Thursday performed many in-store acoustic sessions at various Tower Records stores and other record stores. The band also recorded a live acoustic session for Y100 Sonic Sessions, a radio program on the now defunct Philadelphia-based radio station, Y100. The live acoustic version of single "Signals Over the Air" was used on Y100 Sonic Sessions Volume 8. The band released two EPs: the first was Live from the SoHo & Santa Monica Stores Split EP and sold exclusively on iTunes, and the second was a promotion found in Revolver, called the Live in Detroit EP. The band went on an indefinite hiatus in 2004, citing label pressure, extensive touring, and health problems as the reasons. However, Thursday returned for a charitable performance to save New York City's CBGB, on August 25, 2005, which was streamed live through the CBGB's website. In fall 2005, five Thursday demo songs were stolen from the iPod of the tour manager for My American Heart, a band Rickly had recently collaborated with for their song "We Are the Fabrication". The band issued a statement on their official website stating that they were disappointed the unfinished products leaked, but that they were glad that people take that much interest in their music. The band confirmed the title of one demo, "At This Velocity" and promised it would make their upcoming album. Three other songs ("The Other Side of the Crash/Over and Out (Of Control)", "Telegraph Avenue Kiss", and "Autumn Leaves Revisited") would also make the album, while the remaining demo would later become the song "Last Call" on their fifth studio album, Common Existence. Thursday had originally toyed with the idea of a double album to follow up War All the Time but the idea was scrapped, reporting on their website that they believed "not even The Beatles could properly fill two discs with enough worthy material". Thursday released their fourth album and second major label release, A City by the Light Divided, on May 2, 2006, on Island Records in the US and Hassle Records in the United Kingdom. The album was produced by Dave Fridmann, becoming Thursday's first full-length album not produced by Sal Villanueva. The title was created by Geoff Rickly by combining two lines from the poem Sunstone by Octavio Paz. The album was available for preview on the band's MySpace page on April 18, 2006, two weeks before it was officially released. A City by the Light Divided was generally received well by critics, spawning two singles: "Counting 5-4-3-2-1" and "At This Velocity", though the latter received considerably less attention. The band left Island Records in early 2007. At their 2007 New Year's Eve show at the Starland Ballroom, the band announced that they will be writing and recording new material in 2008. During a private show they performed on May 3, 2007 in New York City, long-time friend and artist manager, David "Rev" Ciancio proposed to his fiancee on stage. Thursday also held a performance on May 5 at The Bamboozle under the fake name Bearfort. Thursday cancelled all tour plans until their fall tour with Circle Takes the Square and Portugal. The Man in support of Kill the House Lights, a DVD/CD compilation album and live album. featuring demos, unreleased songs, footage of live performances, and a documentary about the band. The album was released on October 30, 2007 by their former label Victory Records. Thursday announced on April 2, 2008, via a MySpace bulletin and their official website, a new split album with Japanese post-hardcore band Envy. The band debuted a song from the album live during their show in Poughkeepsie on April 24, 2008, and the album, Thursday / Envy, was released on Temporary Residence Limited on November 4, 2008. Thursday began recording their next album in July 2010, at Tarbox Road Studios in Fredonia, New York with Dave Fridmann, who had also produced the group's two previous albums. Their sixth album and second release for Epitaph Records, No Devolucion, was released on April 12, 2011. Vocalist Geoff Rickly commented on the style of the new album, stating, "In style, this record feels like a radical departure from our earlier records but in substance it feels like a return. The songs are more vulnerable than they've been in a long time. [...] It's very atmospheric and mood oriented so far." Rickly also stated that the primary lyrical theme is devotion. Thursday debuted "Turnpike Divides" at their annual holiday show on December 30, 2010 at the Starland Ballroom. On November 22, 2011, Thursday posted a statement on their official website and their Twitter account reading "Thanks & Love", expressing their intention to stop producing music together. However, the statement about the status of band was ambiguous, not stating explicitly in the article whether they were breaking up or on an indefinite hiatus. The following is excerpted from the article: Despite the fantastic year that the band has enjoyed, creatively, things haven't been as easy for us on a personal level. Without diving into detail, it's fair to say that this year has been an endless series of personal difficulties. We haven't had any falling out and are all still close. I'm sure that we will continue to create, in some capacity, together. We've talked about turning Thursday into something else: a non-profit, a band that only records sporadically, a collection of other projects... Underneath it all, the personal circumstances involved make it impossible to continue Thursday in the spirit that has made it special. So, we stop. For now, at least. In January 2013, Geoff Rickly stated during an interview that Thursday had in fact disbanded, and that the term "hiatus" was misleading as it had only been used in case the band did ever decided to play a show again. He did, however, indicate that there was a possibility for the band to play shows in the future, but no new material would ever be produced. Since their disbandment, Rickly formed the band No Devotion in 2014 with former members of the band Lostprophets, and has continued his side-project United Nations. Tucker Rule became the touring drummer for the British Boy Band The Wanted, the pop-punk band Yellowcard and works as a hired musician as well as studio drummer. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Thursday is an American post-hardcore band, formed in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1997. The band currently consists of Geoff Rickly (lead vocals), Tom Keeley (lead guitar, backing vocals), Steve Pedulla (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), Tim Payne (bass), and Tucker Rule (drums).
Thursday released their debut album, Waiting, in late 1999 with original guitarist Bill Henderson, who left the band in 2000 and was replaced by Steve Pedulla. The band gained popularity with the release of their second album, Full Collapse, in 2001, and released their third album and major label debut, War All the Time, in 2003, which reached number seven on the US Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. Thursday released their fourth album, A City by the Light Divided, in 2006, and two further albums, Common Existence (2009) and No Devolución (2011), before announcing an indefinite hiatus in 2011. In a January 2013 interview, Geoff Rickly confirmed that the band had officially disbanded. However, the band announced a reunion in 2016 and performed a series of shows within the next few years. In October 2018, the band announced their reunion would conclude with a performance at Saint Vitus in Brooklyn, New York on March 17, 2019; despite this, Thursday had played more shows by the end of 2019, and resumed activity as a band in the fall of 2021 with a series of live dates, including an appearance at Riot Fest in Chicago.
The band has been considered an influential band of the post-hardcore music scene in the 2000s, and is credited as one of the key bands to popularize the darker emo sound and screaming vocals which came to prominence at the time.
History
Formation and Waiting (1997–2000)
Thursday was formed in 1997 by vocalist Geoff Rickly, guitarist Tom Keeley, guitarist Bill Henderson, bassist Tim Payne, and drummer Tucker Rule. The band began playing basement shows in New Brunswick and the surrounding New Jersey and New York areas, playing their first official show on December 31, 1998 in Rickly's basement alongside Midtown, Saves the Day and Poison the Well.
The band recorded demos to hand out at shows, and in the summer of 1999, teamed up with MP3.com for their first official release, the 1999 Summer Tour EP, which featured demos of songs that would soon be found on their debut album, Waiting. The album was released on December 6, 1999 on northern New Jersey-based Eyeball Records without any singles or support from television or radio.
Full Collapse (2001–2002)
In 2001, Thursday signed to independent label Victory Records. After signing, they were warned by their friends that they "gotten ourselves into a situation that we would regret". The group were unsure what they meant, but thought things would turn out fine due to their contract with the label. They initially thought that part of the contract meant they could sign with a different label would they want to. However, they realized the deal had in fact stated they could only leave Victory if it was to join a major label, which they thought was "a far-fetched idea to say the least." Later in the year, they released their second album Full Collapse through the label, eventually reaching number 178 on the Billboard 200. Before appearing on Warped Tour, the group visited Victory's offices and learned about Thursday-branded whoopee cushions that the label was planning to sell at the tour. Vocalist Geoff Rickly discussed this matter with Victory founder Tony Brummel, and according to the band, responded that Victory "was a big company and that they didn't have time to run everything by the band."
On a number of occasions, the group attempted to have better communication with the label in regards to promotion. On one occasion, Brummel informed them they were not living up to his expectations. Sometime afterwards, the group were touring with Saves the Day. Brummel became more positive in his interactions, frequently calling the band "just to say hello, or to ask how record sales at shows were going." The group were disappointed that his positivity "wasn't there from the beginning. ... Instead of Tony's relationship with us being based on a love for music, it was based entirely on numbers." The band's new-found popularity and disgust with the label led to internal problems, which almost led the band to disband. The situation caused the creation of the Five Stories Falling EP, a release the band used to fulfill contractual obligations with Victory Records. At live shows, the band routinely told fans not to purchase the EP, but instead to download "Jet Black New Year", the only new studio recording found on the EP, with the rest consisting of live performances of four Full Collapse songs. While all the interactions with the label were occurring, the group were being contacted by major labels. The group, who "didn't understand [anything] about major labels", pondered about other independent labels they would join. However, due to their contract they wouldn't be allowed to move to another independent label. Throughout 2001, people from major label Island Records had been to the band's shows since they became a full-time touring act. Soon after, the label expressed interest in signing the band.
War All the Time (2003–2005)
In late May 2002, the group announced they had signed to Island Records, following a bidding war between other major labels. Up to this point, Full Collapse had sold 111,000 copies. On September 9, the group's signing to Island Records was made official following negotiations of an exit agreement with Victory Records. The agreement required parent company Island/Def Jam to buy out Victory's contract claim for the group's next two albums. Rickly said as a result of the deal, Victory Records received $1,200,000, which meant the band would be "[paying off] that bill for as long as we were on the new label." In addition, their next two albums were required to feature the Victory logo.
With expectation building for their follow-up album, Rickly wanted their next album to be "really aggressive and progressive ... and have all these boundary pushing ideas". In September and October, the group went on the Plea for Peace Tour, and were planning to work on their next album following its conclusion. They said they had accumulated a lot of ideas but were unable to work on them due to touring. In mid-November, the group began writing new material.
After an entire writing and recording process that took only six months, the band issued their third album and major label debut, War All the Time, on September 16, 2003 to critical acclaim and strong commercial performance. War All the Time was the first release to feature Andrew Everding on keyboards, though he would not become an official member of the band until December 2004, when he was officially welcomed into the band at a Christmas holiday show held at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, New Jersey. The album's title, coupled with it being released approximately two years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, led many critics to believe it was a political album; however, Rickly has denied this on many accounts, instead claiming that he is speaking about love being a war. The album spawned two singles: "Signals Over the Air" and "War All the Time", though the latter received considerably less attention due to MTV banning the video for controversial material involving a fake news feed that appeared to be real and teenagers being weapon targets.
Thursday toured extensively to support War All the Time, featuring dates with acts such as AFI, Thrice, and Coheed and Cambria. On these tours, Thursday performed many in-store acoustic sessions at various Tower Records stores and other record stores. The band also recorded a live acoustic session for Y100 Sonic Sessions, a radio program on the now defunct Philadelphia-based radio station, Y100. The live acoustic version of single "Signals Over the Air" was used on Y100 Sonic Sessions Volume 8. The band released two EPs: the first was Live from the SoHo & Santa Monica Stores Split EP and sold exclusively on iTunes, and the second was a promotion found in Revolver, called the Live in Detroit EP.
The band went on an indefinite hiatus in 2004, citing label pressure, extensive touring, and health problems as the reasons. However, Thursday returned for a charitable performance to save New York City's CBGB, on August 25, 2005, which was streamed live through the CBGB's website.
A City by the Light Divided and Envy split release (2006–2008)
In fall 2005, five Thursday demo songs were stolen from the iPod of the tour manager for My American Heart, a band Rickly had recently collaborated with for their song "We Are the Fabrication". The band issued a statement on their official website stating that they were disappointed the unfinished products leaked, but that they were glad that people take that much interest in their music. The band confirmed the title of one demo, "At This Velocity" and promised it would make their upcoming album. Three other songs ("The Other Side of the Crash/Over and Out (Of Control)", "Telegraph Avenue Kiss", and "Autumn Leaves Revisited") would also make the album, while the remaining demo would later become the song "Last Call" on their fifth studio album, Common Existence. Thursday had originally toyed with the idea of a double album to follow up War All the Time but the idea was scrapped, reporting on their website that they believed "not even The Beatles could properly fill two discs with enough worthy material".
Thursday released their fourth album and second major label release, A City by the Light Divided, on May 2, 2006, on Island Records in the US and Hassle Records in the United Kingdom. The album was produced by Dave Fridmann, becoming Thursday's first full-length album not produced by Sal Villanueva. The title was created by Geoff Rickly by combining two lines from the poem Sunstone by Octavio Paz. The album was available for preview on the band's MySpace page on April 18, 2006, two weeks before it was officially released. A City by the Light Divided was generally received well by critics, spawning two singles: "Counting 5-4-3-2-1" and "At This Velocity", though the latter received considerably less attention. The band left Island Records in early 2007.
At their 2007 New Year's Eve show at the Starland Ballroom, the band announced that they will be writing and recording new material in 2008. During a private show they performed on May 3, 2007 in New York City, long-time friend and artist manager, David "Rev" Ciancio proposed to his fiancée on stage. Thursday also held a performance on May 5 at The Bamboozle under the fake name Bearfort. Thursday cancelled all tour plans until their fall tour with Circle Takes the Square and Portugal. The Man in support of Kill the House Lights, a DVD/CD compilation album and live album. featuring demos, unreleased songs, footage of live performances, and a documentary about the band. The album was released on October 30, 2007 by their former label Victory Records.
Thursday announced on April 2, 2008, via a MySpace bulletin and their official website, a new split album with Japanese post-hardcore band Envy. The band debuted a song from the album live during their show in Poughkeepsie on April 24, 2008, and the album, Thursday / Envy, was released on Temporary Residence Limited on November 4, 2008.
Common Existence (2009–2010)
The band announced on September 30, 2008 that they had signed with Epitaph Records, regarding their new label the band stated: "It's a great feeling to have a label encourage you to be more socially conscious and politically active." Thursday released their fifth full-length album,Common Existence, on February 17, 2009 on Epitaph Records. In a March 2009 interview, Rickly explained the album's title refers to humanity's shared experience, and that many of the songs were influenced by the words of his favorite poets and authors: "Almost every song on the record is connected to a different writer. The first song, "Resuscitation of a Dead Man" is influenced by Denis Johnson's Resuscitation of a Hanged Man. Another song is based on a book [ Martin Amis'] Time's Arrow. The whole record also has a lot of themes from Roberto Bolano, a poet who wrote The Savage Detectives and a few other things. The song "Circuits of Fever" is very influenced by [writer] David Foster Wallace." Cormac McCarthy has also influenced Rickly.
Thursday headlined the 2009 Taste of Chaos Tour with support from Bring Me the Horizon, Four Year Strong, Pierce The Veil, Cancer Bats and a local act. The band was not well received on this tour, as the majority of the audience members showed up at tour dates mainly for opening act Bring Me the Horizon, with guitarist Tom Keeley approximating about 90% of the audience would leave before their set, and described the tour as an "awful experience."
No Devolución and disbandment (2011–2015)
Thursday began recording their next album in July 2010, at Tarbox Road Studios in Fredonia, New York with Dave Fridmann, who had also produced the group's two previous albums. Their sixth album and second release for Epitaph Records, No Devolución, was released on April 12, 2011. Vocalist Geoff Rickly commented on the style of the new album, stating, "In style, this record feels like a radical departure from our earlier records but in substance it feels like a return. The songs are more vulnerable than they've been in a long time. [...] It's very atmospheric and mood oriented so far." Rickly also stated that the primary lyrical theme is devotion. Thursday debuted "Turnpike Divides" at their annual holiday show on December 30, 2010 at the Starland Ballroom.
On November 22, 2011, Thursday posted a statement on their official website and their Twitter account reading "Thanks & Love", expressing their intention to stop producing music together. However, the statement about the status of band was ambiguous, not stating explicitly in the article whether they were breaking up or on an indefinite hiatus. The following is excerpted from the article:
In January 2013, Geoff Rickly stated during an interview that Thursday had in fact disbanded, and that the term "hiatus" was misleading as it had only been used in case the band did ever decided to play a show again. He did, however, indicate that there was a possibility for the band to play shows in the future, but no new material would ever be produced.
Since their disbandment, Rickly formed the band No Devotion in 2014 with former members of the band Lostprophets, and has continued his side-project United Nations. Tucker Rule became the touring drummer for the British Boy Band The Wanted, the pop-punk band Yellowcard and works as a hired musician as well as studio drummer.
Reunion and second breakup (2016–2019)
In January 2016, former members of Thursday posted a picture of themselves hanging out to Rickly's Twitter account. This sparked rumors that the band would soon be reuniting, however Rickly quickly dispelled these rumors saying that their communication was minimal in the five years since disbanding and they were "just finally mending some fences and healing some old wounds." Thursday's former booking agent began encouraging them to reunite the band with the freedom to do whatever they wanted and without the pressure of having to write a new album.
Two months later, Thursday announced they would reunite for Atlanta, Georgia's Wrecking Ball music festival in August 2016. In a statement about the reunion show, Rickly said: "Five years ago, we found it necessary to end Thursday for reasons beyond our control. Earlier this year, we were able to reconcile all of our differences and spend time together. This is a vital component to what we loved about being in Thursday and we're happy to say that we'll be playing this show as the same line-up that began touring together on Full Collapse and jointly worked on every record since." Thursday agreed to perform at Wrecking Ball only two days before publicly announcing their participation, and the decision was made after its organizers allowed the band to perform "in our own way, including involving a charity" and after hearing about the strong lineup of bands on the festival. The band had no intention to reunite before this decision. Two months later, it was announced that the band would be playing both Denver and Chicago dates of Riot Fest in September, causing speculation that the band may play more shows later on in the year.
On June 15, the band's official Instagram posted a picture of a show bill announcing a 'homecoming' on December 30 at Starland Ballroom. The caption on the Instagram post read, "NJ-you won't believe the homecoming we have planned. The lineup and SETLIST are going to be insane." On November 6, the band played the inaugural Sound on Sound fest just outside of Austin, TX.
On January 31, 2017, the band announced a 24 date tour to take place in March and April 2017. Aside from the tour, Thursday headlined the 2017 Northside Festival in Brooklyn, New York.
The band announced in October 2018 that they would be ending their reunion the following year while stating "when we stopped playing last time, it wasn't on the best of terms. This time, we get to put down touring on the very highest of notes: in each other's lives and able to pick up and play together behind closed doors whenever we want. If we are ever able to do Thursday again, it will be a new, separate chapter. Thank you all for your time, attention and friendship.". The band's final show took place on March 17, 2019 at Saint Vitus in Brooklyn, NY.
In May 2019, due to mounting pressure from their international fanbase, who did not get an opportunity to see the reunion tour, the band announced that they would play Germany and released the following statement: "We are so excited and surprised to be able to announce Family First Festival in Cologne. After our last show, we began conversations about all the places that we hadn't been able to play on our reunion. It seemed impossible that we would all be available at the same time to play shows again, especially in any sustained way. But when our old friends in boysetsfire asked us to play this festival with them, we saw that we had a rare opportunity to accomplish two things at once: visit a country that's always been kind to Thursday and play, once more, with a band that we've admired since before we were a band, a band that took us on one of our first tours ever. After much discussion among ourselves, we decided that there were certain cities around the globe that we had unfinished business in and if we find that, at some point in the future, we're in a position to play them, then we will. We hope to see you there."
They then proceeded to announce a show in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, and two UK shows to be held at London's Electric Ballroom, due to play Full Collapse on night one followed by War All the Time on night two, which took place in December 2019. Following this they appeared at The Shrine in Los Angeles on December 20, opening for the reunited My Chemical Romance.
Second return (2020–present)
Despite the band's previous statement that their reunion would come to an end, it was announced in June 2020 that Thursday would play their first show in nearly two years at Riot Fest in September 2021. They also played a series of live shows that same month on the East Coast and Midwest with Taking Back Sunday and Piebald.
Between August 2020 and April 2021, the band shared three virtual performances entitled Signals. The first performance (V1) featured guest guitarist Frank Iero, and largely consisted of stripped-back versions of the band's songs. The second (V2) was a commemorative holiday show, with guests including Iero, Jim Ward, Walter Schriefels and Bartees Strange. The third and final performance (V3) saw the band performing Full Collapse and No Devolución in their entirety.
In June 2021, the band shared a cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark" as part of an ongoing series of covers headed by the creative collective Two Minutes To Late Night.
In October 2021, the band were featured in Dan Ozzi's book Sellout: The Major Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, And Hardcore 1994–2007. A chapter on the band's major-label debut, Full Collapse, was included in the book, as well as a photo of the band performing live serving as the book's cover.
Logo
Thursday used a dove logo which is featured on much of the band's artwork and merchandise. The dove is believed to have been conceived by guitarist Tom Keeley on a tour bus sometime before Full Collapse was recorded. Lyrics from the song "Cross Out the Eyes" on the album reference a dove twice, but it is unknown if these lyrics were inspired by the dove art or vice versa. The logo debuted on the cover art for War All the Time in 2003, appearing on the artwork for all of Thursday's album and single artwork until 2011, where it was notably absent on the cover art for their sixth and final album No Devolución.
The band also used a second logo, a red bullseye with a small chevron below it. This logo first appeared on the cover art for A City by the Light Divided in 2006, and featured on merchandise related to the album. It can also be seen faded in the background of the cover for Kill the House Lights.
Additionally, Shepard Fairey (Creator of Obey) created artwork for the band with a new dove logo, which has been used on other works by Fairey.
Members
Current members
Tom Keeley – lead guitar, backing vocals (1997–2011, 2016–2019, 2020–present)
Tim Payne – bass (1997–2011, 2016–2019, 2020–present)
Geoff Rickly – lead vocals (1997–2011, 2016–2019, 2020–present)
Tucker Rule – drums (1997–2011, 2016–2019, 2020–present)
Steve Pedulla – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (2000–2011, 2016–2019, 2020–present)
Former members
Bill Henderson – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1997–2000)
Andrew Everding – keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals (2002–2011, 2016–2019)
Former touring musicians
Lukas Previn – bass
Brooks Tipton – keyboards, synthesizer
Stuart Richardson – bass
Chris "Ghost" Macias – bass
Timeline
Discography
Waiting (1999)
Full Collapse (2001)
War All the Time (2003)
A City by the Light Divided (2006)
Common Existence (2009)
No Devolución (2011)
Notes
References
External links
Emo musical groups from New Jersey
American screamo musical groups
American post-hardcore musical groups
Musical groups established in 1997
Musical groups from New Jersey
Victory Records artists
Epitaph Records artists
Island Records artists
Musical groups disestablished in 2012
Musical groups reestablished in 2016
Musical groups disestablished in 2019
Musical groups reestablished in 2020
Temporary Residence Limited artists | false | [
"Ignition is a compilation album by the American garage rock band, The Music Machine, and was released on June 27, 2000 on Sundazed Records (see 2000 in music). It includes an assortment of rare singles, outtakes, and previously unreleased material spanning from when the group went under the moniker, the Raggamuffins, in 1965, to their disbandment in 1969. The Raggamuffins were a folk rock trio led by Sean Bonniwell, and the prototype group that developed an experimental hard-edge sound, before recruiting two additional members and becoming the Music Machine. By 1969, all the original members, except Bonniwell, departed the group, which was then known as the Bonniwell Music Machine. Though the band would no longer produce hits, such as \"Talk Talk\" and \"The People In Me\", it was Bonniwell's most ambitious recording period as he incorporated elements of psychedelia and pop rock into the group's music.\n\nThe four songs \"Two Much\", \"Push Don't Pull\", \"Talk Me Down\", and \"Chances\", were all composed and recorded in 1965, when the group was known as the Raggamuffins, and were previously unreleased. They featured a mixture of the band's folk rock roots and the protopunk better assimilated with the Music Machine. Among other songs was \"Black Snow\", which later appeared on Bonniwell's solo album, Close in 1969, and \"Smoke & Water\", a rehearsal song that was demoed. In addition, the commercially unsuccessful single \"Advice and Consent\", the outtake \"Dark White\", and \"Citizen Fear\" were some of the latest recordings by The Music Machine before their disbandment. The remaining material was rare and obscure tracks by the group, with the majority being penned by Bonniwell.\n\nTrack listing\n\n\"Everything Is Everything\"\n\"Two Much\"\n\"Advise and Consent\"\n\"This Should Make You Happy\"\n\"Black Snow\"\n\"Chances\"\n\"Mother Nature, Father Earth\"\n\"Talk Me Down\"\n\"Dark White\"\n\"Push Don't Pull\"\n\"Smoke and Water\"\n\"King Mixer\"\n\"Unca Tinka Ty\"\n\"Citizen Fear\"\n\"Worry\"\n\"Worry\" (alternate version)\n\"Tell Me What Ya Got\"\n\"Point of No Return\"\n\"902\"\n\nPersonnel\n\nSean Bonniwell - lead vocals, rhythm guitar, horn\nMark Landon - lead guitar\nRon Edgar - drums\nDoug Rhodes - bass guitar, keyboards, tambourine, backing vocals\nKeith Olsen - bass guitar, backing vocals\nJeane Harris - drums\nEddie Jones - bass guitar\nHarry Garfield - keyboards\n\nReferences\n\n2000 compilation albums\nSundazed Records compilation albums\nThe Music Machine albums",
"Rec. (stylized as [REC.]) is the debut solo extended play (EP) by South Korean singer Yuju. It was released by Konnect Entertainment on January 18, 2022. The album consists of five songs, including the title track \"Play\". This is her first solo release since she joined Konnect Entertainment after GFriend's disbandment.\n\nBackground and release \nOn September 1, 2021, following GFriend's disbandment and her departure from Source Music, Yuju signed an exclusive contract with Konnect Entertainment as a soloist.\n\nOn January 3, 2022, it was reported that Yuju will debut on January 18 with the extended play titled [REC.]. The following day, the schedule of the EP was released. Preorders began on January 5. On the same day, it was confirmed that the title track of the album is called \"Play\" and was written and composed by herself. On January 6, a concept film for the EP was published on Konnect Entertainment official YouTube channel. The day after, the track listing of the album was released, confirming that it has five songs, all written by Yuju herself. The next two days, two concept photos of Yuju were released: \"Take 1\" on January 8 and \"Take 2\" on January 9. On January 10, a lyric poster spoiled a lyric of the title track \"Play\" :\n\nThe first teaser for \"Play\" was released on January 12. The album sampler of the EP was released then two days later, followed by a live version of the sampler as a special gift on January 16. The following day, Konnect Entertainment revealed the second and final teaser for \"Play\".\n\nThe EP was released on January 18 along with the music video for \"Play\".\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences \n\n2022 debut EPs\nK-pop EPs\nKorean-language EPs"
] |
[
"Thursday (band)",
"No Devolucion and disbandment (2011-2015)",
"was no devolucion and disbandment an album",
"I don't know."
] | C_22afd1eeb83b49ebbcfaf30037fcc18c_1 | what can you tell me interesting | 2 | What can you tell me about the band Thursday that is interesting? | Thursday (band) | In late May 2002, the group announced they had signed to Island Records, following a bidding war between other major labels. Up to this point, Full Collapse had sold 111,000 copies. On September 9, the group's signing to Island Records was made official following negotiations of an exit agreement with Victory Records. The agreement required parent company Island/Def Jam to buy out Victory's contract claim for the group's next two albums. Rickly said as a result of the deal, Victory Records received $1,200,000, which meant the band would be "[paying off] that bill for as long as we were on the new label." In addition, their next two albums were required to feature the Victory logo. With expectation building for their follow-up album, Rickly wanted their next album to be "really aggressive and progressive ... and have all these boundary pushing ideas". In September and October, the group went on the Plea for Peace Tour, and were planning to work on their next album following its conclusion. They said they had accumulated a lot of ideas but were unable to work on them due touring. In mid-November, the group began writing new material. After an entire writing and recording process that took only six months, the band issued their third album and major label debut, War All the Time, on September 16, 2003 to critical acclaim and strong commercial performance. War All the Time was the first release to feature Andrew Everding on keyboards, though he would not become an official member of the band until December 2004, when he was officially welcomed into the band at a Christmas holiday show held at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, New Jersey. The album's title, coupled with it being released approximately two years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, led many critics to believe it was a political album; however, Rickly has denied this on many accounts, instead claiming that he is speaking about love being a war. The album spawned two singles: "Signals Over the Air" and "War All the Time", though the latter received considerably less attention due to MTV banning the video for controversial material involving a fake news feed that appeared to be real and teenagers being weapon targets. Thursday toured extensively to support War All the Time, featuring dates with acts such as AFI, Thrice, and Coheed and Cambria. On these tours, Thursday performed many in-store acoustic sessions at various Tower Records stores and other record stores. The band also recorded a live acoustic session for Y100 Sonic Sessions, a radio program on the now defunct Philadelphia-based radio station, Y100. The live acoustic version of single "Signals Over the Air" was used on Y100 Sonic Sessions Volume 8. The band released two EPs: the first was Live from the SoHo & Santa Monica Stores Split EP and sold exclusively on iTunes, and the second was a promotion found in Revolver, called the Live in Detroit EP. The band went on an indefinite hiatus in 2004, citing label pressure, extensive touring, and health problems as the reasons. However, Thursday returned for a charitable performance to save New York City's CBGB, on August 25, 2005, which was streamed live through the CBGB's website. In fall 2005, five Thursday demo songs were stolen from the iPod of the tour manager for My American Heart, a band Rickly had recently collaborated with for their song "We Are the Fabrication". The band issued a statement on their official website stating that they were disappointed the unfinished products leaked, but that they were glad that people take that much interest in their music. The band confirmed the title of one demo, "At This Velocity" and promised it would make their upcoming album. Three other songs ("The Other Side of the Crash/Over and Out (Of Control)", "Telegraph Avenue Kiss", and "Autumn Leaves Revisited") would also make the album, while the remaining demo would later become the song "Last Call" on their fifth studio album, Common Existence. Thursday had originally toyed with the idea of a double album to follow up War All the Time but the idea was scrapped, reporting on their website that they believed "not even The Beatles could properly fill two discs with enough worthy material". Thursday released their fourth album and second major label release, A City by the Light Divided, on May 2, 2006, on Island Records in the US and Hassle Records in the United Kingdom. The album was produced by Dave Fridmann, becoming Thursday's first full-length album not produced by Sal Villanueva. The title was created by Geoff Rickly by combining two lines from the poem Sunstone by Octavio Paz. The album was available for preview on the band's MySpace page on April 18, 2006, two weeks before it was officially released. A City by the Light Divided was generally received well by critics, spawning two singles: "Counting 5-4-3-2-1" and "At This Velocity", though the latter received considerably less attention. The band left Island Records in early 2007. At their 2007 New Year's Eve show at the Starland Ballroom, the band announced that they will be writing and recording new material in 2008. During a private show they performed on May 3, 2007 in New York City, long-time friend and artist manager, David "Rev" Ciancio proposed to his fiancee on stage. Thursday also held a performance on May 5 at The Bamboozle under the fake name Bearfort. Thursday cancelled all tour plans until their fall tour with Circle Takes the Square and Portugal. The Man in support of Kill the House Lights, a DVD/CD compilation album and live album. featuring demos, unreleased songs, footage of live performances, and a documentary about the band. The album was released on October 30, 2007 by their former label Victory Records. Thursday announced on April 2, 2008, via a MySpace bulletin and their official website, a new split album with Japanese post-hardcore band Envy. The band debuted a song from the album live during their show in Poughkeepsie on April 24, 2008, and the album, Thursday / Envy, was released on Temporary Residence Limited on November 4, 2008. Thursday began recording their next album in July 2010, at Tarbox Road Studios in Fredonia, New York with Dave Fridmann, who had also produced the group's two previous albums. Their sixth album and second release for Epitaph Records, No Devolucion, was released on April 12, 2011. Vocalist Geoff Rickly commented on the style of the new album, stating, "In style, this record feels like a radical departure from our earlier records but in substance it feels like a return. The songs are more vulnerable than they've been in a long time. [...] It's very atmospheric and mood oriented so far." Rickly also stated that the primary lyrical theme is devotion. Thursday debuted "Turnpike Divides" at their annual holiday show on December 30, 2010 at the Starland Ballroom. On November 22, 2011, Thursday posted a statement on their official website and their Twitter account reading "Thanks & Love", expressing their intention to stop producing music together. However, the statement about the status of band was ambiguous, not stating explicitly in the article whether they were breaking up or on an indefinite hiatus. The following is excerpted from the article: Despite the fantastic year that the band has enjoyed, creatively, things haven't been as easy for us on a personal level. Without diving into detail, it's fair to say that this year has been an endless series of personal difficulties. We haven't had any falling out and are all still close. I'm sure that we will continue to create, in some capacity, together. We've talked about turning Thursday into something else: a non-profit, a band that only records sporadically, a collection of other projects... Underneath it all, the personal circumstances involved make it impossible to continue Thursday in the spirit that has made it special. So, we stop. For now, at least. In January 2013, Geoff Rickly stated during an interview that Thursday had in fact disbanded, and that the term "hiatus" was misleading as it had only been used in case the band did ever decided to play a show again. He did, however, indicate that there was a possibility for the band to play shows in the future, but no new material would ever be produced. Since their disbandment, Rickly formed the band No Devotion in 2014 with former members of the band Lostprophets, and has continued his side-project United Nations. Tucker Rule became the touring drummer for the British Boy Band The Wanted, the pop-punk band Yellowcard and works as a hired musician as well as studio drummer. CANNOTANSWER | In late May 2002, the group announced they had signed to Island Records, following a bidding war between other major labels. | Thursday is an American post-hardcore band, formed in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1997. The band currently consists of Geoff Rickly (lead vocals), Tom Keeley (lead guitar, backing vocals), Steve Pedulla (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), Tim Payne (bass), and Tucker Rule (drums).
Thursday released their debut album, Waiting, in late 1999 with original guitarist Bill Henderson, who left the band in 2000 and was replaced by Steve Pedulla. The band gained popularity with the release of their second album, Full Collapse, in 2001, and released their third album and major label debut, War All the Time, in 2003, which reached number seven on the US Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. Thursday released their fourth album, A City by the Light Divided, in 2006, and two further albums, Common Existence (2009) and No Devolución (2011), before announcing an indefinite hiatus in 2011. In a January 2013 interview, Geoff Rickly confirmed that the band had officially disbanded. However, the band announced a reunion in 2016 and performed a series of shows within the next few years. In October 2018, the band announced their reunion would conclude with a performance at Saint Vitus in Brooklyn, New York on March 17, 2019; despite this, Thursday had played more shows by the end of 2019, and resumed activity as a band in the fall of 2021 with a series of live dates, including an appearance at Riot Fest in Chicago.
The band has been considered an influential band of the post-hardcore music scene in the 2000s, and is credited as one of the key bands to popularize the darker emo sound and screaming vocals which came to prominence at the time.
History
Formation and Waiting (1997–2000)
Thursday was formed in 1997 by vocalist Geoff Rickly, guitarist Tom Keeley, guitarist Bill Henderson, bassist Tim Payne, and drummer Tucker Rule. The band began playing basement shows in New Brunswick and the surrounding New Jersey and New York areas, playing their first official show on December 31, 1998 in Rickly's basement alongside Midtown, Saves the Day and Poison the Well.
The band recorded demos to hand out at shows, and in the summer of 1999, teamed up with MP3.com for their first official release, the 1999 Summer Tour EP, which featured demos of songs that would soon be found on their debut album, Waiting. The album was released on December 6, 1999 on northern New Jersey-based Eyeball Records without any singles or support from television or radio.
Full Collapse (2001–2002)
In 2001, Thursday signed to independent label Victory Records. After signing, they were warned by their friends that they "gotten ourselves into a situation that we would regret". The group were unsure what they meant, but thought things would turn out fine due to their contract with the label. They initially thought that part of the contract meant they could sign with a different label would they want to. However, they realized the deal had in fact stated they could only leave Victory if it was to join a major label, which they thought was "a far-fetched idea to say the least." Later in the year, they released their second album Full Collapse through the label, eventually reaching number 178 on the Billboard 200. Before appearing on Warped Tour, the group visited Victory's offices and learned about Thursday-branded whoopee cushions that the label was planning to sell at the tour. Vocalist Geoff Rickly discussed this matter with Victory founder Tony Brummel, and according to the band, responded that Victory "was a big company and that they didn't have time to run everything by the band."
On a number of occasions, the group attempted to have better communication with the label in regards to promotion. On one occasion, Brummel informed them they were not living up to his expectations. Sometime afterwards, the group were touring with Saves the Day. Brummel became more positive in his interactions, frequently calling the band "just to say hello, or to ask how record sales at shows were going." The group were disappointed that his positivity "wasn't there from the beginning. ... Instead of Tony's relationship with us being based on a love for music, it was based entirely on numbers." The band's new-found popularity and disgust with the label led to internal problems, which almost led the band to disband. The situation caused the creation of the Five Stories Falling EP, a release the band used to fulfill contractual obligations with Victory Records. At live shows, the band routinely told fans not to purchase the EP, but instead to download "Jet Black New Year", the only new studio recording found on the EP, with the rest consisting of live performances of four Full Collapse songs. While all the interactions with the label were occurring, the group were being contacted by major labels. The group, who "didn't understand [anything] about major labels", pondered about other independent labels they would join. However, due to their contract they wouldn't be allowed to move to another independent label. Throughout 2001, people from major label Island Records had been to the band's shows since they became a full-time touring act. Soon after, the label expressed interest in signing the band.
War All the Time (2003–2005)
In late May 2002, the group announced they had signed to Island Records, following a bidding war between other major labels. Up to this point, Full Collapse had sold 111,000 copies. On September 9, the group's signing to Island Records was made official following negotiations of an exit agreement with Victory Records. The agreement required parent company Island/Def Jam to buy out Victory's contract claim for the group's next two albums. Rickly said as a result of the deal, Victory Records received $1,200,000, which meant the band would be "[paying off] that bill for as long as we were on the new label." In addition, their next two albums were required to feature the Victory logo.
With expectation building for their follow-up album, Rickly wanted their next album to be "really aggressive and progressive ... and have all these boundary pushing ideas". In September and October, the group went on the Plea for Peace Tour, and were planning to work on their next album following its conclusion. They said they had accumulated a lot of ideas but were unable to work on them due to touring. In mid-November, the group began writing new material.
After an entire writing and recording process that took only six months, the band issued their third album and major label debut, War All the Time, on September 16, 2003 to critical acclaim and strong commercial performance. War All the Time was the first release to feature Andrew Everding on keyboards, though he would not become an official member of the band until December 2004, when he was officially welcomed into the band at a Christmas holiday show held at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, New Jersey. The album's title, coupled with it being released approximately two years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, led many critics to believe it was a political album; however, Rickly has denied this on many accounts, instead claiming that he is speaking about love being a war. The album spawned two singles: "Signals Over the Air" and "War All the Time", though the latter received considerably less attention due to MTV banning the video for controversial material involving a fake news feed that appeared to be real and teenagers being weapon targets.
Thursday toured extensively to support War All the Time, featuring dates with acts such as AFI, Thrice, and Coheed and Cambria. On these tours, Thursday performed many in-store acoustic sessions at various Tower Records stores and other record stores. The band also recorded a live acoustic session for Y100 Sonic Sessions, a radio program on the now defunct Philadelphia-based radio station, Y100. The live acoustic version of single "Signals Over the Air" was used on Y100 Sonic Sessions Volume 8. The band released two EPs: the first was Live from the SoHo & Santa Monica Stores Split EP and sold exclusively on iTunes, and the second was a promotion found in Revolver, called the Live in Detroit EP.
The band went on an indefinite hiatus in 2004, citing label pressure, extensive touring, and health problems as the reasons. However, Thursday returned for a charitable performance to save New York City's CBGB, on August 25, 2005, which was streamed live through the CBGB's website.
A City by the Light Divided and Envy split release (2006–2008)
In fall 2005, five Thursday demo songs were stolen from the iPod of the tour manager for My American Heart, a band Rickly had recently collaborated with for their song "We Are the Fabrication". The band issued a statement on their official website stating that they were disappointed the unfinished products leaked, but that they were glad that people take that much interest in their music. The band confirmed the title of one demo, "At This Velocity" and promised it would make their upcoming album. Three other songs ("The Other Side of the Crash/Over and Out (Of Control)", "Telegraph Avenue Kiss", and "Autumn Leaves Revisited") would also make the album, while the remaining demo would later become the song "Last Call" on their fifth studio album, Common Existence. Thursday had originally toyed with the idea of a double album to follow up War All the Time but the idea was scrapped, reporting on their website that they believed "not even The Beatles could properly fill two discs with enough worthy material".
Thursday released their fourth album and second major label release, A City by the Light Divided, on May 2, 2006, on Island Records in the US and Hassle Records in the United Kingdom. The album was produced by Dave Fridmann, becoming Thursday's first full-length album not produced by Sal Villanueva. The title was created by Geoff Rickly by combining two lines from the poem Sunstone by Octavio Paz. The album was available for preview on the band's MySpace page on April 18, 2006, two weeks before it was officially released. A City by the Light Divided was generally received well by critics, spawning two singles: "Counting 5-4-3-2-1" and "At This Velocity", though the latter received considerably less attention. The band left Island Records in early 2007.
At their 2007 New Year's Eve show at the Starland Ballroom, the band announced that they will be writing and recording new material in 2008. During a private show they performed on May 3, 2007 in New York City, long-time friend and artist manager, David "Rev" Ciancio proposed to his fiancée on stage. Thursday also held a performance on May 5 at The Bamboozle under the fake name Bearfort. Thursday cancelled all tour plans until their fall tour with Circle Takes the Square and Portugal. The Man in support of Kill the House Lights, a DVD/CD compilation album and live album. featuring demos, unreleased songs, footage of live performances, and a documentary about the band. The album was released on October 30, 2007 by their former label Victory Records.
Thursday announced on April 2, 2008, via a MySpace bulletin and their official website, a new split album with Japanese post-hardcore band Envy. The band debuted a song from the album live during their show in Poughkeepsie on April 24, 2008, and the album, Thursday / Envy, was released on Temporary Residence Limited on November 4, 2008.
Common Existence (2009–2010)
The band announced on September 30, 2008 that they had signed with Epitaph Records, regarding their new label the band stated: "It's a great feeling to have a label encourage you to be more socially conscious and politically active." Thursday released their fifth full-length album,Common Existence, on February 17, 2009 on Epitaph Records. In a March 2009 interview, Rickly explained the album's title refers to humanity's shared experience, and that many of the songs were influenced by the words of his favorite poets and authors: "Almost every song on the record is connected to a different writer. The first song, "Resuscitation of a Dead Man" is influenced by Denis Johnson's Resuscitation of a Hanged Man. Another song is based on a book [ Martin Amis'] Time's Arrow. The whole record also has a lot of themes from Roberto Bolano, a poet who wrote The Savage Detectives and a few other things. The song "Circuits of Fever" is very influenced by [writer] David Foster Wallace." Cormac McCarthy has also influenced Rickly.
Thursday headlined the 2009 Taste of Chaos Tour with support from Bring Me the Horizon, Four Year Strong, Pierce The Veil, Cancer Bats and a local act. The band was not well received on this tour, as the majority of the audience members showed up at tour dates mainly for opening act Bring Me the Horizon, with guitarist Tom Keeley approximating about 90% of the audience would leave before their set, and described the tour as an "awful experience."
No Devolución and disbandment (2011–2015)
Thursday began recording their next album in July 2010, at Tarbox Road Studios in Fredonia, New York with Dave Fridmann, who had also produced the group's two previous albums. Their sixth album and second release for Epitaph Records, No Devolución, was released on April 12, 2011. Vocalist Geoff Rickly commented on the style of the new album, stating, "In style, this record feels like a radical departure from our earlier records but in substance it feels like a return. The songs are more vulnerable than they've been in a long time. [...] It's very atmospheric and mood oriented so far." Rickly also stated that the primary lyrical theme is devotion. Thursday debuted "Turnpike Divides" at their annual holiday show on December 30, 2010 at the Starland Ballroom.
On November 22, 2011, Thursday posted a statement on their official website and their Twitter account reading "Thanks & Love", expressing their intention to stop producing music together. However, the statement about the status of band was ambiguous, not stating explicitly in the article whether they were breaking up or on an indefinite hiatus. The following is excerpted from the article:
In January 2013, Geoff Rickly stated during an interview that Thursday had in fact disbanded, and that the term "hiatus" was misleading as it had only been used in case the band did ever decided to play a show again. He did, however, indicate that there was a possibility for the band to play shows in the future, but no new material would ever be produced.
Since their disbandment, Rickly formed the band No Devotion in 2014 with former members of the band Lostprophets, and has continued his side-project United Nations. Tucker Rule became the touring drummer for the British Boy Band The Wanted, the pop-punk band Yellowcard and works as a hired musician as well as studio drummer.
Reunion and second breakup (2016–2019)
In January 2016, former members of Thursday posted a picture of themselves hanging out to Rickly's Twitter account. This sparked rumors that the band would soon be reuniting, however Rickly quickly dispelled these rumors saying that their communication was minimal in the five years since disbanding and they were "just finally mending some fences and healing some old wounds." Thursday's former booking agent began encouraging them to reunite the band with the freedom to do whatever they wanted and without the pressure of having to write a new album.
Two months later, Thursday announced they would reunite for Atlanta, Georgia's Wrecking Ball music festival in August 2016. In a statement about the reunion show, Rickly said: "Five years ago, we found it necessary to end Thursday for reasons beyond our control. Earlier this year, we were able to reconcile all of our differences and spend time together. This is a vital component to what we loved about being in Thursday and we're happy to say that we'll be playing this show as the same line-up that began touring together on Full Collapse and jointly worked on every record since." Thursday agreed to perform at Wrecking Ball only two days before publicly announcing their participation, and the decision was made after its organizers allowed the band to perform "in our own way, including involving a charity" and after hearing about the strong lineup of bands on the festival. The band had no intention to reunite before this decision. Two months later, it was announced that the band would be playing both Denver and Chicago dates of Riot Fest in September, causing speculation that the band may play more shows later on in the year.
On June 15, the band's official Instagram posted a picture of a show bill announcing a 'homecoming' on December 30 at Starland Ballroom. The caption on the Instagram post read, "NJ-you won't believe the homecoming we have planned. The lineup and SETLIST are going to be insane." On November 6, the band played the inaugural Sound on Sound fest just outside of Austin, TX.
On January 31, 2017, the band announced a 24 date tour to take place in March and April 2017. Aside from the tour, Thursday headlined the 2017 Northside Festival in Brooklyn, New York.
The band announced in October 2018 that they would be ending their reunion the following year while stating "when we stopped playing last time, it wasn't on the best of terms. This time, we get to put down touring on the very highest of notes: in each other's lives and able to pick up and play together behind closed doors whenever we want. If we are ever able to do Thursday again, it will be a new, separate chapter. Thank you all for your time, attention and friendship.". The band's final show took place on March 17, 2019 at Saint Vitus in Brooklyn, NY.
In May 2019, due to mounting pressure from their international fanbase, who did not get an opportunity to see the reunion tour, the band announced that they would play Germany and released the following statement: "We are so excited and surprised to be able to announce Family First Festival in Cologne. After our last show, we began conversations about all the places that we hadn't been able to play on our reunion. It seemed impossible that we would all be available at the same time to play shows again, especially in any sustained way. But when our old friends in boysetsfire asked us to play this festival with them, we saw that we had a rare opportunity to accomplish two things at once: visit a country that's always been kind to Thursday and play, once more, with a band that we've admired since before we were a band, a band that took us on one of our first tours ever. After much discussion among ourselves, we decided that there were certain cities around the globe that we had unfinished business in and if we find that, at some point in the future, we're in a position to play them, then we will. We hope to see you there."
They then proceeded to announce a show in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, and two UK shows to be held at London's Electric Ballroom, due to play Full Collapse on night one followed by War All the Time on night two, which took place in December 2019. Following this they appeared at The Shrine in Los Angeles on December 20, opening for the reunited My Chemical Romance.
Second return (2020–present)
Despite the band's previous statement that their reunion would come to an end, it was announced in June 2020 that Thursday would play their first show in nearly two years at Riot Fest in September 2021. They also played a series of live shows that same month on the East Coast and Midwest with Taking Back Sunday and Piebald.
Between August 2020 and April 2021, the band shared three virtual performances entitled Signals. The first performance (V1) featured guest guitarist Frank Iero, and largely consisted of stripped-back versions of the band's songs. The second (V2) was a commemorative holiday show, with guests including Iero, Jim Ward, Walter Schriefels and Bartees Strange. The third and final performance (V3) saw the band performing Full Collapse and No Devolución in their entirety.
In June 2021, the band shared a cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark" as part of an ongoing series of covers headed by the creative collective Two Minutes To Late Night.
In October 2021, the band were featured in Dan Ozzi's book Sellout: The Major Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, And Hardcore 1994–2007. A chapter on the band's major-label debut, Full Collapse, was included in the book, as well as a photo of the band performing live serving as the book's cover.
Logo
Thursday used a dove logo which is featured on much of the band's artwork and merchandise. The dove is believed to have been conceived by guitarist Tom Keeley on a tour bus sometime before Full Collapse was recorded. Lyrics from the song "Cross Out the Eyes" on the album reference a dove twice, but it is unknown if these lyrics were inspired by the dove art or vice versa. The logo debuted on the cover art for War All the Time in 2003, appearing on the artwork for all of Thursday's album and single artwork until 2011, where it was notably absent on the cover art for their sixth and final album No Devolución.
The band also used a second logo, a red bullseye with a small chevron below it. This logo first appeared on the cover art for A City by the Light Divided in 2006, and featured on merchandise related to the album. It can also be seen faded in the background of the cover for Kill the House Lights.
Additionally, Shepard Fairey (Creator of Obey) created artwork for the band with a new dove logo, which has been used on other works by Fairey.
Members
Current members
Tom Keeley – lead guitar, backing vocals (1997–2011, 2016–2019, 2020–present)
Tim Payne – bass (1997–2011, 2016–2019, 2020–present)
Geoff Rickly – lead vocals (1997–2011, 2016–2019, 2020–present)
Tucker Rule – drums (1997–2011, 2016–2019, 2020–present)
Steve Pedulla – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (2000–2011, 2016–2019, 2020–present)
Former members
Bill Henderson – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1997–2000)
Andrew Everding – keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals (2002–2011, 2016–2019)
Former touring musicians
Lukas Previn – bass
Brooks Tipton – keyboards, synthesizer
Stuart Richardson – bass
Chris "Ghost" Macias – bass
Timeline
Discography
Waiting (1999)
Full Collapse (2001)
War All the Time (2003)
A City by the Light Divided (2006)
Common Existence (2009)
No Devolución (2011)
Notes
References
External links
Emo musical groups from New Jersey
American screamo musical groups
American post-hardcore musical groups
Musical groups established in 1997
Musical groups from New Jersey
Victory Records artists
Epitaph Records artists
Island Records artists
Musical groups disestablished in 2012
Musical groups reestablished in 2016
Musical groups disestablished in 2019
Musical groups reestablished in 2020
Temporary Residence Limited artists | true | [
"\"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" is the title of a number-one R&B single by singer Tevin Campbell. To date, the single is Campbell's biggest hit peaking at number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spending one week at number-one on the US R&B chart. The hit song is also Tevin's one and only Adult Contemporary hit, where it peaked at number 43. The song showcases Campbell's four-octave vocal range from a low note of E2 to a D#6 during the bridge of the song.\n\nTrack listings\nUS 7\" vinyl\nA \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (edit) – 4:16\t\nB \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (instrumental) – 5:00\n\n12\" vinyl\nA \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (edit) – 4:16\t\nB \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (album version) – 5:02\n\nUK CD\n \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" – 4:16\n \"Goodbye\" (7\" Remix Edit) – 3:48\n \"Goodbye\" (Sidub and Listen) – 4:58\n \"Goodbye\" (Tevin's Dub Pt 1 & 2) – 6:53\n\nJapan CD\n \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" – 4:10\n \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (instrumental version) – 4:10\n\nGermany CD\n \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (edit) – 4:10\n \"Just Ask Me\" (featuring Chubb Rock) – 4:07\n \"Tomorrow\" (A Better You, Better Me) – 4:46\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nSee also\nList of number-one R&B singles of 1992 (U.S.)\n\nReferences\n\nTevin Campbell songs\n1991 singles\n1991 songs\nSongs written by Tevin Campbell\nSongs written by Narada Michael Walden\nSong recordings produced by Narada Michael Walden\nWarner Records singles\nContemporary R&B ballads\nPop ballads\nSoul ballads\n1990s ballads",
"\"Tell Me What You Want\" is the fourth single by English R&B band Loose Ends from their first studio album, A Little Spice, and was released in February 1984 by Virgin Records. The single reached number 74 in the UK Singles Chart.\n\nTrack listing\n7” Single: VS658\n \"Tell Me What You Want) 3.35\n \"Tell Me What You Want (Dub Mix)\" 3.34\n\n12” Single: VS658-12\n \"Tell Me What You Want (Extended Version)\" 6.11\n \"Tell Me What You Want (Extended Dub Mix)\" 5.41\n\nU.S. only release - 12” Single: MCA23596 (released 1985)\n \"Tell Me What You Want (U.S. Extended Remix)\" 6.08 *\n \"Tell Me What You Want (U.S. Dub Version)\" 5.18\n\n* The U.S. Extended Remix version was released on CD on the U.S. Version of the 'A Little Spice' album (MCAD27141).\n\nThe Extended Version also featured on Side D of the limited gatefold sleeve version of 'Magic Touch'\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Tell Me What You Want at Discogs.\n\n1984 singles\nLoose Ends (band) songs\nSong recordings produced by Nick Martinelli\nSongs written by Carl McIntosh (musician)\nSongs written by Steve Nichol\n1984 songs\nVirgin Records singles"
] |
[
"Thursday (band)",
"No Devolucion and disbandment (2011-2015)",
"was no devolucion and disbandment an album",
"I don't know.",
"what can you tell me interesting",
"In late May 2002, the group announced they had signed to Island Records, following a bidding war between other major labels."
] | C_22afd1eeb83b49ebbcfaf30037fcc18c_1 | What were some of the other labels | 3 | What were some of the other labels besides Island Records that wanted to sign the band Thursday? | Thursday (band) | In late May 2002, the group announced they had signed to Island Records, following a bidding war between other major labels. Up to this point, Full Collapse had sold 111,000 copies. On September 9, the group's signing to Island Records was made official following negotiations of an exit agreement with Victory Records. The agreement required parent company Island/Def Jam to buy out Victory's contract claim for the group's next two albums. Rickly said as a result of the deal, Victory Records received $1,200,000, which meant the band would be "[paying off] that bill for as long as we were on the new label." In addition, their next two albums were required to feature the Victory logo. With expectation building for their follow-up album, Rickly wanted their next album to be "really aggressive and progressive ... and have all these boundary pushing ideas". In September and October, the group went on the Plea for Peace Tour, and were planning to work on their next album following its conclusion. They said they had accumulated a lot of ideas but were unable to work on them due touring. In mid-November, the group began writing new material. After an entire writing and recording process that took only six months, the band issued their third album and major label debut, War All the Time, on September 16, 2003 to critical acclaim and strong commercial performance. War All the Time was the first release to feature Andrew Everding on keyboards, though he would not become an official member of the band until December 2004, when he was officially welcomed into the band at a Christmas holiday show held at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, New Jersey. The album's title, coupled with it being released approximately two years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, led many critics to believe it was a political album; however, Rickly has denied this on many accounts, instead claiming that he is speaking about love being a war. The album spawned two singles: "Signals Over the Air" and "War All the Time", though the latter received considerably less attention due to MTV banning the video for controversial material involving a fake news feed that appeared to be real and teenagers being weapon targets. Thursday toured extensively to support War All the Time, featuring dates with acts such as AFI, Thrice, and Coheed and Cambria. On these tours, Thursday performed many in-store acoustic sessions at various Tower Records stores and other record stores. The band also recorded a live acoustic session for Y100 Sonic Sessions, a radio program on the now defunct Philadelphia-based radio station, Y100. The live acoustic version of single "Signals Over the Air" was used on Y100 Sonic Sessions Volume 8. The band released two EPs: the first was Live from the SoHo & Santa Monica Stores Split EP and sold exclusively on iTunes, and the second was a promotion found in Revolver, called the Live in Detroit EP. The band went on an indefinite hiatus in 2004, citing label pressure, extensive touring, and health problems as the reasons. However, Thursday returned for a charitable performance to save New York City's CBGB, on August 25, 2005, which was streamed live through the CBGB's website. In fall 2005, five Thursday demo songs were stolen from the iPod of the tour manager for My American Heart, a band Rickly had recently collaborated with for their song "We Are the Fabrication". The band issued a statement on their official website stating that they were disappointed the unfinished products leaked, but that they were glad that people take that much interest in their music. The band confirmed the title of one demo, "At This Velocity" and promised it would make their upcoming album. Three other songs ("The Other Side of the Crash/Over and Out (Of Control)", "Telegraph Avenue Kiss", and "Autumn Leaves Revisited") would also make the album, while the remaining demo would later become the song "Last Call" on their fifth studio album, Common Existence. Thursday had originally toyed with the idea of a double album to follow up War All the Time but the idea was scrapped, reporting on their website that they believed "not even The Beatles could properly fill two discs with enough worthy material". Thursday released their fourth album and second major label release, A City by the Light Divided, on May 2, 2006, on Island Records in the US and Hassle Records in the United Kingdom. The album was produced by Dave Fridmann, becoming Thursday's first full-length album not produced by Sal Villanueva. The title was created by Geoff Rickly by combining two lines from the poem Sunstone by Octavio Paz. The album was available for preview on the band's MySpace page on April 18, 2006, two weeks before it was officially released. A City by the Light Divided was generally received well by critics, spawning two singles: "Counting 5-4-3-2-1" and "At This Velocity", though the latter received considerably less attention. The band left Island Records in early 2007. At their 2007 New Year's Eve show at the Starland Ballroom, the band announced that they will be writing and recording new material in 2008. During a private show they performed on May 3, 2007 in New York City, long-time friend and artist manager, David "Rev" Ciancio proposed to his fiancee on stage. Thursday also held a performance on May 5 at The Bamboozle under the fake name Bearfort. Thursday cancelled all tour plans until their fall tour with Circle Takes the Square and Portugal. The Man in support of Kill the House Lights, a DVD/CD compilation album and live album. featuring demos, unreleased songs, footage of live performances, and a documentary about the band. The album was released on October 30, 2007 by their former label Victory Records. Thursday announced on April 2, 2008, via a MySpace bulletin and their official website, a new split album with Japanese post-hardcore band Envy. The band debuted a song from the album live during their show in Poughkeepsie on April 24, 2008, and the album, Thursday / Envy, was released on Temporary Residence Limited on November 4, 2008. Thursday began recording their next album in July 2010, at Tarbox Road Studios in Fredonia, New York with Dave Fridmann, who had also produced the group's two previous albums. Their sixth album and second release for Epitaph Records, No Devolucion, was released on April 12, 2011. Vocalist Geoff Rickly commented on the style of the new album, stating, "In style, this record feels like a radical departure from our earlier records but in substance it feels like a return. The songs are more vulnerable than they've been in a long time. [...] It's very atmospheric and mood oriented so far." Rickly also stated that the primary lyrical theme is devotion. Thursday debuted "Turnpike Divides" at their annual holiday show on December 30, 2010 at the Starland Ballroom. On November 22, 2011, Thursday posted a statement on their official website and their Twitter account reading "Thanks & Love", expressing their intention to stop producing music together. However, the statement about the status of band was ambiguous, not stating explicitly in the article whether they were breaking up or on an indefinite hiatus. The following is excerpted from the article: Despite the fantastic year that the band has enjoyed, creatively, things haven't been as easy for us on a personal level. Without diving into detail, it's fair to say that this year has been an endless series of personal difficulties. We haven't had any falling out and are all still close. I'm sure that we will continue to create, in some capacity, together. We've talked about turning Thursday into something else: a non-profit, a band that only records sporadically, a collection of other projects... Underneath it all, the personal circumstances involved make it impossible to continue Thursday in the spirit that has made it special. So, we stop. For now, at least. In January 2013, Geoff Rickly stated during an interview that Thursday had in fact disbanded, and that the term "hiatus" was misleading as it had only been used in case the band did ever decided to play a show again. He did, however, indicate that there was a possibility for the band to play shows in the future, but no new material would ever be produced. Since their disbandment, Rickly formed the band No Devotion in 2014 with former members of the band Lostprophets, and has continued his side-project United Nations. Tucker Rule became the touring drummer for the British Boy Band The Wanted, the pop-punk band Yellowcard and works as a hired musician as well as studio drummer. CANNOTANSWER | Up to this point, Full Collapse had sold 111,000 copies. | Thursday is an American post-hardcore band, formed in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1997. The band currently consists of Geoff Rickly (lead vocals), Tom Keeley (lead guitar, backing vocals), Steve Pedulla (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), Tim Payne (bass), and Tucker Rule (drums).
Thursday released their debut album, Waiting, in late 1999 with original guitarist Bill Henderson, who left the band in 2000 and was replaced by Steve Pedulla. The band gained popularity with the release of their second album, Full Collapse, in 2001, and released their third album and major label debut, War All the Time, in 2003, which reached number seven on the US Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. Thursday released their fourth album, A City by the Light Divided, in 2006, and two further albums, Common Existence (2009) and No Devolución (2011), before announcing an indefinite hiatus in 2011. In a January 2013 interview, Geoff Rickly confirmed that the band had officially disbanded. However, the band announced a reunion in 2016 and performed a series of shows within the next few years. In October 2018, the band announced their reunion would conclude with a performance at Saint Vitus in Brooklyn, New York on March 17, 2019; despite this, Thursday had played more shows by the end of 2019, and resumed activity as a band in the fall of 2021 with a series of live dates, including an appearance at Riot Fest in Chicago.
The band has been considered an influential band of the post-hardcore music scene in the 2000s, and is credited as one of the key bands to popularize the darker emo sound and screaming vocals which came to prominence at the time.
History
Formation and Waiting (1997–2000)
Thursday was formed in 1997 by vocalist Geoff Rickly, guitarist Tom Keeley, guitarist Bill Henderson, bassist Tim Payne, and drummer Tucker Rule. The band began playing basement shows in New Brunswick and the surrounding New Jersey and New York areas, playing their first official show on December 31, 1998 in Rickly's basement alongside Midtown, Saves the Day and Poison the Well.
The band recorded demos to hand out at shows, and in the summer of 1999, teamed up with MP3.com for their first official release, the 1999 Summer Tour EP, which featured demos of songs that would soon be found on their debut album, Waiting. The album was released on December 6, 1999 on northern New Jersey-based Eyeball Records without any singles or support from television or radio.
Full Collapse (2001–2002)
In 2001, Thursday signed to independent label Victory Records. After signing, they were warned by their friends that they "gotten ourselves into a situation that we would regret". The group were unsure what they meant, but thought things would turn out fine due to their contract with the label. They initially thought that part of the contract meant they could sign with a different label would they want to. However, they realized the deal had in fact stated they could only leave Victory if it was to join a major label, which they thought was "a far-fetched idea to say the least." Later in the year, they released their second album Full Collapse through the label, eventually reaching number 178 on the Billboard 200. Before appearing on Warped Tour, the group visited Victory's offices and learned about Thursday-branded whoopee cushions that the label was planning to sell at the tour. Vocalist Geoff Rickly discussed this matter with Victory founder Tony Brummel, and according to the band, responded that Victory "was a big company and that they didn't have time to run everything by the band."
On a number of occasions, the group attempted to have better communication with the label in regards to promotion. On one occasion, Brummel informed them they were not living up to his expectations. Sometime afterwards, the group were touring with Saves the Day. Brummel became more positive in his interactions, frequently calling the band "just to say hello, or to ask how record sales at shows were going." The group were disappointed that his positivity "wasn't there from the beginning. ... Instead of Tony's relationship with us being based on a love for music, it was based entirely on numbers." The band's new-found popularity and disgust with the label led to internal problems, which almost led the band to disband. The situation caused the creation of the Five Stories Falling EP, a release the band used to fulfill contractual obligations with Victory Records. At live shows, the band routinely told fans not to purchase the EP, but instead to download "Jet Black New Year", the only new studio recording found on the EP, with the rest consisting of live performances of four Full Collapse songs. While all the interactions with the label were occurring, the group were being contacted by major labels. The group, who "didn't understand [anything] about major labels", pondered about other independent labels they would join. However, due to their contract they wouldn't be allowed to move to another independent label. Throughout 2001, people from major label Island Records had been to the band's shows since they became a full-time touring act. Soon after, the label expressed interest in signing the band.
War All the Time (2003–2005)
In late May 2002, the group announced they had signed to Island Records, following a bidding war between other major labels. Up to this point, Full Collapse had sold 111,000 copies. On September 9, the group's signing to Island Records was made official following negotiations of an exit agreement with Victory Records. The agreement required parent company Island/Def Jam to buy out Victory's contract claim for the group's next two albums. Rickly said as a result of the deal, Victory Records received $1,200,000, which meant the band would be "[paying off] that bill for as long as we were on the new label." In addition, their next two albums were required to feature the Victory logo.
With expectation building for their follow-up album, Rickly wanted their next album to be "really aggressive and progressive ... and have all these boundary pushing ideas". In September and October, the group went on the Plea for Peace Tour, and were planning to work on their next album following its conclusion. They said they had accumulated a lot of ideas but were unable to work on them due to touring. In mid-November, the group began writing new material.
After an entire writing and recording process that took only six months, the band issued their third album and major label debut, War All the Time, on September 16, 2003 to critical acclaim and strong commercial performance. War All the Time was the first release to feature Andrew Everding on keyboards, though he would not become an official member of the band until December 2004, when he was officially welcomed into the band at a Christmas holiday show held at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, New Jersey. The album's title, coupled with it being released approximately two years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, led many critics to believe it was a political album; however, Rickly has denied this on many accounts, instead claiming that he is speaking about love being a war. The album spawned two singles: "Signals Over the Air" and "War All the Time", though the latter received considerably less attention due to MTV banning the video for controversial material involving a fake news feed that appeared to be real and teenagers being weapon targets.
Thursday toured extensively to support War All the Time, featuring dates with acts such as AFI, Thrice, and Coheed and Cambria. On these tours, Thursday performed many in-store acoustic sessions at various Tower Records stores and other record stores. The band also recorded a live acoustic session for Y100 Sonic Sessions, a radio program on the now defunct Philadelphia-based radio station, Y100. The live acoustic version of single "Signals Over the Air" was used on Y100 Sonic Sessions Volume 8. The band released two EPs: the first was Live from the SoHo & Santa Monica Stores Split EP and sold exclusively on iTunes, and the second was a promotion found in Revolver, called the Live in Detroit EP.
The band went on an indefinite hiatus in 2004, citing label pressure, extensive touring, and health problems as the reasons. However, Thursday returned for a charitable performance to save New York City's CBGB, on August 25, 2005, which was streamed live through the CBGB's website.
A City by the Light Divided and Envy split release (2006–2008)
In fall 2005, five Thursday demo songs were stolen from the iPod of the tour manager for My American Heart, a band Rickly had recently collaborated with for their song "We Are the Fabrication". The band issued a statement on their official website stating that they were disappointed the unfinished products leaked, but that they were glad that people take that much interest in their music. The band confirmed the title of one demo, "At This Velocity" and promised it would make their upcoming album. Three other songs ("The Other Side of the Crash/Over and Out (Of Control)", "Telegraph Avenue Kiss", and "Autumn Leaves Revisited") would also make the album, while the remaining demo would later become the song "Last Call" on their fifth studio album, Common Existence. Thursday had originally toyed with the idea of a double album to follow up War All the Time but the idea was scrapped, reporting on their website that they believed "not even The Beatles could properly fill two discs with enough worthy material".
Thursday released their fourth album and second major label release, A City by the Light Divided, on May 2, 2006, on Island Records in the US and Hassle Records in the United Kingdom. The album was produced by Dave Fridmann, becoming Thursday's first full-length album not produced by Sal Villanueva. The title was created by Geoff Rickly by combining two lines from the poem Sunstone by Octavio Paz. The album was available for preview on the band's MySpace page on April 18, 2006, two weeks before it was officially released. A City by the Light Divided was generally received well by critics, spawning two singles: "Counting 5-4-3-2-1" and "At This Velocity", though the latter received considerably less attention. The band left Island Records in early 2007.
At their 2007 New Year's Eve show at the Starland Ballroom, the band announced that they will be writing and recording new material in 2008. During a private show they performed on May 3, 2007 in New York City, long-time friend and artist manager, David "Rev" Ciancio proposed to his fiancée on stage. Thursday also held a performance on May 5 at The Bamboozle under the fake name Bearfort. Thursday cancelled all tour plans until their fall tour with Circle Takes the Square and Portugal. The Man in support of Kill the House Lights, a DVD/CD compilation album and live album. featuring demos, unreleased songs, footage of live performances, and a documentary about the band. The album was released on October 30, 2007 by their former label Victory Records.
Thursday announced on April 2, 2008, via a MySpace bulletin and their official website, a new split album with Japanese post-hardcore band Envy. The band debuted a song from the album live during their show in Poughkeepsie on April 24, 2008, and the album, Thursday / Envy, was released on Temporary Residence Limited on November 4, 2008.
Common Existence (2009–2010)
The band announced on September 30, 2008 that they had signed with Epitaph Records, regarding their new label the band stated: "It's a great feeling to have a label encourage you to be more socially conscious and politically active." Thursday released their fifth full-length album,Common Existence, on February 17, 2009 on Epitaph Records. In a March 2009 interview, Rickly explained the album's title refers to humanity's shared experience, and that many of the songs were influenced by the words of his favorite poets and authors: "Almost every song on the record is connected to a different writer. The first song, "Resuscitation of a Dead Man" is influenced by Denis Johnson's Resuscitation of a Hanged Man. Another song is based on a book [ Martin Amis'] Time's Arrow. The whole record also has a lot of themes from Roberto Bolano, a poet who wrote The Savage Detectives and a few other things. The song "Circuits of Fever" is very influenced by [writer] David Foster Wallace." Cormac McCarthy has also influenced Rickly.
Thursday headlined the 2009 Taste of Chaos Tour with support from Bring Me the Horizon, Four Year Strong, Pierce The Veil, Cancer Bats and a local act. The band was not well received on this tour, as the majority of the audience members showed up at tour dates mainly for opening act Bring Me the Horizon, with guitarist Tom Keeley approximating about 90% of the audience would leave before their set, and described the tour as an "awful experience."
No Devolución and disbandment (2011–2015)
Thursday began recording their next album in July 2010, at Tarbox Road Studios in Fredonia, New York with Dave Fridmann, who had also produced the group's two previous albums. Their sixth album and second release for Epitaph Records, No Devolución, was released on April 12, 2011. Vocalist Geoff Rickly commented on the style of the new album, stating, "In style, this record feels like a radical departure from our earlier records but in substance it feels like a return. The songs are more vulnerable than they've been in a long time. [...] It's very atmospheric and mood oriented so far." Rickly also stated that the primary lyrical theme is devotion. Thursday debuted "Turnpike Divides" at their annual holiday show on December 30, 2010 at the Starland Ballroom.
On November 22, 2011, Thursday posted a statement on their official website and their Twitter account reading "Thanks & Love", expressing their intention to stop producing music together. However, the statement about the status of band was ambiguous, not stating explicitly in the article whether they were breaking up or on an indefinite hiatus. The following is excerpted from the article:
In January 2013, Geoff Rickly stated during an interview that Thursday had in fact disbanded, and that the term "hiatus" was misleading as it had only been used in case the band did ever decided to play a show again. He did, however, indicate that there was a possibility for the band to play shows in the future, but no new material would ever be produced.
Since their disbandment, Rickly formed the band No Devotion in 2014 with former members of the band Lostprophets, and has continued his side-project United Nations. Tucker Rule became the touring drummer for the British Boy Band The Wanted, the pop-punk band Yellowcard and works as a hired musician as well as studio drummer.
Reunion and second breakup (2016–2019)
In January 2016, former members of Thursday posted a picture of themselves hanging out to Rickly's Twitter account. This sparked rumors that the band would soon be reuniting, however Rickly quickly dispelled these rumors saying that their communication was minimal in the five years since disbanding and they were "just finally mending some fences and healing some old wounds." Thursday's former booking agent began encouraging them to reunite the band with the freedom to do whatever they wanted and without the pressure of having to write a new album.
Two months later, Thursday announced they would reunite for Atlanta, Georgia's Wrecking Ball music festival in August 2016. In a statement about the reunion show, Rickly said: "Five years ago, we found it necessary to end Thursday for reasons beyond our control. Earlier this year, we were able to reconcile all of our differences and spend time together. This is a vital component to what we loved about being in Thursday and we're happy to say that we'll be playing this show as the same line-up that began touring together on Full Collapse and jointly worked on every record since." Thursday agreed to perform at Wrecking Ball only two days before publicly announcing their participation, and the decision was made after its organizers allowed the band to perform "in our own way, including involving a charity" and after hearing about the strong lineup of bands on the festival. The band had no intention to reunite before this decision. Two months later, it was announced that the band would be playing both Denver and Chicago dates of Riot Fest in September, causing speculation that the band may play more shows later on in the year.
On June 15, the band's official Instagram posted a picture of a show bill announcing a 'homecoming' on December 30 at Starland Ballroom. The caption on the Instagram post read, "NJ-you won't believe the homecoming we have planned. The lineup and SETLIST are going to be insane." On November 6, the band played the inaugural Sound on Sound fest just outside of Austin, TX.
On January 31, 2017, the band announced a 24 date tour to take place in March and April 2017. Aside from the tour, Thursday headlined the 2017 Northside Festival in Brooklyn, New York.
The band announced in October 2018 that they would be ending their reunion the following year while stating "when we stopped playing last time, it wasn't on the best of terms. This time, we get to put down touring on the very highest of notes: in each other's lives and able to pick up and play together behind closed doors whenever we want. If we are ever able to do Thursday again, it will be a new, separate chapter. Thank you all for your time, attention and friendship.". The band's final show took place on March 17, 2019 at Saint Vitus in Brooklyn, NY.
In May 2019, due to mounting pressure from their international fanbase, who did not get an opportunity to see the reunion tour, the band announced that they would play Germany and released the following statement: "We are so excited and surprised to be able to announce Family First Festival in Cologne. After our last show, we began conversations about all the places that we hadn't been able to play on our reunion. It seemed impossible that we would all be available at the same time to play shows again, especially in any sustained way. But when our old friends in boysetsfire asked us to play this festival with them, we saw that we had a rare opportunity to accomplish two things at once: visit a country that's always been kind to Thursday and play, once more, with a band that we've admired since before we were a band, a band that took us on one of our first tours ever. After much discussion among ourselves, we decided that there were certain cities around the globe that we had unfinished business in and if we find that, at some point in the future, we're in a position to play them, then we will. We hope to see you there."
They then proceeded to announce a show in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, and two UK shows to be held at London's Electric Ballroom, due to play Full Collapse on night one followed by War All the Time on night two, which took place in December 2019. Following this they appeared at The Shrine in Los Angeles on December 20, opening for the reunited My Chemical Romance.
Second return (2020–present)
Despite the band's previous statement that their reunion would come to an end, it was announced in June 2020 that Thursday would play their first show in nearly two years at Riot Fest in September 2021. They also played a series of live shows that same month on the East Coast and Midwest with Taking Back Sunday and Piebald.
Between August 2020 and April 2021, the band shared three virtual performances entitled Signals. The first performance (V1) featured guest guitarist Frank Iero, and largely consisted of stripped-back versions of the band's songs. The second (V2) was a commemorative holiday show, with guests including Iero, Jim Ward, Walter Schriefels and Bartees Strange. The third and final performance (V3) saw the band performing Full Collapse and No Devolución in their entirety.
In June 2021, the band shared a cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark" as part of an ongoing series of covers headed by the creative collective Two Minutes To Late Night.
In October 2021, the band were featured in Dan Ozzi's book Sellout: The Major Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, And Hardcore 1994–2007. A chapter on the band's major-label debut, Full Collapse, was included in the book, as well as a photo of the band performing live serving as the book's cover.
Logo
Thursday used a dove logo which is featured on much of the band's artwork and merchandise. The dove is believed to have been conceived by guitarist Tom Keeley on a tour bus sometime before Full Collapse was recorded. Lyrics from the song "Cross Out the Eyes" on the album reference a dove twice, but it is unknown if these lyrics were inspired by the dove art or vice versa. The logo debuted on the cover art for War All the Time in 2003, appearing on the artwork for all of Thursday's album and single artwork until 2011, where it was notably absent on the cover art for their sixth and final album No Devolución.
The band also used a second logo, a red bullseye with a small chevron below it. This logo first appeared on the cover art for A City by the Light Divided in 2006, and featured on merchandise related to the album. It can also be seen faded in the background of the cover for Kill the House Lights.
Additionally, Shepard Fairey (Creator of Obey) created artwork for the band with a new dove logo, which has been used on other works by Fairey.
Members
Current members
Tom Keeley – lead guitar, backing vocals (1997–2011, 2016–2019, 2020–present)
Tim Payne – bass (1997–2011, 2016–2019, 2020–present)
Geoff Rickly – lead vocals (1997–2011, 2016–2019, 2020–present)
Tucker Rule – drums (1997–2011, 2016–2019, 2020–present)
Steve Pedulla – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (2000–2011, 2016–2019, 2020–present)
Former members
Bill Henderson – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1997–2000)
Andrew Everding – keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals (2002–2011, 2016–2019)
Former touring musicians
Lukas Previn – bass
Brooks Tipton – keyboards, synthesizer
Stuart Richardson – bass
Chris "Ghost" Macias – bass
Timeline
Discography
Waiting (1999)
Full Collapse (2001)
War All the Time (2003)
A City by the Light Divided (2006)
Common Existence (2009)
No Devolución (2011)
Notes
References
External links
Emo musical groups from New Jersey
American screamo musical groups
American post-hardcore musical groups
Musical groups established in 1997
Musical groups from New Jersey
Victory Records artists
Epitaph Records artists
Island Records artists
Musical groups disestablished in 2012
Musical groups reestablished in 2016
Musical groups disestablished in 2019
Musical groups reestablished in 2020
Temporary Residence Limited artists | true | [
"A museum label, also referred to as a caption or tombstone, is a label describing an object exhibited in a museum or one introducing a room or area. Museum labels tend to list the artist's name, the artwork's name, the year the art was completed, and the materials used. They may also include a summary, description, the years the artist lived, and the dimensions of the work. When such labels are used in an art gallery setting they often also include the price of the artwork.\n\nIncreasingly, labels in non-English-speaking countries have labels in English as well as the main local language, and in some parts of the world, labels in three or more languages are common.\n\nHistory\n\nThe first known museum labels are from the Ennigaldi-Nanna's museum originally dating to circa 530 BCE.\n\nThe museum labels of the 20th century and 21st century BCE items found in Ennigaldi's museum were labeled in three different languages on clay cylinders as to what the centuries-old objects were.\n\nSome of these artifacts were:\n a kudurru, Kassite boundary marker (carved with a snake and emblems of various gods).\n part of a statue of King Shulgi.\n clay cone that was part of a building at Larsa.\n\nMuseum-like behavior occurred as early as the 19th-century BCE which gave indications of steps of labeling and cataloging antiquities.\nA \"museum label\" cylinder tablet describing 100-year-old antiquity objects of circa 2000 BCE read,\n\nBy the end of the 19th century, object labels, usually with less information than modern examples, had become standard in Western museums.\n\nLabel types\n\nIntroduction labels\nIntroduction labels are typically large, placed on a wall, and intended to give a broad summary of the contents of one or more galleries. They have large font sizes that can be read from many paces away.\n\nKim Kenney, curator of the William McKinley Presidential Library and Museum says that the first label a visitor should see should explain the exhibit display in general. The introduction label should be a \"teaser\" and talk about the main sections of the exhibit to encourage people to explore the rest. If there is something significant or special within the main exhibit, it should be introduced here. At this point, the visitor should have a general sense for what the museum is about. Visitors should understand immediately what they are going to see and they should be motivated to see the entire exhibit. Perhaps a brochure would accompany the introduction explaining the main museum, the price, and the hours.\n\nSection labels \nA section label is a small introduction consisting of sub-topics in a museum exhibition. Kenney says they should represent the \"meat\" of the museum. If the section is large, perhaps more than one section label is in order. The description should consist of approximately 100–200 words. The visitor should not be strained to read all the labels, so they should be on the short side if anything.\n\nObject labels\n\nObject labels are the smallest of the museum labels. Their scope is limited to the individual objects they are displayed next to. Typically, the title of the work or a descriptive title phrase is given, followed by the name and often, the dates of the artist, and the date and place the object was created. The artist may precede the title. The materials or technique of the object are normally given, either before or after any short passage describing or interpreting the object. Increasingly, object labels may include a brief description or commentary. \n\nIf the object is included in an audio guide or some other form of tour, there may be a symbol indicating this. Kenney says she prefers object labels contain a one word title followed by a 25–50 word description for a museum label. She explains that people want specific aspects of the object they might not notice at first glance or might not have already known (i.e. something unusual, material made of, date of artifact, who made). Most people want to know specifics like when it was made, why it was made, usage and when it became part of the museum.\n\nThe lowest part of the label, after a gap, usually has other information in note form, often in a smaller font size. An accession number is often given, and often the accession date. Practice varies as to whether accession dates and donor information are included. Some donations, especially from government organizations, may specify a credit on the label. Loaned objects are usually specified in some way. It is the opinion of Kenney that donor information clutters up the object label. She believes it is better to give a list of donors on a general credit panel, but this does not seem very common, at least for expensive objects like some paintings.\n\nA different approach to layout is to put all the main \"data\", usually on the left, and then beside it the description or commentary. When a number of small objects are displayed together, they are normally given small numbers beside them, which tie in to a group label.\n\nUse of digital technologies\n\nThere are studies recently done that demonstrate the feasibility of a wireless Web-based tool for an in-gallery paperless digital label system, perhaps in the form of \"Digital Label Towers\" or wall mounted digital displays. Some concepts that could be used then is changing configurations of the museum labels, digitally updating the electronic museum label, usability on various display systems, and integrate third party content. \n\nSome museums use barcodes or QR codes on their labels (such as for QRpedia).\n\nReferences\n\nSources\nCasey, Wilson, Firsts: Origins of Everyday Things That Changed the World, Penguin, 2009, .\nLeón, Vicki, Uppity women of ancient times, Conari Press, 1995, .\nWoolley, Leonard, Ur \"of the Chaldees\": the final account, Excavations at Ur, Herbert Press, 1982, .\nWoolley, Leonard, Excavations at Ur — A Record of Twelve Years Work by Sir Leonard Woolley, Ernest Benn Limited, 1955, printed in Great Britain.\n\nExternal links\n \n\nLabel\nMuseology",
"Threshold House is one of several record labels created by Coil to release their own work and that of affiliated projects. Associated labels include Eskaton and Chalice. It is also the name for the official Coil website.\n\nThe label was initially a vanity label of sorts, as all releases were manufactured and distributed by other labels, most prominently World Serpent Distribution. Following the bankruptcy of World Serpent, the label continued independently.\n\nThe logo for Threshold House is a castle-like building, possibly what Coil have referred to as \"The East Tower\" in past interviews, and a moon. It is also very similar to artist recreations of the buildings at Catalhoyuk.\n\nAfter the death of John Balance and the disbanding of Coil, Peter Christopherson started a solo effort, The Threshold HouseBoys Choir, based on the name Threshold House.\n\nReleases\n\nLOCI\nThe series of \"LOCI\" were released when Coil resided in England.\n\nTHRESH & THBKK\nThe \"THRESH\" and \"THBKK\" series began with Peter Christopherson's relocation to Bangkok, Thailand.\n\nSee also\n List of record labels\n List of electronic music record labels\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Threshold House\n\nElectronic music record labels\nVanity record labels\nBritish record labels\nRecord labels established in 1987"
] |
[
"Thursday (band)",
"No Devolucion and disbandment (2011-2015)",
"was no devolucion and disbandment an album",
"I don't know.",
"what can you tell me interesting",
"In late May 2002, the group announced they had signed to Island Records, following a bidding war between other major labels.",
"What were some of the other labels",
"Up to this point, Full Collapse had sold 111,000 copies."
] | C_22afd1eeb83b49ebbcfaf30037fcc18c_1 | did they have other albums | 4 | Did the band Thursday have other albums besides No Devolucion and Disbandment? | Thursday (band) | In late May 2002, the group announced they had signed to Island Records, following a bidding war between other major labels. Up to this point, Full Collapse had sold 111,000 copies. On September 9, the group's signing to Island Records was made official following negotiations of an exit agreement with Victory Records. The agreement required parent company Island/Def Jam to buy out Victory's contract claim for the group's next two albums. Rickly said as a result of the deal, Victory Records received $1,200,000, which meant the band would be "[paying off] that bill for as long as we were on the new label." In addition, their next two albums were required to feature the Victory logo. With expectation building for their follow-up album, Rickly wanted their next album to be "really aggressive and progressive ... and have all these boundary pushing ideas". In September and October, the group went on the Plea for Peace Tour, and were planning to work on their next album following its conclusion. They said they had accumulated a lot of ideas but were unable to work on them due touring. In mid-November, the group began writing new material. After an entire writing and recording process that took only six months, the band issued their third album and major label debut, War All the Time, on September 16, 2003 to critical acclaim and strong commercial performance. War All the Time was the first release to feature Andrew Everding on keyboards, though he would not become an official member of the band until December 2004, when he was officially welcomed into the band at a Christmas holiday show held at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, New Jersey. The album's title, coupled with it being released approximately two years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, led many critics to believe it was a political album; however, Rickly has denied this on many accounts, instead claiming that he is speaking about love being a war. The album spawned two singles: "Signals Over the Air" and "War All the Time", though the latter received considerably less attention due to MTV banning the video for controversial material involving a fake news feed that appeared to be real and teenagers being weapon targets. Thursday toured extensively to support War All the Time, featuring dates with acts such as AFI, Thrice, and Coheed and Cambria. On these tours, Thursday performed many in-store acoustic sessions at various Tower Records stores and other record stores. The band also recorded a live acoustic session for Y100 Sonic Sessions, a radio program on the now defunct Philadelphia-based radio station, Y100. The live acoustic version of single "Signals Over the Air" was used on Y100 Sonic Sessions Volume 8. The band released two EPs: the first was Live from the SoHo & Santa Monica Stores Split EP and sold exclusively on iTunes, and the second was a promotion found in Revolver, called the Live in Detroit EP. The band went on an indefinite hiatus in 2004, citing label pressure, extensive touring, and health problems as the reasons. However, Thursday returned for a charitable performance to save New York City's CBGB, on August 25, 2005, which was streamed live through the CBGB's website. In fall 2005, five Thursday demo songs were stolen from the iPod of the tour manager for My American Heart, a band Rickly had recently collaborated with for their song "We Are the Fabrication". The band issued a statement on their official website stating that they were disappointed the unfinished products leaked, but that they were glad that people take that much interest in their music. The band confirmed the title of one demo, "At This Velocity" and promised it would make their upcoming album. Three other songs ("The Other Side of the Crash/Over and Out (Of Control)", "Telegraph Avenue Kiss", and "Autumn Leaves Revisited") would also make the album, while the remaining demo would later become the song "Last Call" on their fifth studio album, Common Existence. Thursday had originally toyed with the idea of a double album to follow up War All the Time but the idea was scrapped, reporting on their website that they believed "not even The Beatles could properly fill two discs with enough worthy material". Thursday released their fourth album and second major label release, A City by the Light Divided, on May 2, 2006, on Island Records in the US and Hassle Records in the United Kingdom. The album was produced by Dave Fridmann, becoming Thursday's first full-length album not produced by Sal Villanueva. The title was created by Geoff Rickly by combining two lines from the poem Sunstone by Octavio Paz. The album was available for preview on the band's MySpace page on April 18, 2006, two weeks before it was officially released. A City by the Light Divided was generally received well by critics, spawning two singles: "Counting 5-4-3-2-1" and "At This Velocity", though the latter received considerably less attention. The band left Island Records in early 2007. At their 2007 New Year's Eve show at the Starland Ballroom, the band announced that they will be writing and recording new material in 2008. During a private show they performed on May 3, 2007 in New York City, long-time friend and artist manager, David "Rev" Ciancio proposed to his fiancee on stage. Thursday also held a performance on May 5 at The Bamboozle under the fake name Bearfort. Thursday cancelled all tour plans until their fall tour with Circle Takes the Square and Portugal. The Man in support of Kill the House Lights, a DVD/CD compilation album and live album. featuring demos, unreleased songs, footage of live performances, and a documentary about the band. The album was released on October 30, 2007 by their former label Victory Records. Thursday announced on April 2, 2008, via a MySpace bulletin and their official website, a new split album with Japanese post-hardcore band Envy. The band debuted a song from the album live during their show in Poughkeepsie on April 24, 2008, and the album, Thursday / Envy, was released on Temporary Residence Limited on November 4, 2008. Thursday began recording their next album in July 2010, at Tarbox Road Studios in Fredonia, New York with Dave Fridmann, who had also produced the group's two previous albums. Their sixth album and second release for Epitaph Records, No Devolucion, was released on April 12, 2011. Vocalist Geoff Rickly commented on the style of the new album, stating, "In style, this record feels like a radical departure from our earlier records but in substance it feels like a return. The songs are more vulnerable than they've been in a long time. [...] It's very atmospheric and mood oriented so far." Rickly also stated that the primary lyrical theme is devotion. Thursday debuted "Turnpike Divides" at their annual holiday show on December 30, 2010 at the Starland Ballroom. On November 22, 2011, Thursday posted a statement on their official website and their Twitter account reading "Thanks & Love", expressing their intention to stop producing music together. However, the statement about the status of band was ambiguous, not stating explicitly in the article whether they were breaking up or on an indefinite hiatus. The following is excerpted from the article: Despite the fantastic year that the band has enjoyed, creatively, things haven't been as easy for us on a personal level. Without diving into detail, it's fair to say that this year has been an endless series of personal difficulties. We haven't had any falling out and are all still close. I'm sure that we will continue to create, in some capacity, together. We've talked about turning Thursday into something else: a non-profit, a band that only records sporadically, a collection of other projects... Underneath it all, the personal circumstances involved make it impossible to continue Thursday in the spirit that has made it special. So, we stop. For now, at least. In January 2013, Geoff Rickly stated during an interview that Thursday had in fact disbanded, and that the term "hiatus" was misleading as it had only been used in case the band did ever decided to play a show again. He did, however, indicate that there was a possibility for the band to play shows in the future, but no new material would ever be produced. Since their disbandment, Rickly formed the band No Devotion in 2014 with former members of the band Lostprophets, and has continued his side-project United Nations. Tucker Rule became the touring drummer for the British Boy Band The Wanted, the pop-punk band Yellowcard and works as a hired musician as well as studio drummer. CANNOTANSWER | the band issued their third album and major label debut, War All the Time, on September 16, 2003 to critical acclaim and strong commercial performance. | Thursday is an American post-hardcore band, formed in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1997. The band currently consists of Geoff Rickly (lead vocals), Tom Keeley (lead guitar, backing vocals), Steve Pedulla (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), Tim Payne (bass), and Tucker Rule (drums).
Thursday released their debut album, Waiting, in late 1999 with original guitarist Bill Henderson, who left the band in 2000 and was replaced by Steve Pedulla. The band gained popularity with the release of their second album, Full Collapse, in 2001, and released their third album and major label debut, War All the Time, in 2003, which reached number seven on the US Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. Thursday released their fourth album, A City by the Light Divided, in 2006, and two further albums, Common Existence (2009) and No Devolución (2011), before announcing an indefinite hiatus in 2011. In a January 2013 interview, Geoff Rickly confirmed that the band had officially disbanded. However, the band announced a reunion in 2016 and performed a series of shows within the next few years. In October 2018, the band announced their reunion would conclude with a performance at Saint Vitus in Brooklyn, New York on March 17, 2019; despite this, Thursday had played more shows by the end of 2019, and resumed activity as a band in the fall of 2021 with a series of live dates, including an appearance at Riot Fest in Chicago.
The band has been considered an influential band of the post-hardcore music scene in the 2000s, and is credited as one of the key bands to popularize the darker emo sound and screaming vocals which came to prominence at the time.
History
Formation and Waiting (1997–2000)
Thursday was formed in 1997 by vocalist Geoff Rickly, guitarist Tom Keeley, guitarist Bill Henderson, bassist Tim Payne, and drummer Tucker Rule. The band began playing basement shows in New Brunswick and the surrounding New Jersey and New York areas, playing their first official show on December 31, 1998 in Rickly's basement alongside Midtown, Saves the Day and Poison the Well.
The band recorded demos to hand out at shows, and in the summer of 1999, teamed up with MP3.com for their first official release, the 1999 Summer Tour EP, which featured demos of songs that would soon be found on their debut album, Waiting. The album was released on December 6, 1999 on northern New Jersey-based Eyeball Records without any singles or support from television or radio.
Full Collapse (2001–2002)
In 2001, Thursday signed to independent label Victory Records. After signing, they were warned by their friends that they "gotten ourselves into a situation that we would regret". The group were unsure what they meant, but thought things would turn out fine due to their contract with the label. They initially thought that part of the contract meant they could sign with a different label would they want to. However, they realized the deal had in fact stated they could only leave Victory if it was to join a major label, which they thought was "a far-fetched idea to say the least." Later in the year, they released their second album Full Collapse through the label, eventually reaching number 178 on the Billboard 200. Before appearing on Warped Tour, the group visited Victory's offices and learned about Thursday-branded whoopee cushions that the label was planning to sell at the tour. Vocalist Geoff Rickly discussed this matter with Victory founder Tony Brummel, and according to the band, responded that Victory "was a big company and that they didn't have time to run everything by the band."
On a number of occasions, the group attempted to have better communication with the label in regards to promotion. On one occasion, Brummel informed them they were not living up to his expectations. Sometime afterwards, the group were touring with Saves the Day. Brummel became more positive in his interactions, frequently calling the band "just to say hello, or to ask how record sales at shows were going." The group were disappointed that his positivity "wasn't there from the beginning. ... Instead of Tony's relationship with us being based on a love for music, it was based entirely on numbers." The band's new-found popularity and disgust with the label led to internal problems, which almost led the band to disband. The situation caused the creation of the Five Stories Falling EP, a release the band used to fulfill contractual obligations with Victory Records. At live shows, the band routinely told fans not to purchase the EP, but instead to download "Jet Black New Year", the only new studio recording found on the EP, with the rest consisting of live performances of four Full Collapse songs. While all the interactions with the label were occurring, the group were being contacted by major labels. The group, who "didn't understand [anything] about major labels", pondered about other independent labels they would join. However, due to their contract they wouldn't be allowed to move to another independent label. Throughout 2001, people from major label Island Records had been to the band's shows since they became a full-time touring act. Soon after, the label expressed interest in signing the band.
War All the Time (2003–2005)
In late May 2002, the group announced they had signed to Island Records, following a bidding war between other major labels. Up to this point, Full Collapse had sold 111,000 copies. On September 9, the group's signing to Island Records was made official following negotiations of an exit agreement with Victory Records. The agreement required parent company Island/Def Jam to buy out Victory's contract claim for the group's next two albums. Rickly said as a result of the deal, Victory Records received $1,200,000, which meant the band would be "[paying off] that bill for as long as we were on the new label." In addition, their next two albums were required to feature the Victory logo.
With expectation building for their follow-up album, Rickly wanted their next album to be "really aggressive and progressive ... and have all these boundary pushing ideas". In September and October, the group went on the Plea for Peace Tour, and were planning to work on their next album following its conclusion. They said they had accumulated a lot of ideas but were unable to work on them due to touring. In mid-November, the group began writing new material.
After an entire writing and recording process that took only six months, the band issued their third album and major label debut, War All the Time, on September 16, 2003 to critical acclaim and strong commercial performance. War All the Time was the first release to feature Andrew Everding on keyboards, though he would not become an official member of the band until December 2004, when he was officially welcomed into the band at a Christmas holiday show held at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, New Jersey. The album's title, coupled with it being released approximately two years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, led many critics to believe it was a political album; however, Rickly has denied this on many accounts, instead claiming that he is speaking about love being a war. The album spawned two singles: "Signals Over the Air" and "War All the Time", though the latter received considerably less attention due to MTV banning the video for controversial material involving a fake news feed that appeared to be real and teenagers being weapon targets.
Thursday toured extensively to support War All the Time, featuring dates with acts such as AFI, Thrice, and Coheed and Cambria. On these tours, Thursday performed many in-store acoustic sessions at various Tower Records stores and other record stores. The band also recorded a live acoustic session for Y100 Sonic Sessions, a radio program on the now defunct Philadelphia-based radio station, Y100. The live acoustic version of single "Signals Over the Air" was used on Y100 Sonic Sessions Volume 8. The band released two EPs: the first was Live from the SoHo & Santa Monica Stores Split EP and sold exclusively on iTunes, and the second was a promotion found in Revolver, called the Live in Detroit EP.
The band went on an indefinite hiatus in 2004, citing label pressure, extensive touring, and health problems as the reasons. However, Thursday returned for a charitable performance to save New York City's CBGB, on August 25, 2005, which was streamed live through the CBGB's website.
A City by the Light Divided and Envy split release (2006–2008)
In fall 2005, five Thursday demo songs were stolen from the iPod of the tour manager for My American Heart, a band Rickly had recently collaborated with for their song "We Are the Fabrication". The band issued a statement on their official website stating that they were disappointed the unfinished products leaked, but that they were glad that people take that much interest in their music. The band confirmed the title of one demo, "At This Velocity" and promised it would make their upcoming album. Three other songs ("The Other Side of the Crash/Over and Out (Of Control)", "Telegraph Avenue Kiss", and "Autumn Leaves Revisited") would also make the album, while the remaining demo would later become the song "Last Call" on their fifth studio album, Common Existence. Thursday had originally toyed with the idea of a double album to follow up War All the Time but the idea was scrapped, reporting on their website that they believed "not even The Beatles could properly fill two discs with enough worthy material".
Thursday released their fourth album and second major label release, A City by the Light Divided, on May 2, 2006, on Island Records in the US and Hassle Records in the United Kingdom. The album was produced by Dave Fridmann, becoming Thursday's first full-length album not produced by Sal Villanueva. The title was created by Geoff Rickly by combining two lines from the poem Sunstone by Octavio Paz. The album was available for preview on the band's MySpace page on April 18, 2006, two weeks before it was officially released. A City by the Light Divided was generally received well by critics, spawning two singles: "Counting 5-4-3-2-1" and "At This Velocity", though the latter received considerably less attention. The band left Island Records in early 2007.
At their 2007 New Year's Eve show at the Starland Ballroom, the band announced that they will be writing and recording new material in 2008. During a private show they performed on May 3, 2007 in New York City, long-time friend and artist manager, David "Rev" Ciancio proposed to his fiancée on stage. Thursday also held a performance on May 5 at The Bamboozle under the fake name Bearfort. Thursday cancelled all tour plans until their fall tour with Circle Takes the Square and Portugal. The Man in support of Kill the House Lights, a DVD/CD compilation album and live album. featuring demos, unreleased songs, footage of live performances, and a documentary about the band. The album was released on October 30, 2007 by their former label Victory Records.
Thursday announced on April 2, 2008, via a MySpace bulletin and their official website, a new split album with Japanese post-hardcore band Envy. The band debuted a song from the album live during their show in Poughkeepsie on April 24, 2008, and the album, Thursday / Envy, was released on Temporary Residence Limited on November 4, 2008.
Common Existence (2009–2010)
The band announced on September 30, 2008 that they had signed with Epitaph Records, regarding their new label the band stated: "It's a great feeling to have a label encourage you to be more socially conscious and politically active." Thursday released their fifth full-length album,Common Existence, on February 17, 2009 on Epitaph Records. In a March 2009 interview, Rickly explained the album's title refers to humanity's shared experience, and that many of the songs were influenced by the words of his favorite poets and authors: "Almost every song on the record is connected to a different writer. The first song, "Resuscitation of a Dead Man" is influenced by Denis Johnson's Resuscitation of a Hanged Man. Another song is based on a book [ Martin Amis'] Time's Arrow. The whole record also has a lot of themes from Roberto Bolano, a poet who wrote The Savage Detectives and a few other things. The song "Circuits of Fever" is very influenced by [writer] David Foster Wallace." Cormac McCarthy has also influenced Rickly.
Thursday headlined the 2009 Taste of Chaos Tour with support from Bring Me the Horizon, Four Year Strong, Pierce The Veil, Cancer Bats and a local act. The band was not well received on this tour, as the majority of the audience members showed up at tour dates mainly for opening act Bring Me the Horizon, with guitarist Tom Keeley approximating about 90% of the audience would leave before their set, and described the tour as an "awful experience."
No Devolución and disbandment (2011–2015)
Thursday began recording their next album in July 2010, at Tarbox Road Studios in Fredonia, New York with Dave Fridmann, who had also produced the group's two previous albums. Their sixth album and second release for Epitaph Records, No Devolución, was released on April 12, 2011. Vocalist Geoff Rickly commented on the style of the new album, stating, "In style, this record feels like a radical departure from our earlier records but in substance it feels like a return. The songs are more vulnerable than they've been in a long time. [...] It's very atmospheric and mood oriented so far." Rickly also stated that the primary lyrical theme is devotion. Thursday debuted "Turnpike Divides" at their annual holiday show on December 30, 2010 at the Starland Ballroom.
On November 22, 2011, Thursday posted a statement on their official website and their Twitter account reading "Thanks & Love", expressing their intention to stop producing music together. However, the statement about the status of band was ambiguous, not stating explicitly in the article whether they were breaking up or on an indefinite hiatus. The following is excerpted from the article:
In January 2013, Geoff Rickly stated during an interview that Thursday had in fact disbanded, and that the term "hiatus" was misleading as it had only been used in case the band did ever decided to play a show again. He did, however, indicate that there was a possibility for the band to play shows in the future, but no new material would ever be produced.
Since their disbandment, Rickly formed the band No Devotion in 2014 with former members of the band Lostprophets, and has continued his side-project United Nations. Tucker Rule became the touring drummer for the British Boy Band The Wanted, the pop-punk band Yellowcard and works as a hired musician as well as studio drummer.
Reunion and second breakup (2016–2019)
In January 2016, former members of Thursday posted a picture of themselves hanging out to Rickly's Twitter account. This sparked rumors that the band would soon be reuniting, however Rickly quickly dispelled these rumors saying that their communication was minimal in the five years since disbanding and they were "just finally mending some fences and healing some old wounds." Thursday's former booking agent began encouraging them to reunite the band with the freedom to do whatever they wanted and without the pressure of having to write a new album.
Two months later, Thursday announced they would reunite for Atlanta, Georgia's Wrecking Ball music festival in August 2016. In a statement about the reunion show, Rickly said: "Five years ago, we found it necessary to end Thursday for reasons beyond our control. Earlier this year, we were able to reconcile all of our differences and spend time together. This is a vital component to what we loved about being in Thursday and we're happy to say that we'll be playing this show as the same line-up that began touring together on Full Collapse and jointly worked on every record since." Thursday agreed to perform at Wrecking Ball only two days before publicly announcing their participation, and the decision was made after its organizers allowed the band to perform "in our own way, including involving a charity" and after hearing about the strong lineup of bands on the festival. The band had no intention to reunite before this decision. Two months later, it was announced that the band would be playing both Denver and Chicago dates of Riot Fest in September, causing speculation that the band may play more shows later on in the year.
On June 15, the band's official Instagram posted a picture of a show bill announcing a 'homecoming' on December 30 at Starland Ballroom. The caption on the Instagram post read, "NJ-you won't believe the homecoming we have planned. The lineup and SETLIST are going to be insane." On November 6, the band played the inaugural Sound on Sound fest just outside of Austin, TX.
On January 31, 2017, the band announced a 24 date tour to take place in March and April 2017. Aside from the tour, Thursday headlined the 2017 Northside Festival in Brooklyn, New York.
The band announced in October 2018 that they would be ending their reunion the following year while stating "when we stopped playing last time, it wasn't on the best of terms. This time, we get to put down touring on the very highest of notes: in each other's lives and able to pick up and play together behind closed doors whenever we want. If we are ever able to do Thursday again, it will be a new, separate chapter. Thank you all for your time, attention and friendship.". The band's final show took place on March 17, 2019 at Saint Vitus in Brooklyn, NY.
In May 2019, due to mounting pressure from their international fanbase, who did not get an opportunity to see the reunion tour, the band announced that they would play Germany and released the following statement: "We are so excited and surprised to be able to announce Family First Festival in Cologne. After our last show, we began conversations about all the places that we hadn't been able to play on our reunion. It seemed impossible that we would all be available at the same time to play shows again, especially in any sustained way. But when our old friends in boysetsfire asked us to play this festival with them, we saw that we had a rare opportunity to accomplish two things at once: visit a country that's always been kind to Thursday and play, once more, with a band that we've admired since before we were a band, a band that took us on one of our first tours ever. After much discussion among ourselves, we decided that there were certain cities around the globe that we had unfinished business in and if we find that, at some point in the future, we're in a position to play them, then we will. We hope to see you there."
They then proceeded to announce a show in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, and two UK shows to be held at London's Electric Ballroom, due to play Full Collapse on night one followed by War All the Time on night two, which took place in December 2019. Following this they appeared at The Shrine in Los Angeles on December 20, opening for the reunited My Chemical Romance.
Second return (2020–present)
Despite the band's previous statement that their reunion would come to an end, it was announced in June 2020 that Thursday would play their first show in nearly two years at Riot Fest in September 2021. They also played a series of live shows that same month on the East Coast and Midwest with Taking Back Sunday and Piebald.
Between August 2020 and April 2021, the band shared three virtual performances entitled Signals. The first performance (V1) featured guest guitarist Frank Iero, and largely consisted of stripped-back versions of the band's songs. The second (V2) was a commemorative holiday show, with guests including Iero, Jim Ward, Walter Schriefels and Bartees Strange. The third and final performance (V3) saw the band performing Full Collapse and No Devolución in their entirety.
In June 2021, the band shared a cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark" as part of an ongoing series of covers headed by the creative collective Two Minutes To Late Night.
In October 2021, the band were featured in Dan Ozzi's book Sellout: The Major Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, And Hardcore 1994–2007. A chapter on the band's major-label debut, Full Collapse, was included in the book, as well as a photo of the band performing live serving as the book's cover.
Logo
Thursday used a dove logo which is featured on much of the band's artwork and merchandise. The dove is believed to have been conceived by guitarist Tom Keeley on a tour bus sometime before Full Collapse was recorded. Lyrics from the song "Cross Out the Eyes" on the album reference a dove twice, but it is unknown if these lyrics were inspired by the dove art or vice versa. The logo debuted on the cover art for War All the Time in 2003, appearing on the artwork for all of Thursday's album and single artwork until 2011, where it was notably absent on the cover art for their sixth and final album No Devolución.
The band also used a second logo, a red bullseye with a small chevron below it. This logo first appeared on the cover art for A City by the Light Divided in 2006, and featured on merchandise related to the album. It can also be seen faded in the background of the cover for Kill the House Lights.
Additionally, Shepard Fairey (Creator of Obey) created artwork for the band with a new dove logo, which has been used on other works by Fairey.
Members
Current members
Tom Keeley – lead guitar, backing vocals (1997–2011, 2016–2019, 2020–present)
Tim Payne – bass (1997–2011, 2016–2019, 2020–present)
Geoff Rickly – lead vocals (1997–2011, 2016–2019, 2020–present)
Tucker Rule – drums (1997–2011, 2016–2019, 2020–present)
Steve Pedulla – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (2000–2011, 2016–2019, 2020–present)
Former members
Bill Henderson – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1997–2000)
Andrew Everding – keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals (2002–2011, 2016–2019)
Former touring musicians
Lukas Previn – bass
Brooks Tipton – keyboards, synthesizer
Stuart Richardson – bass
Chris "Ghost" Macias – bass
Timeline
Discography
Waiting (1999)
Full Collapse (2001)
War All the Time (2003)
A City by the Light Divided (2006)
Common Existence (2009)
No Devolución (2011)
Notes
References
External links
Emo musical groups from New Jersey
American screamo musical groups
American post-hardcore musical groups
Musical groups established in 1997
Musical groups from New Jersey
Victory Records artists
Epitaph Records artists
Island Records artists
Musical groups disestablished in 2012
Musical groups reestablished in 2016
Musical groups disestablished in 2019
Musical groups reestablished in 2020
Temporary Residence Limited artists | true | [
"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 discography of pureNRG, a Christian pop group, consists of four studio albums, one remix album and a compilation album. They have also released three DVDs and four music videos.\n\nAlbums\n\nStudio albums\n\nCompilation albums\n\nChristmas albums\n\nRemix albums\n\nChart history\n\n Note: — means that the album did not make the chart.\n\nDVDs\n\nMusic videos\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official website\n\nDiscographies of American artists\nPop music group discographies"
] |
[
"Thursday (band)",
"No Devolucion and disbandment (2011-2015)",
"was no devolucion and disbandment an album",
"I don't know.",
"what can you tell me interesting",
"In late May 2002, the group announced they had signed to Island Records, following a bidding war between other major labels.",
"What were some of the other labels",
"Up to this point, Full Collapse had sold 111,000 copies.",
"did they have other albums",
"the band issued their third album and major label debut, War All the Time, on September 16, 2003 to critical acclaim and strong commercial performance."
] | C_22afd1eeb83b49ebbcfaf30037fcc18c_1 | which album sold the most copies | 5 | Which album by the band Thursday sold the most copies? | Thursday (band) | In late May 2002, the group announced they had signed to Island Records, following a bidding war between other major labels. Up to this point, Full Collapse had sold 111,000 copies. On September 9, the group's signing to Island Records was made official following negotiations of an exit agreement with Victory Records. The agreement required parent company Island/Def Jam to buy out Victory's contract claim for the group's next two albums. Rickly said as a result of the deal, Victory Records received $1,200,000, which meant the band would be "[paying off] that bill for as long as we were on the new label." In addition, their next two albums were required to feature the Victory logo. With expectation building for their follow-up album, Rickly wanted their next album to be "really aggressive and progressive ... and have all these boundary pushing ideas". In September and October, the group went on the Plea for Peace Tour, and were planning to work on their next album following its conclusion. They said they had accumulated a lot of ideas but were unable to work on them due touring. In mid-November, the group began writing new material. After an entire writing and recording process that took only six months, the band issued their third album and major label debut, War All the Time, on September 16, 2003 to critical acclaim and strong commercial performance. War All the Time was the first release to feature Andrew Everding on keyboards, though he would not become an official member of the band until December 2004, when he was officially welcomed into the band at a Christmas holiday show held at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, New Jersey. The album's title, coupled with it being released approximately two years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, led many critics to believe it was a political album; however, Rickly has denied this on many accounts, instead claiming that he is speaking about love being a war. The album spawned two singles: "Signals Over the Air" and "War All the Time", though the latter received considerably less attention due to MTV banning the video for controversial material involving a fake news feed that appeared to be real and teenagers being weapon targets. Thursday toured extensively to support War All the Time, featuring dates with acts such as AFI, Thrice, and Coheed and Cambria. On these tours, Thursday performed many in-store acoustic sessions at various Tower Records stores and other record stores. The band also recorded a live acoustic session for Y100 Sonic Sessions, a radio program on the now defunct Philadelphia-based radio station, Y100. The live acoustic version of single "Signals Over the Air" was used on Y100 Sonic Sessions Volume 8. The band released two EPs: the first was Live from the SoHo & Santa Monica Stores Split EP and sold exclusively on iTunes, and the second was a promotion found in Revolver, called the Live in Detroit EP. The band went on an indefinite hiatus in 2004, citing label pressure, extensive touring, and health problems as the reasons. However, Thursday returned for a charitable performance to save New York City's CBGB, on August 25, 2005, which was streamed live through the CBGB's website. In fall 2005, five Thursday demo songs were stolen from the iPod of the tour manager for My American Heart, a band Rickly had recently collaborated with for their song "We Are the Fabrication". The band issued a statement on their official website stating that they were disappointed the unfinished products leaked, but that they were glad that people take that much interest in their music. The band confirmed the title of one demo, "At This Velocity" and promised it would make their upcoming album. Three other songs ("The Other Side of the Crash/Over and Out (Of Control)", "Telegraph Avenue Kiss", and "Autumn Leaves Revisited") would also make the album, while the remaining demo would later become the song "Last Call" on their fifth studio album, Common Existence. Thursday had originally toyed with the idea of a double album to follow up War All the Time but the idea was scrapped, reporting on their website that they believed "not even The Beatles could properly fill two discs with enough worthy material". Thursday released their fourth album and second major label release, A City by the Light Divided, on May 2, 2006, on Island Records in the US and Hassle Records in the United Kingdom. The album was produced by Dave Fridmann, becoming Thursday's first full-length album not produced by Sal Villanueva. The title was created by Geoff Rickly by combining two lines from the poem Sunstone by Octavio Paz. The album was available for preview on the band's MySpace page on April 18, 2006, two weeks before it was officially released. A City by the Light Divided was generally received well by critics, spawning two singles: "Counting 5-4-3-2-1" and "At This Velocity", though the latter received considerably less attention. The band left Island Records in early 2007. At their 2007 New Year's Eve show at the Starland Ballroom, the band announced that they will be writing and recording new material in 2008. During a private show they performed on May 3, 2007 in New York City, long-time friend and artist manager, David "Rev" Ciancio proposed to his fiancee on stage. Thursday also held a performance on May 5 at The Bamboozle under the fake name Bearfort. Thursday cancelled all tour plans until their fall tour with Circle Takes the Square and Portugal. The Man in support of Kill the House Lights, a DVD/CD compilation album and live album. featuring demos, unreleased songs, footage of live performances, and a documentary about the band. The album was released on October 30, 2007 by their former label Victory Records. Thursday announced on April 2, 2008, via a MySpace bulletin and their official website, a new split album with Japanese post-hardcore band Envy. The band debuted a song from the album live during their show in Poughkeepsie on April 24, 2008, and the album, Thursday / Envy, was released on Temporary Residence Limited on November 4, 2008. Thursday began recording their next album in July 2010, at Tarbox Road Studios in Fredonia, New York with Dave Fridmann, who had also produced the group's two previous albums. Their sixth album and second release for Epitaph Records, No Devolucion, was released on April 12, 2011. Vocalist Geoff Rickly commented on the style of the new album, stating, "In style, this record feels like a radical departure from our earlier records but in substance it feels like a return. The songs are more vulnerable than they've been in a long time. [...] It's very atmospheric and mood oriented so far." Rickly also stated that the primary lyrical theme is devotion. Thursday debuted "Turnpike Divides" at their annual holiday show on December 30, 2010 at the Starland Ballroom. On November 22, 2011, Thursday posted a statement on their official website and their Twitter account reading "Thanks & Love", expressing their intention to stop producing music together. However, the statement about the status of band was ambiguous, not stating explicitly in the article whether they were breaking up or on an indefinite hiatus. The following is excerpted from the article: Despite the fantastic year that the band has enjoyed, creatively, things haven't been as easy for us on a personal level. Without diving into detail, it's fair to say that this year has been an endless series of personal difficulties. We haven't had any falling out and are all still close. I'm sure that we will continue to create, in some capacity, together. We've talked about turning Thursday into something else: a non-profit, a band that only records sporadically, a collection of other projects... Underneath it all, the personal circumstances involved make it impossible to continue Thursday in the spirit that has made it special. So, we stop. For now, at least. In January 2013, Geoff Rickly stated during an interview that Thursday had in fact disbanded, and that the term "hiatus" was misleading as it had only been used in case the band did ever decided to play a show again. He did, however, indicate that there was a possibility for the band to play shows in the future, but no new material would ever be produced. Since their disbandment, Rickly formed the band No Devotion in 2014 with former members of the band Lostprophets, and has continued his side-project United Nations. Tucker Rule became the touring drummer for the British Boy Band The Wanted, the pop-punk band Yellowcard and works as a hired musician as well as studio drummer. CANNOTANSWER | Full Collapse had sold 111,000 copies. | Thursday is an American post-hardcore band, formed in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1997. The band currently consists of Geoff Rickly (lead vocals), Tom Keeley (lead guitar, backing vocals), Steve Pedulla (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), Tim Payne (bass), and Tucker Rule (drums).
Thursday released their debut album, Waiting, in late 1999 with original guitarist Bill Henderson, who left the band in 2000 and was replaced by Steve Pedulla. The band gained popularity with the release of their second album, Full Collapse, in 2001, and released their third album and major label debut, War All the Time, in 2003, which reached number seven on the US Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. Thursday released their fourth album, A City by the Light Divided, in 2006, and two further albums, Common Existence (2009) and No Devolución (2011), before announcing an indefinite hiatus in 2011. In a January 2013 interview, Geoff Rickly confirmed that the band had officially disbanded. However, the band announced a reunion in 2016 and performed a series of shows within the next few years. In October 2018, the band announced their reunion would conclude with a performance at Saint Vitus in Brooklyn, New York on March 17, 2019; despite this, Thursday had played more shows by the end of 2019, and resumed activity as a band in the fall of 2021 with a series of live dates, including an appearance at Riot Fest in Chicago.
The band has been considered an influential band of the post-hardcore music scene in the 2000s, and is credited as one of the key bands to popularize the darker emo sound and screaming vocals which came to prominence at the time.
History
Formation and Waiting (1997–2000)
Thursday was formed in 1997 by vocalist Geoff Rickly, guitarist Tom Keeley, guitarist Bill Henderson, bassist Tim Payne, and drummer Tucker Rule. The band began playing basement shows in New Brunswick and the surrounding New Jersey and New York areas, playing their first official show on December 31, 1998 in Rickly's basement alongside Midtown, Saves the Day and Poison the Well.
The band recorded demos to hand out at shows, and in the summer of 1999, teamed up with MP3.com for their first official release, the 1999 Summer Tour EP, which featured demos of songs that would soon be found on their debut album, Waiting. The album was released on December 6, 1999 on northern New Jersey-based Eyeball Records without any singles or support from television or radio.
Full Collapse (2001–2002)
In 2001, Thursday signed to independent label Victory Records. After signing, they were warned by their friends that they "gotten ourselves into a situation that we would regret". The group were unsure what they meant, but thought things would turn out fine due to their contract with the label. They initially thought that part of the contract meant they could sign with a different label would they want to. However, they realized the deal had in fact stated they could only leave Victory if it was to join a major label, which they thought was "a far-fetched idea to say the least." Later in the year, they released their second album Full Collapse through the label, eventually reaching number 178 on the Billboard 200. Before appearing on Warped Tour, the group visited Victory's offices and learned about Thursday-branded whoopee cushions that the label was planning to sell at the tour. Vocalist Geoff Rickly discussed this matter with Victory founder Tony Brummel, and according to the band, responded that Victory "was a big company and that they didn't have time to run everything by the band."
On a number of occasions, the group attempted to have better communication with the label in regards to promotion. On one occasion, Brummel informed them they were not living up to his expectations. Sometime afterwards, the group were touring with Saves the Day. Brummel became more positive in his interactions, frequently calling the band "just to say hello, or to ask how record sales at shows were going." The group were disappointed that his positivity "wasn't there from the beginning. ... Instead of Tony's relationship with us being based on a love for music, it was based entirely on numbers." The band's new-found popularity and disgust with the label led to internal problems, which almost led the band to disband. The situation caused the creation of the Five Stories Falling EP, a release the band used to fulfill contractual obligations with Victory Records. At live shows, the band routinely told fans not to purchase the EP, but instead to download "Jet Black New Year", the only new studio recording found on the EP, with the rest consisting of live performances of four Full Collapse songs. While all the interactions with the label were occurring, the group were being contacted by major labels. The group, who "didn't understand [anything] about major labels", pondered about other independent labels they would join. However, due to their contract they wouldn't be allowed to move to another independent label. Throughout 2001, people from major label Island Records had been to the band's shows since they became a full-time touring act. Soon after, the label expressed interest in signing the band.
War All the Time (2003–2005)
In late May 2002, the group announced they had signed to Island Records, following a bidding war between other major labels. Up to this point, Full Collapse had sold 111,000 copies. On September 9, the group's signing to Island Records was made official following negotiations of an exit agreement with Victory Records. The agreement required parent company Island/Def Jam to buy out Victory's contract claim for the group's next two albums. Rickly said as a result of the deal, Victory Records received $1,200,000, which meant the band would be "[paying off] that bill for as long as we were on the new label." In addition, their next two albums were required to feature the Victory logo.
With expectation building for their follow-up album, Rickly wanted their next album to be "really aggressive and progressive ... and have all these boundary pushing ideas". In September and October, the group went on the Plea for Peace Tour, and were planning to work on their next album following its conclusion. They said they had accumulated a lot of ideas but were unable to work on them due to touring. In mid-November, the group began writing new material.
After an entire writing and recording process that took only six months, the band issued their third album and major label debut, War All the Time, on September 16, 2003 to critical acclaim and strong commercial performance. War All the Time was the first release to feature Andrew Everding on keyboards, though he would not become an official member of the band until December 2004, when he was officially welcomed into the band at a Christmas holiday show held at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, New Jersey. The album's title, coupled with it being released approximately two years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, led many critics to believe it was a political album; however, Rickly has denied this on many accounts, instead claiming that he is speaking about love being a war. The album spawned two singles: "Signals Over the Air" and "War All the Time", though the latter received considerably less attention due to MTV banning the video for controversial material involving a fake news feed that appeared to be real and teenagers being weapon targets.
Thursday toured extensively to support War All the Time, featuring dates with acts such as AFI, Thrice, and Coheed and Cambria. On these tours, Thursday performed many in-store acoustic sessions at various Tower Records stores and other record stores. The band also recorded a live acoustic session for Y100 Sonic Sessions, a radio program on the now defunct Philadelphia-based radio station, Y100. The live acoustic version of single "Signals Over the Air" was used on Y100 Sonic Sessions Volume 8. The band released two EPs: the first was Live from the SoHo & Santa Monica Stores Split EP and sold exclusively on iTunes, and the second was a promotion found in Revolver, called the Live in Detroit EP.
The band went on an indefinite hiatus in 2004, citing label pressure, extensive touring, and health problems as the reasons. However, Thursday returned for a charitable performance to save New York City's CBGB, on August 25, 2005, which was streamed live through the CBGB's website.
A City by the Light Divided and Envy split release (2006–2008)
In fall 2005, five Thursday demo songs were stolen from the iPod of the tour manager for My American Heart, a band Rickly had recently collaborated with for their song "We Are the Fabrication". The band issued a statement on their official website stating that they were disappointed the unfinished products leaked, but that they were glad that people take that much interest in their music. The band confirmed the title of one demo, "At This Velocity" and promised it would make their upcoming album. Three other songs ("The Other Side of the Crash/Over and Out (Of Control)", "Telegraph Avenue Kiss", and "Autumn Leaves Revisited") would also make the album, while the remaining demo would later become the song "Last Call" on their fifth studio album, Common Existence. Thursday had originally toyed with the idea of a double album to follow up War All the Time but the idea was scrapped, reporting on their website that they believed "not even The Beatles could properly fill two discs with enough worthy material".
Thursday released their fourth album and second major label release, A City by the Light Divided, on May 2, 2006, on Island Records in the US and Hassle Records in the United Kingdom. The album was produced by Dave Fridmann, becoming Thursday's first full-length album not produced by Sal Villanueva. The title was created by Geoff Rickly by combining two lines from the poem Sunstone by Octavio Paz. The album was available for preview on the band's MySpace page on April 18, 2006, two weeks before it was officially released. A City by the Light Divided was generally received well by critics, spawning two singles: "Counting 5-4-3-2-1" and "At This Velocity", though the latter received considerably less attention. The band left Island Records in early 2007.
At their 2007 New Year's Eve show at the Starland Ballroom, the band announced that they will be writing and recording new material in 2008. During a private show they performed on May 3, 2007 in New York City, long-time friend and artist manager, David "Rev" Ciancio proposed to his fiancée on stage. Thursday also held a performance on May 5 at The Bamboozle under the fake name Bearfort. Thursday cancelled all tour plans until their fall tour with Circle Takes the Square and Portugal. The Man in support of Kill the House Lights, a DVD/CD compilation album and live album. featuring demos, unreleased songs, footage of live performances, and a documentary about the band. The album was released on October 30, 2007 by their former label Victory Records.
Thursday announced on April 2, 2008, via a MySpace bulletin and their official website, a new split album with Japanese post-hardcore band Envy. The band debuted a song from the album live during their show in Poughkeepsie on April 24, 2008, and the album, Thursday / Envy, was released on Temporary Residence Limited on November 4, 2008.
Common Existence (2009–2010)
The band announced on September 30, 2008 that they had signed with Epitaph Records, regarding their new label the band stated: "It's a great feeling to have a label encourage you to be more socially conscious and politically active." Thursday released their fifth full-length album,Common Existence, on February 17, 2009 on Epitaph Records. In a March 2009 interview, Rickly explained the album's title refers to humanity's shared experience, and that many of the songs were influenced by the words of his favorite poets and authors: "Almost every song on the record is connected to a different writer. The first song, "Resuscitation of a Dead Man" is influenced by Denis Johnson's Resuscitation of a Hanged Man. Another song is based on a book [ Martin Amis'] Time's Arrow. The whole record also has a lot of themes from Roberto Bolano, a poet who wrote The Savage Detectives and a few other things. The song "Circuits of Fever" is very influenced by [writer] David Foster Wallace." Cormac McCarthy has also influenced Rickly.
Thursday headlined the 2009 Taste of Chaos Tour with support from Bring Me the Horizon, Four Year Strong, Pierce The Veil, Cancer Bats and a local act. The band was not well received on this tour, as the majority of the audience members showed up at tour dates mainly for opening act Bring Me the Horizon, with guitarist Tom Keeley approximating about 90% of the audience would leave before their set, and described the tour as an "awful experience."
No Devolución and disbandment (2011–2015)
Thursday began recording their next album in July 2010, at Tarbox Road Studios in Fredonia, New York with Dave Fridmann, who had also produced the group's two previous albums. Their sixth album and second release for Epitaph Records, No Devolución, was released on April 12, 2011. Vocalist Geoff Rickly commented on the style of the new album, stating, "In style, this record feels like a radical departure from our earlier records but in substance it feels like a return. The songs are more vulnerable than they've been in a long time. [...] It's very atmospheric and mood oriented so far." Rickly also stated that the primary lyrical theme is devotion. Thursday debuted "Turnpike Divides" at their annual holiday show on December 30, 2010 at the Starland Ballroom.
On November 22, 2011, Thursday posted a statement on their official website and their Twitter account reading "Thanks & Love", expressing their intention to stop producing music together. However, the statement about the status of band was ambiguous, not stating explicitly in the article whether they were breaking up or on an indefinite hiatus. The following is excerpted from the article:
In January 2013, Geoff Rickly stated during an interview that Thursday had in fact disbanded, and that the term "hiatus" was misleading as it had only been used in case the band did ever decided to play a show again. He did, however, indicate that there was a possibility for the band to play shows in the future, but no new material would ever be produced.
Since their disbandment, Rickly formed the band No Devotion in 2014 with former members of the band Lostprophets, and has continued his side-project United Nations. Tucker Rule became the touring drummer for the British Boy Band The Wanted, the pop-punk band Yellowcard and works as a hired musician as well as studio drummer.
Reunion and second breakup (2016–2019)
In January 2016, former members of Thursday posted a picture of themselves hanging out to Rickly's Twitter account. This sparked rumors that the band would soon be reuniting, however Rickly quickly dispelled these rumors saying that their communication was minimal in the five years since disbanding and they were "just finally mending some fences and healing some old wounds." Thursday's former booking agent began encouraging them to reunite the band with the freedom to do whatever they wanted and without the pressure of having to write a new album.
Two months later, Thursday announced they would reunite for Atlanta, Georgia's Wrecking Ball music festival in August 2016. In a statement about the reunion show, Rickly said: "Five years ago, we found it necessary to end Thursday for reasons beyond our control. Earlier this year, we were able to reconcile all of our differences and spend time together. This is a vital component to what we loved about being in Thursday and we're happy to say that we'll be playing this show as the same line-up that began touring together on Full Collapse and jointly worked on every record since." Thursday agreed to perform at Wrecking Ball only two days before publicly announcing their participation, and the decision was made after its organizers allowed the band to perform "in our own way, including involving a charity" and after hearing about the strong lineup of bands on the festival. The band had no intention to reunite before this decision. Two months later, it was announced that the band would be playing both Denver and Chicago dates of Riot Fest in September, causing speculation that the band may play more shows later on in the year.
On June 15, the band's official Instagram posted a picture of a show bill announcing a 'homecoming' on December 30 at Starland Ballroom. The caption on the Instagram post read, "NJ-you won't believe the homecoming we have planned. The lineup and SETLIST are going to be insane." On November 6, the band played the inaugural Sound on Sound fest just outside of Austin, TX.
On January 31, 2017, the band announced a 24 date tour to take place in March and April 2017. Aside from the tour, Thursday headlined the 2017 Northside Festival in Brooklyn, New York.
The band announced in October 2018 that they would be ending their reunion the following year while stating "when we stopped playing last time, it wasn't on the best of terms. This time, we get to put down touring on the very highest of notes: in each other's lives and able to pick up and play together behind closed doors whenever we want. If we are ever able to do Thursday again, it will be a new, separate chapter. Thank you all for your time, attention and friendship.". The band's final show took place on March 17, 2019 at Saint Vitus in Brooklyn, NY.
In May 2019, due to mounting pressure from their international fanbase, who did not get an opportunity to see the reunion tour, the band announced that they would play Germany and released the following statement: "We are so excited and surprised to be able to announce Family First Festival in Cologne. After our last show, we began conversations about all the places that we hadn't been able to play on our reunion. It seemed impossible that we would all be available at the same time to play shows again, especially in any sustained way. But when our old friends in boysetsfire asked us to play this festival with them, we saw that we had a rare opportunity to accomplish two things at once: visit a country that's always been kind to Thursday and play, once more, with a band that we've admired since before we were a band, a band that took us on one of our first tours ever. After much discussion among ourselves, we decided that there were certain cities around the globe that we had unfinished business in and if we find that, at some point in the future, we're in a position to play them, then we will. We hope to see you there."
They then proceeded to announce a show in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, and two UK shows to be held at London's Electric Ballroom, due to play Full Collapse on night one followed by War All the Time on night two, which took place in December 2019. Following this they appeared at The Shrine in Los Angeles on December 20, opening for the reunited My Chemical Romance.
Second return (2020–present)
Despite the band's previous statement that their reunion would come to an end, it was announced in June 2020 that Thursday would play their first show in nearly two years at Riot Fest in September 2021. They also played a series of live shows that same month on the East Coast and Midwest with Taking Back Sunday and Piebald.
Between August 2020 and April 2021, the band shared three virtual performances entitled Signals. The first performance (V1) featured guest guitarist Frank Iero, and largely consisted of stripped-back versions of the band's songs. The second (V2) was a commemorative holiday show, with guests including Iero, Jim Ward, Walter Schriefels and Bartees Strange. The third and final performance (V3) saw the band performing Full Collapse and No Devolución in their entirety.
In June 2021, the band shared a cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark" as part of an ongoing series of covers headed by the creative collective Two Minutes To Late Night.
In October 2021, the band were featured in Dan Ozzi's book Sellout: The Major Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, And Hardcore 1994–2007. A chapter on the band's major-label debut, Full Collapse, was included in the book, as well as a photo of the band performing live serving as the book's cover.
Logo
Thursday used a dove logo which is featured on much of the band's artwork and merchandise. The dove is believed to have been conceived by guitarist Tom Keeley on a tour bus sometime before Full Collapse was recorded. Lyrics from the song "Cross Out the Eyes" on the album reference a dove twice, but it is unknown if these lyrics were inspired by the dove art or vice versa. The logo debuted on the cover art for War All the Time in 2003, appearing on the artwork for all of Thursday's album and single artwork until 2011, where it was notably absent on the cover art for their sixth and final album No Devolución.
The band also used a second logo, a red bullseye with a small chevron below it. This logo first appeared on the cover art for A City by the Light Divided in 2006, and featured on merchandise related to the album. It can also be seen faded in the background of the cover for Kill the House Lights.
Additionally, Shepard Fairey (Creator of Obey) created artwork for the band with a new dove logo, which has been used on other works by Fairey.
Members
Current members
Tom Keeley – lead guitar, backing vocals (1997–2011, 2016–2019, 2020–present)
Tim Payne – bass (1997–2011, 2016–2019, 2020–present)
Geoff Rickly – lead vocals (1997–2011, 2016–2019, 2020–present)
Tucker Rule – drums (1997–2011, 2016–2019, 2020–present)
Steve Pedulla – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (2000–2011, 2016–2019, 2020–present)
Former members
Bill Henderson – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1997–2000)
Andrew Everding – keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals (2002–2011, 2016–2019)
Former touring musicians
Lukas Previn – bass
Brooks Tipton – keyboards, synthesizer
Stuart Richardson – bass
Chris "Ghost" Macias – bass
Timeline
Discography
Waiting (1999)
Full Collapse (2001)
War All the Time (2003)
A City by the Light Divided (2006)
Common Existence (2009)
No Devolución (2011)
Notes
References
External links
Emo musical groups from New Jersey
American screamo musical groups
American post-hardcore musical groups
Musical groups established in 1997
Musical groups from New Jersey
Victory Records artists
Epitaph Records artists
Island Records artists
Musical groups disestablished in 2012
Musical groups reestablished in 2016
Musical groups disestablished in 2019
Musical groups reestablished in 2020
Temporary Residence Limited artists | true | [
"Tri-Angle is the debut studio album by South Korean pop group TVXQ, released on October 11, 2004 by S.M. Entertainment. It sold 242,540 copies and became the eighth most successful album of the year in South Korea. The first single \"Hug\" debuted with 169,532 copies sold in 2004, peaking at number four on the national monthly chart. As of 2014, it sold 242,890 copies. In November 2004, the Japanese version of \"Hug\" was released in Japan by Rhythm Zone, ultimately selling 4,710 copies.\n\nThe second single, \"The Way U Are\" debuted at number two on the national chart and sold 214,069 copies. By the end of the year, the single sold 300,226 copies. The album's last title single \"Tri-Angle\" uses a sample from the Symphony No. 40 in G minor by Mozart. The single also features the vocals of BoA and rock band the TRAX.\n\nTri-Angle has sold approximately 309,000 copies as of 2011.\n\nTrack listing\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n2004 debut albums\nTVXQ albums\nSM Entertainment albums\nKorean-language albums",
"The Polish hip hop scene was born in the early 1990s, due to the popularity of American rap. Nevertheless, rap style in Polish music has its deep roots in the 1980s Polish punk rock, alternative rock, disco and funk music.\n\nPolish hip-hop artists are well-known performers across Europe, especially in the former Eastern Bloc. Many rappers from Poland are collaborating with artists from Europe, the USA and even Cuba.\n\nHistory\nThe first album by a Polish performer was East on the Mic by PM Cool Lee, which featured two songs in Polish. Lee was from Kielce, but Warsaw soon emerged as a center for hip hop, after KOLOR, a radio station, began broadcasting Kolor Shock, hosted by Bogna Świątkowska, Paul Jackson, an African American expatriate, Sylvia Opoku from London, and DJ Volt, whose crew, 1kHz, became performing stars in their own right in 1995. Volt also founded the first Polish independent hip hop label, Beat Records. Although the label did not last long, it did introduce groups like Trzyha and Molesta. In Poznań, PH Kopalnia's Polski Rap - Zakazane Piosenki (Polish rap - Forbidden Songs).\nNow known as Liroy, the former PM Cool Lee released Alboom in 1995, which included the hit \"Scyzoryk\" (Penknife).\n\nThe most recognizable Polish hip hop band abroad is probably WWO, which is no longer active since 2006. Sokół (who is also the owner of the Prosto Label and the Prosto Wear company) since then recorded 3 albums with Pono and 2 with Marysia Starosta (who was also Sokół's fiancée). Jędker abandoned the Polish rap scene to make dance music with Robert M as Monopol (for which he is mocked and disrespected by the present Polish rap scene and most of the listeners) and DJ Deszczu Strugi is an owner of Otra Barwa Studio.\n\nList of best-selling hip-hop music artists in Poland\n\nGeneral\n\nRappers\n\nBands\n\nDuets\n\nSingers\n\nProducers\n\nForeign\n\nSee also\nList of Polish musicians and musical groups#Hip-hop/rap\n\nNotes \na. Based on albums certified by Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry: Alboom (1995) - 4xPlatinum - 800,000 copies sold, Bafangoo Cz.1 (1996) - Gold - 100,000 copies sold, L (1997) - Gold - 100,000 copies sold, Dzień Szakala (Bafangoo Cz.2) (1999) - Platinum - 100,000 copies sold, and Bestseller (2001) - Gold - 50,000 copies sold. \nb. Based on albums certified by Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry: for Slums Attack: Na legalu? (2001) - Platinum - 100,000 copies sold, Najlepszą obroną jest atak (2005) - Gold - 17,500 copies sold, Szacunek ludzi ulicy (2006) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold, Fturując (2006) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold, Reedukacja (2011) - Platinum - 30,000 copies sold, and CNO2 (2012) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold. For Peja: Styl życia G'N.O.J.A. (2008) - Gold - 7,500 copies sold, and Na serio (2009) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold. \nc. Based on albums certified by Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry: for O.S.T.R.: HollyŁódź (2007) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold, Ja tu tylko sprzątam (2008) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold, O.c.b. (2009) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold, Tylko dla dorosłych (2010) - Platinum - 30,000 copies sold, and Jazz, dwa, trzy (2011) - Platinum - 30,000 copies sold. For O.S.T.R. & Hades: Haos (2014) - 30,000 copies sold. For O.S.T.R. & Marco Polo: Kartagina (2013) - 15,000 copies sold. For POE (Projekt Ostry Emade) Złodzieje zapalniczek (2010) - 15,000 copies sold.\nd. Based on album certified by Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry: Równonoc. Słowiańska Dusza (2012) - Diamond - 75,000 copies sold.\ne. Based on albums certified by Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry: Skandal (1998) - Gold - 50,000 copies sold, and Molesta i kumple (2008) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold.\nf. Based on albums certified by Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry: for Sokół & Marysia Starosta: Czysta brudna prawda (2011) - Platinum - 30,000 copies sold, and Czarna biała magia (2013) - Platinum - 30,000 copies sold. For Sokół fest Pono: Teraz pieniądz w cenie (2007) - 15,000 copies sold.\ng. Based on albums certified by Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry: Droga (2009) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold, Jedność (2011) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold, Lojalność (2011) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold, and Braterstwo (2012) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold.\nh. Based on album certified by Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry: W 63 minuty dookoła świata (1998) - Gold - 50,000 copies sold.\ni. Based on albums certified by Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry: Kwiaty zła (2008) - Platinum - 15,000 copies sold , Dowód rzeczowy nr 1 (2010) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold, and Dowód rzeczowy nr 2 (2011) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold.\nj. Based on albums certified by Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry: for Miuosh: Piąta strona świata (2011) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold, and Prosto przed siebie (2012) - Platinum - 30,000 copies sold. Fo Onar & Miuosh Nowe światło (2013) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold.\nk. Based on album certified by Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry: Wideoteka (2003) - Gold - 35,000 copies sold.\nl. Based on albums certified by Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry: WGW (2011) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold, and Jeden z Was (2012) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold.\nm. Based on albums certified by Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry: Witam was w rzeczywistości (2005) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold, and Życie na kredycie (2005) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold.\nn. Based on albums certified by Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry: Nie pytaj o nią (2008) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold, and Zapiski z 1001 nocy (2010) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold.\no. Based on album certified by Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry: Rekontatk (2012) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold.\np. Based on albums certified by Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry: for Pezet & Małolat: Dziś w moim mieście (2010) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold. For Pezet: Radio Pezet. Produkcja Sidney Polak (2012) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold.\nq. Based on album certified by Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry: for Mezo, Tabb & Kasia Wilk: Eudaimonia (2012) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold.\nr. Based on albums certified by Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry: Note2 (2009) - Gold - 7,500 copies sold, FuckTede/Glam Rap (2010) - Gold - 7,500 copies sold, Mefistotedes (2012) - Gold - 7,500 copies sold, and Elliminati (2013) - Gold - 7,500 copies sold.\ns. Based on albums certified by Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry: Złodzieje czasu (2009) - Gold - 7,500 copies sold, Dolina klaunoow (2012) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold.\nt. Based on album certified by Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry: for Łona & Webber: Cztery i pół (2011) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold.\nu. Based on album certified by Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry: for Kali: 50/50 (2011) - Gold - 7,500 copies sold, Gdy zgaśnie Słońce (2012) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold. For Paluch & Kali: Milion dróg do śmierci (2013) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold. For Paluch: Lepszego życia diler (2013) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold. \nw. Based on album certified by Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry: 23:55 (2010) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold. \nx. Based on albums certified by Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry: for Ten Typ Mes: Kandydaci na szaleńców (2011) - Gold - 7,500 copies sold. For Popek: Monster (2013) - Gold - 7,500 copies sold. For Firma: Nasza broń to nasza pasja (2011) - Gold - 5,000 copies sold. For Zeus: Zeus. Nie żyje (2012) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold. For Parias: Parias (2011) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold. For Paktofonika: Muzyka z filmu Jesteś Bogiem (2012) - Gold - 15,000 copies sold.\ny. Based on albums certified by Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry: The Marshall Mathers LP 2 (2004) - Platinum - 20,000 copies sold, Encore (2004) - Gold - 20,000 copies sold, The Eminem Show (2002) - Gold 20,000 copies sold, The Marshall Mathers (2000) - Platinum 40,000 copies sold.\n\nReferences\n\nAdditional sources\n For certification criteria by Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry between 2002-2005 (with time frame) Radek Miszczak, Andrzej Cała: Beaty, Rymy, Życie: Leksykon muzyki hip-hop. Poznań, Poland: Kurpisz S.A., 2005, page 22. .\n For certification criteria by Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry before 2002 (without time frame)"
] |
[
"Cat Power",
"Personal life"
] | C_599990da4ed54ab290c7cc659fa78d27_1 | What is important for the reader to know about her personal life? | 1 | What is important for the reader to know about Cat Power's personal life? | Cat Power | Around 2003 she bought a house in South Beach, Miami, from a high school friend. In 2009 Marshall moved to Los Angeles to share a house in Silver Lake, California with her then-boyfriend. They also had a rental house in Malibu where she had a studio. When Marshall was working as a waitress in Atlanta prior to becoming famous, her boyfriend died. She says this, coupled with the prevalence of heroin use amongst her friends and the loss of her best friend to AIDS, was the impetus for her moving to New York. A new boyfriend in New York helped her get a job in a restaurant, but she realised he was having an affair with the restaurant owner, a married woman with two children. In 2001, Marshall was romantically involved with a runway model, Daniel Currie. He separated her in 2003 at a time when she was drinking heavily and abusing other drugs. Marshall referred to him as "the ex-love of my life." According to an interview in January 2011, Marshall was in a relationship with actor Giovanni Ribisi beginning in 2006, and lived with Ribisi and his 14-year-old daughter in Los Angeles. In June 2012, it was reported that Marshall was no longer in a relationship with Ribisi. The completion of Marshall's album Sun coincided with their breakup: "I cut my hair off three days [after the breakup], got on a plane to France, and finished the shit." In April 2015, Marshall announced that she recently had a baby, but did not name the child's father. CANNOTANSWER | In 2001, Marshall was romantically involved with a runway model, Daniel Currie. | Charlyn Marie "Chan" Marshall ( ; born January 21, 1972), better known by her stage name Cat Power, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, occasional actress, and model. Cat Power was originally the name of Marshall's first band, but has become her stage name as a solo artist.
Born in Atlanta, Marshall was raised throughout the southern United States, and began performing in local bands in Atlanta in the early 1990s. After opening for Liz Phair in 1993, she worked with Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth and Tim Foljahn of Two Dollar Guitar, with whom she recorded her first two albums, Dear Sir (1995) and Myra Lee (1996), on the same day in 1994. In 1996, she signed with Matador Records, and released a third album of new material with Shelley and Foljahn, What Would the Community Think. Following this, she released the critically acclaimed Moon Pix (1998), recorded with members of Dirty Three, and The Covers Record (2000), a collection of sparsely arranged cover songs.
After a brief hiatus she released You Are Free (2003), featuring guest musicians Dave Grohl and Eddie Vedder, followed by the soul-influenced The Greatest (2006), recorded with numerous Memphis studio musicians. A second album of cover tracks, Jukebox, was released in 2008. In 2012 she released the self-produced Sun, which debuted at number 10 on the Billboard 200, the highest-charting album of her career to date.
Critics have noted the constant evolution of Cat Power's sound, with a mix of punk, folk and blues on her earliest albums, and elements of soul and other genres more prevalent in her later material.
Early life
Charlyn Marie Marshall was born January 21, 1972, in Atlanta, Georgia, the second child of Charlie Marshall, a blues musician and pianist, and Myra Lee Marshall ( Russell). She has one older sister, Miranda ("Mandy"). Her parents divorced in 1979 and remarried shortly thereafter. Her mother remarried and had a son, Lenny, and the family traveled around often because of her stepfather's profession.
Marshall attended ten different schools throughout the Southern U.S. in Greensboro; Bartlett and Memphis and throughout Georgia and South Carolina. At times she was left in the care of her grandmother. She was not allowed to buy records when she was growing up, but she listened to her stepfather's record collection, which included artists Otis Redding, Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Rolling Stones, as well as her parents' records, which included Black Flag, Sister Sledge, and Barry White. In sixth grade, she adopted the nickname Chan (pronounced "Shawn"), which she would later use professionally. When she was 13, she listened to the Smiths, the Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees. She had to save up to buy cassettes and the first one she got was a record by the Misfits. At age 16, she became estranged from her mother, and had no further contact with her until she was 24.
Religion was a large part of Marshall's upbringing; her father was a Jehovah's Witness, though she attended Southern Baptist churches with her grandmother, where she began singing while learning hymns.
Career
1992–1995: Beginnings
Marshall's first instrument was a 1950s Silvertone guitar, which she taught herself to play. While working in a pizzeria, she began playing music in Atlanta in the late-1980s with Glen Thrasher, Marc Moore, Damon Moore and Fletcher Liegerot, who would get together for jam sessions in a basement. The group were booked for a show and had to come up with a name quickly; after seeing a man wearing a Caterpillar trucker cap that read: "Cat Diesel Power", Marshall chose Cat Power as the name of the band.
While in Atlanta, Marshall played her first live shows as support to her friends' bands, including Magic Bone and Opal Foxx Quartet. In a 2007 interview, she explained that the music itself was more experimental and that playing shows was often an opportunity for her and her friends "to get drunk and take drugs". A number of her local peers became entrenched in heroin use. After the death of her boyfriend, and the subsequent loss of her best friend to AIDS, Marshall relocated to New York City in 1992 with Glen Thrasher. A new boyfriend helped her get a job in a restaurant.
Thrasher introduced her to New York's free jazz and experimental music scene. After attending a concert by Anthony Braxton, she gave her first New York show of improvisational music at a warehouse in Brooklyn. One of her shows during this period was as the support act to Man or Astro-man? and consisted of her playing a two-string guitar and singing the word "no" for 15 minutes. Around this time, she met the band God Is My Co-Pilot, who assisted with the release of her first single, "Headlights", in a limited run of 500 copies on their Making of Americans label.
Marshall recorded simultaneously her first two albums Dear Sir and Myra Lee in December 1994 in a small basement studio near Mott Street in New York City, with guitarist Tim Foljahn and Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley; Marshall and Shelley had initially met after she played a show opening for Liz Phair in 1993. A total of 20 songs were recorded in a single day by the trio, all of which were split into two records, making up Dear Sir and Myra Lee, released respectively in October 1995 and March 1996. Although Dear Sir is considered Marshall's debut album, it is more the length of an EP.
1996–2003: Early Matador releases
In 1996, Marshall signed to Matador Records and in September released her third album, What Would the Community Think, which she recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, in February 1996. The album was produced by Shelley and again featured Shelley and Foljahn as backing musicians, and spawned a single and music video, "Nude as the News" about the abortion she had at the age of 20. Critics cited the album as evidence of her maturation as a singer and songwriter from the "dense and cathartic" material of her first two releases.
After the release of What Would the Community Think, Marshall took a trip to South Africa, after which she left New York City and moved to Portland, Oregon, where she found temporary employment as a babysitter. In the spring of 1997, Marshall relocated with her then-boyfriend, musician Bill Callahan, to a rural farmhouse in Prosperity, South Carolina. After experiencing a hypnogogic nightmare while alone in the farmhouse, Marshall wrote six new songs that would go on to make up the bulk of her following album, Moon Pix (1998), which she recorded at Sing Sing Studios in Melbourne, Australia, with backing musicians Mick Turner and Jim White of the Australian band Dirty Three. Moon Pix was well received by critics, and along with an accompanying music video for the song "Cross Bones Style", helped her gain further recognition. Rolling Stone would later describe it as her 'breakthrough' record.
In 1999 where Marshall performed in a series of shows where she provided musical accompaniment to the silent movie The Passion of Joan of Arc. The shows combined original material and covers, some of which would be released on Marshall's fifth album, The Covers Record in 2000. The songs were recorded during two sessions in the summer of 1998 and fall of 1999. Additionally, she performed eleven covers during a Peel session broadcast on June 18, 2000 that included own interpretations of Bob Dylan's "Hard Times in New York Town" and Oasis's "Wonderwall". Her contract with Matador for 2000's The Covers Album reportedly consisted of a Post-it note signed by herself and the company's founder.
During the early-2000s, Marshall was embraced by the fashion industry for her "neo grunge" look, and seen as a muse by designers Marc Jacobs and Nicolas Ghesquière. In 2001 she modeled in New York magazines fall fashion issue and was photographed by her friends Mark Borthwick and Katja Rahlwes, who featured her in Purple magazine alongside Catherine Deneuve.
In February 2003, Marshall released You Are Free, her first album of original material in five years. The album, which featured guest musicians such as Eddie Vedder, Dave Grohl, and Warren Ellis, became the first charting Cat Power album, reaching 105 on the Billboard 200. A music video directed by Brett Vapnek was released for the song "He War". Marshall toured extensively through 2003 and 2004, playing shows in Europe, Brazil, the U.S. and Australia. During this period, Marshall's live performances had become erratic and unpredictable, and a 2003 The New Yorker article suggested: "It is foolhardy to describe a Cat Power event as a concert," citing "rambling confessions" and "[talking] to a friend's baby from the stage." Marshall later attributed this period to a drinking problem. Around the time of the release of You Are Free, Marshall purchased a house in South Beach, Miami.
2004–2011: Mainstream success
In October 2004, Matador released the DVD film Speaking for Trees, which featured a continuous, nearly two-hour static shot of Marshall performing with her guitar in a woodland. The set was accompanied by an audio CD containing the 18-minute song "Willie Deadwilder", featuring M. Ward also on guitar.
On January 22, 2006, Marshall released her seventh album, The Greatest, a Southern soul-influenced album of new material featuring veteran Memphis studio musicians, including Mabon "Teenie" Hodges, Leroy Hodges, David Smith, and Steve Potts. The album debuted at 34 on the Billboard 200 and critics noted its relatively "polished and accessible" sound, predicting it was "going to gain her a lot of new fans." The Greatest met with critical acclaim, and won the 2006 Shortlist Music Prize, making Marshall the first woman to win the honor. It was also named the number 6 best album of 2006 by Rolling Stone Magazine.
Simultaneously, Marshall collaborated with several other musicians on different projects, including Mick Collins on a recording of Ludwig Rellstab's poem "Auf Dem Strom" for the film Wayne County Ramblin; a duet with singer-model Karen Elson on an English cover of Serge Gainsbourg's "Je t'aime... moi non plus" for the tribute album Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited (2007); lead vocals on the Ensemble track "Disown, Delete"; and a reworked version of "Revelations" with Yoko Ono for Ono's 2007 album Yes, I'm a Witch.
In the fall of 2006, Marshall became a celebrity spokesperson for a line of jewelry from Chanel, after being seen by Karl Lagerfeld smoking a cigarette outside the Mercer Hotel in New York. Lagerfeld chose Cat Power for the soundtrack to his spring 2007 fashion show. He also photographed Marshall for a Purple feature.
In 2007, Marshall contributed songs to the soundtrack of Ethan Hawke's film The Hottest State, recording with Jesse Harris and Terry Manning, and the Academy Award-winning film Juno. The same year, she made her feature film debut acting in My Blueberry Nights opposite Jude Law, appearing in a small role. She also appeared in the role of a postal worker in Doug Aitken's MoMA installation Sleepwalkers, which followed the nocturnal lives of five city dwellers. Also in 2007, she featured on Faithless' album track A Kind of Peace.
In January 2008, Marshall released her second covers album, Jukebox. Recorded with her recently assembled "Dirty Delta Blues Band", which consisted of Judah Bauer from the Blues Explosion, Gregg Foreman of The Delta 72, Erik Paparazzi of Lizard Music and Jim White of Dirty Three, the album featured the original song "Song to Bobby", Marshall's tribute to Bob Dylan, and a reworking of the Moon Pix song "Metal Heart". She also collaborated with Beck and producer Danger Mouse on the album Modern Guilt (2008): She contributed backing vocals to two tracks, "Orphans" and "Walls". The album was released in July of that year.
In September 2008, Marshall and members of the Dirty Delta Blues (Erik Paparazzi and Gregg Foreman) recorded their version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" for a Lincoln car commercial. In 2013, Cat Power's version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" was used in Apple's Christmas commercial "Misunderstood". In December 2008, she released Dark End of the Street, an EP consisting of songs left over from the Jukebox sessions. In 2009, she provided backing vocals on Marianne Faithfull's cover of "Hold On, Hold On" by Neko Case on the 2009 album Easy Come Easy Go. In 2011, she also featured as guest vocalist on "Tonight You Belong to Me" on Eddie Vedder's Ukulele Songs.
2012–2018: Sun and Wanderer
In February 2012, Marshall cancelled a scheduled appearance in Tel Aviv, Israel, citing "much confusion" and that she felt "sick in her spirit." She had faced calls to boycott the country over its conflict with Palestine. Two months later, she cancelled her appearance at the Coachella Music Festival, claiming that she "didn't think it was fair to play Coachella while my new album is not yet finished," also hinting that her forthcoming record is "almost done" and will see release later in 2012. Marshall's ninth studio album, Sun, was released in September 2012, after releasing the lead single "Ruin" as a free download the previous June. The album features prominent electronica elements and arrangements, which Marshall incorporated into the "really slow guitar-based songs" she had originally written. In a review published on September 4, 2012, on Consequence of Sound, Sun was praised as a unique album and received a four-star rating. In summation, reviewer Sarah Grant wrote that Marshall's 2012 release is "a passionate pop album of electronic music filtered through a singer-songwriter's soul." The album debuted at a career chart-high of No. 10 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling over 23,000 copies on its opening week.
In July 2015, it was announced that Marshall would be providing narration for the documentary Janis: Little Girl Blue directed by Amy J. Berg, which revolves around the life of Janis Joplin and premiered at the 2015 Venice Film Festival. On television, Marshall starred on China, IL, in the hourlong musical special "Magical Pet". Marshall performs three original songs written by creator Brad Neely.
On July 28, 2017, Marshall announced on Instagram that her tenth studio album was "ready to go", although she did not disclose its title or expected release date.
On March 20, 2018, it was announced that Marshall would perform a Moon Pix 20th anniversary concert at Sydney Opera House, which occurred from May 25 to June 16 and featured album collaborators Jim White and Mick Turner.
On July 18, 2018, Marshall announced her 10th studio album, Wanderer, and shared the title track as an introduction to the album. She released two more singles, "Woman" featuring Lana Del Rey on August 15 and a cover of Rihanna's "Stay" on September 18, before the album was released on October 5, 2018, through Domino Recording Company. It was her first to not be released on Matador Records since 1996. According to Marshall, Matador were not happy with the recordings for Wanader, they wanted her to rerecord it and make it sound more commercial. She embarked on a world tour in promotion of the album in September.
Power embarked on a US arena tour in August 2021 supporting Alanis Morissette and Garbage. She was a last-minute addition to the lineup, after original opening act Liz Phair canceled her appearances. Power contributed four new songs to the soundtrack of the 2021 film Flag Day. Her eleventh studio album, Covers, was released on January 14, 2022, and will be supported by a US tour.
Personal life
In 2005, Marshall entered a relationship with actor Giovanni Ribisi, and resided with Ribisi and his daughter in Los Angeles. They also had a rental house in Malibu where she had a studio. Following the release of The Greatest, Marshall canceled her impending spring 2006 tour, and used the hiatus to recover from mental health issues. As part of her recovery, she was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute, leaving after a week. Marshall gave a first person account of her breakdown in an interview for the November 2006 issue of Spin.
In June 2012, it was reported that Marshall had ended her relationship with Ribisi, and the completion of her upcoming record had coincided with their breakup: "I cut my hair off three days [after the breakup], got on a plane to France, and finished the shit." Shortly after the release of Sun, Marshall began having trouble breathing and was hospitalized multiple times, though doctors were unable to diagnose her. "I thought I was dying," she recounted. "They told me they were going to put me in a coma to save my lungs. My friend came to visit and told me I'd made the Billboard Top 10 and all I could think was: 'I don't want to die.'" Marshall was subsequently diagnosed with hereditary angioedema, an immune disorder that causes sporadic swelling of the face and throat due to C1 esterase inhibitor deficiency. In September 2012, she stated she had been hospitalized due to the condition over eight times, which led her to cancel her European tour.
In April 2015, Marshall announced that she had recently given birth to a son, but did not name the child's father.
Artistry
Musical style
Marshall's releases as Cat Power have frequently been noted by critics for their somber, blues-influenced instrumentation and melancholy lyrics, leading LA Weekly to dub her the "queen of sadcore". Marshall, however, claims her music is often misinterpreted, and that many of her songs are "not sad, [but] triumphant." She has recounted blues, old soul music, British rock 'n' roll, as well as hymns and gospel music as being integral influences on her.
Cat Power's early releases have been described as blending elements of punk, folk, and blues, while her later releases (post-2000) began to incorporate more sophisticated arrangements and production. The Greatest (2006), Marshall's seventh release, was heavily soul-influenced and incorporated R&B elements; the Memphis Rhythm Band provided backing instrumentation on the album. Unlike her previous releases, which featured sparse guitar and piano arrangements, The Greatest was described by Marshall biographer Sarah Goodman as her first "full-blown studio record with sophisticated production and senior players backing [Marshall] up."
Performances
Marshall's live shows have been known for their unpolished and often erratic nature, with songs beginning and ending abruptly or blending into one another without clear transitions. She has also cut short performances without explanation. On some occasions this has been attributed to stage fright and the influence of alcohol. Marshall spoke openly about suffering from severe bouts of stage fright, specifically in her early career, and admitted that her stage fright stemmed from issues regarding depression, alcoholism, and substance abuse.
By 2006, she had found new collaborators and had stopped drinking. Marshall's performance style became more enthusiastic and professional; a review in Salon noted that she was "delivering onstage", and called The Greatest "polished and sweetly upbeat".
Philanthropy
A live version of the gospel song "Amazing Grace"—culled from a performance with the Dirty Delta Blues band—was released on the charity compilation Dark Was the Night. Released by independent British label 4AD on February 17, 2009, the set benefited the Red Hot Organization, an international charity dedicated to raising funds and awareness for HIV and AIDS. She also appeared in a PETA ad, encouraging people to spay and neuter their pets.
On December 25, 2011, Marshall released a reworking of the What Would the Community Think track "King Rides By" for download from her official website, with all proceeds from sales of the track being donated to The Festival of Children Foundation and The Ali Forney Center. A music video directed by Giovanni Ribisi and featuring Filipino boxer and politician Manny Pacquiao was released to promote the song.
Discography
Studio albums
Dear Sir (1995)
Myra Lee (1996)
What Would the Community Think (1996)
Moon Pix (1998)
The Covers Record (2000)
You Are Free (2003)
The Greatest (2006)
Jukebox (2008)
Sun (2012)
Wanderer (2018)
Covers (2022)
Filmography
Awards and nominations
Won: Shortlist Music Prize for The Greatest
Nominated: Best International Female Solo Artist, 2007 BRIT Awards
Nominated: Best Art Vinyl for Jukebox
Nominated: Best International Female Solo Artist, 2013 BRIT Awards
Nominated: Best Cinematography for "Where Is My Love?", 2007 Antville Music Video Awards
Nominated: Comeback of the Year, 2018 Rober Awards Music Prize
Nominated: Best Foreign Solo Act, Wanderer Best Foreign Album, 2019 Sweden GAFFA Awards
Nominated: Best Pop Video - International for "Go Up", 2017 UK Music Video Awards
References
Sources
External links
1972 births
American alternative rock musicians
American women singer-songwriters
American women rock singers
Living people
Alternative rock singers
Alternative rock guitarists
Alternative rock pianists
Guitarists from Georgia (U.S. state)
Winners of the Shortlist Music Prize
Musicians from Atlanta
People from Prosperity, South Carolina
21st-century American women guitarists
21st-century American guitarists
20th-century American women guitarists
20th-century American guitarists
21st-century American women pianists
21st-century American pianists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American women singers
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
Singer-songwriters from South Carolina
Singer-songwriters from Georgia (U.S. state) | false | [
"Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life is a book by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans that aims to help readers organize themselves through journaling and design thinking.\n\nThe New York Times best-selling book was published in 2016 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group and utilizes a series of exercises throughout its eleven chapters in order to provide others with a sense of structure in their lives. These creative and thought provoking exercises allow the reader to reflect on their life and determine what they should do with their future. They can then generate a road map and plan how to accomplish their goals.\n\nAbout the authors \nBill Burnett is the current executive director of the Design Program at Stanford. He has a BS and MS in product design and has designed numerous products throughout his career. He obtained a design award for designing the first ever slate computer and also helps advise startups. He is also currently on the Board of VOZ. \n\nDave Evans currently works alongside Burnett at the Design Program at Stanford. At a young age he worked at Apple where he helped design and market their first mouse. He then joined Electronic Arts as the first VP of Talent. In addition to co-writing Designing Your Life, he currently works with startups and non profit organizations.\n\nSummary of chapters\n\nStart Where You Are \nThe book asks the reader to reflect on four areas of life: health, work, play, and love, and to gauge each of them on a scale of 1-10. This self analysis is done in order for the reader to get a sense of what aspects of their life need the most (or least) attention. The book also promotes the idea of writing about each of these facets of life and how they intertwine with the uniqueness offered by the individual in the situation who is adhering to the journey within and through the process.\n\nBuilding a Compass \nIn this chapter, the book assumes the reader now has a good starting point and is ready to build a \"compass\" that will help guide them through life. The compass is made up of a workview and a lifeview. The workview revolves on what the reader's perceptions of work are and how important it is to them. The lifeview involves the philosophical questions of what gives life meaning. After assessing the workview and lifeview, the reader is on their way to creating their compass.\n\nWayfinding \nThis chapter includes the first real journaling exercise where the reader is asked to write down their day-to-day activities. They are then told to gauge them on engagement and energy. This is done in the hopes that the reader gains a sense of what activities are important to them and which ones seem unnecessary.\n\nGetting Unstuck \nThis chapter places an emphasis on aiding those who feel stuck in life, whether it be an undesirable job or schoolwork. In order for the reader to find interest in life, the book proclaims that conducting a mind map for day-to-day activities along with the exercise from the chapter before it can help readers find activities that they may find more interesting.\n\nDesign Your Lives \nHere the book encourages using the data that has been accumulated so far to conduct a plan for the future. This plan can be long or short term. The book once again proclaims the power of journaling and offers sample charts on how the reader should plan their future.\n\nPrototyping \nNow the book tells its readers to prototype their future plans. This means gathering information through experiences or conversations with others. This can help the reader realize what needs to be done in order for their future goals to become achieved.\n\nHow Not to Get a Job \nHere the book shifts its focus from designing future plans to getting a good job. It provides some subtle tips and tricks that can make the reader more hire-able and appear more professional. It proclaims that when finding a job, one should focus on the needs of the employer instead of their own needs.\n\nDesigning Your Dream Job \nThe book acknowledges that not everyone may get their dream job, but that it is important to make good decisions that can lead something close to that dream job. Journaling once again advised in order for the reader to self reflect and realize what their dream job may be.\n\nChoosing Happiness \nThe book explains to the reader that happiness does not necessarily mean having everything one could desire. It places an emphasis on getting rid of things that are not necessary. It also helps explain that one should not dwell on past mistakes or bad decision making and that they should instead focus on ways to improve their decision making abilities.\n\nFailure Immunity \nFailure is explained as something that is inevitable and that the reader must develop a form of \"failure immunity\" in order to embrace their mistakes and learn from them. It also recommends logging the reader's failures in their journal so that they can better remember them and think of a way to solve them.\n\nBuilding a Team \nThis chapter emphasizes the importance of others. Friends and family are necessary when the reader is in times of need. The book tells the importance of teamwork in order to overcome the toughest of obstacles that may lie in one's way. Building a strong team is vital to success and happiness in life.\n\nConclusion - A Well-Designed Life \nThe book closes by explaining that the methods learned throughout the chapters will always be useful. It explains that even after retirement, it is still necessary for one to design their life in order to achieve maximum happiness and satisfaction. It then makes a comparison of life to a design project that constantly needs to be created.\n\nReferences \n\nSelf-help books",
"Alice Dayrell Caldeira Brant (August 28, 1880 – June 20, 1970) was a Brazilian juvenile writer. When she was a teenager, she kept a diary, which describes life in Diamantina, Minas Gerais, Brazil which was then published in 1942. The diary was published under a pen name Helena Morley. When it was originally published it was in portuguese under the title Minha Vida de Menina. The diary was then translated in to English by Elizabeth Bishop in 1957.\n\nBiography \n\nShe was born in Diamantina, Minas Gerais, Brazil to an English father and a Brazilian mother. Her father worked as a diamond miner. The diary chronicles Brant's daily life, and covers her teenage years until 1895.\n\nIn 1900 Brant married Augusto Mário Calderia Brant, they had five children together. Brant says that she published her diaries in order to act as a role model for younger females who may read the book. She wrote that the diary was a way to show young women what becoming an adult means, and in this way she is acting like a grandmother to the reader. One of her daughters, Ignez Caldeira Brant, married with Abgar Renault, Brazilian Ministry of Education (1955-1956) and of the federal accountability office, Tribunal de Contas da União (1967-1973).\n\nPublished Work \nBrant's only published work is The Diary of Helena Morley, which she began writing when she attended the Normal School. The diary discusses her daily life in the diamond mining town of Diamantina, romantic interests, but it also deals with heavier topics like loss. The book also discusses relationships, marriage in particular, but also social affairs and Brant's dreams. The topics of the book make it so that it could be a diary of a present day teenager rather than one 60 years ago. Since Brant discusses her everyday life, insights about that point in history are able to be gained by reading the diary, particularly about the effects of the abolition of slavery. There is very little documentation about life post emancipation, making the diary an important resource for historians. Brant is praised for her ability to add humor to the discussion of racism, which typically is associated with seriousness. Another reason Brant's book was so popular is the nostalgic that it brings the reader, the provincial life of a small town, that the reader is able to find peace in the description of the simple life.\n\nReception \nThe book attracted attention like many other diaries of young women. The prevalence of young female diaries is explained for many of the same reasons Brant's own diary is popular. That they allow the reader to feel young again and reminisce about when they were a teenager. Some of the first attention that was drawn to Brant for her work was after Alexandre Eulálio praised Brant for her work these praises placed Brant among classic Brazilian authors. French author Georges Bernanos also made the public aware of the book. Elizabeth Bishop was originally drawn to the work in 1952, then in 1957 Bishop published her English translation of the book. Bishop says that she was drawn to Brant's work because of Brant's impressive skills of observation and ability to recreate a scene using only words. Some have compared Brant's work to Jane Austen that even though she was from a small town in Brazil, its style is like work from England.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n 1957 Time article on Brant and her book\n Letters, photos, and texts about Helena Morley - Alice Dayrell Caldeira Brant - Agosto de 2003 collected by the writer and educator Vera Brant.\n\n1880 births\n1970 deaths\nPeople from Minas Gerais\nBrazilian people of English descent\nBrazilian women writers\nBrazilian writers"
] |
[
"Cat Power",
"Personal life",
"What is important for the reader to know about her personal life?",
"In 2001, Marshall was romantically involved with a runway model, Daniel Currie."
] | C_599990da4ed54ab290c7cc659fa78d27_1 | Did she have any highlights in her personal life? | 2 | Did Cat Power have any highlights in her personal life? | Cat Power | Around 2003 she bought a house in South Beach, Miami, from a high school friend. In 2009 Marshall moved to Los Angeles to share a house in Silver Lake, California with her then-boyfriend. They also had a rental house in Malibu where she had a studio. When Marshall was working as a waitress in Atlanta prior to becoming famous, her boyfriend died. She says this, coupled with the prevalence of heroin use amongst her friends and the loss of her best friend to AIDS, was the impetus for her moving to New York. A new boyfriend in New York helped her get a job in a restaurant, but she realised he was having an affair with the restaurant owner, a married woman with two children. In 2001, Marshall was romantically involved with a runway model, Daniel Currie. He separated her in 2003 at a time when she was drinking heavily and abusing other drugs. Marshall referred to him as "the ex-love of my life." According to an interview in January 2011, Marshall was in a relationship with actor Giovanni Ribisi beginning in 2006, and lived with Ribisi and his 14-year-old daughter in Los Angeles. In June 2012, it was reported that Marshall was no longer in a relationship with Ribisi. The completion of Marshall's album Sun coincided with their breakup: "I cut my hair off three days [after the breakup], got on a plane to France, and finished the shit." In April 2015, Marshall announced that she recently had a baby, but did not name the child's father. CANNOTANSWER | Around 2003 she bought a house in South Beach, Miami, | Charlyn Marie "Chan" Marshall ( ; born January 21, 1972), better known by her stage name Cat Power, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, occasional actress, and model. Cat Power was originally the name of Marshall's first band, but has become her stage name as a solo artist.
Born in Atlanta, Marshall was raised throughout the southern United States, and began performing in local bands in Atlanta in the early 1990s. After opening for Liz Phair in 1993, she worked with Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth and Tim Foljahn of Two Dollar Guitar, with whom she recorded her first two albums, Dear Sir (1995) and Myra Lee (1996), on the same day in 1994. In 1996, she signed with Matador Records, and released a third album of new material with Shelley and Foljahn, What Would the Community Think. Following this, she released the critically acclaimed Moon Pix (1998), recorded with members of Dirty Three, and The Covers Record (2000), a collection of sparsely arranged cover songs.
After a brief hiatus she released You Are Free (2003), featuring guest musicians Dave Grohl and Eddie Vedder, followed by the soul-influenced The Greatest (2006), recorded with numerous Memphis studio musicians. A second album of cover tracks, Jukebox, was released in 2008. In 2012 she released the self-produced Sun, which debuted at number 10 on the Billboard 200, the highest-charting album of her career to date.
Critics have noted the constant evolution of Cat Power's sound, with a mix of punk, folk and blues on her earliest albums, and elements of soul and other genres more prevalent in her later material.
Early life
Charlyn Marie Marshall was born January 21, 1972, in Atlanta, Georgia, the second child of Charlie Marshall, a blues musician and pianist, and Myra Lee Marshall ( Russell). She has one older sister, Miranda ("Mandy"). Her parents divorced in 1979 and remarried shortly thereafter. Her mother remarried and had a son, Lenny, and the family traveled around often because of her stepfather's profession.
Marshall attended ten different schools throughout the Southern U.S. in Greensboro; Bartlett and Memphis and throughout Georgia and South Carolina. At times she was left in the care of her grandmother. She was not allowed to buy records when she was growing up, but she listened to her stepfather's record collection, which included artists Otis Redding, Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Rolling Stones, as well as her parents' records, which included Black Flag, Sister Sledge, and Barry White. In sixth grade, she adopted the nickname Chan (pronounced "Shawn"), which she would later use professionally. When she was 13, she listened to the Smiths, the Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees. She had to save up to buy cassettes and the first one she got was a record by the Misfits. At age 16, she became estranged from her mother, and had no further contact with her until she was 24.
Religion was a large part of Marshall's upbringing; her father was a Jehovah's Witness, though she attended Southern Baptist churches with her grandmother, where she began singing while learning hymns.
Career
1992–1995: Beginnings
Marshall's first instrument was a 1950s Silvertone guitar, which she taught herself to play. While working in a pizzeria, she began playing music in Atlanta in the late-1980s with Glen Thrasher, Marc Moore, Damon Moore and Fletcher Liegerot, who would get together for jam sessions in a basement. The group were booked for a show and had to come up with a name quickly; after seeing a man wearing a Caterpillar trucker cap that read: "Cat Diesel Power", Marshall chose Cat Power as the name of the band.
While in Atlanta, Marshall played her first live shows as support to her friends' bands, including Magic Bone and Opal Foxx Quartet. In a 2007 interview, she explained that the music itself was more experimental and that playing shows was often an opportunity for her and her friends "to get drunk and take drugs". A number of her local peers became entrenched in heroin use. After the death of her boyfriend, and the subsequent loss of her best friend to AIDS, Marshall relocated to New York City in 1992 with Glen Thrasher. A new boyfriend helped her get a job in a restaurant.
Thrasher introduced her to New York's free jazz and experimental music scene. After attending a concert by Anthony Braxton, she gave her first New York show of improvisational music at a warehouse in Brooklyn. One of her shows during this period was as the support act to Man or Astro-man? and consisted of her playing a two-string guitar and singing the word "no" for 15 minutes. Around this time, she met the band God Is My Co-Pilot, who assisted with the release of her first single, "Headlights", in a limited run of 500 copies on their Making of Americans label.
Marshall recorded simultaneously her first two albums Dear Sir and Myra Lee in December 1994 in a small basement studio near Mott Street in New York City, with guitarist Tim Foljahn and Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley; Marshall and Shelley had initially met after she played a show opening for Liz Phair in 1993. A total of 20 songs were recorded in a single day by the trio, all of which were split into two records, making up Dear Sir and Myra Lee, released respectively in October 1995 and March 1996. Although Dear Sir is considered Marshall's debut album, it is more the length of an EP.
1996–2003: Early Matador releases
In 1996, Marshall signed to Matador Records and in September released her third album, What Would the Community Think, which she recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, in February 1996. The album was produced by Shelley and again featured Shelley and Foljahn as backing musicians, and spawned a single and music video, "Nude as the News" about the abortion she had at the age of 20. Critics cited the album as evidence of her maturation as a singer and songwriter from the "dense and cathartic" material of her first two releases.
After the release of What Would the Community Think, Marshall took a trip to South Africa, after which she left New York City and moved to Portland, Oregon, where she found temporary employment as a babysitter. In the spring of 1997, Marshall relocated with her then-boyfriend, musician Bill Callahan, to a rural farmhouse in Prosperity, South Carolina. After experiencing a hypnogogic nightmare while alone in the farmhouse, Marshall wrote six new songs that would go on to make up the bulk of her following album, Moon Pix (1998), which she recorded at Sing Sing Studios in Melbourne, Australia, with backing musicians Mick Turner and Jim White of the Australian band Dirty Three. Moon Pix was well received by critics, and along with an accompanying music video for the song "Cross Bones Style", helped her gain further recognition. Rolling Stone would later describe it as her 'breakthrough' record.
In 1999 where Marshall performed in a series of shows where she provided musical accompaniment to the silent movie The Passion of Joan of Arc. The shows combined original material and covers, some of which would be released on Marshall's fifth album, The Covers Record in 2000. The songs were recorded during two sessions in the summer of 1998 and fall of 1999. Additionally, she performed eleven covers during a Peel session broadcast on June 18, 2000 that included own interpretations of Bob Dylan's "Hard Times in New York Town" and Oasis's "Wonderwall". Her contract with Matador for 2000's The Covers Album reportedly consisted of a Post-it note signed by herself and the company's founder.
During the early-2000s, Marshall was embraced by the fashion industry for her "neo grunge" look, and seen as a muse by designers Marc Jacobs and Nicolas Ghesquière. In 2001 she modeled in New York magazines fall fashion issue and was photographed by her friends Mark Borthwick and Katja Rahlwes, who featured her in Purple magazine alongside Catherine Deneuve.
In February 2003, Marshall released You Are Free, her first album of original material in five years. The album, which featured guest musicians such as Eddie Vedder, Dave Grohl, and Warren Ellis, became the first charting Cat Power album, reaching 105 on the Billboard 200. A music video directed by Brett Vapnek was released for the song "He War". Marshall toured extensively through 2003 and 2004, playing shows in Europe, Brazil, the U.S. and Australia. During this period, Marshall's live performances had become erratic and unpredictable, and a 2003 The New Yorker article suggested: "It is foolhardy to describe a Cat Power event as a concert," citing "rambling confessions" and "[talking] to a friend's baby from the stage." Marshall later attributed this period to a drinking problem. Around the time of the release of You Are Free, Marshall purchased a house in South Beach, Miami.
2004–2011: Mainstream success
In October 2004, Matador released the DVD film Speaking for Trees, which featured a continuous, nearly two-hour static shot of Marshall performing with her guitar in a woodland. The set was accompanied by an audio CD containing the 18-minute song "Willie Deadwilder", featuring M. Ward also on guitar.
On January 22, 2006, Marshall released her seventh album, The Greatest, a Southern soul-influenced album of new material featuring veteran Memphis studio musicians, including Mabon "Teenie" Hodges, Leroy Hodges, David Smith, and Steve Potts. The album debuted at 34 on the Billboard 200 and critics noted its relatively "polished and accessible" sound, predicting it was "going to gain her a lot of new fans." The Greatest met with critical acclaim, and won the 2006 Shortlist Music Prize, making Marshall the first woman to win the honor. It was also named the number 6 best album of 2006 by Rolling Stone Magazine.
Simultaneously, Marshall collaborated with several other musicians on different projects, including Mick Collins on a recording of Ludwig Rellstab's poem "Auf Dem Strom" for the film Wayne County Ramblin; a duet with singer-model Karen Elson on an English cover of Serge Gainsbourg's "Je t'aime... moi non plus" for the tribute album Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited (2007); lead vocals on the Ensemble track "Disown, Delete"; and a reworked version of "Revelations" with Yoko Ono for Ono's 2007 album Yes, I'm a Witch.
In the fall of 2006, Marshall became a celebrity spokesperson for a line of jewelry from Chanel, after being seen by Karl Lagerfeld smoking a cigarette outside the Mercer Hotel in New York. Lagerfeld chose Cat Power for the soundtrack to his spring 2007 fashion show. He also photographed Marshall for a Purple feature.
In 2007, Marshall contributed songs to the soundtrack of Ethan Hawke's film The Hottest State, recording with Jesse Harris and Terry Manning, and the Academy Award-winning film Juno. The same year, she made her feature film debut acting in My Blueberry Nights opposite Jude Law, appearing in a small role. She also appeared in the role of a postal worker in Doug Aitken's MoMA installation Sleepwalkers, which followed the nocturnal lives of five city dwellers. Also in 2007, she featured on Faithless' album track A Kind of Peace.
In January 2008, Marshall released her second covers album, Jukebox. Recorded with her recently assembled "Dirty Delta Blues Band", which consisted of Judah Bauer from the Blues Explosion, Gregg Foreman of The Delta 72, Erik Paparazzi of Lizard Music and Jim White of Dirty Three, the album featured the original song "Song to Bobby", Marshall's tribute to Bob Dylan, and a reworking of the Moon Pix song "Metal Heart". She also collaborated with Beck and producer Danger Mouse on the album Modern Guilt (2008): She contributed backing vocals to two tracks, "Orphans" and "Walls". The album was released in July of that year.
In September 2008, Marshall and members of the Dirty Delta Blues (Erik Paparazzi and Gregg Foreman) recorded their version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" for a Lincoln car commercial. In 2013, Cat Power's version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" was used in Apple's Christmas commercial "Misunderstood". In December 2008, she released Dark End of the Street, an EP consisting of songs left over from the Jukebox sessions. In 2009, she provided backing vocals on Marianne Faithfull's cover of "Hold On, Hold On" by Neko Case on the 2009 album Easy Come Easy Go. In 2011, she also featured as guest vocalist on "Tonight You Belong to Me" on Eddie Vedder's Ukulele Songs.
2012–2018: Sun and Wanderer
In February 2012, Marshall cancelled a scheduled appearance in Tel Aviv, Israel, citing "much confusion" and that she felt "sick in her spirit." She had faced calls to boycott the country over its conflict with Palestine. Two months later, she cancelled her appearance at the Coachella Music Festival, claiming that she "didn't think it was fair to play Coachella while my new album is not yet finished," also hinting that her forthcoming record is "almost done" and will see release later in 2012. Marshall's ninth studio album, Sun, was released in September 2012, after releasing the lead single "Ruin" as a free download the previous June. The album features prominent electronica elements and arrangements, which Marshall incorporated into the "really slow guitar-based songs" she had originally written. In a review published on September 4, 2012, on Consequence of Sound, Sun was praised as a unique album and received a four-star rating. In summation, reviewer Sarah Grant wrote that Marshall's 2012 release is "a passionate pop album of electronic music filtered through a singer-songwriter's soul." The album debuted at a career chart-high of No. 10 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling over 23,000 copies on its opening week.
In July 2015, it was announced that Marshall would be providing narration for the documentary Janis: Little Girl Blue directed by Amy J. Berg, which revolves around the life of Janis Joplin and premiered at the 2015 Venice Film Festival. On television, Marshall starred on China, IL, in the hourlong musical special "Magical Pet". Marshall performs three original songs written by creator Brad Neely.
On July 28, 2017, Marshall announced on Instagram that her tenth studio album was "ready to go", although she did not disclose its title or expected release date.
On March 20, 2018, it was announced that Marshall would perform a Moon Pix 20th anniversary concert at Sydney Opera House, which occurred from May 25 to June 16 and featured album collaborators Jim White and Mick Turner.
On July 18, 2018, Marshall announced her 10th studio album, Wanderer, and shared the title track as an introduction to the album. She released two more singles, "Woman" featuring Lana Del Rey on August 15 and a cover of Rihanna's "Stay" on September 18, before the album was released on October 5, 2018, through Domino Recording Company. It was her first to not be released on Matador Records since 1996. According to Marshall, Matador were not happy with the recordings for Wanader, they wanted her to rerecord it and make it sound more commercial. She embarked on a world tour in promotion of the album in September.
Power embarked on a US arena tour in August 2021 supporting Alanis Morissette and Garbage. She was a last-minute addition to the lineup, after original opening act Liz Phair canceled her appearances. Power contributed four new songs to the soundtrack of the 2021 film Flag Day. Her eleventh studio album, Covers, was released on January 14, 2022, and will be supported by a US tour.
Personal life
In 2005, Marshall entered a relationship with actor Giovanni Ribisi, and resided with Ribisi and his daughter in Los Angeles. They also had a rental house in Malibu where she had a studio. Following the release of The Greatest, Marshall canceled her impending spring 2006 tour, and used the hiatus to recover from mental health issues. As part of her recovery, she was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute, leaving after a week. Marshall gave a first person account of her breakdown in an interview for the November 2006 issue of Spin.
In June 2012, it was reported that Marshall had ended her relationship with Ribisi, and the completion of her upcoming record had coincided with their breakup: "I cut my hair off three days [after the breakup], got on a plane to France, and finished the shit." Shortly after the release of Sun, Marshall began having trouble breathing and was hospitalized multiple times, though doctors were unable to diagnose her. "I thought I was dying," she recounted. "They told me they were going to put me in a coma to save my lungs. My friend came to visit and told me I'd made the Billboard Top 10 and all I could think was: 'I don't want to die.'" Marshall was subsequently diagnosed with hereditary angioedema, an immune disorder that causes sporadic swelling of the face and throat due to C1 esterase inhibitor deficiency. In September 2012, she stated she had been hospitalized due to the condition over eight times, which led her to cancel her European tour.
In April 2015, Marshall announced that she had recently given birth to a son, but did not name the child's father.
Artistry
Musical style
Marshall's releases as Cat Power have frequently been noted by critics for their somber, blues-influenced instrumentation and melancholy lyrics, leading LA Weekly to dub her the "queen of sadcore". Marshall, however, claims her music is often misinterpreted, and that many of her songs are "not sad, [but] triumphant." She has recounted blues, old soul music, British rock 'n' roll, as well as hymns and gospel music as being integral influences on her.
Cat Power's early releases have been described as blending elements of punk, folk, and blues, while her later releases (post-2000) began to incorporate more sophisticated arrangements and production. The Greatest (2006), Marshall's seventh release, was heavily soul-influenced and incorporated R&B elements; the Memphis Rhythm Band provided backing instrumentation on the album. Unlike her previous releases, which featured sparse guitar and piano arrangements, The Greatest was described by Marshall biographer Sarah Goodman as her first "full-blown studio record with sophisticated production and senior players backing [Marshall] up."
Performances
Marshall's live shows have been known for their unpolished and often erratic nature, with songs beginning and ending abruptly or blending into one another without clear transitions. She has also cut short performances without explanation. On some occasions this has been attributed to stage fright and the influence of alcohol. Marshall spoke openly about suffering from severe bouts of stage fright, specifically in her early career, and admitted that her stage fright stemmed from issues regarding depression, alcoholism, and substance abuse.
By 2006, she had found new collaborators and had stopped drinking. Marshall's performance style became more enthusiastic and professional; a review in Salon noted that she was "delivering onstage", and called The Greatest "polished and sweetly upbeat".
Philanthropy
A live version of the gospel song "Amazing Grace"—culled from a performance with the Dirty Delta Blues band—was released on the charity compilation Dark Was the Night. Released by independent British label 4AD on February 17, 2009, the set benefited the Red Hot Organization, an international charity dedicated to raising funds and awareness for HIV and AIDS. She also appeared in a PETA ad, encouraging people to spay and neuter their pets.
On December 25, 2011, Marshall released a reworking of the What Would the Community Think track "King Rides By" for download from her official website, with all proceeds from sales of the track being donated to The Festival of Children Foundation and The Ali Forney Center. A music video directed by Giovanni Ribisi and featuring Filipino boxer and politician Manny Pacquiao was released to promote the song.
Discography
Studio albums
Dear Sir (1995)
Myra Lee (1996)
What Would the Community Think (1996)
Moon Pix (1998)
The Covers Record (2000)
You Are Free (2003)
The Greatest (2006)
Jukebox (2008)
Sun (2012)
Wanderer (2018)
Covers (2022)
Filmography
Awards and nominations
Won: Shortlist Music Prize for The Greatest
Nominated: Best International Female Solo Artist, 2007 BRIT Awards
Nominated: Best Art Vinyl for Jukebox
Nominated: Best International Female Solo Artist, 2013 BRIT Awards
Nominated: Best Cinematography for "Where Is My Love?", 2007 Antville Music Video Awards
Nominated: Comeback of the Year, 2018 Rober Awards Music Prize
Nominated: Best Foreign Solo Act, Wanderer Best Foreign Album, 2019 Sweden GAFFA Awards
Nominated: Best Pop Video - International for "Go Up", 2017 UK Music Video Awards
References
Sources
External links
1972 births
American alternative rock musicians
American women singer-songwriters
American women rock singers
Living people
Alternative rock singers
Alternative rock guitarists
Alternative rock pianists
Guitarists from Georgia (U.S. state)
Winners of the Shortlist Music Prize
Musicians from Atlanta
People from Prosperity, South Carolina
21st-century American women guitarists
21st-century American guitarists
20th-century American women guitarists
20th-century American guitarists
21st-century American women pianists
21st-century American pianists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American women singers
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
Singer-songwriters from South Carolina
Singer-songwriters from Georgia (U.S. state) | false | [
"Alexandra Najarro (born June 3, 1993) is a Canadian former competitive figure skater. She placed 13th at the 2012 Four Continents Championships.\n\nPersonal life \nNajarro was born on June 3, 1993 in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada. Fluent in English and French, she also speaks Polish and Spanish, the mother tongues of her parents.\n\nCareer \nNajarro began skating at age five at the Mississauga Figure Skating Club with her mother Eva as her coach. She appeared in the small role of Snowplow Sam in the 2005 Disney movie Ice Princess.\n\nNajarro won the 2008 Canadian national novice title and began appearing on the ISU Junior Grand Prix series the following season.\n\nNajarro placed fourth at the 2011 and 2012 Canadian Championships. She was selected to represent Canada at the 2012 Four Continents Championships in Colorado Springs, Colorado; she placed 14th in the short program, 12th in the free skate, and 13th overall.\n\nNajarro did not compete in the 2012–13 season. She placed sixth at the 2014 Canadian Championships.\n\nPrograms\n\nCompetitive highlights \nJGP: Junior Grand Prix\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\n1993 births\nCanadian female single skaters\nLiving people\nSportspeople from Richmond Hill, Ontario",
"Pernille Sørensen (born 20 February 1998) is a Danish figure skater. She is the 2014 Denkova-Staviski Cup champion, and a two-time Danish national champion (2015, 2018). She has competed in the final segment at two European Championships (2018, 2019) and the 2014 World Junior Championships.\n\nPersonal life\nPernille Sørensen was born on 20 February 1998 in Esbjerg, Denmark. She is the daughter of Gitte and Peter Sørensen and has a brother, Nicki, who is five years younger.\n\nCareer\nSørensen began skating in 2001. In 2010, she relocated with her family from Esbjerg to Odense, following three years of commuting to Odense for her training. Coached by Pernille Gormsen, she debuted on the ISU Junior Grand Prix series in 2011.\n\n2012–2013 season \nSørensen was coached in Odense by Andrzej Strzelec before switching to Alexei Fedoseev. She was assigned to the 2013 World Junior Championships in Milan, Italy but did not reach the free skate.\n\n2013–2014 season \nSørensen continued to train under Alexei Fedoseev in Odense. At the 2014 World Junior Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria, she qualified for the free skate and finished 18th overall.\n\n2014–2015 season \nSørensen made her senior international debut, at the 2014 International Cup of Nice, and became the Danish senior national champion for the first time. As of January 2015, she is coached by Kalle Strid and Martin Johansson in Copenhagen. She did not reach the final at the 2015 European Championships in Stockholm, Sweden, placing 27th in the short program. Sørensen placed 4th at the 2015 Nordic Championships in Stavanger, Norway. At the 2015 World Junior Championships she did not advance to the final.\n\n2015–2016 season \nSørensen reached her personal best score at the 2015 NRW Trophy, placing 4th. She was eliminated after the short program at the 2016 European Championships in Bratislava, Slovakia. On 12 February 2016, the Danish Skating Union announced that she had decided to stop her career.\n\n2017–2018 season \nSørensen returned to international competition in September 2017 at the Slovenia Open.\n\nPrograms\n\nCompetitive highlights \nCS: Challenger Series; JGP: Junior Grand Prix\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\n1998 births\nDanish female single skaters\nLiving people\nPeople from Esbjerg"
] |
[
"Cat Power",
"Personal life",
"What is important for the reader to know about her personal life?",
"In 2001, Marshall was romantically involved with a runway model, Daniel Currie.",
"Did she have any highlights in her personal life?",
"Around 2003 she bought a house in South Beach, Miami,"
] | C_599990da4ed54ab290c7cc659fa78d27_1 | What did she do next? | 3 | What did Cat Power do after buying a house around 2003? | Cat Power | Around 2003 she bought a house in South Beach, Miami, from a high school friend. In 2009 Marshall moved to Los Angeles to share a house in Silver Lake, California with her then-boyfriend. They also had a rental house in Malibu where she had a studio. When Marshall was working as a waitress in Atlanta prior to becoming famous, her boyfriend died. She says this, coupled with the prevalence of heroin use amongst her friends and the loss of her best friend to AIDS, was the impetus for her moving to New York. A new boyfriend in New York helped her get a job in a restaurant, but she realised he was having an affair with the restaurant owner, a married woman with two children. In 2001, Marshall was romantically involved with a runway model, Daniel Currie. He separated her in 2003 at a time when she was drinking heavily and abusing other drugs. Marshall referred to him as "the ex-love of my life." According to an interview in January 2011, Marshall was in a relationship with actor Giovanni Ribisi beginning in 2006, and lived with Ribisi and his 14-year-old daughter in Los Angeles. In June 2012, it was reported that Marshall was no longer in a relationship with Ribisi. The completion of Marshall's album Sun coincided with their breakup: "I cut my hair off three days [after the breakup], got on a plane to France, and finished the shit." In April 2015, Marshall announced that she recently had a baby, but did not name the child's father. CANNOTANSWER | In 2009 Marshall moved to Los Angeles to share a house in Silver Lake, California with her then-boyfriend. | Charlyn Marie "Chan" Marshall ( ; born January 21, 1972), better known by her stage name Cat Power, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, occasional actress, and model. Cat Power was originally the name of Marshall's first band, but has become her stage name as a solo artist.
Born in Atlanta, Marshall was raised throughout the southern United States, and began performing in local bands in Atlanta in the early 1990s. After opening for Liz Phair in 1993, she worked with Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth and Tim Foljahn of Two Dollar Guitar, with whom she recorded her first two albums, Dear Sir (1995) and Myra Lee (1996), on the same day in 1994. In 1996, she signed with Matador Records, and released a third album of new material with Shelley and Foljahn, What Would the Community Think. Following this, she released the critically acclaimed Moon Pix (1998), recorded with members of Dirty Three, and The Covers Record (2000), a collection of sparsely arranged cover songs.
After a brief hiatus she released You Are Free (2003), featuring guest musicians Dave Grohl and Eddie Vedder, followed by the soul-influenced The Greatest (2006), recorded with numerous Memphis studio musicians. A second album of cover tracks, Jukebox, was released in 2008. In 2012 she released the self-produced Sun, which debuted at number 10 on the Billboard 200, the highest-charting album of her career to date.
Critics have noted the constant evolution of Cat Power's sound, with a mix of punk, folk and blues on her earliest albums, and elements of soul and other genres more prevalent in her later material.
Early life
Charlyn Marie Marshall was born January 21, 1972, in Atlanta, Georgia, the second child of Charlie Marshall, a blues musician and pianist, and Myra Lee Marshall ( Russell). She has one older sister, Miranda ("Mandy"). Her parents divorced in 1979 and remarried shortly thereafter. Her mother remarried and had a son, Lenny, and the family traveled around often because of her stepfather's profession.
Marshall attended ten different schools throughout the Southern U.S. in Greensboro; Bartlett and Memphis and throughout Georgia and South Carolina. At times she was left in the care of her grandmother. She was not allowed to buy records when she was growing up, but she listened to her stepfather's record collection, which included artists Otis Redding, Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Rolling Stones, as well as her parents' records, which included Black Flag, Sister Sledge, and Barry White. In sixth grade, she adopted the nickname Chan (pronounced "Shawn"), which she would later use professionally. When she was 13, she listened to the Smiths, the Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees. She had to save up to buy cassettes and the first one she got was a record by the Misfits. At age 16, she became estranged from her mother, and had no further contact with her until she was 24.
Religion was a large part of Marshall's upbringing; her father was a Jehovah's Witness, though she attended Southern Baptist churches with her grandmother, where she began singing while learning hymns.
Career
1992–1995: Beginnings
Marshall's first instrument was a 1950s Silvertone guitar, which she taught herself to play. While working in a pizzeria, she began playing music in Atlanta in the late-1980s with Glen Thrasher, Marc Moore, Damon Moore and Fletcher Liegerot, who would get together for jam sessions in a basement. The group were booked for a show and had to come up with a name quickly; after seeing a man wearing a Caterpillar trucker cap that read: "Cat Diesel Power", Marshall chose Cat Power as the name of the band.
While in Atlanta, Marshall played her first live shows as support to her friends' bands, including Magic Bone and Opal Foxx Quartet. In a 2007 interview, she explained that the music itself was more experimental and that playing shows was often an opportunity for her and her friends "to get drunk and take drugs". A number of her local peers became entrenched in heroin use. After the death of her boyfriend, and the subsequent loss of her best friend to AIDS, Marshall relocated to New York City in 1992 with Glen Thrasher. A new boyfriend helped her get a job in a restaurant.
Thrasher introduced her to New York's free jazz and experimental music scene. After attending a concert by Anthony Braxton, she gave her first New York show of improvisational music at a warehouse in Brooklyn. One of her shows during this period was as the support act to Man or Astro-man? and consisted of her playing a two-string guitar and singing the word "no" for 15 minutes. Around this time, she met the band God Is My Co-Pilot, who assisted with the release of her first single, "Headlights", in a limited run of 500 copies on their Making of Americans label.
Marshall recorded simultaneously her first two albums Dear Sir and Myra Lee in December 1994 in a small basement studio near Mott Street in New York City, with guitarist Tim Foljahn and Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley; Marshall and Shelley had initially met after she played a show opening for Liz Phair in 1993. A total of 20 songs were recorded in a single day by the trio, all of which were split into two records, making up Dear Sir and Myra Lee, released respectively in October 1995 and March 1996. Although Dear Sir is considered Marshall's debut album, it is more the length of an EP.
1996–2003: Early Matador releases
In 1996, Marshall signed to Matador Records and in September released her third album, What Would the Community Think, which she recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, in February 1996. The album was produced by Shelley and again featured Shelley and Foljahn as backing musicians, and spawned a single and music video, "Nude as the News" about the abortion she had at the age of 20. Critics cited the album as evidence of her maturation as a singer and songwriter from the "dense and cathartic" material of her first two releases.
After the release of What Would the Community Think, Marshall took a trip to South Africa, after which she left New York City and moved to Portland, Oregon, where she found temporary employment as a babysitter. In the spring of 1997, Marshall relocated with her then-boyfriend, musician Bill Callahan, to a rural farmhouse in Prosperity, South Carolina. After experiencing a hypnogogic nightmare while alone in the farmhouse, Marshall wrote six new songs that would go on to make up the bulk of her following album, Moon Pix (1998), which she recorded at Sing Sing Studios in Melbourne, Australia, with backing musicians Mick Turner and Jim White of the Australian band Dirty Three. Moon Pix was well received by critics, and along with an accompanying music video for the song "Cross Bones Style", helped her gain further recognition. Rolling Stone would later describe it as her 'breakthrough' record.
In 1999 where Marshall performed in a series of shows where she provided musical accompaniment to the silent movie The Passion of Joan of Arc. The shows combined original material and covers, some of which would be released on Marshall's fifth album, The Covers Record in 2000. The songs were recorded during two sessions in the summer of 1998 and fall of 1999. Additionally, she performed eleven covers during a Peel session broadcast on June 18, 2000 that included own interpretations of Bob Dylan's "Hard Times in New York Town" and Oasis's "Wonderwall". Her contract with Matador for 2000's The Covers Album reportedly consisted of a Post-it note signed by herself and the company's founder.
During the early-2000s, Marshall was embraced by the fashion industry for her "neo grunge" look, and seen as a muse by designers Marc Jacobs and Nicolas Ghesquière. In 2001 she modeled in New York magazines fall fashion issue and was photographed by her friends Mark Borthwick and Katja Rahlwes, who featured her in Purple magazine alongside Catherine Deneuve.
In February 2003, Marshall released You Are Free, her first album of original material in five years. The album, which featured guest musicians such as Eddie Vedder, Dave Grohl, and Warren Ellis, became the first charting Cat Power album, reaching 105 on the Billboard 200. A music video directed by Brett Vapnek was released for the song "He War". Marshall toured extensively through 2003 and 2004, playing shows in Europe, Brazil, the U.S. and Australia. During this period, Marshall's live performances had become erratic and unpredictable, and a 2003 The New Yorker article suggested: "It is foolhardy to describe a Cat Power event as a concert," citing "rambling confessions" and "[talking] to a friend's baby from the stage." Marshall later attributed this period to a drinking problem. Around the time of the release of You Are Free, Marshall purchased a house in South Beach, Miami.
2004–2011: Mainstream success
In October 2004, Matador released the DVD film Speaking for Trees, which featured a continuous, nearly two-hour static shot of Marshall performing with her guitar in a woodland. The set was accompanied by an audio CD containing the 18-minute song "Willie Deadwilder", featuring M. Ward also on guitar.
On January 22, 2006, Marshall released her seventh album, The Greatest, a Southern soul-influenced album of new material featuring veteran Memphis studio musicians, including Mabon "Teenie" Hodges, Leroy Hodges, David Smith, and Steve Potts. The album debuted at 34 on the Billboard 200 and critics noted its relatively "polished and accessible" sound, predicting it was "going to gain her a lot of new fans." The Greatest met with critical acclaim, and won the 2006 Shortlist Music Prize, making Marshall the first woman to win the honor. It was also named the number 6 best album of 2006 by Rolling Stone Magazine.
Simultaneously, Marshall collaborated with several other musicians on different projects, including Mick Collins on a recording of Ludwig Rellstab's poem "Auf Dem Strom" for the film Wayne County Ramblin; a duet with singer-model Karen Elson on an English cover of Serge Gainsbourg's "Je t'aime... moi non plus" for the tribute album Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited (2007); lead vocals on the Ensemble track "Disown, Delete"; and a reworked version of "Revelations" with Yoko Ono for Ono's 2007 album Yes, I'm a Witch.
In the fall of 2006, Marshall became a celebrity spokesperson for a line of jewelry from Chanel, after being seen by Karl Lagerfeld smoking a cigarette outside the Mercer Hotel in New York. Lagerfeld chose Cat Power for the soundtrack to his spring 2007 fashion show. He also photographed Marshall for a Purple feature.
In 2007, Marshall contributed songs to the soundtrack of Ethan Hawke's film The Hottest State, recording with Jesse Harris and Terry Manning, and the Academy Award-winning film Juno. The same year, she made her feature film debut acting in My Blueberry Nights opposite Jude Law, appearing in a small role. She also appeared in the role of a postal worker in Doug Aitken's MoMA installation Sleepwalkers, which followed the nocturnal lives of five city dwellers. Also in 2007, she featured on Faithless' album track A Kind of Peace.
In January 2008, Marshall released her second covers album, Jukebox. Recorded with her recently assembled "Dirty Delta Blues Band", which consisted of Judah Bauer from the Blues Explosion, Gregg Foreman of The Delta 72, Erik Paparazzi of Lizard Music and Jim White of Dirty Three, the album featured the original song "Song to Bobby", Marshall's tribute to Bob Dylan, and a reworking of the Moon Pix song "Metal Heart". She also collaborated with Beck and producer Danger Mouse on the album Modern Guilt (2008): She contributed backing vocals to two tracks, "Orphans" and "Walls". The album was released in July of that year.
In September 2008, Marshall and members of the Dirty Delta Blues (Erik Paparazzi and Gregg Foreman) recorded their version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" for a Lincoln car commercial. In 2013, Cat Power's version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" was used in Apple's Christmas commercial "Misunderstood". In December 2008, she released Dark End of the Street, an EP consisting of songs left over from the Jukebox sessions. In 2009, she provided backing vocals on Marianne Faithfull's cover of "Hold On, Hold On" by Neko Case on the 2009 album Easy Come Easy Go. In 2011, she also featured as guest vocalist on "Tonight You Belong to Me" on Eddie Vedder's Ukulele Songs.
2012–2018: Sun and Wanderer
In February 2012, Marshall cancelled a scheduled appearance in Tel Aviv, Israel, citing "much confusion" and that she felt "sick in her spirit." She had faced calls to boycott the country over its conflict with Palestine. Two months later, she cancelled her appearance at the Coachella Music Festival, claiming that she "didn't think it was fair to play Coachella while my new album is not yet finished," also hinting that her forthcoming record is "almost done" and will see release later in 2012. Marshall's ninth studio album, Sun, was released in September 2012, after releasing the lead single "Ruin" as a free download the previous June. The album features prominent electronica elements and arrangements, which Marshall incorporated into the "really slow guitar-based songs" she had originally written. In a review published on September 4, 2012, on Consequence of Sound, Sun was praised as a unique album and received a four-star rating. In summation, reviewer Sarah Grant wrote that Marshall's 2012 release is "a passionate pop album of electronic music filtered through a singer-songwriter's soul." The album debuted at a career chart-high of No. 10 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling over 23,000 copies on its opening week.
In July 2015, it was announced that Marshall would be providing narration for the documentary Janis: Little Girl Blue directed by Amy J. Berg, which revolves around the life of Janis Joplin and premiered at the 2015 Venice Film Festival. On television, Marshall starred on China, IL, in the hourlong musical special "Magical Pet". Marshall performs three original songs written by creator Brad Neely.
On July 28, 2017, Marshall announced on Instagram that her tenth studio album was "ready to go", although she did not disclose its title or expected release date.
On March 20, 2018, it was announced that Marshall would perform a Moon Pix 20th anniversary concert at Sydney Opera House, which occurred from May 25 to June 16 and featured album collaborators Jim White and Mick Turner.
On July 18, 2018, Marshall announced her 10th studio album, Wanderer, and shared the title track as an introduction to the album. She released two more singles, "Woman" featuring Lana Del Rey on August 15 and a cover of Rihanna's "Stay" on September 18, before the album was released on October 5, 2018, through Domino Recording Company. It was her first to not be released on Matador Records since 1996. According to Marshall, Matador were not happy with the recordings for Wanader, they wanted her to rerecord it and make it sound more commercial. She embarked on a world tour in promotion of the album in September.
Power embarked on a US arena tour in August 2021 supporting Alanis Morissette and Garbage. She was a last-minute addition to the lineup, after original opening act Liz Phair canceled her appearances. Power contributed four new songs to the soundtrack of the 2021 film Flag Day. Her eleventh studio album, Covers, was released on January 14, 2022, and will be supported by a US tour.
Personal life
In 2005, Marshall entered a relationship with actor Giovanni Ribisi, and resided with Ribisi and his daughter in Los Angeles. They also had a rental house in Malibu where she had a studio. Following the release of The Greatest, Marshall canceled her impending spring 2006 tour, and used the hiatus to recover from mental health issues. As part of her recovery, she was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute, leaving after a week. Marshall gave a first person account of her breakdown in an interview for the November 2006 issue of Spin.
In June 2012, it was reported that Marshall had ended her relationship with Ribisi, and the completion of her upcoming record had coincided with their breakup: "I cut my hair off three days [after the breakup], got on a plane to France, and finished the shit." Shortly after the release of Sun, Marshall began having trouble breathing and was hospitalized multiple times, though doctors were unable to diagnose her. "I thought I was dying," she recounted. "They told me they were going to put me in a coma to save my lungs. My friend came to visit and told me I'd made the Billboard Top 10 and all I could think was: 'I don't want to die.'" Marshall was subsequently diagnosed with hereditary angioedema, an immune disorder that causes sporadic swelling of the face and throat due to C1 esterase inhibitor deficiency. In September 2012, she stated she had been hospitalized due to the condition over eight times, which led her to cancel her European tour.
In April 2015, Marshall announced that she had recently given birth to a son, but did not name the child's father.
Artistry
Musical style
Marshall's releases as Cat Power have frequently been noted by critics for their somber, blues-influenced instrumentation and melancholy lyrics, leading LA Weekly to dub her the "queen of sadcore". Marshall, however, claims her music is often misinterpreted, and that many of her songs are "not sad, [but] triumphant." She has recounted blues, old soul music, British rock 'n' roll, as well as hymns and gospel music as being integral influences on her.
Cat Power's early releases have been described as blending elements of punk, folk, and blues, while her later releases (post-2000) began to incorporate more sophisticated arrangements and production. The Greatest (2006), Marshall's seventh release, was heavily soul-influenced and incorporated R&B elements; the Memphis Rhythm Band provided backing instrumentation on the album. Unlike her previous releases, which featured sparse guitar and piano arrangements, The Greatest was described by Marshall biographer Sarah Goodman as her first "full-blown studio record with sophisticated production and senior players backing [Marshall] up."
Performances
Marshall's live shows have been known for their unpolished and often erratic nature, with songs beginning and ending abruptly or blending into one another without clear transitions. She has also cut short performances without explanation. On some occasions this has been attributed to stage fright and the influence of alcohol. Marshall spoke openly about suffering from severe bouts of stage fright, specifically in her early career, and admitted that her stage fright stemmed from issues regarding depression, alcoholism, and substance abuse.
By 2006, she had found new collaborators and had stopped drinking. Marshall's performance style became more enthusiastic and professional; a review in Salon noted that she was "delivering onstage", and called The Greatest "polished and sweetly upbeat".
Philanthropy
A live version of the gospel song "Amazing Grace"—culled from a performance with the Dirty Delta Blues band—was released on the charity compilation Dark Was the Night. Released by independent British label 4AD on February 17, 2009, the set benefited the Red Hot Organization, an international charity dedicated to raising funds and awareness for HIV and AIDS. She also appeared in a PETA ad, encouraging people to spay and neuter their pets.
On December 25, 2011, Marshall released a reworking of the What Would the Community Think track "King Rides By" for download from her official website, with all proceeds from sales of the track being donated to The Festival of Children Foundation and The Ali Forney Center. A music video directed by Giovanni Ribisi and featuring Filipino boxer and politician Manny Pacquiao was released to promote the song.
Discography
Studio albums
Dear Sir (1995)
Myra Lee (1996)
What Would the Community Think (1996)
Moon Pix (1998)
The Covers Record (2000)
You Are Free (2003)
The Greatest (2006)
Jukebox (2008)
Sun (2012)
Wanderer (2018)
Covers (2022)
Filmography
Awards and nominations
Won: Shortlist Music Prize for The Greatest
Nominated: Best International Female Solo Artist, 2007 BRIT Awards
Nominated: Best Art Vinyl for Jukebox
Nominated: Best International Female Solo Artist, 2013 BRIT Awards
Nominated: Best Cinematography for "Where Is My Love?", 2007 Antville Music Video Awards
Nominated: Comeback of the Year, 2018 Rober Awards Music Prize
Nominated: Best Foreign Solo Act, Wanderer Best Foreign Album, 2019 Sweden GAFFA Awards
Nominated: Best Pop Video - International for "Go Up", 2017 UK Music Video Awards
References
Sources
External links
1972 births
American alternative rock musicians
American women singer-songwriters
American women rock singers
Living people
Alternative rock singers
Alternative rock guitarists
Alternative rock pianists
Guitarists from Georgia (U.S. state)
Winners of the Shortlist Music Prize
Musicians from Atlanta
People from Prosperity, South Carolina
21st-century American women guitarists
21st-century American guitarists
20th-century American women guitarists
20th-century American guitarists
21st-century American women pianists
21st-century American pianists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American women singers
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
Singer-songwriters from South Carolina
Singer-songwriters from Georgia (U.S. state) | false | [
"Do You Know What I'm Going To Do Next Saturday? is a 1963 children's book published by Beginner Books and written by Helen Palmer Geisel, the first wife of Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss). Unlike most of the Beginner Books, Do You Know What I'm Going To Do Next Saturday? did not follow the format of text with inline drawings, being illustrated with black-and-white photographs by Lynn Fayman, featuring a boy named Rawli Davis. It is sometimes misattributed to Dr. Seuss himself. The book's cover features a photograph of a young boy sitting at a breakfast table with a huge pile of pancakes.\n\nActivities mentioned in the book include bowling, water skiing, marching, boxing, and shooting guns with the United States Marines, and eating more spaghetti \"than anyone else has eaten before.\n\nHelen Palmer's photograph-based children's books did not prove to be as popular as the more traditional text-and-illustrations format; however, Do You Know What I'm Going To Do Next Saturday received positive reviews and was listed by The New York Times as one of the best children's books of 1963. The book is currently out of print.\n\nReferences\n\n1963 children's books\nAmerican picture books",
"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"
] |
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