Rita Hayworth

Rita Hayworth (born Margarita Carmen Cansino; October 17, 1918 – May 14, 1987) was an American film actress and dancer who attained fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars. She appeared in 61 films over 37 years[1] and is listed as one of the American Film Institute's Greatest Stars of All Time. Hayworth was born in Brooklyn, New York as Margarita Carmen Cansino, the daughter of Spanish dancer Eduardo Cansino, Sr.[2] and Volga Hayworth, a dancer of Irish and English descent, who had performed with the Ziegfeld Follies.[3] The Catholic couple married in 1917 and had two boys after Margarita, Eduardo, Jr. and Vernon. [4][3] Rita's father wanted her to become a professional dancer while her mother hoped she would become an actress.[5] Her grandfather, Antonio Cansino, was the most renowned exponent in his day of Spain's classical dances; he popularised the bolero. His dancing school in Madrid was world famous.[6] Rita recalled, "From the time I was three and a half,... as soon as I could stand on my own feet, I was given dance lessons."[7]"I didn't like it very much,... but I didn't have the courage to tell my father, so I began taking the lessons. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, that was my girlhood."[8] She attended dance classes every day for a few years in a Carnegie Hall complex under the instruction of her uncle, Angel Cansino, performing publicly from the age of six. [3] In 1926, she featured in La Fiesta, a short film for Warner Bros..[3]

In 1927, when Hayworth was eight years old, the family moved to Hollywood. Her father was convinced there was a great future for dancing in the movies and that his family could be part of it. He established his own dance studio [3] and Hollywood luminaries, including James Cagney and Jean Harlow received specialized training from him.[citation needed] During the Great Depression the family's investments were wiped out. Musicals were no longer in vogue and commercial interest in her father's dancing classes waned. Hayworth partnered with her father to form "The Dancing Cansinos". Since Hayworth was not of legal age to work in nightclubs and bars according to California state law, she and her father traveled across the border to the city of Tijuana in Mexico, a popular tourist spot for Los Angeles citizens in the early 1930s.[3] Due to her work schedule, Hayworth did not finish high school but completed ninth grade at Hamilton High, in Los Angeles. She took a bit part in the films Cruz Diablo (1934) which led to another in In Caliente (1935) with Mexican actress Dolores del Río.[3] Hayworth danced in such nightspots as the Foreign Club and the Caliente Club and was at the Caliente Club where she was seen by the head of the Fox Film Corporation, Winfield Sheehan. A week later, Hayworth did a screen test for Fox. Impressed by her screen persona, Sheehan signed her for a short-term six-month contract, under the name of Rita Cansino. 

Rita Hayworth lapsed into a semicoma in February 1987. She died a few months later on May 14, 1987, aged 68 from Alzheimer's disease in her Manhattan apartment. A funeral service for Hayworth was held on May 19, 1987 at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills.[52] Pallbearers included actors Ricardo Montalbán, Glenn Ford, Don Ameche and choreographer Hermes Pan. She was interred in Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City. Her headstone includes the inscription: "To yesterday's companionship and tomorrow's reunion." "Rita Hayworth was one of our country's most beloved stars", said President Ronald Reagan, who had been an actor at the same time as Hayworth and would himself fall victim to Alzheimer's. "Glamorous and talented, she gave us many wonderful moments on stage and screen and delighted audiences from the time she was a young girl. In her later years, Rita became known for her struggle with Alzheimer's disease. Her courage and candor, and that of her family, were a great public service in bringing worldwide attention to a disease which we all hope will soon be cured. Nancy and I are saddened by Rita's death. She was a friend who we will miss. We extend our deep sympathy to her family."[ Awards Hayworth appeared with John Wayne in Circus World (1964) (U.K. title: Magnificent Showman), for which she received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama, her only notable-award nod.[citation needed] In 1977, Hayworth was the recipient of the National Screen Heritage Award. Despite appearing in 61 films over 37 years,[1] including leading roles in successful films like Gilda, she never received an Academy Award nomination. Hayworth is included as one of the American Film Institute's Greatest Stars of All Time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rita_Hayworth

Chuck Berry

Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry (born October 18, 1926) is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958), Chuck Berry refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive, with lyrics focusing on teen life and consumerism and utilizing guitar solos and showmanship that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music.^[1]

Born into a middle class family in St. Louis, Missouri, Berry had an interest in music from an early age and gave his first public performance at Sumner High School. While still a high school student he served a prison sentence for armed robbery between 1944 and 1947. On his release, Berry settled into married life and worked at an automobile assembly plant. By early 1953, influenced by the guitar riffs and showmanship techniques of blues player T-Bone Walker, he was performing in the evenings with the Johnnie Johnson Trio.^[2] His break came when he traveled to Chicago in May 1955, and met Muddy Waters, who suggested he contact Leonard Chess of Chess Records. With Chess he recorded "Maybellene"—Berry's adaptation of the country song "Ida Red"—which sold over a million copies, reaching #1 on Billboard's Rhythm and Blues chart. By the end of the 1950s, Berry was an established star with several hit records and film appearances to his name as well as a lucrative touring career. He had also established his own St. Louis-based nightclub, called Berry's Club Bandstand. But in January 1962, Berry was sentenced to three years in prison for offenses under the Mann Act—he had transported a 14-year-old girl across state lines.

After his release in 1963, Berry had several more hits, including "No Particular Place To Go", "You Never Can Tell", and "Nadine", but these did not achieve the same success, or lasting impact, of his 1950s songs, and by the 1970s he was more in demand as a nostalgic live performer, playing his past hits with local backup bands of variable quality.^[2] His insistence on being paid cash led to a jail sentence in 1979—four months and community service for tax evasion.

Berry was among the first musicians to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on its opening in 1986, with the comment that he "laid the groundwork for not only a rock and roll sound but a rock and roll stance."^[5] Berry is included in several Rolling Stone "Greatest of All Time" lists, including being ranked fifth on their 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.^[6] The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll included three of Chuck Berry's songs: "Johnny B. Goode", "Maybellene", and "Rock and Roll Music".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Berry

Etta James

Etta James (born Jamesetta Hawkins; January 25, 1938 – January 20, 2012) was an American singer whose style spanned a variety of music genres including blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, soul, gospel and jazz. Starting her career in the mid-1950s, she gained fame with hits such as "Dance With Me, Henry", "At Last", "Tell Mama", and "I'd Rather Go Blind" for which she claimed she wrote the lyrics.^[1] She faced a number of personal problems, including drug addiction, before making a musical resurgence in the late 1980s with the album The Seven Year Itch.^[2]

James is regarded as having bridged the gap between rhythm and blues and rock and roll, and is the winner of six Grammys and 17 Blues Music Awards. She was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, the Blues Hall of Fame in 2001, and the Grammy Hall of Fame in both 1999 and 2008.^[3] Rolling Stone ranked James number 22 on their list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time and number 62 on the list of the 100 Greatest Artists.^[4][5]

Personal life

James encountered a string of legal problems during the early 1970s due to her heroin addiction. She was continuously in and out of rehabilitation centers, including the Tarzana Rehabilitation Center, in Los Angeles, California. Her husband Artis Mills, whom she married in 1969, accepted responsibility when they were both arrested for heroin possession and served a 10-year prison sentence.^[40] He was released from prison in 1982 and was still married to James at her death.^[17] She was also arrested around the same time for her drug addiction, accused of cashing bad checks, forgery and possession of heroin.^[41] In 1974, James was sentenced to drug treatment instead of serving time in prison. She was in the Tarzana Psychiatric Hospital for 17 months, at age 36, and went through a great struggle at the start of treatment. She later stated in her autobiography that the time she spent in the hospital changed her life. However, after leaving treatment, her substance abuse continued into the 1980s, after she developed a relationship with a man who was also using drugs. In 1988, at the age of 50, she entered the Betty Ford Center, in Palm Springs, California, for treatment.^[17] In 2010, she received treatment for a dependency on painkillers.^[42]

James had two sons, Donto and Sametto. Both started performing with their mother in 2003—Donto on drums and Sametto on bass guitar.^[43]

Beyonce as Etta James in "Cadillac Records" movie

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1042877/

 

Awards

From 1989, James received over 30 awards and recognitions from eight different organizations, including the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences which organizes the Grammys.

In 1989, the newly formed Rhythm and Blues Foundation included James in their first Pioneer Awards for artists whose "lifelong contributions have been instrumental in the development of Rhythm & Blues music".^[44] The following year, 1990, she received an NAACP Image Award, which is given for "outstanding achievements and performances of people of color in the arts";^[45] an award she cherished as it "was coming from my own people".^[46]

• 1993, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
• 2001, Rockabilly Hall of Fame
• 2003, Hollywood Chamber of Commerce Hollywood Walk of Fame, star at 7080 Hollywood Blvd, and Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) Lifetime Achievement Award^[47]
• 2006, Billboard R&B Founders Award^[48]

Grammys

The Grammy Awards are awarded annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. James has received six Grammy Awards. Her first was in 1994, when she was awarded Best Jazz Vocal Performance for the album Mystery Lady, which consisted of covers of Billie Holiday songs.^[49] Two other albums have also won awards, Let's Roll (Best Contemporary Blues Album) in 2003, and Blues to the Bone (Best Traditional Blues Album) in 2004. Two of her early songs have been given Grammy Hall of Fame Awards for "qualitative or historical significance": "At Last", in 1999,^[50] and "The Wallflower (Dance with Me, Henry)" in 2008.^[51] In 2003, she was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.^[52]

Blues Foundation

The members of the Blues Foundation, a non-profit organization set up in Memphis, Tennessee, to foster the blues and its heritage,^[53] have nominated James for a Blues Music Award nearly every year since its founding in 1980; and she has received some form of Blues Female Artist of the Year award 14 times since 1989, continuously from 1999 to 2007.^[54] In addition, the albums Life, Love, & The Blues (1999), Burnin' Down The House (2003), and Let's Roll (2004) were awarded Soul/Blues Album of the Year,^[54] and in 2001 she was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.^[49]
  

Illness and death

James was hospitalized in January 2010 to treat an infection caused by MRSA, a bacterium that is resistant to most antibiotic treatment. During her hospitalization, her son Donto revealed that James had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2008, and attributed her previous comments about Beyoncé Knowles to "drug induced dementia".^[36]
She was diagnosed with leukemia in early 2011. The illness became terminal and she died on January 20, 2012, just five days before her 74th birthday, at Riverside Community Hospital in Riverside, California.^[37] The funeral, presided by Reverend Al Sharpton, took place in Gardena, California on January 28, 2012. Singers Stevie Wonder and Christina Aguilera each gave a musical tribute.^[38][39]
She died just three days after Johnny Otis, the man who discovered her in the 1950's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etta_James

 

Jerry Lee Lewis

Jerry Lee Lewis (born September 29, 1935) is an American rock and roll and country music singer-songwriter and pianist. He is known by the nickname 'The Killer'. An early pioneer of rock and roll music, Lewis had hits in the late 1950s with songs such as "Great Balls of Fire", "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On", "Breathless" and "High School Confidential". Lewis's career soon faltered after he married his young cousin. He didn't have much success in the charts following the scandal until his popularity recovered in the late '60s after making a career extension to country and western music with songs such as "Another Place, Another Time". More country hits soon followed over the late 1960s and through the 1970s. Lewis's successes continued throughout the decade and he embraced his rock and roll past with songs such as "Chantilly Lace" and "Rockin' My Life Away". In the 21st century Lewis continues to tour to audiences around the world and still releases new albums one of which, titled Last Man Standing is his best selling to date at over a million copies sold worldwide.

Lewis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, and his pioneering contribution to the genre has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. In 2003, Rolling Stone Magazine listed his box set All Killer, No Filler: The Anthology number 242 on their list of "500 greatest albums of all time".^[1] In 2004, they ranked him number 24 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.^[2] His live album Live at the Star Club, Hamburg is often regarded by many music journalists and fans as one of the wildest and greatest rock and roll concert albums ever. In 2008, he was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame.

Jerry Lee Lewis is one of the last surviving pioneers of '50s rock and roll music and the last remaining member of Sun Records Million Dollar Quartet and Class of 55 which altogether included Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison and Elvis Presley, as well as Lewis himself.

Lewis was born to the poor family of Elmo and Mamie Lewis in Ferriday in Concordia Parish in eastern Louisiana, and began playing piano in his youth with two cousins, Mickey Gilley and Jimmy Swaggart. His parents mortgaged their farm to buy him a piano. Influenced by a piano-playing older cousin, Carl McVoy (who later recorded with Bill Black's Combo), the radio, and the sounds from the black juke joint across the tracks, Haney's Big House,^[3] Lewis main influence growing up was Moon Mullican.^[4]

His mother enrolled him in Southwest Bible Institute in Waxahachie, Texas, so that her son would be exclusively singing his evangelical songs. But Lewis daringly played a boogie woogie rendition of "My God Is Real" at a church assembly that sent him packing the same night. Pearry Green, then president of the student body, related how during a talent show Lewis played some "worldly" music. The next morning, the dean of the school called Lewis and Green into his office to expel them. Lewis said that Green should not be expelled because "he didn't know what I was going to do." Years later Green asked Lewis: "Are you still playing the devil's music?" Lewis replied "Yes, I am. But you know it's strange, the same music that they kicked me out of school for is the same kind of music they play in their churches today. The difference is, I know I am playing for the devil and they don't."

After that incident, he went home and started playing at clubs in and around Ferriday and Natchez, Mississippi, becoming part of the burgeoning new rock and roll sound and cutting his first demo recording in 1954. He made a trip to Nashville circa 1955 where he played clubs and attempted to build interest, but was turned down by the Grand Ole Opry as he had been at the Louisiana Hayride country stage and radio show in Shreveport. Recording executives in Nashville suggested he switch to playing a guitar.

Lewis traveled to Memphis, Tennessee in November 1956, to audition for Sun Records. Label owner Sam Phillips was in Florida, but producer and engineer Jack Clement recorded Lewis's rendition of Ray Price's "Crazy Arms" and his own composition "End of The Road". During December 1956, Lewis began recording prolifically, as a solo artist and as a session musician for such Sun artists as Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash. His distinctive piano can be heard on many tracks recorded at Sun during late 1956 and early 1957, including Carl Perkins' "Matchbox", "Your True Love", "You Can Do No Wrong", and "Put Your Cat Clothes On", and Billy Lee Riley's "Flyin' Saucers Rock'n'Roll". Formerly, rockabilly had rarely featured piano, but it proved an influential addition and rockabilly artists on other labels also started working with pianists.

On December 4, 1956, Elvis Presley dropped in on Phillips to pay a social visit while Perkins was in the studio cutting new tracks with Lewis backing him on piano. Johnny Cash was also there watching Perkins. The four started an impromptu jam session, and Phillips left the tape running. These recordings, almost half of which were gospel songs, survived, and have been released on CD under the title Million Dollar Quartet. Tracks also include Elvis Presley's "Don't Be Cruel" and "Paralyzed", Chuck Berry's "Brown Eyed Handsome Man", Pat Boone's "Don't Forbid Me" and Presley doing an impersonation of Jackie Wilson (who was then with Billy Ward and the Dominoes) on "Don't Be Cruel".

Great Balls of Fire 1989

 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097457/

Lewis's own singles (on which he was billed as "Jerry Lee Lewis and his Pumping Piano") advanced his career as a soloist during 1957, with hits such as "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" and "Great Balls of Fire", his biggest hit, bringing him international fame, despite criticism for the songs' overtly sexual undertones which prompted some radio stations to boycott them. In 2005, "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" was selected for permanent preservation in the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress.

According to several first hand sources, including Johnny Cash, Lewis himself, who was devoutly Christian, was also troubled by the sinful nature of his own material, which he firmly believed was leading himself and his audience to hell.^[5] This aspect of Lewis's character was depicted in Waylon Payne's portrayal of Lewis in the 2005 film Walk the Line, based on Cash's autobiographies.

Lewis would often kick the piano bench aside and play standing, rake his hands up and down the keyboard for dramatic accent, sit on the keyboard and even stand on top of the instrument. His first TV appearance, in which he demonstrated some of these moves, was on The Steve Allen Show on July 28, 1957, where he played the song "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin On".^[6][7] It is widely believed that he once set fire to a piano at the end of a live performance, in protest at being billed below Chuck Berry.^{[citation needed]} but he is quoted in an online article in Esquire Magazine as saying "I never set fire to a piano. I'd like to have got away with it, though. I pushed a couple of them in the river. They wasn't any good."

His dynamic performance style can be seen in films such as High School Confidential (he sang the title song from the back of a flatbed truck), and Jamboree. He has been called "rock & roll's first great wild man" and also "rock & roll's first great eclectic."^[8] Classical composer Michael Nyman has also cited Lewis's style as the progenitor of his own aesthetic.^[9]

Marriage to minor

Lewis's turbulent personal life was hidden from the public until a May 1958 British tour where Ray Berry, a news agency reporter at London's Heathrow Airport (the only journalist present), learned about Lewis's third wife, Myra Gale Brown. She was Lewis's first cousin once removed^[10][11] and only 13 years old. (Brown, Lewis, and his management all insisted she was 15). Lewis was nearly 23 years old. The publicity caused an uproar and the tour was cancelled after only three concerts.

The scandal followed Lewis home to America, and as a result, he was blacklisted from radio and almost vanished from the music scene. Lewis felt betrayed by numerous people who had been his supporters. Dick Clark dropped him from his shows. Lewis even felt that Sam Phillips had sold him out when the Sun Records boss released "The Return of Jerry Lee", a bogus "interview" cut together by Jack Clement from excerpts of Lewis's songs, which made light of his marital and publicity problems. Only Alan Freed stayed true to Jerry Lee Lewis, playing his records until Freed was removed from the air because of payola allegations.

Jerry Lee Lewis was still under contract with Sun Records, and kept recording, regularly releasing singles. He had gone from $10,000 a night concerts to $250 a night spots in beer joints and small clubs. He had few friends at the time whom he felt he could trust. It was only through Kay Martin, the president of Lewis's fan club, T. L. Meade, (aka Franz Douskey) a sometime Memphis musician and friend of Sam Phillips, and Gary Skala, that Lewis went back to record at Sun Records.^[when?]

By this time,^[when?] Phillips had built a new state-of-the-art studio at 639 Madison Avenue in Memphis, thus abandoning the old Union Avenue studio where Phillips had recorded B.B. King, Howlin' Wolf, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Lewis, Johnny Cash and others, and also opened a studio in Nashville. It was at the latter studio that Lewis recorded his only major hit during this period, a rendition of Ray Charles' "What'd I Say" in 1961. In Europe other updated versions of "Sweet Little Sixteen" (September 1962 UK) and "Good Golly Miss Molly" (March 1963) entered the Hit Parade. On popular EPs, "Hang Up My Rock and Roll Shoes", "I've Been Twistin'", "Money" and "Hello Josephine" also became turntable hits, especially in nascent discothèques. Another recording of Lewis playing an instrumental boogie arrangement of the Glenn Miller Orchestra favorite "In the Mood", was issued on the Phillips International label under the pseudonym of "The Hawk," but disc jockeys quickly figured out the distinctive piano style, and this gambit failed.

Lewis's Sun recording contract ended in 1963 and he joined Smash Records, where he made a number of rock recordings that did not further his career.

His popularity recovered somewhat in Europe, especially in the UK and Germany, during the mid-1960s. A concert album, Live at the Star Club, Hamburg (1964), recorded with The Nashville Teens, is widely considered one of the greatest live rock and roll albums ever.^{[12][13][14][15][16][17]} Music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine writes: "Live at the Star Club is extraordinary, the purest, hardest rock & roll ever committed to record."

Family

Lewis has been married six times.^[18] His first marriage, to Dorothy Barton, lasted for 20 months, from February 1952 to October 1953 (although there is a possibility that Lewis may have married Barton earlier than 1952). In a 1978 People magazine interview Lewis stated "I was 14 when I first got married. My wife was too old for me; she was 17."^[19] His second marriage, to Jane Mitchum, was of dubious validity because it occurred 23 days before his divorce from Barton was final. They were married for four years, from September 1953 to October 1957, and had two children. He then married Myra Gale Brown in December 1957. The couple went through a second marriage ceremony because his divorce from Jane Mitchum was not complete before the first ceremony took place. Lewis and Myra had two children and were divorced in December 1970 after 13 years of marriage. Lewis's fourth marriage was to Jaren Elizabeth Gunn Pate, and ended when she drowned in the swimming pool at their home. They were married for 12 years, from October 1971 to August 1983.^{[clarification needed]} His fifth wife was Shawn Stephens. This marriage ended with her death from a methadone overdose. They were married for three months, from June to August 1984. His sixth marriage was to Kerrie McCarver, with whom he had one child. This marriage lasted 20 years and ended in divorce in 2004.

Lewis has had at least four children. Two additional people have claimed to be his children, but they had no proof. In 1962, his son Steve Allen Lewis drowned in a swimming pool accident when he was three, and in 1973, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jr., died at the age of 19^[19][20] when he overturned the Jeep he was driving.^[19] His current living children are a son, Jerry Lee Lewis III, and a daughter, Phoebe Allan Lewis.

Hits and awards

Between 1957 and 2006, the date of his release "Last Man Standing", 47 singles plus 22 albums (The Session counted as 2 albums) made the Top Twenty Pop, Jukebox, Rock, Indie and/or Country charts in US or UK. Fourteen^{[clarification needed]} reached the number 1 position. He's had ten official gold disks, the latest being for the 2006 album 'Last Man Standing', plus unofficial ones issued by his record company Mercury for albums which sold over a quarter of a million copies. His 2006 duets CD Last Man Standing has sold over half a million worldwide, his biggest selling album ever. Jerry Lee Lewis is also among the Top 50 all-time Billboard Country artists. It is also rumored that the soundtrack album to the movie, Great Balls Of Fire, has now sold over a million copies. The original Sun cut of "Great Balls of Fire" was elected to the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998, and Jerry's Sun recording of "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin On" received this honor in 1999. Only recordings which are at least 25 years old and have left a lasting impression can receive this honor. Along with Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Roy Orbison, Jerry received a Grammy in the spoken word category for the very rare album of interviews released with some early copies of The Class of 55 album in 1986. On February 12, 2005, Jerry received the Recording Academy's Lifetime Achievement Award the day before the Recording Academy's main Grammy Awards ceremony, which he also attended, picture below. On October 10, 2007, Jerry received the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame's American Music Masters Award. His newest album, Mean Old Man was released in September 2010 and reached Billboard's 200 album chart at #30.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Lee_Lewis

 The Official Jerry Lee Lewis Website