Grant Lyons | |
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Born | 1941 |
Grant Lyons (born 1941) is an American writer. He was born in Butler, Pennsylvania, but grew up in Port Arthur, Texas. While attending Thomas Jefferson High School in Port Arthur, Lyons and a group of male friends befriended Janis Joplin, who was otherwise an outcast in school. As documented in all biographies of Janis Joplin, he was the person who played Janis her first Lead Belly record, [1] which is considered a formative influence on her style of singing. He attended Tulane University on a football scholarship, and he has a master's degree in Library Science as well as in History. Lyons is also the grandson of Captain Ulysses Grant Lyons, who ran and was briefly pronounced winner of a U.S. House of Representatives seat, before Earl Beshlin was eventually named the winner.
Lyons published primarily children's nonfiction books, most of which focused on North American Indian tribes and all of which were published by the now defunct publisher Julian Messener. [2] His earliest book was Tales That People Tell In Mexico (1972), and later ones include Andy Jackson and the battles for New Orleans (1976), The Creek Indians (1978), Mustangs, Six Shooters, and Barbed Wire: How the West Was Really Won (1981), and Pacific Coast Indians of North America (1983). [3]
Lyons has also written fiction for adults. His most significant publication to date was the anthology called 4-4-4 (1977), in which four of his short stories appeared in a book with four short stories by Laurence Gonzales and four short stories by Roger Rath, published by the University of Missouri Press [4] Lyons has had short stories published in Cimarron Review, Confrontation, Negative Capability, Northwest Review, Redbook, and Seattle Review.
Lyons was also a teacher and librarian at Keystone School for many years, and currently lives in San Antonio, Texas, with his wife Bonnie Lyons.
Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer and songwriter. One of the most iconic and successful rock performers of her era, she was noted for her powerful mezzo-soprano vocals, as well as her "electric" stage presence.
Scott Joplin was an American composer and pianist. Dubbed the "King of Ragtime", he composed more than 40 ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. One of his first and most popular pieces, the "Maple Leaf Rag", became the genre's first and most influential hit, later being recognized as the quintessential rag. Joplin considered ragtime to be a form of classical music meant to be played in concert halls and largely disdained the performance of ragtime as honky tonk music most common in saloons.
Michael Swanwick is an American fantasy and science fiction author who began publishing in the early 1980s.
The Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad was a Class I railroad company in the United States, with its last headquarters in Dallas, Texas. Established in 1865 under the name Union Pacific Railroad (UP), Southern Branch, it came to serve an extensive rail network in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri. In 1988, it merged with the Missouri Pacific Railroad; today, it is part of UP.
Jean Margaret Laurence was a Canadian novelist and short story writer, and is one of the major figures in Canadian literature. She was also a founder of the Writers' Trust of Canada, a non-profit literary organization that seeks to encourage Canada's writing community.
Gilbert Shelton is an American cartoonist and a key member of the underground comix movement. He is the creator of the iconic underground characters The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Fat Freddy's Cat, and Wonder Wart-Hog.
Katherine Anne Porter was an American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, poet and political activist. Her 1962 novel Ship of Fools was the best-selling novel in America that year, but her short stories received much more critical acclaim. In 1966 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the U.S. National Book Award for The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter.
Chester Leo "Chet" Helms, often called the father of San Francisco's 1967 "Summer of Love," was a music promoter and a counterculture figure in San Francisco during its hippie period in the mid- to-late 1960s.
G. W. Bailey is an American actor. Although he has appeared in many dramatic roles, he may be best remembered for his "crusty" comedic characters such as Staff Sergeant Luther Rizzo in M*A*S*H ; Lieutenant/Captain Thaddeus Harris in the Police Academy films (1984–1994), and Captain Felix Maxwell in Mannequin (1987). He played the role of Detective Lieutenant Louie Provenza on TNT's television crime drama The Closer, and its spinoff series Major Crimes, from 2005 to 2018.
Danny Lyon is an American photographer and filmmaker.
John Stillwell Stark was an American publisher of ragtime music, best known for publishing and promoting the music of Scott Joplin.
David Bergen is a Canadian novelist. He has published eleven novels and two collections of short stories since 1993 and is currently based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. His 2005 novel The Time in Between won the Scotiabank Giller Prize and he was a finalist again in 2010 and 2020, making the long list in 2008.
Events from the year 1837 in the United States.
Douglas Clark is an American sculptor. Native to Edna, Texas, he grew up near Port Arthur. He resides in McAllen, Texas, where, in an old church, he researches and creates representational pieces in bronze.
Daniel Alarcón is a Peruvian-American novelist, journalist and radio producer. He is co-founder, host and executive producer of Radio Ambulante, an award-winning Spanish language podcast distributed by NPR. Currently, he is an assistant professor of broadcast journalism at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and writes about Latin America for The New Yorker.
Janis is a collection of performances by Janis Joplin, issued in 1975 as a compilation album containing film soundtrack and live recordings. Disc one is subtitled "From the soundtrack of the motion picture Janis ". In addition to concert recordings from Toronto and Frankfurt, there are several short TV-interviews. Disc two contains recordings from Austin, Texas, plus four recordings from San Francisco (1965). The album booklet contains a photo documentary, with 22 pictures from Janis Joplin's life and career.
Janis is a 1974 Canadian-American documentary film about the rock singer Janis Joplin. The film was directed by Howard Alk with much assistance from Albert Grossman, Joplin's manager. It was available on videocassette in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s, but DVD versions have been released only in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. In late 2011, it was added to Hulu's movie collection for online viewing. Part of the film soundtrack is included on the 1975 album Janis.
William Neal Harrison was an American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter.
A Night with Janis Joplin is a musical that includes works of singer-songwriter Janis Joplin (1943–1970). Written and directed by Randy Johnson, the show has toured consistently since 2011, with a forthcoming stint at the Peacock Theatre in London beginning on August 20, 2024.
Roy Wolper is an American scholar and writer. A full-time professor at Temple University from 1967 to 1998, and a writer of fiction, he co-founded The Scriblerian and the Kit-Cats, a review journal for English literature, and served as its editor for nearly fifty years.
Grant Lyons.