William Christopher Handy was a composer and musician who referred to himself as the Father of the Blues. Handy was one of the most influential songwriters in the United States. One of many musicians who played the distinctively American blues music, Handy did not create the blues genre but was the first to publish music in the blues form, thereby taking the blues from a regional music style with a limited audience to a new level of popularity.
Mae West was an American stage and film actress, playwright, screenwriter, singer, and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned over seven decades. She was known for her breezy sexual independence, and her lighthearted bawdy double entendres, often delivered in a husky contralto voice. She was active in vaudeville and on stage in New York City before moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the film industry.
Shelton Brooks was a Canadian-born African American composer of popular music and jazz. He was known for his ragtime and vaudeville style, and wrote some of the biggest hits of the first third of the 20th century.
Willie Mae Thornton, better known as Big Mama Thornton, was an American rhythm-and-blues singer and songwriter. She was the first to record Leiber and Stoller's "Hound Dog", in 1952, which became her biggest hit, staying seven weeks at number one on the Billboard R&B chart in 1953 and selling almost two million copies. Thornton's other recordings included the original version of "Ball and Chain", which she wrote.
Easy rider is an archaic United States slang expression whose meaning has varied with time.
Bobbie Robinson was an American independent record producer and songwriter in New York City, most active from the 1950s through the mid-1980s.
Little is known about the exact origin of the music now known as the blues. No specific year can be cited as the origin of the blues, largely because the style evolved over a long period and existed in approaching its modern form before the term blues was introduced and before the style was thoroughly documented. Ethnomusicologist Gerhard Kubik traces the roots of many of the elements that were to develop into the blues back to the African continent, the "cradle of the blues". One important early mention of something closely resembling the blues comes from 1901, when an archaeologist in Mississippi described the songs of black workers which had lyrical themes and technical elements in common with the blues.
"Sugar Blues" is a song written in 1919 by Clarence Williams with words by Lucy Fletcher. It was recorded for the first time by Leona Williams and her Dixie Band in August 1922. Sara Martin recorded it with Williams at the piano later that year. It was later recorded by Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, Fats Waller, and Ella Fitzgerald with Chick Webb and his Orchestra (1939) and others.
Julien R. Leparoux is a French Eclipse Award winning jockey currently racing in the United States. He has won seven Breeders' Cup races, including the 2015 Breeders' Cup Mile with Champion Turf Mare Tepin and the 2016 Breeders' Cup Juvenile with Classic Empire.
Dirty blues encompasses forms of blues music that deal with socially taboo and obscene subjects, often referencing sexual acts and drug use. Due to the sometimes graphic subject matter, such music was often banned from radio and only available on a jukebox. The style was most popular in the years before World War II, although it had a revival in the 1960s.
"See See Rider", also known as "C.C. Rider", "See See Rider Blues" or "Easy Rider", is a popular American 12-bar blues song that became a standard in several genres. Gertrude "Ma" Rainey was the first to record it on October 16, 1924, at Paramount Records in New York. The song uses mostly traditional blues lyrics to tell the story of an unfaithful lover, commonly called an "easy rider": "See see rider, see what you have done", making a play on the word "see" and the sound of "easy".
Louis Armstrong Plays W. C. Handy is a 1954 studio release by Louis Armstrong and His All Stars, described by Allmusic as "Louis Armstrong's finest record of the 1950s" and "essential music for all serious jazz collections". Columbia CD released the album on CD in 1986 in a much altered form, with alternative versions in place of many of the original songs, but restored the original with its 1997 re-issue, which also included additional tracks: a brief interview by the producer, George Avakian, with W. C. Handy; a joke told by Louis Armstrong; and several rehearsal versions of the songs.
Hitstory is compilation album by American singer and musician Elvis Presley, which includes the two previous compilation album ELV1S and 2nd to None, in addition to a bonus disc, entitled The Story Continues. On March 8, 2018, the box set was certified Platinum by the RIAA for sales in excess of 1,000,000 units.
The Tradition Masters is an album by American folk singer Odetta, released in 2002.
The History of Rock and Roll is a radio documentary on rock and roll music, originally syndicated in 1969, and again in 1978 and 1981. It is currently distributed as a 2+1⁄2-minute short feature on internet networks. This list below reflects the contents of the more widely heard 1978 version of The History of Rock & Roll.
The 2009 Grand National was the 162nd running of the Grand National horse race that took place at Aintree Racecourse near Liverpool, England, on 4 April 2009.
In the Night is a 1958 album by the jazz pianist George Shearing and the singer Dakota Staton. A quintet accompanies the pair. Staton sings on six tracks; the rest are instrumentals.
