Billy Bob Thornton is an American actor, filmmaker, and musician. He had his first break when he co-wrote and starred in the 1992 thriller One False Move, and received international attention after writing, directing, and starring in the independent drama film Sling Blade (1996), for which he won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. He appeared in several major film roles in the 1990s following Sling Blade, including Oliver Stone's neo-noir U Turn (1997), political drama Primary Colors (1998), science fiction disaster film Armageddon (1998), the highest-grossing film of that year, and the crime drama A Simple Plan (1998), which earned him his third Oscar nomination.
James Robert Wills was an American Western swing musician, songwriter, and bandleader. Considered by music authorities as the co-founder of Western swing, he was known widely as the King of Western Swing.
Joan Chandos Baez is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. Her contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest and social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing over 30 albums. Fluent in Spanish and English, she has also recorded songs in at least six other languages.
Bluegrass music is a genre of American roots music that developed in the 1940s in the United States Appalachian region. The genre derives its name from the band Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. Unlike mainstream country music, bluegrass is traditionally played on acoustic stringed instruments. Bluegrass has roots in traditional English, Scottish and Irish ballads and dance tunes, and in traditional African-American blues and jazz. Bluegrass was further developed by musicians who played with Monroe, including 5-string banjo player Earl Scruggs and guitarist Lester Flatt. Monroe characterized the genre as: "Scottish bagpipes and ole-time fiddlin'. It's Methodist and Holiness and Baptist. It's blues and jazz, and it has a high lonesome sound."
Earl Eugene Scruggs was an American musician noted for popularizing a three-finger banjo picking style, now called "Scruggs style", which is a defining characteristic of bluegrass music. His three-finger style of playing was radically different from the traditional way the five-string banjo had previously been played. This new style of playing became popular and elevated the banjo from its previous role as a background rhythm instrument to featured solo status. He popularized the instrument across several genres of music.
Peter Seeger was an American folk singer and social activist.
Philip Chapman Lesh is an American musician and a founding member of the Grateful Dead, with whom he played bass guitar throughout their 30-year career.
Daniel Lebern Glover is an American actor, film director, and political activist. He is widely known for his lead role as Roger Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon film series. He also had leading roles in films such as Steven Spielberg's adaptation of The Color Purple (1985), To Sleep with Anger (1990), Predator 2 (1990), Angels in the Outfield (1994) and Operation Dumbo Drop (1995). Glover has prominent supporting roles in Silverado (1985), Witness (1985), A Rage in Harlem (1991), Dreamgirls (2006), Shooter (2007), 2012 (2009), Death at a Funeral (2010), Beyond the Lights (2014), Sorry to Bother You (2018), The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019), The Dead Don't Die (2019) and Jumanji: The Next Level (2019). He is also an active supporter of various political causes.
American Front (AF) is a white supremacist organization founded in San Francisco, California by Bob Heick in 1984. It began as a loose organization modeled after the British National Front. Heick began working with Tom Metzger's White Aryan Resistance (WAR) in 1988. Heick and artist Boyd Rice posed for photos in AF uniforms for an article on neo-Nazism in Sassy magazine. Rice claims he was never really a member of the American Front, but that he was friends with Heick.
Flatt and Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys was an American bluegrass band. The band was founded by guitarist Lester Flatt and banjo player Earl Scruggs and is viewed by music historians as one of the premier bluegrass groups in the history of the genre. The band was originally formed in 1948 by Flatt, who had been a member of Bill Monroe's bluegrass band. Flatt brought Scruggs with him shortly after leaving Monroe.
The Nightwatchman is the solo project of American musician Tom Morello. Morello began performing as the Nightwatchman in 2003 as an outlet for his political views while he was playing apolitical music with Audioslave.
Donald William 'Bob' Johnston was an American record producer, best known for his work with Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, and Simon & Garfunkel.
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass (HSB), originally Strictly Bluegrass, is an annual free and non-commercial music festival held the first weekend of October in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Conceived and subsidized by San Francisco venture capitalist Warren Hellman, the festival has been held every year since the first event in 2001.
"Which Side Are You On?" is a song written in 1931 by activist Florence Reece, wife of Sam Reece, a union organizer for the United Mine Workers in Harlan County, Kentucky.
Village People is an American disco group known for its on-stage costumes and suggestive lyrics in their music. The group was originally formed by French producers Jacques Morali, Henri Belolo and lead singer Victor Willis following the release of the debut album Village People, which targeted disco's large gay audience. The group's name refers to Manhattan's Greenwich Village, with its reputation as a gay neighborhood. The characters were a symbolic group of American masculinity and macho gay-fantasy personas. As of 2020, Victor Willis is the only original member of the group.
"I Still Miss Someone" is a song co-written by Johnny Cash and his nephew Roy Cash, Jr. and originally recorded by American country music singer Johnny Cash. He first recorded it in 1958 as the B-side to "Don't Take Your Guns to Town".
Irene Scruggs was an American Piedmont blues and country blues singer, who was also billed as Chocolate Brown and Dixie Nolan. She recorded songs such as "My Back to the Wall" and "Good Grindin'" and worked with Clarence Williams, Joe "King" Oliver, Lonnie Johnson, Little Brother Montgomery, Albert Nicholas, and Kid Ory. Scruggs achieved some success but today is largely forgotten.
Occupy San Francisco was a collaboration that began with a demonstration event located at Justin Herman Plaza in the Embarcadero and in front of the Federal Reserve building on Market Street in the Financial District in San Francisco, California. It is based on the Occupy Wall Street movement that began in New York City on September 17, 2011 and is one of several "Occupy" protest sites in the San Francisco Bay Area; other sites include Occupy Oakland and Occupy San Jose.
The Nuclear Beauty Parlor is a group of women artists active in protest and performance art, primarily during the nuclear freeze movement from 1983-1986 in San Francisco, California. Their name is synonymous with a music project they originated, the 45-RPM 7" single, The Nuclear Beauty Parlor. Two members of the Nuclear Beauty Parlor wrote the lyrics to the song which debuted in the women’s jail following the 1983 blockade of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, one of the largest anti-nuclear protests in the United States. The group staged numerous performances to attract media attention for the cause of nuclear disarmament. The record, conceived as an art prank, is archived in the Peace Library at Swarthmore College. The group is noted for adding humor and post-punk style to a dedicated protest movement.
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a 2018 American Western anthology film written, directed, and produced by the Coen brothers. Despite a limited theatrical release, it was primarily intended for Netflix television. It stars Tyne Daly, James Franco, Brendan Gleeson, Bill Heck, Grainger Hines, Zoe Kazan, Harry Melling, Liam Neeson, Tim Blake Nelson, Jonjo O'Neill, Chelcie Ross, Saul Rubinek, and Tom Waits, and features six vignettes that take place on the American frontier.
