John Garfield was an American actor who played brooding, rebellious, working-class characters. He grew up in poverty in New York City. In the early 1930s, he became a member of the Group Theatre. In 1937, he moved to Hollywood, eventually becoming one of Warner Bros.' stars. He received Academy Award nominations for his performances in Four Daughters (1938) and Body and Soul (1947).
Abraham "Kid Twist" Reles was a New York Jewish mobster who was a hit man for Murder, Inc., the enforcement contractor for Meyer Lansky's National Crime Syndicate.
Mitchell William Miller was an American choral conductor, record producer, record-industry executive, and professional oboist. He was involved in almost all aspects of the industry, particularly as a conductor and artists and repertoire (A&R) man. Miller was one of the most influential people in American popular music during the 1950s and early 1960s, both as the head of A&R at Columbia Records and as a best-selling recording artist with an NBC television series, Sing Along with Mitch. A graduate of the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester in the early 1930s, Miller began his musical career as a player of the oboe and English horn, making numerous highly regarded classical and popular recordings.
The Amboy Dukes were an American rock band formed in 1964 in Chicago, Illinois, and later based in Detroit, Michigan. They are best known for their only hit single, "Journey to the Center of the Mind". The band's name comes from the title of a novel by Irving Shulman. In the UK, the group's records were released under the name of the American Amboy Dukes, because of the existence of a British group with the same name. The band went through a number of personnel changes during its active years, the only constant being lead guitarist and composer Ted Nugent. The band transitioned to being Nugent's backing band before he discontinued the name in 1975.
Brownsville is a residential neighborhood in eastern Brooklyn in New York City. The neighborhood is generally bordered by Crown Heights to the northwest; Bedford–Stuyvesant and Cypress Hills to the north; East New York to the east; Canarsie to the south; and East Flatbush to the west.
Al "Bummy" Davis, born Albert Abraham Davidoff, was an American lightweight and welterweight boxer who fought from 1937 to 1945. He was a serious contender, and a world ranked boxer in both weight classes.
Last Exit to Brooklyn is a 1964 novel by American author Hubert Selby Jr. The novel takes a harsh, uncompromising look at lower class Brooklyn in the 1950s written in a brusque, everyman style of prose.
The Erie Canal "Soda" Pop Festival, also known colloquially as the Bull Island Rock Festival, was a rock festival held on September 2–4, 1972, on Bull Island, a strip of land in Illinois but on the Indiana side of the Wabash River near Griffin. A crowd estimated at 200,000 to 300,000 individuals attended the concert, four times what the promoters had estimated. Food and water were in short supply, and the gathering descended into relative chaos amidst heavy rains and a lack of security, with many of the scheduled acts canceling their performances due to safety concerns. After the festival concluded, the remnants of the crowd rioted and burned the main stage.
Larry Harlow Kahn was an American salsa music pianist, performer, composer, band leader and producer. He was born into a musical American family of Jewish descent.
Nelson George is an American author, columnist, music and culture critic, journalist, and filmmaker. He has been nominated twice for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
"Ging Gang Gooli(-e)" or "Ging Gang Goo" is a gibberish song, widely spread around the world. It is popular among Scouts and Girl Guides.
The Forty-Two Gang was a teenage street gang in Chicago that started during Prohibition. Like Brooklyn's Italian and Jewish street gangs of Brownsville and Ocean Hill, the Forty-Two Gang served as a "farm team" for future members of the Chicago Outfit. Forty-Two Gang members included future syndicate members Sam Giancana, Sam "Teets" Battaglia, Luigi "Cockeyed Louie" Fratto, Felix "Milwaukee Phil" Alderisio, "Mad Sam" DeStefano, Charles "Chuckie" Nicoletti, Fiore "Fifi" Buccieri, William "Smokes" Aloisio, Frank "Skids" Caruso, William "Willie Potatoes" Daddano, Joseph DiVarco, Marcello Caifano, Mario DeStefano, Bruno Tassione, and Joey "Cowboy" Miletta.
Theodore Anthony Nugent is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, and political activist. He initially gained fame as the lead guitarist and occasional vocalist of The Amboy Dukes, a band formed in 1963 that played psychedelic rock and hard rock. After dissolving the band, he embarked on a successful solo career. His first three solo albums, Ted Nugent (1975), Free-for-All (1976) and Cat Scratch Fever (1977), were certified multi-platinum in the United States. His latest album, Detroit Muscle, was released in 2022.
Web of the City is the first novel written by American author Harlan Ellison. The novel follows the story of Rusty Santoro, a teenage member of the fictional Cougars street gang in the 1950s Brooklyn, New York. In order to research the book, Ellison spent time in an actual street gang in Brooklyn. His book Memos from Purgatory (1961) is a non-fiction account of his time in the Barons.
Irving Shulman was an American author and screenwriter whose works were adapted into movies. His books included The Amboy Dukes,Cry Tough,The Square Trap, and Platinum High School, all of which were adapted into movies.
The Purple Gang, also known as the Sugar House Gang, was a criminal mob of bootleggers and hijackers composed predominantly of Jewish gangsters. They operated in Detroit, Michigan, during the 1920s of the Prohibition era and came to be Detroit's dominant criminal gang. Excessive violence and infighting caused the gang to destroy itself in the 1930s.
Rob Grange is an American bassist, best known for his work with psychedelic rock band The Amboy Dukes and with Ted Nugent, as well as his unique phase bass lines in the song "Stranglehold".
City Across the River is a 1949 American film noir crime film directed by Maxwell Shane and starring Peter Fernandez, Stephen McNally, Thelma Ritter, Sue England, Barbara Whiting, Luis Van Rooten and Jeff Corey. The screenplay is based on the novel The Amboy Dukes by Irving Shulman.
Cry Tough is a 1959 American crime drama film directed by Paul Stanley written by Harry Kleiner, starring John Saxon, Linda Cristal and Joseph Calleia.
Beatdown hardcore is a subgenre of hardcore punk with prominent elements of heavy metal. Beatdown hardcore features aggressive vocals, gang vocals, heavy guitar riffs and breakdowns and lyrics discussing unity, brotherhood, volatile interpersonal relationships and machismo. The genre has its origins in late 1980s New York hardcore bands such as Breakdown, Killing Time and Madball, and was pioneered in the mid-1990s by bands like Bulldoze, Terror Zone and Neglect. The definition of the genre has expanded over time to incorporate artists increasingly indebted to metal, notably Xibalba, Sunami and Knocked Loose.
