Etta James
Born in Los Angeles, California, on January 25, 1938, Etta James was a gospel prodigy. In 1954, she moved to Los Angeles to record "The Wallflower." Her career had begun to soar by 1960, due in no small part to songs like "I'd Rather Go Blind" and "At Last." Despite her continued drug problems, she earned a Grammy Award nomination for her 1973 eponymous album. In 2006, she released the album All the Way. James died in Riverside, California, on January 20, 2012, and continues to be is considered one of the most dynamic singers in music. By the age of 5, James was known as a gospel prodigy, gaining fame by singing in her church choir and on the radio. At age 12, she moved north to San Francisco, where she formed a trio and
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With suggestive stage antics and a sassy attitude, James continued to perform and record well into the 1990s. Always soulful, her extraordinary voice was showcased to great effect on her recent private releases, including Blue Gardenia, which rose to the top of the Billboard jazz chart. In 2003, James underwent gastric bypass surgery and lost over 200 pounds. The dramatic weight loss had an impact on her voice, as she told Ebonymagazine that year. "I can sing lower, higher and louder," James explained.
That same year, Etta James released Let's Roll, which won the Grammy Award for best contemporary blues album. Her sons, Donto and Sametto James, served as producers on the recording, along with Josh Sklair. This team regrouped for her next effort, Blues to the Bone (2004), which brought James her third Grammy Award—this time for best traditional blues album.
In 2006, James released the album All the Way, which featured cover versions of songs by Prince, Marvin Gaye and James Brown. She participated in a tribute album the following year for jazz great Ella Fitzgerald, called We Love
He first saw her singing at the National Finals Rodeo. She then signed with Mercury Records. Her song, “You Lift Me Up (To Heaven)”, made the Billboard country Top 10, in 1980. This had ultimately launched her amazing career. Throughout her career she has stuck close to her country roots.
The extraordinary artist Nina Simone, is nowadays known as one of the greatest voices of the 20th century and icon of American Music. Her real name was Eunice Kathleen Waymon, she was born on February 21, 1933, in Tryon, North Carolina. She studied classical piano at the Juilliard School in New York City and was considered a precocious child prodigy because of her amazingly way playing the piano. Nina was the sixth of a family of eight brothers, descended mainly from African slaves, although among their ancestors there were also Irish and Indian blood. Nina Simone went through a lot of phases where she found herself in the in the worst moment of her life, but despite all that, she could not hide her great and admirable talent.
James Marshall Hendrix was born on November 27, 1942 in Seattle Washington. James faced a somewhat difficult childhood as he was faced with many
Born in St. Louis, Missouri, at only eight years old she was sent to work in the service and experienced hostile actions and abuse. At age eleven she encountered a race riot in which forty black and eight white people were killed. Later she left home and scavenged for food and attempted to earn what little money she could by dancing on the streets, where she was recruited for the chorus line in St. Louis vaudeville. At fifteen she began performing in
touring her song hit number one on the radio. From their she was famous and
However, her second album, Tapestry, charted at #1 and won Album of the Year in 1971 [1]. Tapestry stayed at #1 on the charts for a record-setting 15 weeks and stayed in the top-100 albums for the next 6 years [1]. King’s next 4 albums all went gold (500,000+ copies sold) with a couple #1 hits from them [1]. As her albums received less attention, King began to shift her focus from music for a while until she wrote “The Reason” for Celine Dion in 1997 [1]. Since then, King has expanded her audience by touring in Japan with Mary J. Blige and Fergie in 2007 and doing the Troubadour Reunion Tour with James Taylor in 2010
The Queen of Neo-Soul released a second album the same year of “Baduizm”. This was her first LP album titled “Live” and it also went double platinum. The same release day of the album Badu gave birth to her first child, Seven Sirius. The hit song “Tyrone” became no. 1 for six weeks straight. The song was freestyled and loved by so many. Check out her live performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY2-mrsXgMM
Not everyone is blessed with musical talent but when someone has an extraordinary ability, he or she should get the chance to please others with it. Sometimes a career can be made out of musical endowment, and that is what Billie Holiday did. Billie had a life that she may not have dreamed of since it started out rough with her mistreatment from adults and discouraging misfortunes, but she was ambitious and that showed through her singing career. Billie could usually adapt to her life’s problems except for her drug addiction and alcohol abuse, which unfortunately led to her demise. She was a talented woman who sang and helped create hit songs that aided her to rise to fame. Billie Holiday bravely stood up to racism, showed the world her talent, and inspired many of her beloved fans, all while continuing to be herself and not allowing the issues in her life hold her back.
Beyoncé also known as the queen of pop received many awards some being Grammy awards and MTV video music award due to her amazing talents.Those were just 2 of the awards she has received ( Waters 58).Beyoncé was born on September 4,1981 Houston,Texas(Waters 19).Her fame has expanded worldwide because of her talent and entertaining skills that is not all she has accomplished she has also won many award and inspired many people. Beyoncé grew up in Houston,Texas with her parents Tina and Mathew Knowles.
Aaliyah was my best friend, we told eachother everything, I was there with her when she first recorded her first song, we sang together, we even wrote a song together, i thought of her like a little sister, little did I know of the short time I had with her. I remember when I first heard of her, she was performing in Las Vegas with the famous singer Gladys Knight. You should have seen my face full of shock and awe as I heard this eleven year old’s voice, the way she hit all the right notes, and how her voice blended perfectly with Gladys was amazing. From that point on I knew she was going to be a superstar, and that I wanted her, no needed to have her in one of my albums. Three years later, yet again she surprises me by her debut album with
Meanwhile, Fitzgerald had begun to work with Norman Granz, the impresario of a popular series called "Jazz at the Philharmonic." In 1955, she was the first artist signed to Granz's new record label, Verve, and began recording a series of "songbook" albums. The first offering, a two-record set entitled Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook (1956) led to eight other songbooks, each devoted to the work of a particular composer or composing team: Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington, Jerome Kern, Frank Loesser, Johnny Mercer, Rodgers and Hart, and George and Ira Gershwin. The
On July 28th in the evening at home alone, I watched Adele live at Royal Albert Hall on YouTube, which can be found following this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ7bnkVbI88&t=0s.. Adele was born in 1988 in London, and is a well known British singer/songwriter. Adele has released three albums in her career: 19, 21, 25 and Adele has thirteen hits on the billboard top 100 chart as of 2017. Adele started her career in 2006 when a video of hers was discovered on myspace. An influence on Adele’s style of music is Etta James. This performance is before her last album was released and features more of her past relationships in her music, so this concert was not about happy party music, it was a deep soulful experience.
Being a touring singing and performer can become a very rough and tiring job. Being on the road traveling for many months, playing different shows every night would make you really realize if singing is what you love to do. Ella was a singer for more than 60 years. Ella Fitzgerald goes down in history as one of the greatest female singers proven by the many awards and respect she received.
On October 30, 1947, Jane Anna Jayroe came into this world little did she know that in 1966 she would be the titleholder to Miss Oklahoma/America. Jane grew up in Laverne, Oklahoma. They interviewed Jane and she said “I just had a blast. I just had the most fun doing it.” (newsok.com) after she sang
When Jacksons Thriller album came in 1982, it became one of the world’s best-selling albums of all time. Gail Mitchell of billboard.com said that, within only a year the album sold for over 65 million copies. It is the first ever album to be certified as a 32x multi-platinum album. In 1984 the album won a record-breaking eight Grammy Awards including album of the year, not to mention every single on the album reached Billboard Hot 100. Just the awards their selves speak for how amazing this album was. Thriller consisted of just seven singles starring many hits with “Billie Jean”, “Beat It”, “Thriller”, and “P.Y.T.” Each single was released at a different time first with, “The Girl Is Mine” on October 18, 1982 to Thriller being the final single released on January 23, 1984. Thriller was produced by Quincy Jones and recorded through Westlake Recording Studios.