John Lee Hooker was born near Clarksdale, Mississippi on August 22, 1917 to a sharecropping family in the south. “He was one of 11 children in a sharecropper family on a cotton plantation” (Jones, Malcolm; John Lee Hooker). With his father being a minister, Hooker had learned gospel songs in his church. John Lee Hooker's earliest musical influence came from his stepfather, Will Moore, when he learned the blues and the beat that he called the “Country Boogie” (Pareles, Jon; New York Times) from him. “The bluesmen Blind Blake, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Charley Patton were all visitors to the Moore household” (Pareles, Jon; New York Times). Hooker also learned from other Mississippi musicians and from phonograph records during his spare time. “Hooker started playing on strings made from strips of inner tube nailed to a barn” (Jones, Malcolm; John Lee Hooker), then later on in his young lift Hooker moved on to the guitar to further his interest in the playing of the blues.
By the early 1940's Hooker had moved north to Detroit through Memphis and Cincinnati after running away to be...
“Ah, the creative process is the same secret in science as it is in art,” said Josef Mengele, comparing science to an art. He was less of an artist and more of a curious, debatably crazy, doctor. He was a scientist in Nazi Germany. In general, there was a history of injustice in the world targeting a certain race. When Mengele was around, there were very few medical regulations, so no consent had to be given for doctors to take patients’ cells and other tests done on the patients’ bodies without their consent. This was the same time that Henrietta Lacks lived. Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman who went to the doctor because she had cervical cancer. Her cells were taken and are still alive in culture today (Skloot 41). Hence, her cells were nicknamed Immortal (Skloot 41). Although many, at the time, saw no issue with using a patient without consent issue with what?, on numerous occasions since then courts have determined that having consent is necessary for taking any cells. The story of Henrietta lacks is has similarities to an episode of Law and Order titled Immortal, which is an ethical conundrum. Despite this, the shows are not exactly the same and show differences between them. Both of these stories, one supposedly fictional, can also be compared to the injustices performed by Josef Mengele in Nazi Germany.
Scott Joplin, commonly known as the "King of Ragtime" music, was born on November 24, 1868, in Bowie County, Texas near Linden. Joplin came from a large musical family. His father, Giles Joplin was a musician who had fiddled dance music while serving as a slave at his master's parties. His mother, Florence Givens Joplin, born free and out of slavery, sang and played the banjo, and four of his brothers and sisters either sang or played strings.
Steve Miller was born October 5, 1943 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Steve’s family was very involved with music. His mother was a jazz-influenced singer, and his father was a pathologist that very interested in the world of music. Dr. Miller was friends with many musicians which greatly aided in young Steve’s development in music. One of his father’s friends included Les Paul, who showed Steve some chords on a guitar at the age of five. Les Paul proved to be a very valuable mentor to Steve, and he became a good friend of the family. When Steve was seven his family moved to Dallas, where he was exposed to a different type of artists that usually did not visit Milwaukee. His father took him to see greats such as Hank Williams, Chuck Berry, and Carl Perkins. Steve was particularly drawn to T-Bone Walker, the father of Texas-style electric blues. This proved to be very influential in Steve’s life, and it is evident by the blues-sound that he exhibited in his guitar playing.
Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe, more commonly known as Jelly Roll Morton, was born to a creole family in a poor neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana. Morton lived with several family members in different areas of New Orleans, exposing him to different musical worlds including European and classical music, dance music, and the blues (Gushee, 394). Morton tried to play several different instruments including the guitar; however, unsatisfied with the teachers’ lack of training, he decided to teach himself how to play instruments without formal training (Lomax, 8). ...
Johnny Cash was born in Kingsland, Arkansas on February 26, 1932 (Enslow 19). He began to take an interest to music when his father bought a radio. His mother loved listening to music and his mother and Johnny would sing songs all throughout the house. Taught by his mother and childhood friend, he learned to play guitar (Enslow 19). Working hard and practicing, he became very good at guitar and singing. However, he grew up through the Great Depression and this was very difficult for him and his family. In Edward Enslow’s “The Man in Black” Johnny Cash states, “We were very poor, and I almost died of starvation as a child.” This quote shows how life was a struggle for Cash in his early life. Facing all the many challenges was difficult for him but he found a way through it. Through his older brother Jack, he was able to cope with his life growing up. Jack was a huge role model to Johnny growing up, he would teach...
The Metamorphosis of Johnny Tremain Johnny Tremain is like a butterfly; he went through a transformation. Johnny Tremain is a book by Esther Forbes about a crippled boy during the American Revolution and the events he endures. Johnny Tremain was a very dynamic character because people and events affected him. People change main characters in many books. Johnny Tremain is no exception.
Billy Graham once said, "The one badge of Christian discipleship is not orthodoxy but love." By this definition, June Callwood, a social activist and journalist, displays true discipleship through her work of bringing awareness to groups often discriminated against. June loved everybody equally and realized that gender, age, pecuniary possessions, or race do not define a person's worth. In other words, June Callwood is a disciple because she worked towards making a better world where the rights of every human are respected.
Widely considered country music’s first superstar, Hiram/Hank Williams was born September 17, 1923, in mount olive, Alabama. Williams, the third child of Lon and Lillie Williams, grew up in a household that never had much money. His father worked as a logger before entering the Veterans’ Administration hospital when young hank was just six. Father and son rarely saw each other over the next decade, with William’s mother, who ran rooming houses, moving the family to Greenville, and later, Montgomery, Alabama. (Hank Williams) Everyone knew Hank was a good guy, but like any man had his ups and his downs throughout the short life he lived. Hank grew up rough and he knew it; however nothing was going to stop this young man from doing what he set out to pursue. What he did was astonishing changing art or “so called” music. Hank redefined country music with his personal opinion on what music really was.
The first instrument Robert played was the harmonica. Robert quit school as a teen and started working in the cotton fields. Robert left that life to travel and play his music. He began to play the guitar around the age of fifteen. Famous blues men; Charlie Patton and Willie Brown influenced Johnson when he was young. At age 17, Robert married Virginia Travis. She and their first baby died during childbirth. Johnson then went on the road. Robert traveled all over the Midwest and all the way down to Mississippi and Arkansas. He married Calletta Craft during his travels. She died only a few years later while Robert was on the road.
Born on May 26, 1949, in Shreveport, Louisiana, Hank Williams, Jr. used his natural talent for singing to follow in his father’s footsteps. By the age of 8, Hank made his stage debut and made his first appearance at Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry at age 11. Then, puberty changed him. Once his voice changed, he signed with MGM Records and subsequently recorded his father’s hit “Long Gone Lonesome Blues” in 1964 (about.com). His very first album, Songs My Father Left Me, was an instant hit.
Art Menius said, “The African-American music of the rural south provided the source for gospel, jazz, and blues, while the often ignored black contribution to country music and hillbilly music went far beyond providing the banjo and Charley Pride.” In 1928, A.P. Carter, the patriarch of the legendary Carter Family, the first family of country music, met a blues guitarist by the name of Lesley “Esley” Riddle. Lesley Riddle had created a unique picking and sliding technique on the guitar while he was recovering from an accident on the job. The Carter Family was looking for a new sound of music, and they were so overwhelmed by the sound that Lesley produced, they wanted him to teach them how to play that way. Lesley Riddle influenced Maybelle Carter’s style of guitar playing called the “Carter Scratch,” which became legendary. According to birthplaceofcountrymusic.org, Riddle’s influe...
Dan Gutman’s Jackie and Me takes place in Brooklyn, New York. This is a place where mostly whites were racist towards African Americans because of the time period. A boy named Joe Stoshack, and a baseball star Jackie Robinson faced segregation. In order to overcome racism, smartness, humbleness, and drive are the keys to success. One lesson readers can learn from Jackie and Me is that in the story men and women judge people before they get to know them. Dan Gutman wanted to enforce to readers that “Every human being is the same because that is how God made us.”
George Harvey Strait, is a an American singer, actor, songwriter, and music producer, known as the “King of Country”, of the twentieth century to present. Strait was a vocalist blessed with good looks and a vibrant personality. He is one of the most influential and popular recording artists of all time. George was a 50s baby. He is also known for his neotraditionalist country style, cowboy look , and being one of the first and main country artists to bring country music back to its roots and away from the pop country era in the 1980s. George Strait has been a country music icon since the 1980s.
Rag time as it is most commonly know was the type of fast paced music played around 1885 in St. Louis. Scott Joplin was born in 1868 and lived until 1917, but has done a lot in his life span. He was one of the first African Americans to be know as a composer. Born in Texarkana, Texas to a large family with musical background, he began learning to play the guitar and beagle, and gained free piano lessons by showing such fast progression to his teachers. After death of his mother, he left the house at age fourteen. He learned much form traveling through Mississippi playing in local spots and learning form what was offered to him. In 1885 he arrived in St. Louis, at the time a center for a new music phenomenon called ragtime.
Johnny cash, the man in black is a country legend, him and the Tennessee two, made a name for themselves in the mid 50's. There orignal songs where gospil, but when trying to get a record deal was turned down for the gospil ,but then played a song Johnny cash wrote. The first hit was "Cry,Cry,Cry", other hits were " i walk the line","folsom Prison blues" , and others such as " man in black"" Hey Porter", and " get rhythm". Johnny cash marride his early wife Vivian Liberto in 1954, and moved to Memphis, Tennessee.His band The Tennessee two consited of Luther Perkins and bass player Marshall Grant. They were known for there sound, people say they had a "boom-chik-a-Boom" sound like a train. Johnny wore dark clothing which got him the name "man in black", and hestarted his performanced with the simple entrance "Hello im Johnny Cash". {wikipedia}