Dinah Shore born 29 February 1916

Dinah Shore (born Frances Rose Shore; February 29, 1916 – February 24, 1994) was an American singer, actress, television personality, and the top-charting female vocalist of the 1940s. She reached the height of her popularity as a recording artist during the Big Band era of the 1940s and 1950s, but achieved even greater success a decade later, in television, mainly as hostess of a series of variety programs for Chevrolet. 

She was born Francis Rose in Winchester, Tennessee to Russian Jewish immigrants Solomon and Anna Shore, her father a successful businessman. Called "Fanny," she recovered from a bout with polio as a toddler but was left with an impaired leg which would be problematic during her entire life. 

She was a busy active teenager growing up in the Winchester area located a short distance from Nashville. "Fanny" attended Nashville's Hume-Fogg High School where she was a cheerleader and excelled in athletics. After graduation, she enrolled at Vanderbilt University becoming head of her sorority and active in golf and tennis. "Fanny" took voice and acting lessons from a tutor and often sang on radio station WSM Nashville. Even with a sociology degree in hand from Vanderbilt, she was determined to have a career in show business.  

Believing her best chance lie in New York City, she immediately moved there after graduation in 1938. However, her goal of being a star was elusive and Francis Rose Shore encountered nothing but rejection. She became noticed after singing with a young amateur by the name of Frank Sinatra leading her into Xavier Cugat's Orchestra as a vocalist and finally to NBC as a staff singer on the networks radio programs.  

 

After signing a record contract with RCA, she gained national prominence and her singing career skyrocketed. In the early 1940s she began to release hits such as "Jim" and "Blues in the Night."

The war years were productive as she recorded many hit records while becoming a mainstay on the Armed Forces Radio network and even had her own radio show She further helped the war effort going overseas to entertain American troops, singing songs like "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To" and "I'll Walk Alone," which reached No. 1. She added her own military trophy with marriage to George Montgomery only days before he left for an enlistment in the Army Air Force. The two were married from 1943 to 1962. 

In the late 1940s, Shore continued to enjoy success on the charts. Her hits from this period include such songs as "I Love You for Sentimental Reasons" and "Buttons and Bows." 

In the post-war, Dinah's attempts at a movie career were mediocre but she had some success in musical films..."Belle of the Yukon" "Up in Arms" and "Till the Clouds Roll By." She appeared in and made many movies for television and was the musical voice in these Disney pictures..."Make Mine Music" and "Fun and Fancy Free." However, her saviour in 1951 was the new medium called television. As host on "The Dinah Shore Show" she became the first woman to host her own variety show soon overlapping with a second show "The Dinah Shore Chevy Show." When the show closed in 1963, Dinah literally disappeared only to immerge on occasion for guest appearances on various shows.  

She had a brief marriage to tennis player Maurice Fabian Smith (1963 – 1964). In the 1970s, Shore became known for her relationship with a much younger man—actor Burt Reynolds. 

She arrived back on television in the early 70's hosting the popular NBC daytime talk and variety show, "Dinah's Place." Her final series was a weekly television show called "A conservation With Dinah" which ended in 1991 after she experienced stomach pains and was taken to St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica where she was diagnosed with cancer. Her treatment was unsuccessful and she would pass away less than a year later at her Beverly Hills residence with her family at her bedside. She was cremated and after a final service at Hillside Memorial Park Chapel a portion of her divided ashes were placed in a wall crypt located in the Park. Another portion was interred at Forest Lawn, Cathedral City located near her desert residence. 

Dinah Shore's 55 years in show business included more than 70 hit recordings. She had a Peabody Award, 10 Emmy Awards with 3 stars on the Hollywood Walk. (Bio edited mainly from D. Greyfield & Biography.com)
 

Joe South born 28 February 1940

 

Joe South (born Joseph Alfred Souter; February 28, 1940 – September 5, 2012) was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist and record producer. Best known for his song writing, South won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 1970 for "Games People Play" and was again nominated for the award in 1972 for "Rose Garden".

Joe South began his career as a country musician, performing on an Atlanta radio station and joining Pete Drake's band in 1957. The following year, he recorded a novelty single, "The Purple People Eater Meets the Witch Doctor," and became a session musician in Nashville and at Muscle Shoals.

In 1959, South wrote two songs which were recorded by Gene Vincent: "I Might Have Known",  and "Gone Gone Gone."  He began his recording career in Atlanta with the National Recording Corporation, where he served as staff guitarist along with other NRC artists Ray Stevens and Jerry Reed. South's earliest recordings have been re-released by NRC on CD. He soon returned to Nashville with The Manrando Group and then onto Charlie Wayne Felts Promotions. 

South was also a prominent sideman, playing guitar on Tommy Roe's "Sheila", Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde album, and Aretha Franklin's "Chain of Fools". South played electric guitar on Simon & Garfunkel's second album, "Sounds of Silence", although Al Gorgoni and/or Vinnie Bell feature on the title track.

South also appeared on records by Marty Robbins, Eddy Arnold, Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett. During the '60s, South began working on his song writing, crafting hits for Deep Purple ("Hush") and several for Billy Joe Royal, including "Down in the Boondocks."  
 

 

Responding to late 1960s issues, South's style changed radically. He began recording his own material in 1968,  scoring a hit with "Games People Play" the following year (purportedly inspired by Eric Berne's book of the same name). Accompanied by a lush string sound, an organ, and brass, the production won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Song and the Grammy Award for Song of the Year.

While South produced hits like "Don't It Make You Want to Go Home" and "Walk a Mile in My Shoes," Lynn Anderson had a smash country and pop hit in 1971 with South's "(I Never Promised You A) Rose Garden." 

South took several years off after his brother's suicide in 1971, moving to Maui and living in the jungles. He had proven a rather prickly character, recording a song entitled "I'm a Star"; he was also busted for drugs and, never entirely comfortable performing, was known for an antagonistic stance in concert.  

South briefly returned in 1975 with the Midnight Rainbows LP but retired from recording and performing soon afterwards. He returned in 1994 in a London concert showcasing American Southern performers and later re-entered the music publishing industry. He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1979 and became a member of the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 1981.

On September 13, 2003, South performed during the Georgia Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony and played with Buddy Buie, James B. Cobb, Jr. and Chips Moman.

 South's final recording, "Oprah Cried", was made in 2009 and released as a bonus track on the re-release of the albums So the Seeds are Growing and A Look Inside on one CD.  He died from a heart attack at his home in Georgia in September of 2012, at the age of 72 years old. (Info edited from AMG & Wikipedia)
 

David Ackles born 27 February 1937

David Thomas Ackles (February 27, 1937 – March 2, 1999) was an American singer-songwriter. He recorded four albums between 1968 and 1973. Although he never gained wide commercial success, he influenced other artists, especially British singer-songwriters such as Elvis Costello, Elton John and Phil Collins, all of whom are self-declared fans of Ackles. After Ackles's death Costello said, "It's a mystery to me why his wonderful songs are not better known."

Born February 20, 1937, Illinois, he was working in vaudeville by age four and in the mid-'40s played a character named Tucky Worden in Columbia's Rusty the Dog film series. His co-star was Dwayne Hickman, who would later go on to play Dobie Gillis on television.

He attended the University of Southern California and took a year to go to school in Edinburgh, where he studied literature. He eventually got a degree in film studies, though he was proficient in the theatre, ballet, and choreography. He held several odd jobs after school and was eventually hired as a songwriter by Elektra.

He managed to parlay that assignment into a multi-record deal, and released a self-titled debut album in 1968. The album was met with considerable critical acclaim, but did not do well commercially. His follow-up, Subway to the Country, produced one of his most chilling songs, "Candy Man," which was about a war veteran exacting revenge by selling pornography to children.

Bernie Taupin, lyricist for Elton John, helped Ackles produce what was to be his best album, American Gothic, in 1972. The album again won heaps of praise from critics and peers, but Elektra gave up on Ackles' commercial prospects and dropped him after the album's release. Columbia gave him a shot and he released Five & Dime in 1973, but they also failed to market him effectively and dropped him when the album failed to chart.

His career in popular music cut short, Ackles returned to writing television scripts, along with work on ballet scores and some lecturing on commercial song writing. In 1981, a drunk driver rammed his car and his arm was badly damaged. A steel hip meant he spent six monthe in a wheelchair. It took years before he was able to return to the piano.

Ackles gave up on solo albums and went to work in film and theatre, eventually writing a musical, Sister Aimee, which was performed in Los Angeles in 1995. He settled on a six-acre horse farm in Tujunga with Janice, his wife of 26 years. She is the lady featured on the covers of the American Gothic album.

When interviewed for Q Magazine in 1994, David expressed a wish to get back in touch with Bernie Taupin to record some new songs, but that hope was never fulfilled, although he did record a great deal of material over the years. In 1977, he was involved in student theatre production and had a success with Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny Opera for the University of Southern California. He taught song writing and theatre studies before his death from lung cancer.

Although David overcame a bout of cancer during the mid 90’s, it cost him part of his left lung. He then became very unwell again in 1997 but clung on, through chemotherapy. Indeed, he remained remarkably cheerful, as if in denial of his illness, despite the obvious pain that he suffered towards the end. In doing this, David's bravery became an inspiration to the many people who knew him.

He died at Tujunga, California, on 2 March 1999, at the age of 62.  (Info mainly from All Music)

Bernard Bresslaw born 25 February 1934

Bernard Bresslaw (25 February 1934 – 11 June 1993) was an English comic actor, best remembered as a member of the Carry On films team.

Bernard Bresslaw was born the youngest of three boys into a Jewish family in Stepney, London, on 25 February 1934. He attended the Coopers' Company's School in Tredegar Square, Bow, London E3. His father was a tailor's cutter and he became interested in acting after visits to the Hackney Empire. London County Council awarded him a scholarship to train at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art where he won the Emile Littler Award as the most promising actor. After Educating Archie on radio and The Army Game on television, more television, film and Shakespearean theatre roles followed, until his big break when he was cast in Carry On Cowboy in 1965.

He featured as Varga, the lead villain in the 1967 Doctor Who story The Ice Warriors. Even though all the actors playing the aliens were over six feet tall, Bresslaw towered over them. Sonny Caldinez, who played an Ice Warrior in the story, stated in a 2004 interview that Bresslaw "was the only man that could make me feel small."

Although officially starring in 14 Carry On films, Bresslaw did appear in one other: Carry On Nurse. The legs of Terence Longdon were deemed to be too thin and scrawny looking, so Bresslaw's were used as stand-ins for the scene where Joan Sims gives him a bath.

Bresslaw's catchphrase, in his strong Cockney accent, was "I only arsked" (sic), first used in The Army Game, and later revived in Carry On Camping (1969). In his fleeting appearance as an angry lorry driver in the 1970 film Spring and Port Wine, his character was dubbed.

Bresslaw, at 6 ft 7 in (2.01 m), was the tallest of the Carry On cast, head and shoulders over fellow Carry On regular, Barbara Windsor, who is 4 ft 10 in (1.47 m). Because of his height he was briefly considered for the part of the Creature in Hammer's Curse of Frankenstein (1957), which ultimately went instead to 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m) Christopher Lee. Bresslaw later made a comedy version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for Hammer titled The Ugly Duckling (1959). He made great efforts to prepare for roles, for example learning genuine Swahili phrases for Carry On Up the Jungle (1970).

Bresslaw, together with Miriam Margolyes, appeared with English comedienne Maureen Lipman in a series of British Telecom advertisements in the late 1980s. Bresslaw and Margoyles played Gerald and Dolly, a nervous couple who drop in unannounced on Lipman's character Beattie and her husband Harry.

Bresslaw performed with the Young Vic Theatre Company, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. One of his last stage performances was as Malvolio in Twelfth Night at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park (1990), where he demonstrated the fine line between pathos and comedy to perfection. He also played the genie in the lamp in Aladdin at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle, in the 1990s. 

 

His song "You Need Feet" (a parody of "You Need Hands" by Max Bygraves) was used in the Rutles' TV special, accompanying the Yoko Ono film parody "A Thousand Feet of Film".

Bresslaw died of a sudden heart attack on 11 June 1993. He had collapsed in his dressing room at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, London, where he was to play Grumio in the New Shakespeare Company's production of Taming of the Shrew, the day after the death of fellow comedy performer Les Dawson. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, north London, where his ashes were buried on 17 June 1993.(Info edited from Wikipedia)

 

Bobby Hendricks born 23 February 1938

Bobby Hendricks (born February 22, 1938, Columbus, Ohio) is an American R&B singer who charted two hits in the late 1950s.

Like many artists, he started singing with his church choir. At age 16, he joined his first group, the Crowns, based in Columbus. Hendricks was also a member of The Swallows & The Marquis in 1956, and The Flyers in 1957.

His big step to stardom came as a member of the by-then-disintegrating original Drifters in 1958, with whom he toured at the Apollo Theatre and recorded “Drip Drop”, “Moonlight Bay”, and “Suddenly There’s a Valley” before he left the group to go solo the same year.

 

Hendricks used his Atco/Atlantic/Drifters connections many times over the next few years. As a solo act he scored a massive hit backed by the Coasters, label mates at Atco in 1958, with the bouncy “Itchy Twitchy Feeling” for Juggy Murray’s Sue label, for whom he eventually cut a further seven 45s.

The last of these became his second hit "Psycho" [Sue 732] in 1960. It was co-written by ex-Drifter Clyde McPhatter, and features a "Name Game"-like babbling give-and-take with "psychiatrist" Dr. Jive (Tommy Smalls), a New York deejay. (Incidentally, this was years before the Shirley Ellis record, and may have been an influence on that hit.) It hit the U.S. charts, reaching #5 on the Black Singles chart and #25 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1958, but he was unable to secure a consistent profile.

It was clear his beautifully modulated tone and fine sense of dynamics made him a class A vocalist so it's a shame, but understandable that his 45s for Sue and Mercury were so “pop” in their arrangements that they were more MOR music than anything else.

From 1964, off and on, Bobby Hendricks worked as lead singer with Bill Pinkney's Original Drifters where his subsequent path was obscured by the myriad of changes affecting the act’s turbulent history. 
 

In 1977, he moved to Los Angeles to establish his own vocal group, Bobby Hendricks Drifters. Since then, he has toured the country, performing in nearly every state, including a six-month engagement in Las Vegas. One of the recent highlights of his career was a performance with the Spokane Jazz Orchestra. Bobby has also performed internationally in Aruba, Austria, Canada, China, England, Ireland, Jamaica, and Singapore.
 

On April 13, 2001, Bobby was inducted into the Doo Wopp Hall of Fame of America at Symphony Hall in Boston. That same year, Bobby reunited with Bill Pinkney’s Original Drifters to perform on PBS’s Doo Wop 51, and again in 2007 for PBS’s Doo Wop Love Songs. Both performances were televised nationally.

Bobby now resides in Santa Clarita, California with his wife Ruth, and continues to tour the world, delighting audiences young and old with the timeless sounds of Doo-Wop.
 

(Info edited from Wikipedia, AMG, sirshambling.com & the bobbyhendricks.com)

 Here's Money Honey by Bobby Hendricks with the Roomates, Hemsby 50, May 2013.

 

Del Wood born 22 February 1920

Polly Adelaide Hendricks Hazelwood (February 22, 1920 – October 3, 1989), known professionally as Del Wood, was an American pianist.

 

Hendricks was born in Nashville, Tennessee. A lifetime resident of Nashville, she was surrounded by the influences of early country music and the remaining vestiges of ragtime, particularly through the guitar pickers. She took up piano at age five, and played ragtime, gospel, and country music. Despite her parent's best efforts to encourage a direction towards classical music, the environment in Nashville, plus the early local programming on radio, convinced her that she wanted to play piano in the honky-tonk style. Her dream goal was the Grand Ole Opry, something she would realize in her early 30s.

Shortening her married name (Adelaide Hazelwood) to something easier to remember (and intentionally non-gender specific), Wood began playing in bands and honky-tonk joints in her 20s. After a decade of building repertoire and reputation, she spent some time as a staff pianist at WLBJ in Bowling Green, Kentucky. It was there that she was heard playing "Down Yonder" among other pieces, which led to a gig with a recording group called Hugh `Baby' Jarrett and his Dixieliners. This led to the first of many recording sessions for the Tennessee Records label starting in 1951.

 

"Down Yonder" soon became a national hit in both the country and pop categories in Billboard record charts, sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. She is probably the first female country solo instrumentalist to sell a million copies of a record.

This success was turned into appearances on the Grand Ole Opry starting in 1952, which led to an eventual full-time gig there in 1953, fulfilling her long-time dream. Two years later her fame culminated with a contract from RCA Victor Records, where she would make some of the first country/honky-tonk stereo recordings in the late 1950s.

While nothing else that she put out had the same success as "Down Yonder", her offerings over the next decade were frequent and consistent. Wood gained the title, Queen of the Ragtime Pianists, sometimes shared with junior fellow plunker Jo Ann Castle. She was also divorced from her stage-namesake, Carson Hazelwood, during this period, but not before adopting a son they named Wesley.

In 1984, Del Wood appeared in the Rhinestone, starring Dolly Parton and Sylvester Stallone as the pianist in the Wild Possums Band.

During the Vietnam War, Wood was part of one of the Grand Ole Opry package tours that entertained troops overseas in 1968. Her recordings after the late 1960s were infrequent at best, but her appearances on the Opry continued until her death at the Baptist Hospital in Nashville. Del had a stroke on September 22nd of 1989, the same day she was scheduled to appear on the Legendary Ladies of Country Music Show at the Grand Ole Opry and died later that same year from complications on October 3, 1989 at the age of 69

She was interred in the Mount Olivet Cemetery in Nashville.

(Info mainly Wikipedia)

Bobby Charles born 21 February 1938

Bobby Charles (February 21, 1938 – January 14, 2010) was an American singer-songwriter.

An ethnic Cajun, Charles was born as Robert Charles Guidry in Abbeville, Louisiana and grew up listening to Cajun music and the country and western music of Hank Williams. At the age of 15, he heard a performance by Fats Domino, an event that "changed my life forever," he recalled.

He led a local group, the Cardinals, for whom he wrote a song called Hey Alligator at the age of 14. The song was inspired by an incident at a roadside diner, when his parting shot to a friend – "See you later, alligator" – inspired another customer to respond with: "In a while, crocodile."

The popularity of the song led a local record-store owner to recommend Guidry to Leonard Chess of the Chicago-based Chess Records label. After Bobby had sung it over the phone, Chess signed him up. He travelled to New Orleans to record the song and several others under the name Bobby Charles. On his first visit to Chicago, he shocked the label's owners, who had been expecting to meet a young black singer and had arranged a promotional tour of the "chitlin' circuit" of African-American venues.

 

                                  

Chess issued Charles's Later Alligator in January 1956, but it was soon recorded as See You Later, Alligator by Bill Haley & His Comets, whose version sold 1m copies in America (coincidentally, publicity photos of Charles at this time showed him with a Haley-style kiss curl).

Although Charles performed alongside big names such as Little Richard, the Platters and Chuck Berry on tours in the late 1950s, his own records for Chess, Imperial and Jewel did not sell that well. Nevertheless, he enjoyed songwriting royalties from hit versions of songs he had co-written, such as Walking to New Orleans, recorded by Fats Domino in 1960, and But I Do, recorded by Clarence "Frogman" Henry in 1961.

Charles's laidback, drawling vocal style was also a formative influence on a style of music made by

white and black Louisiana teenagers that came to be called swamp pop – primarily slow, rolling two-chord ballads drawing from all the musical traditions of south Louisiana, such as country, soul and Cajun. The genre's biggest national hits were Rod Bernard's This Should Go On Forever and Joe Barry's I'm a Fool to Care.

Charles disappeared from the music scene in the mid-1960s but returned in 1972 with a self-titled album on which he was accompanied by Rick Danko and several members of Danko's group, the Band. The album's most remarkable tracks were Before I Grow Too Old and the languorous Small Town Talk. The radio DJ and historian Charlie Gillett summed up that song's appeal: "It was precisely the uneventful nature of the music that made it so alluring. Alongside the Band's rhythm section, Dr John slipped in behind the organ to play an instantly addictive melody that is still in my blood."

Charles continued to compose and record (he was based out of Woodstock, New York for a time) and in the 1990s he recorded a duet of "Walking to New Orleans" with Domino.

Charles lived for some years in quiet seclusion at Holly Beach on the Gulf of Mexico. After his house was destroyed by Hurricane Rita in 2005, he returned to Abbeville. His contribution to the music of his home state was recognised when he was inducted into the Louisiana music hall of fame in 2007. He had been in poor health with diabetes and was in remission from kidney cancer. He collapsed in his home and died January 14, 2010. (Info edited mainly from Guardian)

Barbara Ellis born 20 February 1940

Barbara Laine Ellis (top right) (born 20 February 1940) was a co founder of the vocal group The Fleetwoods.

Although the Fleetwoods' sound was smooth, without many of the rougher edges of doo wop groups, they were one of the few white vocal groups of the late '50s and early '60s to enjoy success not only on the pop charts, but also the R&B charts.

Their forte was ballads -- beginning with the 1959 debut single "Come Softly to Me," they racked up a number of hits over the next three years, and nearly all of them were ballads. The Fleetwoods broke up in 1963, but their songs -- particularly "Come Softly to Me" -- became pop/rock classics of the pre-British Invasion era.
 
Gretchen Christopher, Barbara Ellis, and Gary Troxell formed the Fleetwoods while attending high school in Olympia, WA. Originally, the group consisted only of Christopher and Ellis, but the duo soon asked Troxell to accompany them on trumpet. Shortly after his arrival in the group, Troxell abandoned the trumpet and concentrated on singing once the other two members heard a portion of a song he had written.

With some notable contributions from Christopher and Ellis, the group wrote "Come Softly to Me" and began performing the song at various events around Olympia, eventually gaining the attention of Bob Reisdorff, who ran the Seattle-based label Dolphin Records.

Dolphin released "Come Softly to Me" early in 1959 and the song became an instant hit, climbing to number one on the pop charts and number five on the R&B charts; it also reached the Top Ten in U.K. The Fleetwoods weren't able to immediately produce a follow-up single as successful as their debut, but their third single, "Mr. Blue," was a number one pop and Top Five R&B hit in the U.S. in late 1959. By the time of its release, Dolphin had changed its name to Dolton. For the next three years, the Fleetwoods had a string of minor pop hits.

The group wasn't able to consistently place singles in the upper regions of the charts partially because Troxell was drafted into the Navy at the height of the group's popularity at the end of 1959. Troxell was replaced by Vic Dana, who would later have a string of his own hit singles in the early '60s.

The Fleetwoods' last Top Ten single arrived in the spring of 1961, when "Tragedy" climbed the U.S. charts. The group disbanded two years later, after releasing its final single, a cover of Jesse Belvin's "Goodnight My Love," on which Barbara sang the lead. It was released as a single in April 1963 rising to number 12 on the new easy listening charts. This was the Fleetwoods last single to chart.

                             

After a six years of success, the Fleetwoods went their separate ways. The group reformed in the early 70s to meet the demand for oldies acts. In 1973, the group recorded an album with producer 

Jerry Dennon, but the resulting recordings were unsuccessful. By the late 1970s, Gary was working at a plywood plant near the Canadian border, Gretchen continued to perform solo on occasion while becoming a housewife and instructor of modern dance. Barbara retired, married and divorced and remarried a number of times and managed a mobile home park in Ontario, CA.

A later photo of Barbara Ellis

In 1990, the Fleetwoods -- featuring Christopher, Troxell, and instead of Ellis a singer named Cheryl Huggins -- played a tour on the American oldies circuit after Rhino released the compact disc collection The Best of the Fleetwoods. In 2006 they were inducted into The Vocal Group Hall of fame.

Today, Gretchen continues to perform as Gretchen Christopher of the Fleetwoods while Gary Troxel leads his highly successful Fleetwoods group with Cheryl Huggins and Bonnie Hannukaine.

(Info mainly AMG)