Clint Eastwood born 31 May 1930

Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American motion-picture actor who emerged as one of the most popular Hollywood stars in the 1960s and went on to become a prolific and respected director-producer.

During the Great Depression, Eastwood moved with his family a number of times before they finally settled in Piedmont, California, in 1940. He was drafted during the Korean War and stationed in California. Following his discharge from the army in 1953, Eastwood moved to Hollywood. A screen test with Universal in 1954 netted him a 40-week contract, but, after one renewal and a series of bit parts in such movies as Tarantula (1955) and Revenge of the Creature (1955), his option was dropped. He appeared in several TV series before he got his big break in 1959 by being cast as Rowdy Yates in the popular TV western Rawhide (1959–65).

Clint Eastwood & Nina Foch

Clint Eastwood’s singing career goes nearly as far back as his acting career. He tried to capitalize on Rawhides fame by recording an album. Thus was born Rawhide’s Clint Eastwood Sings Cowboy Favourites, which is exactly as advertised, though with a little more tremolo than you might expect from this particular cowboy. Eastwood had played piano for years, and practiced his croon as part of his time at Universal Studios’ talent school, but as a singer, vibrato and all, he “wasn’t earthshaking,” as one Eastwood biography kindly put it, but Eastwood continued anyway, releasing a number of singles such as “Unknown Girl,” in 1961.

                              

Eastwood achieved international stardom during this same period when he played The Man with No Name—a laconic, fearless gunfighter whose stoicism masks his brutality—in three Italian westerns (popularly known as “spaghetti westerns”) directed by Sergio Leone: 1964; A Fistful of Dollars, 1965; For a Few Dollars More and 1966; The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. In 1967 the three films played in the United States and were immediate commercial successes, establishing Eastwood as a box-office star.

For Eastwood’s first American western, Hang ’Em High (1968) he formed his own production company, Malpaso. He also worked with Don Siegel on the popular police story Coogan’s Bluff (1968); it was Siegel who taught him most of what he needed to know about directing, a debt Eastwood often acknowledged. He also worked with Siegel on Dirty Harry (1971), in which Eastwood first portrayed the ruthlessly effective police inspector Harry Callahan. The film proved to be one of Eastwood’s most successful, spawning four sequels and establishing the no-nonsense character Dirty Harry—known for such catchphrases as “Go ahead, make my day”—as a cinema icon.

Eastwood turned to directing films in which he also played leading roles. He took over the western The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) from Philip Kaufman, who cowrote the story of a Missouri farmer driven to violence after his family has been slaughtered by renegade Union soldiers. Stylishly photographed by Bruce Surtees, with a fine performance by Chief Dan George as a Cherokee elder, this work humanized Eastwood’s mythic avenger archetype for the first time. The biggest hit of Eastwood’s five-decade singing career, “Bar Room Buddies” took him all the way to No. 1 on the Hot Country Singles chart in 1980.

Having wandered rather far afield from his star action persona, Eastwood directed the fourth Dirty Harry film, Sudden Impact (1983). He then returned to his screen roots with the neo-mythic Pale Rider (1985). It showcased Eastwood’s iconic presence and Surtees’s gorgeous photography and was one of the few hit westerns of the 1980s.A lifelong devotee of jazz and an accomplished pianist, Eastwood also directed the well-regarded Bird (1988), a film biography of saxophonist Charlie Parker (Forest Whitaker), and produced the documentary Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser (1988). Off-screen, Eastwood made national headlines in 1986 when he was elected mayor of Carmel, California; he served for two years.

Among several other mid- and late-career Eastwood gems are the elegiac multiple Oscar-winning revisionist Western Unforgiven (1992), Bridges of Madison Country (1995), Mystic River (2003), the poignant boxing drama Million Dollar Baby (2004), and American Sniper (2014).

As you will note I have not named all of Clint’s films as I like to keep each post to no more than about 800 words and there are plenty of great web sites where you can find more information. At a time when most new Hollywood releases are on hold or mired in mediocrity, the prospect of another power-packed Eastwood picture making it to the cinemas is cause for celebration. It’s about time that the nonagenarian maestro is declared a national treasure.

Besides his Academy Awards, Eastwood received the Irving G. Thalberg Award for lifetime achievement in 1995 and the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award in 1996. In 2007 he was made a chevalier of the French Legion of Honour; he was elevated to commander two years later.

(Edited from Britannica, Scroll.in & Slate.com)

Gladys Horton born 30 May 1945

Gladys Catherine Horton (May 30, 1945 – January 26, 2011) (various sources cite her year of birth as 1944) was an American R&B and pop singer, famous for being the founder and lead singer of the popular Motown all-female vocal group The Marvelettes.

Horton was born in Gainesville, Florida, orphaned before her first birthday and brought up in foster care in Inkster, a dormitory suburb for black workers at Detroit's Ford factories. It was while singing in the Inkster high school choir that she and four friends – Katherine Anderson, Georgia Dobbins, Wyanetta (Juanita) Cowart and Georgeanna Tillman – decided to form a group, inspired by the Chantels and the Shirelles and calling themselves the Marvels. At Horton's behest they entered a school talent contest; although they did not win, one of their teachers was so impressed that she secured them an audition at Motown and drove them in her car to the company's headquarters on West Grand Boulevard, later to be known as Hitsville USA.

L-R Katherine Anderson, Juanita Cowart, Gladys Horton, 
Wanda Young & Georgeanna Tillman.

When they were invited to come back with an original song, Dobbins remembered that a young pianist in Inkster, William Garrett, had been working on something that might do. They returned to Motown with Please Mr Postman, which was polished up by three company writers – Brian Holland, Robert Bateman and Freddie Gorman, the last-named adding expert knowledge to the lyric from his day-job delivering mail. The singers were quickly invited to record it with Motown's cadre of ace studio musicians, including the great drummer Benny Benjamin, who concocted the infectious beat that supported the 15 year old Horton's heartfelt cry of "D-liver D-letter D-sooner D-better!"

                              

One of Gordy's sisters, Esther Edwards, had successfully applied to become the legal guardian of the parentless Horton. The Marvelettes were put through a rudimentary version of the grooming for which Motown later became famous. Coiffed, begowned, choreographed and rehearsed, they were sent out to perform at such venues as the Apollo in Harlem and the Howard Theatre in Washington DC with the other members of the company's travelling revue.

The single eventually hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 – becoming Motown's first No. 1 Pop hit – and turning the group into instant Motown stars. Horton would later sing lead on Marvelettes' classics such as "Playboy", "Beechwood 4-5789" and "Too Many Fish in the Sea". Horton's position as lead vocalist ended in 1965 with Wanda Young, who had replaced Dobbins, taking over from then on as lead vocalist.

Horton left the group in 1967 when she became pregnant with the first of three children of a marriage that was later dissolved. She was replaced by Ann Bogan, but after Gordy gradually moved the Motown operation to Los Angeles at the start of the 1970s, leaving many of the company's stalwarts stranded in Detroit, the Marvelettes called it a day. When Horton attempted to reunite the group in the 1980s, she discovered that their name had been sold by Motown to a New York businessman, Larry Marshak, who specialised in putting together ersatz groups to exploit existing reputations and was swift to protect his rights.

Unable to interest the other members in a resumption of activities, she sometimes performed as "Gladys Horton of the Marvelettes", accompanied by two younger singers. Not until Mary Wilson of the Supremes and other artists fought a successful legal action in 2006 was the right to the full use of the names of such groups restored to their original members.

Horton moved to southern California in the 1970s. Like most of Motown's second tier of artists, the Marvelettes had helped make the label rich without enjoying the rewards that might have been expected when Gordy persuaded them, barely out of school and at the dawn of their careers, to sign a personal management contract as well as a recording deal with his company. "A lot of acts were new," Horton said. "They were young and they were inexperienced. It was easy to take advantage of them."

She retired from performing in 2009. Following a lengthy period of declining health, she suffered a stroke land was admitted to a nursing home in Sherman Oaks, California, where she died on January 26, 2011, at the age of 65 years.

The Marvelettes were nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013 and again in 2015.

(Edited from The Guardian & Wikipedia)

Johnny Madara born 28 May 1936

Johnny Madara  (born John L. Medora May 28, 1936), also known as John Madara, is an American singer-songwriter.

John Medora was born in Philadelphia as part of a large Italian – American family.  During his teen years, Rock and Roll was beginning to take shape.  When he was 17 years old, inspired by the music he heard on the radio, early rock acts such as Jackie Wilson, The Clovers and the Moonglows, he took singing lessons with vocal coach, Artie Singer. Artie had a song he had written called "Be My Girl." They recorded it, and it made the National charts top 100.  By that time John had changed his name to Johnny Madara.

                             

Following "Be My Girl" John recorded a song written by Dave White and himself called "Do The Bop" with backup singers Dave White, Danny Rapp, Frank Maffi and Joe Teranova, who would later become "Danny and The Juniors."  

Madara & White at the
 Do The Bop session

Capitol Records, who Johnny had a contract with, passed on "Do The Bop," and at the suggestion of Dick Clark, the title and lyrics were changed to "At The Hop."  Danny and The Juniors recorded the song for Artie Singer's label, Singular Records, and later the master was sold to ABC Paramount.  

John recorded several other records, including Heavenly and Vacation Time, hit the charts, but Johnny Madara's singing career would be put on the back burner following the huge success of "At The Hop."  Dave and John's subsequent success as producers and writing partners, with such hits as "The Fly," "You Don't Own Me," and "1-2-3," made it difficult to resurrect John's singing career.

It would be several years later that John would record one final time with a group he formed called The Spokesmen, which featured John, Dave White and Ray Gilmore. “Dawn of Correction", was an answer song to Barry McGuire's hit "Eve of Destruction". The song reached number 36 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1965. The pair also formed their own publishing company which was later sold to Michael Jackson. In 1967 John and Dave, with Leon Huff, produced “Let the Good Times Roll”/”Feel So Good,” #22 in Billboard, for Bunny Sigler on Parkway Records.

Madara with Gamble & Huff

After parting ways with White over creative differences, his partner was interested in psychedelic rock while he preferred to “stay contemporary” Madara moved to Los Angeles in 1972 and worked as a record producer. He  discovered both Leon Huff and Kenny Gamble (Gamble and Huff), later a successful songwriter and producer attributed to pioneering the style of music known as Philly Soul, and the recording artists Hall and Oates.

Madara spent three years in Las Vegas working with one of the most successful performers of all time, Wayne Newton. He produced two of his albums and further produced and wrote songs for a Christmas television special for Wayne Newton on CBS. In the mid 1970s he moved to Los Angeles, and produced music for movies including Cinderella Liberty and Hey Good Lookin', as well as for television.

                            John Madara's wall of records at his Cambria home

Songs have appeared on some of the biggest grossing soundtrack albums of all time, including American Graffiti and Woodstock ("At The Hop"), Grease ("Rock and Roll is Here to Stay"), Hairspray ("The Fly" and "You Don't Own Me"), Mr. Holland's Opus ("1-2-3"), and Dirty Dancing and The First Wives Club ("You Don't Own Me"). It was the 1996 hit film, The First Wives Club, that not only featured "You Don’t Own Me", but it was used as the theme of the movie. On November 27, 2016, the song was announced to be inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

In October 2017, the Philadelphia Music Alliance honoured Madara and his longtime writing partner David White for their contributions to the so-called “Philadelphia Sound,” along with another Philadelphia songwriting duo, Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff. All four received markers on the association’s Walk of Fame. (Dave White died in Las Vegas March 16. 2019).

(Edited from thatphillysound.com., The Tribune & Wikipedia)

Portia Nelson born 27 May 1920

Portia Nelson (May 27, 1920 – March 6, 2001) was an American popular singer, songwriter, actress, and author. She was best known for her appearances in 1950s cabarets, where she sang soprano.

Portia Nelson was born Betty Mae Nelson on March 27, 1920 in Brigham City, Utah. The youngest of nine children (four of whom died before she was born), she grew up in humble circumstances. Growing up on a family farm, Nelson taught herself to play the piano. She attended Weber College in Ogden, Utah, where she performed in shows and wrote songs and sketches. Nelson became famous going by a nickname she'd taken from a popular radio show, Portia Saves the World.

After college, Nelson went to Los Angeles, where she joined the King Sisters musical group, as a member of the band. Through the King Sisters, she made connections at Universal Studios, where she worked as a publicist. At the age of 23 she was discovered singing for free in a Los Angeles nightclub, by CBS head Walter Gross and soon signed a contract with Columbia Records.

During the 1950s Nelson was primarily a cabaret singer, performing successful engagements at such New York clubs as The Blue Angel, Bon Soir, and Le Ruban Bleu. Her recording career was also taking off. She was the first to record a standard by Mr. Howard, ''Fly Me to the Moon,'' when it still went under the title ''In Other Words.'' In 1952 and 1953 she was a protégée of the CBS Records executive Goddard Lieberson, who featured her on five Columbia albums that revived Broadway shows with their original orchestrations: Oklahoma!, Roberta, On Your Toes, and The Boys from Syracuse.

                    

Nelson recorded several solo albums during the 1950s, that were to become classics of their kind such as Love Songs for a Late Evening (1952), Autumn Leaves (1956), Let Me Love You: Portia Nelson Sings the Love Songs of Bart Howard (1956), and Sunday in New York (1959). She also produced a few of her own albums, as well as Elaine Stritch’s Stritch (1955). As a singer she injected even the most wistful song with an indefatigable verve and optimism. She blended the cultivation of a Broadway soprano with a more intimate cabaret style defined by Mabel Mercer.

Nelson’s Broadway career began with one of Broadway's most prestigious flops, The Golden Apple (1954). The musical, with a score by Jerome Moross and John Latouche, updated Homer’s great epics to turn of the century Washington State. It only ran a few months but has developed into a cult favourite of many theatre fans. Nelson played Miss Minerva Oliver. Her only other Broadway appearance was in the short-lived revue, Almost Crazy (1955). In 1976, Nelson performed in another musical, destined for a cult following, The Baker’s Wife. The Stephen Schwartz musical closed out of town and never made it to Broadway, but many of the songs, especially “Meadowlark” have become cabaret standards. Nelson appeared in regional productions of Apollo and Miss Agnes, and The Boyfriend.

Nelson’s most remembered film role was Sister Berthe in The Sound of Music (1965). She appeared in such films as The Trouble with Angels (1966), Doctor Dolittle (1967), and The Other (1972). She was also on a few television series, most notably All My Children, and was in many television commercials. She also appeared in the Ray Simpson musical "Can't Stop the Music" (1980) and "Rage of Angels" (1982-83). She also found the time to work as vocal coach for stars like Jane Russell and Rock Hudson.

Nelson with Jane Russell

Nelson began writing songs in high school and often performed her own compositions in her cabaret acts. Her songs were also covered by other prominent performers such as Jane Russell, Jo Stafford and Debbie Reynolds. Her most famous composition, ''Make a Rainbow,'' was sung by Marilyn Horne at President Bill Clinton's 1993 inaugural ceremony.

In 1996 she released an album of her songs, Portia Nelson: This Life: Her Songs and Her Friend. In 1997 she won the MAC (Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs) Award for Song of the Year for “As I Remember Him.” She wrote book, concept, music, and lyrics for the musicals The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, Sleeping Beauty, and The Happy Prince.

After her first bout with breast cancer during the late 1970s Nelson wrote a book called There’s a Hole in My Sidewalk, which she described as “a series of thoughts in free verse.” The first poem, from which the book takes its title, has been popular with addiction recovery, self-help, and therapy groups since its publication. In the early 1990s, she suffered from throat and tongue cancer – which Nelson, who never smoked, blamed on her years of singing in smoky nightclubs – which robbed her of her soprano voice. By early 2001 her cancer had recurred, and the singer died in her Manhattan apartment on March 6, 2001. She was 80 years old.

(Edited from New York Library archives & NY Times)

Miles Davis born 26 May 1926

Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926 – September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of musical directions in a five-decade career that kept him at the forefront of many major stylistic developments in jazz.

Born in Alton, Illinois, and raised in East St. Louis, Davis left to study at Juilliard in New York City, before dropping out and making his professional debut as a member of saxophonist Charlie Parker's bebop quintet from 1945 to 1948. Shortly after, he recorded the Birth of the Cool sessions for Capitol Records, which were instrumental to the development of cool jazz. In the early 1950s, Miles Davis recorded some of the earliest hard bop music while on Prestige Records but did so haphazardly due to a heroin addiction.

                              

After a widely acclaimed comeback performance at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1955, he signed a long-term contract with Columbia Records and recorded the 1957 album 'Round About Midnight. It was his first work with saxophonist John Coltrane and bassist Paul Chambers, key members of the sextet he led into the early 1960s. 

During this period, he alternated between orchestral jazz collaborations with arranger Gil Evans, such as the Spanish music-influenced Sketches of Spain (1960), and band recordings, such as Milestones (1958) and Kind of Blue (1959). The latter recording remains one of the most popular jazz albums of all time, having sold over five million copies in the U.S.

Davis made several line-up changes while recording Someday My Prince Will Come (1961), his 1961 Blackhawk concerts, and Seven Steps to Heaven (1963), another mainstream success that introduced bassist Ron Carter, pianist Herbie Hancock, and drummer Tony Williams. After adding saxophonist Wayne Shorter to his new quintet in 1964, Davis led them on a series of more abstract recordings often composed by the band members, helping pioneer the post-bop genre with albums such as E.S.P (1965) and Miles Smiles (1967), before transitioning into his electric period.

During the 1970s, he experimented with rock, funk, African rhythms, emerging electronic music technology, and an ever-changing line-up of musicians, including keyboardist Joe Zawinul, drummer Al Foster, and guitarist John McLaughlin. This period, beginning with Davis' 1969 studio album In a Silent Way and concluding with the 1975 concert recording Agharta, was the most controversial in his career, alienating and challenging many in jazz. His million-selling 1970 record Bitches Brew helped spark a resurgence in the genre's commercial popularity with jazz fusion as the decade progressed. After appearances at the 1975 Newport Jazz Festival in July and the Schaefer Music Festival in New York in September, Davis dropped out of music.

In his autobiography, Davis wrote frankly about his life during his hiatus from music. He chronicled his poor health due to heavy use of alcohol and cocaine. By December 1975, he had regained enough strength to undergo a much needed hip replacement operation. In December 1976, Columbia was reluctant to renew his contract and pay his usual large advances. But after his lawyer started negotiating with United Artists, Columbia matched their offer, establishing the Miles Davis Fund to pay him regularly. Having played the trumpet little throughout the previous three years, Davis found it difficult to reclaim his embouchure.

Davis resumed his career in the 1980s, employing younger musicians and pop sounds on albums such as The Man with the Horn (1981) and Tutu (1986). Critics were often unreceptive but the decade garnered Davis his highest level of commercial recognition. He performed sold-out concerts worldwide, while branching out into visual arts, film, and television work, before his death.

In early September 1991, Davis checked into St. John's Hospital near his home in Santa Monica, California, for routine tests. Doctors suggested he have a tracheal tube implanted to relieve his breathing after repeated bouts of bronchial pneumonia. The suggestion provoked an outburst from Davis that led to an intracerebral hemorrhage followed by a coma. After several days on life support, his machine was turned off and he died on September 28, 1991. He was 65 years old. 

His death was attributed to the combined effects of a stroke, pneumonia, and respiratory failure. He was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York City, with one of his trumpets, near the site of Duke Ellington's grave.

In 2006, Davis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which recognized him as "one of the key figures in the history of jazz". Rolling Stone described him as "the most revered jazz trumpeter of all time, not to mention one of the most important musicians of the 20th century," while Gerald Early called him inarguably one of the most influential and innovative musicians of that period. (Edited from Wikipedia)

Norman Petty born 25 May 1927

Norman Petty (May 25, 1927 – August 15, 1984) was an American musician and record producer who is best known for his association with Buddy Holly and the Crickets, who recorded in his studio. 

Petty was born in the small town of Clovis, New Mexico, United States. He began playing piano at an early young age. While in high school, he regularly performed on a 15-minute show on a local radio station. After his graduation in 1945, he was drafted into the United States Air Force, returned, and married his high-school sweetheart Violet Ann Brady on June 20, 1948. The couple lived briefly in Dallas, Texas, where Petty worked as a part-time engineer at a recording studio. Eventually, they moved back to their hometown of Clovis. 

Petty and his wife, Vi, founded the Norman Petty Trio with guitarist Jack Vaughn. Due to the local success of their independent debut release of "Mood Indigo", they landed a recording contract with RCA Records and sold half a million copies of the recording, and were voted Most Promising Instrumental Group of 1954 by Cashbox magazine. In 1957, their song "Almost Paradise" hit number 18, and Petty won his first BMI writers' award. The song had various cover versions released, with Roger Williams' version selling the best. 

                             

Despite the success of his own records, Petty began construction of his Clovis studio in late 1954. The new studio was state of the art, his estimated spending at about $100,000 (US$963,693 in 2020 dollars). With the success of "Almost Paradise", it was completed to its current state in mid-1957. In his original 7th Street studio, aside from songs for his own musical group, he also produced early singles (several which were hits) for Texas musicians Roy Orbison, Buddy Knox, Waylon Jennings, Charlie "Sugartime" Phillips, Sonny West, Carolyn Hester, and Terry Noland. Also, the hits "Sugar Shack" and "Bottle of Wine" by Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs and "Wheels" by the String-A-Longs were recorded at Petty's studio in the 1960s. 

Petty with The Crickets UK tour 1958

Petty served as Buddy Holly's producer and also as his first manager until late 1958 and also produced all of Buddy Holly's recordings that can be classified as rockabilly. After Holly's death, Petty was put in charge of overdubbing unfinished Holly recordings by request of the Holley family (Buddy's parents) and demos which had charting success overseas. 

Due to the success with instrumental groups, Petty was a reputable producer for bands of that genre to record with and his Clovis Studio was one of the top "go-to" studios for the guitar instrumental (surf) sound in the early 1960s. 

Petty produced a number of Canadian recording artists, including Wes Dakus and the Rebels, Barry Allen, Gainsborough Gallery, and the Happy Feeling, all of whom had chart success in their homeland. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, recordings produced by Petty, in various musical styles, were issued by virtually every major record label in the United States and Canada, with numerous regional successes. 

Petty purchased the Mesa Theater on Main Street in Clovis in 1960. In 1963, he launched the FM radio station KTQM starting as an easy-listening station, later switching to country-and-western music, and then in 1968 to top-40 rock. The country genre had local appeal, so he applied for a new station license and started KWKA 680 AM in 1971, airing country-and-western music. Petty ran both stations until 1979. The stations were sold by Curry County Broadcasting to Zia Broadcasting in 2010. 

Petty & Rick Tucker, Clovis 1980 

Petty died in Lubbock, Texas, in August 1984, of  leukaemia. Later in 1984, he was posthumously named Clovis Citizen of the Year. His wife, Vi, died in March 1992. She helped start the "Norman and Vi Petty Music Festival" in Clovis in 1987, which ran until 1997. It featured many artists who had recorded at the Clovis studio and also popular hit makers. Robert Linville requested the name from the Chamber of Commerce and started the festivals again from 1998 until his death in 2001. 

Petty’s honours include being named a legend in the Rockabilly Hall of Fame and being inducted into the West Texas Music Hall of Fame.    (Info edited from Wikipedia)