mick laBriola

Samuel John “Lightnin’” Hopkins (March 15, 1912 – January 30, 1982) was an American country blues singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional pianist, from Centerville, Texas. Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 71 on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.

The musicologist Robert “Mack” McCormick opined that Hopkins is “the embodiment of the jazz-and-poetry spirit, representing its ancient form in the single creator whose words and music are one act”.

Hopkins was born in Centerville, Texas, and as a child was immersed in the sounds of the blues. He developed a deep appreciation for this music at the age of 8, when he met Blind Lemon Jefferson at a church picnic in Buffalo, Texas. That day, Hopkins felt the blues was “in him”. He went on to learn from his older (distant) cousin, the country blues singer Alger “Texas” Alexander.(Hopkins had another cousin, the Texas electric blues guitarist Frankie Lee Sims, with whom he later recorded.) Hopkins began accompanying Jefferson on guitar at informal church gatherings. Jefferson reputedly never let anyone play with him except young Hopkins, and Hopkins learned much from Jefferson at these gatherings.

In the mid-1930s, Hopkins was sent to Houston County Prison Farm; the offense for which he was imprisoned is unknown. In the late 1930s, he moved to Houston with Alexander in an unsuccessful attempt to break into the music scene there. By the early 1940s, he was back in Centerville, working as a farm hand.

Hopkins took a second shot at Houston in 1946. While singing on Dowling Street in Houston’s Third Ward (which would become his home base), he was discovered by Lola Anne Cullum of Aladdin Records, based in Los Angeles. She convinced Hopkins to travel to Los Angeles, where he accompanied the pianist Wilson Smith. The duo recorded twelve tracks in their first sessions in 1946. An Aladdin executive decided the pair needed more dynamism in their names and dubbed Hopkins “Lightnin'” and Wilson “Thunder”.

As life in Italy grinds to a halt amid a nationwide lockdown to control the spread of the coronavirus outbreak, one street was filled with song as the community banded their voices together in solidarity.

A video of people singing out of their windows on a neighbourhood street in Siena, Tuscany, went viral on social media, with many calling it a “beautiful” act of humanity. “People of my hometown Siena sing a popular song from their houses along an empty street to warm their heart during the Italian Covid-19lockdown”. The song, titled ‘Canto della Verbena’ (‘And While Siena Sleeps’), is a popular folk song in the city typically sung to express local pride. It focuses on the Piazza del Campo, the main square of the city, and is traditionally sung by members of a contrada, districts set up in the Middle Ages to supply troops. Social media users were deeply touched by the communal singing, with some admitting it brought them to tears.“People breaking out in song, lifting each other’s spirits during this tragedy, is an act of striking beauty,” said one person. “It’s a reminder that, especially during a tragedy, the human spirit keeps us all going in hope. We shine our best in the darkness. Thank you, Siena. You made my day.”Another said: “Reminiscent of the chants from Wuhan high-rise apartments early in the epidemic there. Stay strong Italy. Praying for you guys.” ​The lockdown in Italy has effectively quarantined nearly 16 million people and shut down all shops except supermarkets and pharmacies.

NGC 3226-27: What a beautiful sight! And so easy to find just 50′ east of Algieba in Leo’s Sickle. The two galaxies comprise an interacting pair located approximately 77 million light-years from Earth. The smaller of the two, NGC 3226, a 12th-magnitude dwarf elliptical, shares a common envelope with the larger NGC 3227, an 11.1-magnitude spiral. I see two galaxies touching at 142×, each with a distinct character. NGC 3227 is elongated northwest-southeast with a prominent, nearly stellar nucleus. NGC 3226 appears a little fainter, round with a brighter but more diffuse core.

Shirley Scott (March 14, 1934 – March 10, 2002) was an American jazz organist.

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Scott studied trumpet and piano in school. As a performer in the 1950s, she played the Hammond B-3 organ. Her recordings with Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis included the hit “In the Kitchen”. Influenced by gospel and blues, she played soul jazz in the 1960s with Stanley Turrentine, who became her husband during the same decade; the couple divorced in 1971. Although organ trios declined in popularity during the 1970s, they resurged in the 1980s and she recorded again. In the 1990s, she recorded as pianist in a trio and performed at venues in Philadelphia. She was also a jazz educator.

Scott won an $8 million settlement in 2000 against American Home Products, the manufacturers of the diet drug fen-phen. She died of heart failure in 2002. On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Shirley Scott among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.

Quincy Delight Jones Jr. (born March 14, 1933 Chicago, Ill) is an American record producer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, composer, arranger, and film and television producer. His career spans over 60 years in the entertainment industry with a record 80 Grammy Award nominations, 28 Grammys,and a Grammy Legend Award in 1992.

Jones came to prominence in the 1950s as a jazz arranger and conductor, before moving on to work in pop music and film scores. In 1969 Jones and his songwriting partner Bob Russell became the first African-Americans to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song, for “The Eyes of Love” from the film Banning. Jones was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score for his work on the 1967 film In Cold Blood, making him the first African-American to be nominated twice in the same year. In 1971 he became the first African-American to be the musical director and conductor of the Academy Awards ceremony. In 1995 he was the first African-American to receive the Academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. He has tied with sound designer Willie D. Burton as the second most Oscar-nominated African-American, with seven nominations each.

Jones was the producer, with Michael Jackson, of Jackson’s albums Off the Wall (1979), Thriller (1982), and Bad (1987), as well as the producer and conductor of the 1985 charity song “We Are the World“, which raised funds for victims of famine in Ethiopia. In 2013, Jones was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as the winner, alongside Lou Adler, of the Ahmet Ertegun Award. He was named one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century by Time magazine.

Robert Pete Williams (March 14, 1914 – December 31, 1980) was an American Louisiana blues musician. His music characteristically employed unconventional structures and guitar tunings, and his songs are often about the time he served in prison. His song “I’ve Grown So Ugly” has been covered by Captain Beefheart, on his album Safe as Milk (1967), and by The Black Keys, on Rubber Factory (2004).

Williams was born in Zachary, Louisiana, to a family of sharecroppers. He had no formal schooling, and spent his childhood picking cotton and cutting sugar cane. In 1928, he moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana and worked in a lumberyard. At the age of 20, Williams fashioned a crude guitar by attaching five copper strings to a cigar box, and soon after bought a cheap, mass-produced one. Williams was taught by Frank and Robert Metty, and was at first chiefly influenced by Peetie Wheatstraw and Blind Lemon Jefferson. He began to play for small events such as Church gatherings, fish fries, suppers, and dances. From the 1930s to the 1950s, Williams played music and continued to work in the lumberyards of Baton Rouge.

He was discovered by ethnomusicologists Dr Harry Oster and Richard Allen in Louisiana State Penitentiary, where he was serving a life sentence for fatally shooting a man in a nightclub in 1956, an act which he claimed was in self-defense. Oster and Allen recorded Williams performing several of his songs about prison life, and pleaded for him to be pardoned. Under pressure from Oster, the parole board issued a pardon, and commuted his sentence to 12 years. In December 1958, he was released into ‘servitude parole’, which required 80 hours of labor per week on a Denham Springs farm without due compensation, and only room and board provided. This parole prevented him from working in music, though he was able to occasionally play with Butch Cage and Willie B. Thomas at Thomas’s home in Zachary. By this time, Williams’ music was becoming popular, and he played at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival.

Leslie Thompson Baxter (March 14, 1922 – January 15, 1996) was an American musician and composer. After working as an arranger and composer for swing bands, he developed his own style of easy listening music, known as exotica.

Baxter studied piano at the Detroit Conservatory before moving to Los Angeles for further studies at Pepperdine College. From 1943 on he played tenor and baritone saxophone for the Freddie Slack big band. Abandoning a concert career as a pianist, he turned to popular music as a singer. At the age of 23 he joined Mel Tormé‘s Mel-Tones, singing on Artie Shaw records such as “What Is This Thing Called Love?“.

Baxter then turned to arranging and conducting for Capitol Records in 1950, and conducted the orchestra in two early Nat King Cole hits, “Mona Lisa” and “Too Young“. In 1953 he scored his first movie, the sailing travelogue Tanga Tika. With his own orchestra, he released a number of hits including “Ruby” (1953), “Unchained Melody” (1955), and “The Poor People of Paris” (1956), and is remembered for a version of “Sinner Man” (1956), definitively setting the sound with varying tempos, orchestral flourishes, and wailing background vocals. “Unchained Melody” was the first million seller for Baxter, and was awarded a gold disc.^[2] “The Poor People of Paris” also sold over one million copies. He also achieved success with concept albums of his own orchestral suites: Le Sacre Du Sauvage, Festival Of The Gnomes, Ports Of Pleasure, and Brazil Now, the first three for Capitol and the fourth on Gene Norman‘s Crescendo label. The list of musicians on these recordings includes Plas Johnson and Clare Fischer.Baxter also wrote the “Whistle” theme from the TV show Lassie.

In the 1960s, he formed the Balladeers, a conservative folk group in suits that at one time featured a young David Crosby. Later he used some of the same singers from that group for a studio project called The Forum. They had a minor hit in 1967 with a rendition of “River is Wide” which implemented the Wall of Sound technique originally developed by Phil Spector. He worked in radio as musical director of The Halls of Ivy and the Bob Hope and Abbott and Costello shows.

Urinetown Cancelled on last weekend of performances.
Official statement regarding COVID-19 concerns and remaining performances:
Theatre 55 is committed to people age 55+. Our mission is to Enrich the lives of elders as artists, audiences, and lifelong learners through theatre performances and classes.
To put the very same people at risk whom we aim to enrich would simply not be prudent.
It is with great sadness that we have come to the decision to NOT CONTINUE OUR RUN OF URINETOWN, and to cancel our remaining performances. March 13, 14, and 15 performances are officially canceled.

Gum 15 is a nebula from the Gum catalog, located in the constellation of Vela, about 3,000 light-years from Earth. It is shaped by aggressive winds flowing from the stars within and around it. The bright star in the center of the nebula is HD 74804, a double star.

Richard Allen “Blue“ Mitchell (March 13, 1930 – May 21, 1979) was an American jazz, rhythm and blues, soul, rock and funk trumpeter, and composer, who recorded many albums as leader and sideman for Riverside, Blue Note, and Mainstream Records.

Mitchell was born and raised in Miami, Florida. He began playing trumpet in high school, where he acquired his nickname, Blue. After high school, he played in the rhythm and blues ensembles of Paul Williams, Earl Bostic, and Chuck Willis. After returning to Miami he was noticed by Cannonball Adderley, with whom he recorded for Riverside Records in New York in 1958.

He then joined the Horace Silver Quintet, playing with tenor saxophonist Junior Cook, bassist Gene Taylor, and drummer Roy Brooks. Mitchell stayed with Silver’s group until the band’s break-up in 1964, after which he formed a group with members from the Silver quintet, substituting the young pianist Chick Corea for Silver and replacing Brooks, who had fallen ill, with drummer Al Foster. This group produced a number of records for Blue Note. It disbanded in 1969, after which Mitchell joined and toured with Ray Charles until 1971.

From 1971 to 1973 Mitchell performed with John Mayall, appearing on Jazz Blues Fusion and subsequent albums. From the mid-70s he recorded and worked as a session man in the genres noted previously, performed with the big band leaders Louie Bellson, Bill Holman, and Bill Berry and was the principal soloist for Tony Bennett and Lena Horne. Other band leaders Mitchell recorded with include Lou Donaldson, Grant Green, Philly Joe Jones, Jackie McLean, Hank Mobley, Johnny Griffin, Al Cohn, Dexter Gordon, and Jimmy Smith. Blue Mitchell kept his hard-bop playing going with the Harold Land quintet up until his death from cancer on May 21, 1979, in Los Angeles, at the age of 49.

Roy Owen Haynes (born March 13, 1925)^[1] is an American jazz drummer and group leader. Haynes is among the most recorded drummers in jazz, and in a career lasting over 70 years has played in a wide range of styles ranging from swing and bebop to jazz fusion and avant-garde jazz. “Snap Crackle” was a nickname given him in the 1950s.

He has also led his own groups, some performing under the name Hip Ensemble. His recordings as a leader, Fountain of Youth^[2] and Whereas, were nominated for a Grammy Award. He continues to perform worldwide and was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1999. His son Graham Haynes is a cornetist; his son Craig Haynes and grandson Marcus Gilmore are both drummers. Haynes was born in the Roxbury section of Boston, Massachusetts. His younger brother, Michael E. Haynes, would go on to become an important leader in the black community of Massachusetts, working with Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement, representing Roxbury in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and for forty years serving as pastor of the Twelfth Baptist Church, where King had been a member while he pursued his doctoral degree at Boston University.

Roy Haynes made his professional debut in 1944 in his native Boston and began his full-time professional career in 1945. From 1947 to 1949 he worked with saxophonist Lester Young, and from 1949 to 1952 was a member of saxophonist Charlie Parker‘s quintet. He also recorded at the time with pianist Bud Powell and saxophonists Wardell Gray and Stan Getz. From 1953 to 1958 he toured with singer Sarah Vaughan and also recorded with her.

Otis Verries Hicks, known as Lightnin’ Slim (March 13, 1913 – July 27, 1974), was an American Louisiana blues musician, who recorded for Excello Records and played in a style similar to its other Louisiana artists. The blues critic ED Denson ranked him as one of the five great bluesmen of the 1950s, along with Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Howlin’ Wolf and Sonny Boy Williamson. According to most sources, Otis Hicks was born on a farm outside St. Louis, Missouri, but the researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc stated, on the basis of his draft card, that he was born in Good Pine, Louisiana. He moved to Baton Rouge at the age of thirteen. Taught guitar by his older brother Layfield, Slim was playing in bars in Baton Rouge by the late 1940s.

His first recording was “Bad Luck Blues” (“If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all”), released by J. D. “Jay” Miller‘s Feature Records in 1954. It was Miller, who had a penchant for picking colourful artists’ names, who christened him “Lightnin’ Slim”. Slim then recorded for Excello Records for twelve years, starting in the mid-1950s, often collaborating with his brother-in-law Slim Harpo and with the harmonica player Lazy Lester.

Slim stopped performing the blues for a time and eventually worked in a foundry in Pontiac, Michigan, as a result of which his hands were constantly exposed to high temperatures. He was rediscovered by Fred Reif in 1970, in Pontiac, where he was living in a rented room at Slim Harpo’s sister’s house. Reif soon got him back performing again and a new recording contract with Excello, this time through Bud Howell, then the president of the company. His first engagement was a reunion concert in 1971 at the University of Chicago Folk Festival with Lazy Lester, whom Reif had brought from Baton Rouge in January of that year.

In the 1970s, Slim performed on tours in Europe, in the United Kingdom and at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, for which he was often accompanied by Moses “Whispering” Smith on harmonica. He last toured the UK in 1973, with the American Blues Legends package organised by Big Bear Records. In July 1974, Slim died of stomach cancer in Detroit, Michigan, aged 61.