London and Provincial Music

Archive for the ‘The Best In 2001′s London Music’ Category

Life and career

19491972: Early years

Springsteen was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, and spent his childhood and high school years in Freehold Borough. He lived off South Street in Freehold Borough and attended Freehold Borough High School. His father, Douglas Frederick Springsteen, was of Dutch and Irish ancestry and worked, among other vocations, as a bus driver; his surname is Dutch for stepping stone. His mother, Adele Ann (ne Zerilli), was a legal secretary and was of Italian ancestry. His grandfather was born in Vico Equense, a city near Naples. He has two younger sisters, Virginia and Pamela. Pamela had a brief film career, but left acting to pursue still photography full time; she took photos for the Human Touch and Lucky Town albums.

Raised a Roman Catholic, Springsteen attended the St. Rose of Lima Catholic school in Freehold Borough, where he was at odds with both the nuns and other students, even though much of his later music reflects a deep Catholic ethos and included many rock-influenced, traditional Irish-Catholic hymns.

In ninth grade, he transferred to the public Freehold Regional High School, but did not fit in there, either. Old teachers have said he was a “loner, who wanted nothing more than to play his guitar.” He completed high school, but felt so uncomfortable that he skipped his own graduation ceremony. He briefly attended Ocean County College, but dropped out.

Springsteen had been inspired to take up music at the age of seven after seeing Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show. At 13, he bought his first guitar for ; later, his mother took out a loan to buy the 16-year-old Springsteen a Kent guitar, as he later memorialized in his song “The Wish.”

In 1965, he went to the house of Tex and Marion Vinyard, who sponsored young bands in town. They helped him become lead guitarist and subsequently the lead singer of The Castiles. The Castiles recorded two original songs at a public recording studio in Brick Township and played a variety of venues, including Cafe Wha? in Greenwich Village. Marion Vinyard said that she believed the young Springsteen when he promised he would make it big.

Called for induction when he was 19, Springsteen failed his physical examination and didn’t serve in Vietnam. In an interview in Rolling Stone magazine in 1984, he said, “When I got on the bus to go take my physical, I thought one thing: I ain’t goin’.” He suffered a concussion in a motorcycle accident when he was 17, and this together with his “crazy” behaviour at induction and not taking the tests, was enough to get him a 4F.

New Jersey beach towns such as Asbury Park, New Jersey inspired the themes of ordinary life in Bruce Springsteen’s music.

In the late 1960s, Springsteen performed briefly in a power trio known as Earth, playing in clubs in New Jersey. Springsteen acquired the nickname “The Boss” during this period as when he played club gigs with a band he took on the task of collecting the band’s nightly pay and distributing it amongst his bandmates. Springsteen, however, has never liked this nickname, due to his dislike of bosses. Lately, however, he seems to have accepted the nickname. Many recent concerts have audiences making up various signs on banners, license plates and so on saying, “Boss Time”. Previously he had the nickname “Doctor”. From 1969 through early 1971, Springsteen performed with Steel Mill, which also featured Danny Federici, Vini Lopez, Vinnie Roslin and later Steve Van Zandt and Robbin Thompson. They went on to play the mid-Atlantic college circuit, and also briefly in California. In January 1970 well-known San Francisco Examiner music critic Philip Elwood gave Springsteen credibility in his glowing assessment of Steel Mill: “I have never been so overwhelmed by totally unknown talent.” Elwood went on to praise their “cohesive musicality” and, in particular, singled out Springsteen as “a most impressive composer.” During this time Springsteen also performed regularly at small clubs in Asbury Park and along the Jersey Shore, quickly gathering a cult following. Other acts followed over the next two years, as Springsteen sought to shape a unique and genuine musical and lyrical style: Dr Zoom & the Sonic Boom (earlyid 1971), Sundance Blues Band (mid 1971), and The Bruce Springsteen Band (mid 1971id 1972). With the addition of pianist David Sancious, the core of what would later become the E Street Band was formed, with occasional temporary additions such as horn sections, “The Zoomettes” (a group of female backing vocalists for “Dr Zoom”) and Southside Johnny Lyon on harmonica. Musical genres explored included blues, R&B, jazz, church music, early rock’n'roll, and soul. His prolific songwriting ability, with more words in some individual songs than other artists had in whole albums, brought his skill to the attention of several people who were about to change his life: new managers Mike Appel and Jim Cretecos, and legendary Columbia Records talent scout John Hammond, who, under Appel’s pressure, auditioned Springsteen in May 1972.

Even after Springsteen gained international acclaim, his New Jersey roots showed through in his music, and he often praised “the great state of New Jersey” in his live shows. Drawing on his extensive local appeal, he routinely sold out consecutive nights in major New Jersey and Philadelphia venues. He also made many surprise appearances at The Stone Pony and other shore nightclubs over the years, becoming the foremost exponent of the Jersey Shore sound.

19721974: Initial struggle for success

Springsteen signed a record deal with Columbia Records in 1972, with the help of John Hammond, who had signed Bob Dylan to the same label a decade earlier. Springsteen brought many of his New Jerseyased colleagues into the studio with him, thus forming the E Street Band (although it would not be formally named as such for a couple more years). His debut album, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., released in January 1973, established him as a critical favorite, though sales were slow. Because of Springsteen’s lyrical poeticism and folk rockooted music exemplified on tracks like “Blinded by the Light” and “For You”, as well as the Columbia and Hammond connections, critics initially compared Springsteen to Bob Dylan. “He sings with a freshness and urgency I haven’t heard since I was rocked by ‘Like a Rolling Stone’,” wrote Crawdaddy magazine editor Peter Knobler in Springsteen’s first interview/profile, in March 1973. Crawdaddy “discovered” Springsteen in the rock press and was his earliest champion. (Springsteen and the E Street Band acknowledged by giving a private performance at the Crawdaddy 10th Anniversary Party in New York City in June 1976.) Music critic Lester Bangs wrote in Creem, 1975, that when Springsteen’s first album was released…..”many of us dismissed it: he wrote like Bob Dylan and Van Morrison, sang like Van Morrison and Robbie Robertson, and led a band that sounded like Van Morrison’s.” The track “Spirit in the Night” especially showed Morrison’s influence, while “Lost in the Flood” was the first of many portraits of Vietnam veterans and “Growin’ Up” his first take on the recurring theme of adolescence.

In September 1973 his second album, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, was released, again to critical acclaim but no commercial success. Springsteen’s songs became grander in form and scope, with the E Street Band providing a less folky, more R&B vibe and the lyrics often romanticizing teenage street life. “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)” and “Incident on 57th Street” would become fan favorites, and the long, rousing “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” continues to rank among Springsteen’s most beloved concert numbers.

In the May 22, 1974, issue of Boston’s The Real Paper, music critic Jon Landau wrote after seeing a performance at the Harvard Square Theater, “I saw rock and roll future, and its name is Bruce Springsteen. And on a night when I needed to feel young, he made me feel like I was hearing music for the very first time.” Landau subsequently became Springsteen’s manager and producer, helping to finish the epic new album, Born to Run. Given an enormous budget in a last-ditch effort at a commercially viable record, Springsteen became bogged down in the recording process while striving for a wall of sound production. But, fed by the release of an early mix of “Born to Run” to progressive rock radio, anticipation built toward the album’s release. All in all the album took more than 14 months to record, with six months alone spent on the song “Born To Run.” During this time Springsteen battled with anger and frustration over the album, saying he heard “sounds in [his] head” that he could not explain to the others in the studio. It was during these recording sessions that “Miami” Steve Van Zandt would stumble into the studio just in time to help Springsteen organize the horn section on “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” (it is his only written contribution to the album), and eventually led to his joining the E Street Band.[citation needed] Van Zandt had been a long-time friend of Springsteen, as well as a collaborator on earlier musical projects, and understood where he was coming from, which helped him to translate some of the sounds Springsteen was hearing. Still, by the end of the grueling recording sessions, Springsteen was not satisfied, and, upon first hearing the finished album, threw the record into the alley and told Jon Landau he would rather just cut the album live at The Bottom Line, a place he often played.[citation needed]

The woman in his life during this time was part-time-live-in 20-year-old Karen Darvin of Dallas, Texas, who was in New York City pursuing a career in dance.

19751983: Breakthrough

On August 13, 1975, Springsteen and the E Street Band began a five-night, 10-show stand at New York’s Bottom Line club. The engagement attracted major media attention, was broadcast live on WNEW-FM, and convinced many skeptics that Springsteen was for real. (Decades later, Rolling Stone Magazine would name the stand as one of the 50 Moments That Changed Rock and Roll.) With the release of Born to Run on August 25, 1975, Springsteen finally found success. The album peaked at number 3 on the Billboard 200, and while there were no hit singles, “Born to Run” (Billboard #23), “Thunder Road”, “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” (Billboard #83), and “Jungleland” all received massive album-oriented rock airplay and remain perennial favorites on many classic rock stations. The songwriting and recording was more disciplined than before, while still maintaining an epic feel. With its panoramic imagery, thundering production and desperate optimism, Born to Run is considered by some fans to be among the best rock and roll albums of all time and Springsteen’s finest work. It established him as a sincere and dynamic rock and roll personality who spoke for and in the voice of a large part of the rock audience. To cap off the triumph, Springsteen appeared on the covers of both Time and Newsweek in the same week, on October 27 of that year. So great did the wave of publicity become that Springsteen eventually rebelled against it during his first venture overseas, tearing down promotional posters before a concert appearance in London.

A legal battle with former manager Mike Appel kept Springsteen out of the studio for over two years, during which time he kept the E Street Band together through extensive touring across the U.S. Despite the optimistic fervor with which he often performed, the new songs he was writing and often debuting on stage had taken a more somber tone than much of his previous work. Reaching settlement with Appel in 1977, Springsteen finally returned to the studio, and the subsequent sessions produced Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978). Musically, this album was a turning point in Springsteen’s career. Gone were the raw, rapid-fire lyrics, outsized characters and long, multi-part musical compositions of the first two albums; now the songs were leaner and more carefully drawn and began to reflect Springsteen’s growing intellectual and political awareness. Some fans consider Darkness Springsteen’s best and most consistent record; tracks such as “Badlands” and “The Promised Land” became concert staples for decades to come, while the track “Prove It All Night” received a significant amount of album rock radio airplay. Other fans would prefer the work of the adventurous early Springsteen. The cross-country 1978 tour to promote the album would become legendary for the intensity and length of its shows.

By the late 1970s, Springsteen had earned a reputation in the pop world as a songwriter whose material could provide hits for other bands. Manfred Mann’s Earth Band had achieved a U.S. number one pop hit with a heavily rearranged version of “For You” and Greetings’ “Blinded by the Light” in early 1977. Patti Smith reached number 13 with her take on Springsteen’s unreleased “Because the Night” (which Smith co-wrote) in 1978, while The Pointer Sisters hit number two in 1979 with Springsteen’s also unreleased “Fire”.

Springsteen in concert on The River Tour. Drammenshallen, Drammen, Norway, May 5, 1981.

In September 1979, Springsteen and the E Street Band joined the Musicians United for Safe Energy anti-nuclear power collective at Madison Square Garden for two nights, playing an abbreviated set while premiering two songs from his upcoming album. The subsequent No Nukes live album, as well as the following summer’s No Nukes documentary film, represented the first official recordings and footage of Springsteen’s fabled live act, as well as Springsteen’s first tentative dip into political involvement.

Springsteen continued to consolidate his thematic focus on working-class life with the 20-song double album The River in 1980, which included an intentionally paradoxical range of material from good-time party rockers to emotionally intense ballads, and finally yielded his first hit Top Ten single as a performer, “Hungry Heart”. This album marked a shift in Springsteen’s music toward a pop-rock sound that was all but missing from any of his earlier work. This is apparent in the stylistic adoption of certain eighties pop-rock hallmarks like the reverberating-tenor drums, very basic percussion/guitar and repetitive lyrics apparent in many of the tracks. The title song pointed to Springsteen’s intellectual direction, while a couple of the lesser-known tracks presaged his musical direction. The album sold well, becoming his first topper on the Billboard Pop Albums chart, and a long tour in 1980 and 1981 followed, featuring Springsteen’s first extended playing of Europe and ending with a series of multi-night arena stands in major cities in the U.S.

The River was followed in 1982 by the stark solo acoustic Nebraska. According to the Marsh biographies, Springsteen was in a depressed state when he wrote this material, and the result is a brutal depiction of American life. The title track is about the murder spree of Charles Starkweather. According to Marsh, the album started as a demo tape for new work to be played with the E Street Band, but during the recording process Springsteen and producer Landau realized the songs worked better as solo acoustic numbers. Several studio sessions with the E Street Band led them to realize that the original recording, made in Springsteen’s home on a simple, low-tech four-track tape deck, were the best versions they were going to get. However, those sessions were not all for naught, as the band recorded several new songs that Springsteen had written in addition to the Nebraska material, including “Born in the U.S.A.” and “Glory Days”. These new songs would not be released until two years later, when they formed the basis of Springsteen’s next album.

While Nebraska did not sell well, it garnered widespread critical praise (including being named “Album of the Year” by Rolling Stone magazine’s critics) and influenced later significant works by other major artists, including U2′s album The Joshua Tree. It helped inspire the musical genre known as lo-fi music, becoming a cult favorite among indie-rockers. Springsteen did not tour in conjunction with Nebraska’s release.

19841991: Commercial and popular phenomenon

Springsteen probably is best known for his album Born in the U.S.A. (1984), which sold 15 million copies in the U.S. and became one of the best-selling albums of all time, with seven singles hitting the Top 10, and the massively successful world tour that followed it. The title track was a bitter commentary on the treatment of Vietnam veterans, some of whom were Springsteen’s friends and bandmates. The lyrics in the verses were entirely unambiguous when listened to, but the anthemic music and the title of the song made it hard for many, from politicians to the common person, to get the lyricsxcept those in the chorus, which could be read many ways. The song was widely misinterpreted as jingoistic, and in connection with the 1984 presidential campaign became the subject of considerable folklore. Springsteen also turned down several million dollars offered by the Chrysler Corporation to use the song in a car commercial. (In later years, to eliminate the bombast and make the song’s original meaning more explicitly clear, Springsteen performed the song accompanied only by acoustic guitar. An acoustic version also appeared on Tracks, a later album.) “Dancing in the Dark” was the biggest of seven hit singles from Born in the U.S.A., peaking at number 2 on the Billboard music charts. The music video for the song featured a young Courteney Cox dancing on stage with Springsteen, an appearance which helped kickstart the actress’s career. The song “Cover Me” was written by Springsteen for Donna Summer, but his record company persuaded him to keep it for the new album. A big fan of Summer’s work, Springsteen wrote another song for her, “Protection”. Videos for the album were made by noted film directors Brian De Palma and John Sayles. Springsteen was featured on the “We Are the World” song and album in 1985.

During the Born in the U.S.A. Tour, Springsteen met actress Julianne Phillips. They were married in Lake Oswego, Oregon, on May 13, 1985, surrounded by intense media attention. Opposites in background, their marriage was not long-lived. Springsteen’s 1987 album Tunnel of Love described some of his unhappinesses in the relationship, and during the subsequent Tunnel of Love Express tour, as reported by many tabloids, Springsteen took up with backup singer Patti Scialfa. Phillips and Springsteen filed for divorce in 1988. The divorce was finalized in 1989.

Springsteen performing on the Tunnel of Love Express at the Radrennbahn Weiensee in East Berlin on July 19, 1988.

The Born in the U.S.A. period represented the height of Springsteen’s visibility in popular culture and the broadest audience demographic he would ever reach (aided by the release of Arthur Baker’s dance mixes of three of the singles). Live/197585, a five-record box set (also on three cassettes or three CDs), was released near the end of 1986 and became the first box set to debut at number 1 on the U.S. album charts. It is one of the most commercially successful live albums of all time, ultimately selling 13 million units in the U.S. Live/197585 summed up Springsteen’s career to that point and displayed some of the elements that made his shows so powerful to his fans: the switching from mournful dirges to party rockers and back; the communal sense of purpose between artist and audience; the long, intense spoken passages before songs, including those describing Springsteen’s difficult relationship with his father; and the instrumental prowess of the E Street Band, such as in the long coda to “Racing in the Street”. Despite its popularity, some fans and critics felt the album’s song selection could have been better. Springsteen concerts are the subjects of frequent bootleg recording and trading among fans.

By the peak of Springsteen’s international megastardom in the mid-’80s there were no less than five Springsteen fanzines circulating at the same time in the UK, and many others elsewhere. Gary Desmond’s ‘Candy’s Room’, produced in Liverpool, was the first in 1980, quickly followed by Dan French’s ‘Point Blank’, Dave Percival’s ‘The Fever’, Jeff Matthews’ ‘Rendezvous’ and Paul Limbrick’s ‘Jackson Cage’. In the US, Backstreets Magazine started in Seattle and continues today as a glossy publication, now in communication with Springsteen’s management and official website.

After this commercial peak, Springsteen released the much more sedate and contemplative Tunnel of Love (1987), a mature reflection on the many faces of love found, lost and squandered, which only selectively used the E Street Band. It presaged the breakup of his marriage to Julianne Phillips. Reflecting the challenges of love in Brilliant Disguise, Springsteen sang:

I heard somebody call your name, from underneath our willow. I saw something tucked in shame, underneath your pillow. Well I’ve tried so hard baby, but I just can’t see. What a woman like you is doing with me.

The subsequent Tunnel of Love Express tour shook up fans with changes to the stage layout, favorites dropped from the set list, and horn-based arrangements. During the European leg in 1988, Springsteen’s relationship with Scialfa became public. Later in 1988, Springsteen headlined the worldwide Human Rights Now! tour for Amnesty International. In the fall of 1989 he dissolved the E Street Band, and he and Scialfa relocated to California. Springsteen married Scialfa in 1991. They have three children: Evan James (b. 1990), Jessica Rae (b. 1991) and Sam Ryan (b. 1994).

19922001: Artistic and commercial ups and downs

In 1992, after risking charges of “going Hollywood” by moving to Los Angeles (a radical move for someone so linked to the blue-collar life of the Jersey Shore) and working with session musicians, Springsteen released two albums at once. Human Touch and Lucky Town were even more introspective than any of his previous work and displayed a newly revealed confidence. As opposed to his first two albums, which dreamed of happiness, and his next four, which showed him growing to fear it, at points during the Lucky Town album, Springsteen actually claims happiness for himself.

Some E Street Band fans voiced (and continue to voice) a low opinion of these albums, especially Human Touch, and did not follow the subsequent “Other Band” Tour. Other fans, however, who had only come to know Springsteen after the 1975 consolidation of the E Street Band, found this tour an exciting opportunity to see Springsteen develop a working onstage relationship with a different group of musicians, and to see him explore the Asbury Park soul-and-gospel base in some of his classic material.

An electric band appearance on the acoustic MTV Unplugged television program (later released as In Concert/MTV Plugged) was poorly received and further cemented fan dissatisfaction. Springsteen seemed to realize this a few years hence when he spoke humorously of his late father during his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame acceptance speech:

I’ve gotta thank him because what would I conceivably have written about without him? I mean, you can imagine that if everything had gone great between us, we would have had disaster. I would have written just happy songs and I tried it in the early ’90s and it didn’t work; the public didn’t like it.

A multiple Grammy Award winner, Springsteen also won an Academy Award in 1994 for his song “Streets of Philadelphia”, which appeared on the soundtrack to the film Philadelphia. The song, along with the film, was applauded by many for its sympathetic portrayal of a gay man dying of AIDS.[citation needed] The music video for the song shows Springsteen’s actual vocal performance, recorded using a hidden microphone, to a prerecorded instrumental track.[citation needed] This technique was developed on the “Brilliant Disguise” video.

In 1995, after temporarily re-organizing the E Street Band for a few new songs recorded for his first Greatest Hits album (a recording session that was chronicled in the documentary Blood Brothers), he released his second (mostly) solo guitar album, The Ghost of Tom Joad, inspired by Journey to Nowhere: The Saga of the New Underclass, a book by Pulitzer Prize-winners author Dale Maharidge and photographer Michael Williamson. This was generally less well-received than the similar Nebraska, due to the minimal melody, twangy vocals, and political nature of most of the songs, although some praised it for giving voice to immigrants and others who rarely have one in American culture. The lengthy, worldwide, small-venue solo acoustic Ghost of Tom Joad Tour that followed successfully featured many of his older songs in drastically reshaped acoustic form, although Springsteen had to explicitly remind his audiences to be quiet and not to clap during the performances.

Following the tour, Springsteen moved back to New Jersey with his family. In 1998, Springsteen released the sprawling, four-disc box set of out-takes, Tracks. Subsequently, Springsteen would acknowledge that the 1990s were a “lost period” for him: “I didn’t do a lot of work. Some people would say I didn’t do my best work.”

Springsteen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999 by U2, a favor he returned in 2005.

In 1999, Springsteen and the E Street Band officially came together again and went on the extensive Reunion Tour, lasting over a year. Highlights included a record sold-out, 15-show run at Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey to kick off the American leg of the tour.

Springsteen’s Reunion Tour with the E Street Band ended with a triumphant ten-night, sold-out engagement at New York City’s Madison Square Garden in mid-2000 and controversy over a new song, “American Skin (41 Shots)”, about the police shooting of Amadou Diallo. The final shows at Madison Square Garden were recorded and resulted in an HBO Concert, with corresponding DVD and album releases as Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band: Live in New York City.

2002resent: Return to mainstream success

The scene outside the Giants Stadium parking lot for banner-marked, record-setting, 10-night stand of The Rising Tour during July 2003.

In 2002, Springsteen released his first studio effort with the full band in 18 years, The Rising, produced by Brendan O’Brien. The album, mostly a reflection on the September 11 attacks, was a critical and popular success. (Many of the songs were influenced by phone conversations Springsteen had with family members of victims of the attacks who in their obituaries had mentioned how his music touched their lives.) The title track gained airplay in several radio formats, and the record became Springsteen’s best-selling album of new material in 15 years. Kicked off by an early-morning Asbury Park appearance on The Today Show, The Rising Tour commenced, barnstorming through a series of single-night arena stands in the U.S. and Europe to promote the album in 2002, then returning for large-scale, multiple-night stadium shows in 2003. While Springsteen had maintained a loyal hardcore fan base everywhere (and particularly in Europe), his general popularity had dipped over the years in some southern and midwestern regions of the U.S. But it was still strong in Europe and along the U.S. coasts, and he played an unprecedented 10 nights in Giants Stadium in New Jersey, a ticket-selling feat to which no other musical act has come close. During these shows Springsteen thanked those fans who were attending multiple shows and those who were coming from long distances or another country; the advent of robust Bruce-oriented online communities had made such practices more common. The Rising Tour came to a final conclusion with three nights in Shea Stadium, highlighted by renewed controversy over “American Skin” and a guest appearance by Bob Dylan.

During the early 2000s, Springsteen became a visible advocate for the revitalization of Asbury Park, and played an annual series of winter holiday concerts there to benefit various local businesses, organizations, and causes. These shows were explicitly intended for the devoted fans, featuring numbers such as the unreleased (until Tracks) E Street Shuffle outtake “Thundercrack”, a rollicking group-participation song that would mystify casual Springsteen fans. He also frequently rehearses for tours in Asbury Park; some of his most devoted followers even go so far as to stand outside the building to hear what fragments they can of the upcoming shows. The song “My City of Ruins” was originally written about Asbury Park, in honor of the attempts to revitalize the city. Looking for an appropriate song for a post-Sept. 11 benefit concert honoring New York City, he selected “My City of Ruins,” which was immediately recognized as an emotional highlight of the concert, with its gospel themes and its heartfelt exhortations to “Rise up!” The song became associated with post-9/11 New York, and he chose it to close The Rising album and as an encore on the subsequent tour.

At the Grammy Awards of 2003, Springsteen performed The Clash’s “London Calling” along with Elvis Costello, Dave Grohl, and E Street Band member Steven Van Zandt and No Doubt’s bassist, Tony Kanal, in tribute to Joe Strummer; Springsteen and the Clash had once been considered multiple-album-dueling rivals at the time of the double The River and the triple Sandinista!. In 2004, Springsteen and the E Street Band participated in the “Vote for Change” tour, along with John Mellencamp, John Fogerty, the Dixie Chicks, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., Bright Eyes, the Dave Matthews Band, Jackson Browne, and other musicians. All concerts were to be held in swing states, to benefit the liberalism political organization group America Coming Together and to encourage people to register and vote. A finale was held in Washington, D.C., bringing many of the artists together. Several days later, Springsteen held one more such concert in New Jersey, when polls showed that state surprisingly close. While in past years Springsteen had played benefits for causes in which he believed against nuclear energy, for Vietnam veterans, Amnesty International, and the Christic Institute he had always refrained from explicitly endorsing candidates for political office (indeed he had rejected the efforts of Walter Mondale to attract an endorsement during the 1984 Reagan “Born in the U.S.A.” flap). This new stance led to criticism and praise from the expected partisan sources. Springsteen’s “No Surrender” became the main campaign theme song for John Kerry’s unsuccessful presidential campaign; in the last days of the campaign, he performed acoustic versions of the song and some of his other old songs at Kerry rallies.

An acoustic guitar number during the solo Devils & Dust Tour performance at the Festhalle Frankfurt, June 15, 2005.

Devils & Dust was released on April 26, 2005, and was recorded without the E Street Band. It is a low-key, mostly acoustic album, in the same vein as Nebraska and The Ghost of Tom Joad although with a little more instrumentation. Some of the material was written almost 10 years earlier during, or shortly after, the Ghost of Tom Joad Tour, a couple of them being performed then but never released. The title track concerns an ordinary soldier’s feelings and fears during the Iraq War. Starbucks rejected a co-branding deal for the album, due in part to some sexually explicit content but also because of Springsteen’s anti-corporate politics. The album entered the album charts at No. 1 in 10 countries (United States, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Ireland). Springsteen began the solo Devils & Dust Tour at the same time as the album’s release, playing both small and large venues. Attendance was disappointing in a few regions, and everywhere (other than in Europe) tickets were easier to get than in the past. Unlike his mid-1990s solo tour, he performed on piano, electric piano, pump organ, autoharp, ukulele, banjo, electric guitar, and stomping board, as well as acoustic guitar and harmonica, adding variety to the solo sound. (Offstage synthesizer, guitar, and percussion were also used for some songs.) Unearthly renditions of “Reason to Believe”, “The Promised Land”, and Suicide’s “Dream Baby Dream” jolted audiences to attention, while rarities, frequent set list changes, and a willingness to keep trying even through audible piano mistakes kept most of his loyal audiences happy.

In November 2005, Sirius Satellite Radio started a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week radio station on Channel 10 called E Street Radio. This channel featured commercial-free Bruce Springsteen music, including rare tracks, interviews, and daily concerts of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band recorded throughout their career.

Springsteen and The Sessions Band performing on their tour at the Fila Forum, Milan, Italy on May 12, 2006.

In April 2006, Springsteen released We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, an American roots music project focused around a big folk sound treatment of 15 songs popularized by the radical musical activism of Pete Seeger. It was recorded with a large ensemble of musicians including only Patti Scialfa, Soozie Tyrell, and The Miami Horns from past efforts. In contrast to previous albums, this was recorded in only three one-day sessions, and frequently one can hear Springsteen calling out key changes live as the band explores its way through the tracks. The Bruce Springsteen with The Seeger Sessions Band Tour began the same month, featuring the 18-strong ensemble of musicians dubbed The Seeger Sessions Band (and later shortened to the The Sessions Band). Seeger Sessions material was heavily featured, as well as a handful of (usually drastically rearranged) Springsteen numbers. The tour proved very popular in Europe, selling out everywhere and receiving some excellent reviews, but newspapers reported that a number of U.S. shows suffered from sparse attendance. By the end of 2006, the Seeger Sessions tour toured Europe twice and toured America for only a short span. Bruce Springsteen with The Sessions Band: Live in Dublin, containing selections from three nights of November 2006 shows at the The Point Theatre in Dublin, Ireland, was released the following June.

Springsteen performing with drummer Max Weinberg behind him, on the Magic Tour stop at Veterans Memorial Arena, Jacksonville, Florida, August 15, 2008.

Springsteen’s next album, titled Magic, was released on October 2, 2007. Recorded with the E Street Band, it featured 10 new Springsteen songs plus “Long Walk Home,” performed once with the Sessions band, and a hidden track (the first included on a Springsteen studio release), “Terry’s Song,” a tribute to Springsteen’s long-time assistant Terry Magovern who died on July 30, 2007. The first single, “Radio Nowhere,” was made available for a free download on August 28. On October 7, Magic debuted at number 1 in Ireland and the UK. Greatest Hits reentered the Irish charts at number 57, and Live in Dublin almost cracked the top 20 in Norway again. Sirius Satellite Radio also restarted E Street Radio on Channel 10 on September 27, 2007, in anticipation of Magic. Radio conglomerate Clear Channel Communications was alleged to have sent an edict to its classic rock stations to not play any songs from the new album, while continuing to play older Springsteen material. However, Clear Channel Adult Alternative (or “AAA”) station KBCO did play tracks from the album, undermining the allegations of a corporate blackout. The Springsteen and E Street Band Magic Tour began at the Hartford Civic Center with the album’s release and was routed through North America and Europe. Springsteen and the band performed live on NBC’s Today Show in advance of the opener. Longtime E Street Band organist Danny Federici went off the tour in November 2007 due to melanoma; he died on April 17, 2008, after a three-year battle with the disease.

Recent events

In April 2008, Springsteen announced his endorsement of U.S. Senator Barack Obama in his 2008 presidential campaign. In a video shot at an Ohio rally for Obama, Springsteen discussed the importance of “truth, transparency and integrity in government, the right of every American to have a job, a living wage, to be educated in a decent school, and a life filled with the dignity of work, the promise and the sanctity of home…But today those freedoms have been damaged and curtailed by eight years of a thoughtless, reckless and morally-adrift administration.”

On June 18, 2008, Springsteen appeared live from Europe at the Tim Russert tribute at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., to play one of Russert’s favorite songs, “Thunder Road.” Springsteen dedicated the song to Russert, who was “one of Springsteen’s biggest fans.”[citation needed]

Springsteen made a few solo acoustic performances in support of Obama’s campaign in October 2008, culminating with a November 2 rally where he debuted “Working On A Dream” in a duet with Scialfa.

Springsteen at a rally for then-presidential candidate Barack Obama

Cleveland, Ohio on November 2, 2008

On November 4, the first song played over the loudspeakers after Obama’s victory speech as president-elect in Chicago’s Grant Park was “The Rising”.

Springsteen’s Working on a Dream album was released in late January 2009.

Springsteen was the musical opener for the We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial on January 18, 2009 which was attended by over 400,000. He performed “The Rising” with an all-female choir. Later he performed Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” with Pete Seeger.

On January 11, 2009, Springsteen won the Golden Globe Award for Best Song for “The Wrestler”, from the Mickey Rourke film by the same name.

Springsteen performed at the halftime show at Super Bowl XLIII on February 1, 2009, agreeing to do it after many previous offers: t was sort of, well, if we don do it now, what are we waiting for? I want to do it while I alive.50] A few days before the game, Springsteen gave a rare press conference, where he promised a “twelve-minute party.” When asked if he would be nervous performing before such a large audience, Springsteen alluded to the “We Are One” concert, which took place at the Lincoln Memorial: “Youl have a lot of crazy football fans, but you won have Lincoln staring over your shoulder. That takes some of the pressure off.” His 12:45 set, with the E Street Band and the Miami Horns, included abbreviated renditions of “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out”, “Born to Run”, “Working on a Dream,” and “Glory Days,” the latter complete with football references. The set of appearances and promotional activities led Springsteen to say, “This has probably been the busiest month of my life.”

On April 1, 2009, Springsteen kicked off the Working on a Dream Tour in San Jose, California. The tour was hit by controversy in February 2009 when ticket site and tour partner Ticketmaster was found to be redirecting customers to their subsidiary TicketsNow, where tickets were being sold at inflated prices, despite the availability of face-value tickets elsewhere. Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff issued a swift apology, following a furious statement from Springsteen, who accused the site of “the abuse of our fans and our trust”. The tour’s shows featured few songs from the new album, with instead set lists dominated by Springsteen classics and selections reflecting the ongoing late-2000s recession. The tour also featured Springsteen playing songs requested by audience members holding up signs usually garage rock or punk rock classics or older, more obscure entries in Springsteen’s back catalog in a practice dating back to the final stages of the Magic Tour. Drummer Max Weinberg was replaced for some shows by his 18-year-old son Jay Weinberg, so that the former could serve his role as bandleader on the debuting The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien.

Springsteen was part of the lineup of The Clearwater Concert, a celebration of Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday which took place on May 3, 2009 at Madison Square Garden.

Fireworks go off at the conclusion of the “E! Street! Band!” exhortation during the final shows at Giants Stadium.

During the Working on a Dream Tour, Springsteen and the band made their first real foray in the world of music festivals, headlining nights at the Pinkpop Festival in the Netherlands, the Bonnaroo Music Festival in the United States where Springsteen also sat in with Phish for three songs and the Glastonbury Festival and Hard Rock Calling in the UK. He also was the headliner of the Festival des Vieilles Charrues in Brittany, France in July, his only tour stop in France. His son Evan participated in the concert, playing guitar.

During a stretch of five final shows at his homestate Giants Stadium, Bruce Springsteen opened the shows with a brand new song dedicated to the “old lady” (and told from its perspective), named “Wrecking Ball”. The song highlights the historic stadium, and his Jersey roots. The stand, as well as some other shows on the U.S. third leg of the tour, featured full album presentations of Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town, or Born in the U.S.A.

The tour ended as scheduled in Buffalo, NY in November 2009 amid speculation that it was the last performance ever by the E Street Band, but during the show Springsteen said it was goodbye or a little while.

In October, 2009, Bruce Springsteen was among the headline acts of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 25th anniversary benefit concert along with artists like U2, Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin.

On December 6, 2009, Springsteen was among the recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors, an annual award to figures from the world of arts for their contribution to American culture.. This is probably the highest honor Mr. Springsteen has received yet. Prior to the official ceremony at the Kennedy Center, the six cultural icons were hosted by President Obama and Ms. Michelle Obama. During the speech by the President, he talked about how Springsteen has incorporated the life of regular Americans in his expansive pallette of songs and how his concerts are beyond the typical rock-and-roll concerts, how apart from being high-energy concerts they are “communions”. President Obama ended with the remark: “On days like the “We Are One” concert and today we are reminded that while I am the president, He is The Boss”. During the official awards show on December 6, 2009, tributes were paid by several well-known celebrities like Jon Stewart, Ben Stiller, Eddie Vedder, Sting and Melissa Etheridge.

Jon Stewart opened with a funny albeit touching tribute to Mr. Springsteen: “I am not a music critic. Nor historian, nor archivist. I cannot tell you where Bruce Springsteen falls in the pantheon of the American songbook. I cannot illuminate the context of his work, or its roots in the folk and oral history traditions of our great nations. But I am from New Jersey. So, I can tell you what I believe. And what I believe is that Bob Dylan and James Brown had a baby. Yes! And they abandoned this child, as you can imagine at the timeinterracial, same sex relationships being what they werethey abandoned this baby by the side of the road between the exit interchanges 8A and 9 on the Jersey Turnpikethat child was Bruce Springsteen.” He continued, “I believe that Bruce Springsteen is an unprecedented combination of lyrical eloquence, musical mastery and sheer unbridled, unadulterated joy. Exuberance in the act of telling stories so familiar, stories that have never been told so well or so uniquely. And I know he hating this right now. He a modest man, and he doesn like sitting there in that little box, with his little suit, wearing a little rainbow dreamcatcher or whatever they have on therehe doesn like it. He wishes he had his guitar and that I would shut up, but I will not. He is the BossBut I didn understand his music for a long time, until I began to yearn. Until I began to question the things that I was making and doing in my own life. Until I realized that it wasn just about the joyful parade on stage and the theatrics. It was about stories of lives that could be changed. And that the only status that you could fail to achieve is the status quo. The only thing, the only failure in life was not to make the effort to change our station. And it resonated with me because, and I say this truly to him… I would not be here, God knows, not even in this business if it were not for the inspirational words and music of Bruce Springsteen.”

Golden Globe Award-winning writer Ron Kovic then took the stage, explaining how he first met Bruce Springsteen at the Sunset Marquis Hotel in Hollywood in 1978. A chance encounter led to an exchange of the artists work, and a friendship was born between the Born on the Fourth of July author and Vietnam Veteran and the Born in the U.S.A. musician. Kovic introduced Springsteen musical tribute, which began with the Rob Mathes All-Star band performing 10th Avenue Freeze Out, followed by Grammy Award-winning musician John Mellencamp crooning Born in the U.S.A.. It was then followed by a medley of My Father House, Glory Days and I on Fire by multi-Grammy winners Ben Harper and Jennifer Nettles, accompanied by the Rob Mathes band. Grammy Award and Academy Award-winning musician Melissa Etheridge rocked out a concert-version of Born to Run, followed by Grammy Award and Golden Globe Award-winning singer Eddie Vedder explosive rendition of My City of Ruins. Finally, musical powerhouse Sting, himself a multiple Grammy, Golden Globe and Emmy Award winner, ended the night with a memorable performance of The Rising, joined by The Joyce Garrett Choir and the rest of the performers for the evening rousing conclusion. Throughout the tribute show, President Obama, Ms. Obama and the other recipients looked on admiringly at the towering personality of Mr. Springsteen.

On January 22, 2010, Bruce joined many well-known artists to perform on Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief, organized by George Clooney to raise money to help the victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

The 2000s ended with Springsteen being named one of eight Artists of the Decade by Rolling Stone magazine and with Springsteen’s tours ranking him fourth among artists in total concert grosses for the decade.

Personal life

Springsteen family greets Obama family on stage at rally in Cleveland, Ohio on November 2, 2008.

Springsteen was a bachelor until the age of 35, when he married 25 year old Julianne Phillips (born May 6, 1960) in Lake Oswego, Oregon on May 13, 1985. The marriage helped her acting career flourish, although the two were opposites in background, and his traveling took its toll on their relationship. The final blow came when Bruce began an affair with Patti Scialfa (born July 29, 1953), whom he had dated briefly in 1984 shortly after she joined the band. Phillips and Springsteen separated in the spring of 1988, and on August 30, 1988, Julianne filed for divorce. The Springsteen/Phillips divorce was finalized on March 1, 1989.

After his wife filed for divorce in 1988, Bruce began living with Scialfa. Springsteen received much criticism for the hastiness in which he and Scialfa took their relationship. In a 1995 interview with The Advocate, Springsteen spoke about the negative publicity the couple subsequently received. “It’s a strange society that assumes it has the right to tell people whom they should love and whom they shouldn’t. But the truth is, I basically ignored the entire thing as much as I could. I said, “Well, all I know is, this feels real, and maybe I have got a mess going here in some fashion, but that’s life.” In 1990, Springsteen and Scialfa welcomed their first child, son Evan James. They were expecting their second child, daughter Jessica Rae (born December 30, 1991), when Bruce and Patti married on June 8, 1991. “I went through a divorce, and it was really difficult and painful and I was very frightened about getting married again. So part of me said, Hey, what does it matter? But it does matter. It’s very different than just living together. First of all, stepping up publicly- which is what you do: You get your license, you do all the social rituals- is a part of your place in society and in some way part of society’s acceptance of you…Patti and I both found that it did mean something.” The couple’s youngest child, Sam Ryan, was born on January 5, 1994. The family lives in Rumson, New Jersey, and owns a horse farm in nearby Colts Neck. Springsteen also owns two adjacent homes in Wellington, Florida, a wealthy horse community near West Palm Beach. His eldest son, Evan, is currently a sophomore at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, a village in Newton, Massachusetts. His daughter Jessica Springsteen is a nationally-ranked champion equestrian.

In November 2000, Springsteen filed legal action against Jeff Burgar which accused him of registering the domain brucespringsteen.com (along with several other celebrity domains) in bad faith to funnel web users to his Celebrity 1000 portal site. Once the legal complaint was filed, Burgar pointed the domain to a Springsteen biography and message board. In February 2001, Springsteen lost his dispute with Burgar. A WIPO panel ruled 2 to 1 in favor of Burgar.

The October 26, 2009 show for the Working on a Dream Tour in Kansas City, Missouri was canceled an hour before its scheduled start time due to the death of Lenny Sullivan, Springsteen’s cousin and assistant road manager.

Springsteen has led a relatively quiet and private life for a well-known popular performer and artist. He moved from Los Angeles to New Jersey in the early 1990s specifically to raise a family in a non-paparazzi environment. The Super Bowl XLIII press conference regarding the halftime show took place more than 25 years since his last press conference. However, he has appeared in few radio interviews, most notably on NPR and BBC. 60 minutes aired his last extensive interview on TV before his tour to support his album, Magic.

E Street Band

Main article: E Street Band

The E Street Band is considered to have started in October 1972, even though it was not officially known as such until September 1974. The E Street Band was inactive from the end of 1988 through early 1999, except for a brief reunion in 1995.

Current members

Bruce Springsteen lead vocals, guitar, harmonica, piano

Garry Tallent bass guitar, tuba

Clarence “Big Man” Clemons saxophone, percussion, backing vocals

Max Weinberg drums, percussion (joined September 1974)

Roy Bittan piano, synthesizer (joined September 1974)

Steven Van Zandt lead guitar, backing vocals, mandolin (officially joined July 1975 after playing in previous bands; left in 1984 to go solo; rejoined in early 1995, however made appearances during the “Other Band” Tour).

Nils Lofgren guitar, pedal steel guitar, backing vocals (replaced Steve Van Zandt in June 1984; remained in group after Van Zandt returned)

Patti Scialfa backing and duet vocals, acoustic guitar, percussion (joined June 1984; became Springsteen’s wife in 1991)

Soozie Tyrell violin, acoustic guitar, percussion, backing vocals (joined 2002, occasional appearances before that)

Charles Giordano organ, accordion, glockenspiel (originally a Sessions Band member, joined the E Street Band on a temporary basis in late 2007, during the illness of Danny Federici. Continued playing with the E Street Band after Federici died in April 2008.)

Former members

Vini “Mad Dog” Lopez drums (inception through February 1974, when asked to resign)

David Sancious keyboards (June 1973 to August 1974)

Ernest “Boom” Carter drums (February to August 1974)

Suki Lahav violin, backing vocals (September 1974 to March 1975)

Danny Federici organ, accordion, glockenspiel (died on April 17, 2008, melanoma)

Jay Weinberg drums, percussion (substituting for his father during parts of the 2009 tour)

Film

Music used in films

Springsteen’s music has long been intertwined with film. His music was first linked with the silver screen in the 1983 John Sayles’ film Baby, Its You, which featured several songs from Born to Run. The relationship Springsteen established with Sayles would re-surface in later years, with Sayles directing videos for songs from Born in the U.S.A. and Tunnel of Love. The song “(Just Around the Corner to the) Light of Day” was written for the early Michael J. Fox/Joan Jett vehicle Light of Day.

His original work has frequently been used in films and he won an Oscar for his song “Streets of Philadelphia” from the Jonathan Demme film Philadelphia (1993). He was nominated for a second Oscar for “Dead Man Walkin’”, from the movie Dead Man Walking (1995).

His song “Missing” plays during the opening credits of Sean Penn’s 1995 movie, The Crossing Guard. It was released in 2003 on “The Essential Bruce Springsteen.”

His song “Secret Garden”, which first appeared on 1995′s Greatest Hits, was used in Cameron Crowe’s 1996 film Jerry Maguire.

Although it doesn’t appear on the soundtrack album, his song “Iceman” was used in the 2007 movie In the Land of Women.

Springsteen also wrote an eponymous song for Darren Aronofsky’s 2008 film The Wrestler. The song was awarded a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song and nominated for the MTV Movie Award as “Best Song From a Movie”.

The album “The River” was also well mentioned in the movie Reign Over Me with Adam Sandler. Two songs from that very album, “Drive All Night” and “Out In The Streets”, were played as background music.

In the 1997 film Cop Land, Sylvester Stallone’s character plays the songs “Drive All Night” and “Stolen Car” from The River on his turntable.

His track, “Hungry Heart” was used as a background song in the movies “A Perfect Storm,” The Wedding Singer and Risky Business. The track, “The Fuse” from his album, The Rising, was used during the end credits of the Spike Lee film, 25th Hour.

More recently, his song, “Lucky Town” from his album of the same name was used in the Eric Bana and Drew Barrymore starring movie, Lucky You in the starting title track. The 2007 movie, In the land of women used the song, ‘Iceman’ from the album Tracks as part of its OST.

Films inspired by music

In turn, films have been inspired by his music, including The Indian Runner, written and directed by Sean Penn, which Penn has specifically noted as being inspired by Springsteen’s song “Highway Patrolman”.

Kevin Smith is an admitted fan of fellow New Jersey native Springsteen and named his film Jersey Girl after the Tom Waits song which Springsteen made famous. The song was also used on the soundtrack.

Acting

Springsteen made his first on-screen appearance as a cameo in High Fidelity and it was voted “Best Cameo in a Movie” at the MTV Movie Awards.

Discography

Main article: Bruce Springsteen discography

Major studio albums (along with their chart positions in the U.S. Billboard 200 at the time of release):

1973: Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. ()

1973: The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle ()

1975: Born to Run (#3)

1978: Darkness on the Edge of Town (#5)

1980: The River (#1)

1982: Nebraska (#3)

1984: Born in the U.S.A. (#1)

1987: Tunnel of Love (#1)

1992: Human Touch (#2)

1992: Lucky Town (#3)

1995: The Ghost of Tom Joad (#11)

2002: The Rising (#1)

2005: Devils & Dust (#1)

2006: We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (#3)

2007: Magic (#1)

2009: Working on a Dream (#1)

Awards and recognition

Bruce Springsteen (second from right) was among the five recipients of the 2009 Kennedy Center Honors

Grammy Awards

Springsteen has won 20 Grammy Awards, as follows (years shown are the year the award was given for, not the year in which the ceremony was held):

Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male, 1984, “Dancing in the Dark”

Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male, 1987, “Tunnel of Love”

Song of the Year, 1994, “Streets of Philadelphia”

Best Rock Song, 1994, “Streets of Philadelphia”

Best Rock Vocal Performance, Solo, 1994, “Streets of Philadelphia”

Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television, 1994, “Streets of Philadelphia”

Best Contemporary Folk Album, 1996, The Ghost of Tom Joad

Best Rock Album, 2002, The Rising

Best Rock Song, 2002, “The Rising”

Best Male Rock Vocal Performance, 2002, “The Rising”

Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, 2003, “Disorder in the House” (with Warren Zevon)

Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance, 2004, “Code of Silence”

Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance, 2005, “Devils & Dust”

Best Traditional Folk Album, 2006, The Seeger Sessions: We Shall Overcome

Best Long Form Music Video, 2006, Wings For Wheels: The Making Of Born to Run

Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance, 2007, “Radio Nowhere”

Best Rock Song, 2007, “Radio Nowhere”

Best Rock Instrumental Performance, 2007, “Once Upon a Time in the West”

Best Rock Song, 2008, “Girls in Their Summer Clothes”

Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance, 2009, “Working on a Dream”

Only one of these awards has been one of the cross-genre “major” ones (Song, Record, or Album of the Year); he has been nominated a number of other times for the majors, but failed to win.

Golden Globe Awards

Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song for “Streets of Philadelphia” in 1994.

Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song for “The Wrestler” in 2009.

Academy Awards

Academy Award for Best Original Song, 1993, “Streets of Philadelphia” from Philadelphia.

Emmy Awards

The Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band: Live In New York City HBO special won two technical Emmy Awards in 2001.

Other recognition

Polar Music Prize in 1997.

Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1999.

Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, 1999.

Inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame, 2007.

“Born to Run” named “The unofficial youth anthem of New Jersey” by the New Jersey state legislature; something Springsteen always found to be ironic, considering that the song “is about leaving New Jersey”.

The minor planet 23990, discovered Sept. 4, 1999, by I. P. Griffin at Auckland, New Zealand, was officially named in his honor.

Ranked #23 on Rolling Stone magazine’s 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

Made Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People Of The Year 2008 list.

Won Critic’s Choice Award for Best Song with “The Wrestler” in 2009.

Performed at the Super Bowl XLIII half time show.

Kennedy Center Honors, 2009.

Influence

In addition to his noted influence on music in his native New Jersey, Springsteen is also cited as an influence by Bon Jovi, Arcade Fire, Gaslight Anthem, The Constantines, The Hold Steady, The National, Kings of Leon, The Killers, U2, Johnny Cash in his later recordings, and countless others. His songs have been covered by diverse artists such as Melissa Etheridge, Johnny Cash, McFLY, Tegan and Sara, Damien Jurado, Aimee Mann, Social Distortion, Rage Against The Machine, Ben Harper, Eric Bachmann, Josh Ritter, Frank Turner, and Hank Williams III, in addition to above-noted bands like Arcade Fire and The National.

See also

List of best selling music artists

List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. Mainstream Rock chart

References

Alterman, Eric. It Ain’t No Sin To Be Glad You’re Alive : The Promise of Bruce Springsteen. Little Brown, 1999. ISBN 0-316-03885-7.

Coles, Robert. Bruce Springsteen’s America: The People Listening, a Poet Singing. Random House, 2005. ISBN 0-375-50559-8.

Cross, Charles R. Backstreets: Springsteen the man and his music Harmony Books, New York 1989/1992. ISBN 0-517-58929-X. Contains 15+ interviews and a complete list of all Springsteen songs including unreleased compositions. Complete lising of all concerts 19651990 most of them with tracklists. Hundreds of previously unreleased high quality color pictures.

Cullen, Jim. Born in the U.S.A.: Bruce Springsteen and the American Tradition. 1997; Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2005. New edition of 1997 study book places Springsteen’s work in the broader context of American history and culture. ISBN 0-8195-6761-2

Eliot, Marc with Appel, Mike. Down Thunder Road. Simon & Schuster, 1992. ISBN 0-671-86898-5.

Graff, Gary. The Ties That Bind: Bruce Springsteen A to E to Z. Visible Ink, 2005. ISBN 1-57859-151-1.

Guterman, Jimmy. Runaway American Dream: Listening to Bruce Springsteen. Da Capo, 2005. ISBN 0-306-81397-1.

Hilburn, Robert. Springsteen. Rolling Stone Press, 1985. ISBN 0-684-18456-7.

Knobler, Peter with special assistance from Greg Mitchell. “Who Is Bruce Springsteen and Why Are We Saying All These Wonderful Things About Him?”, Crawdaddy, March 1973.

Marsh, Dave. Bruce Springsteen: Two Hearts : The Definitive Biography, 19722003. Routledge, 2003. ISBN 0-415-96928-X. (Consolidation of two previous Marsh biographies, Born to Run (1981) and Glory Days (1987).)

Wolff, Daniel. 4th of July, Asbury Park: A History of the Promised Land. Bloomsbury, 2005. ISBN 1-58234-509-0.

Further reading

Greetings from E Street: The Story of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Chronicle Books, 2006. ISBN 0-8118-5348-9.

Days of Hope and Dreams: An Intimate Portrait of Bruce Springsteen. Billboard Books, 2003. ISBN 0-8230-8387-X.

Racing in the Street: The Bruce Springsteen Reader. Penguin, 2004. ISBN 0-14-200354-9.

Runaway American Dream: Listening to Bruce …

List of titles

The following is a partial list of books that Mercer Mayer has written and/or illustrated. It also includes books and items that are related to Mercer Mayer and his creations (like coloring books, sticker books, lacing cards, toys, etc).

Little Critter related books

Books that feature the character Little Critter:

Little Critter main series

Published in the Golden Books “Look-Look Books” series

Individual books may also be available in special editions

Just For You (1975) ISBN 0-307-12542-4 (first hardcover printing has 5 more pages of story and artwork then all subsequent printings, including “I wanted to build a beautiful house just for you, but I hurt myself”)

Just Me and My Dad (1977)

The New Baby (1980)

All by Myself (1983)

I Was So Mad (1983)

Just Go To Bed (1983)

Just Grandma and Me (1983)

Just Grandpa and Me (1983)

Me Too! (1983)

Merry Christmas Mom and Dad (1983)

When I Get Bigger (1985) (also released as a mini-hardback book)

Just Me and My Puppy (1985)

Just Me and My Babysitter (1986)

Just Me and My Little Sister (1986)

Just a Mess (1987)

Baby Sister Says No (1987)

Happy Easter, Little Critter (1988) ISBN 0-307-11723-5

I Just Forgot (1988)

Just My Friend and Me (1988)

Just a Daydream (1989)

Just Shopping with Mom (1989) (original version featured the mother warning Little Sister she will be spanked if she does not behave, reprints since the mid-1990s replaced spanking references with “time-out”)

Just Me and My Mom (1990)

Just Going to the Dentist (1990)

Just Me and My Little Brother (1991)

Little Critter at Scout Camp (1991)

What a Bad Dream (1992) ISBN 0-307-12685-4

Just Me and My Cousin (1992; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-307-12688-9

This is My Family (1992; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-307-00137-7

Little Critter’s Joke Book (1993)

Trick or Treat, Little Critter (1993; with Gina Mayer)

A Very Special Little Critter (1993; with Gina Mayer)

Just Me in the Tub (1994; with Gina Mayer)

Just Lost! (1994; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-307-12844-X

Just a Bully (1999; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-307-13200-5

Just a New Neighbor (1999; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-307-13265-X

Just a Toy (2000; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-307-13279-X

Just a Piggy Bank (2001; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-307-13283-8

Just a Secret (2001; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-307-13287-0

Just a Snowy Vacation (2001; with Gina Mayer)

Just Not Invited (2002; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-307-13289-7

Just a Baseball Game (2003; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-307-10451-6

Just Fishing with Grandma (2003; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-307-10453-2

Just a Little Homework (2004; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-375-82745-5

The new adventures

Continuation of the main series with HarperFestival

same dimensions, may contain some stickers, or other items.

Bye-Bye, Mom and Dad (2004; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-06-053945-3 (with pull-out poster Family Tree)

Good for Me and You (2004; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-06-053948-8 (with more than 20 stickers)

Happy Halloween, Little Critter! (2004) ISBN 0-06-053971-2 (with pull back flaps)

Just a School Project (2004; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-06-053946-1 (with more than 20 stickers)

Just a Snowman (2004; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-06-053947-X (with more than 20 stickers)

Just Big Enough (2004; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-06-053963-1 (with Pull out growth chart) (this book can be found as an over-sized hardback)

Merry Christmas, Little Critter (2004; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-06-053972-0 (with pull back flaps)

My Trip to the Hospital (2005; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-06-053949-6 (with 5 adhesive bandages that feature Little Critter)

Happy Valentine’s Day, Little Critter (2005; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-06-053973-9 (with pull back flaps)

Just so Thankful (2006; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-06-053950-X (with four thank you cards)

It’s Easter, Little Critter! (2007; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-06-053974-7 (with pull back flaps)

Grandma, Grandpa, and Me (2007; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-06-053951-8

Happy Father’s Day! (2007; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-06-053965-8

The Lost Dinosaur Bone (December 2007) ISBN 0-06-053952-6

Snowball Soup (an I Can Read book) (September 2007) ISBN 0-06-083544-3 (hardcover) and ISBN 0-06-083543-5 (paperback)

It’s Earth Day (February 2008) ISBN 0-06-053959-3 (originally announced under the title My Earth Day Surprise)

The Best Teacher Ever (May 2008) ISBN 0-06-053960-7

Going to the Firehouse (an I Can Read book) (June 2008) ISBN 0-06-083546-X (hardcover) ISBN 0-06-083545-1 (paperback)

Just a Day at the Pond (July 2008) ISBN 0-06-053961-5

To the Rescue! (an I Can Read book) (September 2008) ISBN 0-06-083548-6 (hardcover) ISBN 0-06-083547-8 (paperback)

This Is My Town (an I Can Read book) (December 2008) ISBN 0-06-083550-8 (hardcover) ISBN 0-06-083549-4 (paperback)

Happy Mother’s Day! (March 2008) ISBN 0-06-053970-4

First Day of School (June 2009) ISBN 0-06-053969-0

The Fall Festival (an I Can Read book) (July 2009) ISBN 0-06-083551-6

Going to the Sea Park (an I Can Read book) (September 2009) ISBN 0-060-83553-2

Just a Little Music (December 2009) ISBN 0-060-53962-3

Just a Little Sick (December 2009) ISBN 0-060-83555-9

The Best Yard Sale (scheduled May 2010) ISBN 0-061-47799-0

Just Saving My Money (an I Can Read book) (scheduled July 2010) ISBN 0-060-83557-5

Scholastic series

Portrait shaped in different sizes

I’m Sorry (1995; with Gina Mayer)

At the Beach With Dad (1998; with Gina Mayer)

Special publications

Just a Snowy Day (1983) “Golden Touch and Feel Book” ISBN 0-307-12156-9 (republished by HarperCollins)

Little Critter In Search of the Beautiful Princess (1993) Green Frog Publishers ISBN 1-56619-449-0 (oversized hardcover book in the style of the Where’s Waldo series)

Little Critter’s Camp Out: A Golden Sound Story (1994) ISBN 0-307-70902-7

Little Critter: Just a Pirate (a “Magic Touch Talking Book” by Hasbro, Incorporated) (July 1996) ISBN 1-888-20812-0

Little Critter: Just Going to the Moon (a “Magic Touch Talking Book” by Hasbro, Incorporated (July 1996) ISBN 1-888-20811-2

Super Critter To The Rescue: A Golden Sound Story (1997) ISBN 0-307-74708-5

Just a Bubble Bath (1997) Inchworm Press, “Scrub-A-Dub Bath Book” (10 pages) ISBN 1-57719-222-2

Just My Camera and Me: Photo Fun Package (1998) Inchworm Press, ISBN 1-57719-398-9 (comes with a camera, a photo album, and the book Just My Camera and Me)

Just a Garden (1999) ISBN 1-57719-605-8 (was sold as a kit with four small plastic gardening tools and the book Just a Garden)

Little Golden Books

A numbered series. These were re-released by Scholastic and as a part of Mercer Mayer’s Little Critter Book Club

Just a Bad Day (1993; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-307-98873-2

Taking Care of Mom (1993; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-307-98880-5

Just a Little Different (1993; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-307-98875-9

Just Like Dad (1993; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-307-98876-7

Just Say Please (1993; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-307-96017-X

This is My Body (1993; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-307-96013-7

I’m Sorry (1993; with Gina Mayer)

Just A Gum Wrapper (1993; by Gina and Mercer Mayer) ISBN 0-89577-766-5

Just Me and My Bicycle (1993; by Gina and Mercer Mayer)

Just Too Little (1993; by Gina and Mercer Mayer)

Just Leave Me Alone (1995; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-307-96016-1

The School Play (1995; by Gina and Mercer Mayer)

The Loose Tooth (1995; by Gina and Mercer Mayer)

Just an Airplane (1995; by Gina and Mercer Mayer) ISBN 0-89577-784-3

I Was So Sick (1995; with Gina Mayer)

Little Sister (of Little Critter)

Published as Golden Books “Little Look-Look Books”

Little Sister’s Birthday (1988)

Just a Nap (1989)

Just a Rainy Day (1990)

When I Grow Up (1991)

Just Camping Out (1991)

The New Potty (1992; with Gina Mayer)

Just a Thunderstorm (1993; with Gina Mayer) ISBN 0-375-82633-5

My Big Sister (1995; with Gina Mayer)

The Magic Pumpkin (1997; with Gina Mayer)

Little Critter Storybooks featuring the “Critter Kids”

These were initially published by Scholastic publishing as accordion-style fold-out board books.

Most were republished by Random House and Green Frog as regular hardcover and softcover books.

Malcom’s Race (1983) ISBN 0-590-32808-5

Possum Child Goes Shopping (1983) ISBN 0-590-32806-9

Little Sister’s Bracelet (originally titled Too’s Bracelet) (1983) ISBN 0-590-32810-7, ISBN 0-88029-800-6, ISBN 0-517-27369-1

Bun Bun’s Birthday (originally titled SweetMeat’s Birthday) (1983) ISBN 0-590-32809-3, ISBN 0-517-27160-5, ISBN 0-679-87368-6

Bat Child’s Haunted House (1983) ISBN 0-590-32811-5, ISBN 0-88029-802-2

Gator Cleans House (1983) ISBN 0-590-32807-7, ISBN 0-517-60092-7, ISBN 0-679-87354-6

Readers

Published by Random House, McGraw-Hill Children’s Publishing, and by School Specialty Publishing

Little Critter Sleeps Over (Road To Reading adaption of Little Critter’s Staying Overnight from 1988) (1999) ISBN 0-307-26203-0

My Trip to the Zoo (2001)ISBN 1-57768-826-0 (Level 1)

Country Fair (2002) ISBN 1-57768-827-9 (Level 1)

Show and Tell (2002) ISBN 1-57768-835-X (Level 1)

Beach Day (2001) ISBN 1-57768-844-9 (Level 1)

Tiger’s Birthday (2001) ISBN 1-57768-828-7 (Level 2)

A Day at Camp (2001) ISBN 1-57768-836-8 (Level 2)

The New Fire Truck (2001) ISBN 1-57768-843-0 (Level 2)

Grandma’s Garden (2001) ISBN 1-57768-846-5 (Level 2)

Our Tree House (2001) ISBN 1-57768-833-3 (Level 3)

Goodnight, Little Critter (2001) (Level 3)

Class Trip (2001) ISBN 1-57768-845-7 (Level 3)

New Kid in Town (2001) ISBN 1-57768-829-5 (Level 3)

Helping Mom (2000)

Little Critters’ The Best Present (2000) ISBN 0-606-18923-8

Our Park (2000) ISBN 1-57768-807-4

Field Day (2000) ISBN 1-57768-813-9

Camping Out (2001) ISBN 1-57768-806-6

The Mixed-up Morning (2001) ISBN 1-57768-808-2

Our Friend Sam (2001) ISBN 1-57768-815-5

My Trip to the Farm (2001) ISBN 1-57768-817-1

No One Can Play (2001) ISBN 1-57768-804-X

Play Ball (2001) ISBN 1-57768-803-1

A Yummy Lunch (2001) ISBN 1-57768-809-0

Surprise! (2002) ISBN 1-57768-638-1

Harvest Time (2003) ISBN 1-57768-578-4

We Love You, Little Critter (2003)

The Little Christmas Tree (2003) ISBN 1-57768-583-0

Christmas for Miss Kitty (2003) ISBN 1-57768-584-9

Play It Safe (2004) ISBN 1-57768-586-5

Skating Day (2004) ISBN 1-57768-588-1

Boardbooks

Published by Little Simon (Simon & Schuster), Random House, Golden Books, GT Publishing and HarperFestival

Little Critter’s Play with Me (1982) ISBN 0-307-12269-7

Astronaut Critter (1986) ISBN 0-671-61142-9

Construction Critter (1986) ISBN 1-57719-397-0

Cowboy Critter (1986) ISBN 0-671-61141-0

Fireman Critter (1986) ISBN 0-671-61143-7

Police Critter (1986) ISBN 0-671-61140-2

Mail Critter (1987) ISBN 0-671-61144-5

Doctor Critter (1987) ISBN 0-671-61147-X

Sailor Critter (1987) ISBN 0-671-61146-1

Little Critter’s Day (1990) ISBN 0-307-06107-8

Little Critter at Play (1990) ISBN 0-307-06106-X

Little Critter (Booktivity) ISBN 0-307-05579-5

Little Critter Colors (1992) ISBN 0-88029-830-8

Little Critter Numbers (1992) ISBN 0-679-87355-4

Little Critter Shapes (1992) ISBN 0-88029-832-4

Little Critter’s ABC’s (1993) ISBN 0-88029-831-6

Little Critter Cowboy (1996) ISBN 1-57719-258-3 (edited 10 page version of the 14 page Cowboy Critter)

Little Critter Doctor (1996) ISBN 1-57719-104-8 (edited 10 page version of the 14 page Doctor Critter)

Little Critter Astronaut (1996) ISBN 1-57719-089-0 (edited 10 page version of the 14 page Astronaut Critter)

Little Critter Policeman (1996)(edited 10 page version of the 14 page Police Critter)

Little Critter Construction (1996) (edited 10 page version of the 14 page Construction Critter, also released as a part of the Little Critter Construction Playset) ISBN 1-57719-655-4

Little Critter Sailor (1998) ISBN 1-57719-396-2 (edited 10 page version of the 14 page Sailor Critter)

Little Critter All Grown Up! (1999) ISBN 1-57719-648-1 (Collection containing the edited versions of the 4 books: Doctor, Sailor, Cowboy, and Construction)

Just a Dump Truck (2004) ISBN 0-06-053968-2

Just a Tugboat (2004) ISBN 0-06-053967-4

Lift-a-Flap Books

Published by multiple publishing houses. Some were originally released as hardcovers and then later re-released as Chunky Flap Board Books (two ISBN numbers are listed when this is the case).

Where’s Kitty (1991) ISBN 0-88029-864-2, ISBN 0-679-87343-0

Where is My Frog? (1991) ISBN 0-88029-863-4, ISBN 0-679-87344-9

Where’s My Sneaker? (1991) ISBN 0-88029-793-X, ISBN 0-679-87370-8

Little Critter Hansel & Gretel: A Lift the Flap Book (1991) ISBN 0-88029-797-2, ISBN 0-679-87369-4

Little Critter’s Jack and the Beanstalk (1991) ISBN 0-88029-798-0, ISBN 0-679-87345-7

Little Critter’s Little Red Riding Hood (1991) ISBN 0-88029-866-9, ISBN 0-679-87346-5

Just an Easter Egg (1998; written by Erica Farber and John Sansevere) ISBN 1-57719-299-0

Just a Magic Trick (1998; written by Erica Farber and John Sansevere) ISBN 1-57719-298-2

Activity books

Little Critter: My Stories: Write and Draw Your Own Stories (1991) ISBN 0-307-05830-1

Little Critter Stand Ups to Color and Share (1992) (comes with 6 stand ups and stickers)

Little Critter Favorite Things (1994) ISBN 0-307-08573-2 (a coloring book)

Little Critter’s Day at the Farm (with reusable stickers) (1994) ISBN 0-590-48641-1 (and ISBN 0-590-32804-2)

Little Critter’s Holiday Fun Sticker Book (1994) ISBN 0-590-48640-3

Little Critter Shapes & Colors Coloring Book

Little Critter Dots and Mazes (Golden First Fun)

Little Critter’s Song and Activity Book (1996)

Little Critter’s Halloween: A Coloring and Activity Book (1997) (also came with Spooky Halloween Kit which included the book The Magic Pumpkin (Little Sister), a Flashlight, and a Trick-Or-Treat Bag). ISBN 1-57719-236-2

Little Critter’s Christmas: A Coloring and Activity Book (1997) ISBN 1-57719-230-3

Little Critter’s Backseat Busy Book (1999)

Painting the Seasons with Little Critter (2003) HarperCollins, ISBN 0-06-053956-9

Fun at School with Little Critter (2004)

Collections

Little Critter’s Bedtime Storybook (1987) (includes: The Fussy Princess, The Grumpy Old Rabbit, The Day the Wind Stopped Blowing, The Bear Who Wouldn’t Share, and some bumper “Bedtime” segments)

Two-minute Little Critter Stories: Eight favorite stories (1990) ISBN 0-307-12192-5 (Includes: Just A Mess, Just Me and My Babysitter, I Just Forgot, Just Me and My Puppy, I Was So Mad, Just My Friends and Me, When I Get Bigger, and Just Go to Bed)

Thrills and Spills (1991) (Early Bird Series Big Books: 19.5 x 16.2) ISBN 0-8273-4120-2 (Contains four stories: Just for You by Mercer Mayer, Jamberry by Bruce Degen, The Gingerbread Boy by Paul Galdone, and Baby Days)

Just Me and My Family (1997) (A box set of four separate Golden Look Look books)

Just Me and My Family: Six Story Books in One (1999) ISBN 0-307-34094-5 (contains: Just Me and My Mom, Just Me and My Dad, Just Me and My Little Brother, Just Grandpa and Me, Just Grandma and Me, and Just Me and My Puppy)

Little Critter Read-It-Yourself Storybook: Six Funny Easy to Read Stories (2000) ISBN 0-307-16840-9 (contains: Little Critter’s This Is My House, Little Critter’s These Are My Pets, Little Critter’s Little Sister’s Birthday, Little Critter’s This Is My School, Little Critter’s This Is My Friend, and Little Critter’s Staying Overnight).

Growing Every Day (A Little Critter Collection) (2002) ISBN 0-9654579-6-6 (Contains: Just Go to Bed, When I Get Bigger, Just a Mess, Just Going to the Dentist, Just Lost and Just Me in the Tub)

Feelings and Manners (2002) ISBN 0-9654579-5-8 (Contains: All by Myself, I was So Mad, Me Too!, I Just Forgot, I’m Sorry, and Just a Bully)

Little Critter Storybook Collection (2005) ISBN 0-06-082009-8 (Contains 7 stories)

Just a Little Critter Collection: 7 Books Inside (2005) ISBN 0-375-83255-6 (contains: Just For You, When I Get Bigger, I Was So Mad, All By Myself, Just Go To Bed, Just A Mess, and I Just Forgot)

Little Critter workbooks

By Spectrum & Brighter Child (for Homeschool)

Little Critter Math: Grade Pre K (2001) ISBN 0-7696-3009-X or 1577685792

Little Critter Math: Grade K (2001) ISBN 0-7696-3010-3 or 1577688007

Little Critter Math: Grade 1 (2001) ISBN 0-7696-3011-1

Little Critter Math: Grade 2 (2001) ISBN 0-7696-3012-X

Little Critter Phonics: Grade Pre K (2002) ISBN 0-7696-3029-4

Little Critter Phonics: Grade K (2002) ISBN 0-7696-3030-8

Little Critter Phonics: Grade 1 (2002) ISBN 0-7696-3031-6

Little Critter Phonics: Grade 2 (2002) ISBN 0-7696-3032-4

Little Critter Reading: Grade Pre K (2002) ISBN 0-7696-3022-7

Little Critter Reading: Grade K (2002) ISBN 0-7696-3020-0

Little Critter Reading: Grade 1 (2002) ISBN 0-7696-3019-7

Little Critter Reading: Grade 2 (2002) ISBN 0-7696-3021-9

Little Critter Language Arts: Grade Pre K (2002)

Little Critter Language Arts: Grade K (2002)

Little Critter Language Arts: Grade 1 (2002)

Little Critter Language Arts: Grade 2 (2002)

Little Critter Beginning Writing: Grade Pre K (2002)

Little Critter Beginning Writing: Grade K (2002)

Little Critter Beginning Writing: Grade 1 (2002)

Little Critter Beginning Writing: Grade 2 (2002)

Little Critter Basic Concepts: Grade Pre K (2002)

Little Critter Basic Concepts: Grade K (2002)

Little Critter Basic Concepts: Grade 1 (2002)

Little Critter Basic Concepts: Grade 2 (2002)

Critters of the Night

AKA Creepy Critters, all written by Erica Farber and J. R. Sansevere (illustrated by Mercer Mayer)

Werewolves for Lunch (1995)

No Howling in the House (1996)

The Headless Gargoyle (1996)

To Catch a Little Fish (1996)

If You Dream a Dragon (1996)

Purple Pickle Juice (1996)

Zombies Don’t Do Windows (1996)

The Vampire Brides (1996) ISBN 0-679-87360-0

The Goblin’s Birthday Party(1996) ISBN 0-679-87373-2

Old Howl Hall Big Lift-And-look Book (1996) ISBN 0-679-88019-4

Pirate Soup (Pictureback Shape Books) ISBN 0-679-87364-3

Night of the Walking Dead Part 1 ISBN 0-679-87371-6 (1997)

Night of the Walking Dead Part 2 ISBN 0-679-87372-4 (1997)

Love You to Pieces: (24 Spooky Punch-out Valentines) (1997) ISBN 0-679-88709-1

Critters of the Night Glow-In-The-Dark Book (1997) ISBN 0-679-88707-5

Chomp Chomp! (1998)

Ooey Gooey (1998)

Roast and Toast (1998)

Midnight Snack (1999)

Kiss of the Mermaid (1999)

Mummy Pancakes (Tattoo Tales) (with over 20 tattoos) (1997) ISBN 0-679-87378-3

Zoom on My Broom (2001)

Mercer Mayer’s LC + the Critter Kids

All written by Erica Farber and J. R. Sansevere (illustrated by Mercer Mayer)

My Teacher Is a Vampire (1994)

The Secret Code (1994)

The Purple Kiss (1994)

The Mummy’s Curse (1994)

Top Dog (1994)

Surf’s Up (1994)

Pizza War (1994)

The Cat’s Meow (1994)

Showdown at the Arcade (1994)

The Ghost of Goose Island (1995)

Mystery at Big Horn Ranch (1995)

The E-Mail Mystery (1995)

The Swamp Thing (1995)

Backstage Pass (1995)

The Alien (1995)

The Prince (1995)

The Haunted House (1995) ISBN 0-307-66180-6

Jaguar Paw (1995)

Golden Eagle (1995)

Octopus Island (1996)

Blue Ribbon Mystery (1996)

Circus of Ghouls (1996)

Lil Shop of Magic (1996)

Kiss of the Vampire (1996)

Other Little Critter titles

I am Hiding (1992) ISBN 0-88029-980-0

I am Helping (1992) ISBN 0-88029-978-9

I am Playing (1992) ISBN 0-88029-979-7

I am Sharing (1992) ISBN 0-88029-981-9

I Smell Christmas: A Nose Tickler (1997) ISBN 1-57719-221-4

Little Critter’s These Are My Pets (1988)

Little Critter’s The Trip (1988) (Originally published as an ABC style book, and then as an edited story with less pages in 1997).

Little Critter’s The Picnic (1988)

Little Critter’s Staying Overnight (1988)

Little Critter’s This Is My Friend (1989) ISBN 0-307-61685-1

Little Critter’s This Is My School (1990)

Little Critter’s Christmas Book (1989) ISBN 0-307-15849-7

Little Critter’s Spooky Halloween Party (1999)

Little Critter’s The Night Before Christmas (1995) ISBN 0-679-87352-X

The Grumpy Old Rabbit: Little Critter’s Bedtime Storybook (1987) (Taco Bell Promotional Book)

The Bear Who Wouldn’t Share: Little Critter’s Bedtime Storybook (1987) ASIN B00072HVVC (published by Western Publishing)

The Fussy Princess: Little Critter’s Bedtime Storybook: (1989) ISBN 0-307-62090-5

Little Critter’s Picture Dictionary (2001) ISBN 1-57768-839-2

Little Critter’s Favorite Things (1994)

I Didn’t Know That (by Gina and Mercer Mayer)

Mercer Mayer’s Little Critter Lacing Cards (1992) (toy)

Little Monster series

Books that feature the character Little Monster:

Little Monster’s Word Book (1977) ISBN 0-307-65766-3

Little Monster’s Alphabet Book (1978) ISBN 0-307-61847-1

Little Monster’s Counting Book (1978) ISBN 0-307-61844-7

Little Monster’s Neighborhood (1978) ISBN 0-307-61849-8

Little Monster at School (1978) ISBN 0-307-61845-5

Little Monster at Home (1978) ISBN 0-307-61846-3

Little Monster at Work (1978) ISBN 0-307-13736-8

Little Monster’s Bedtime Book (1978) ISBN 0-307-61848-X

Little Monster’s You Can Make It Book (1978) ISBN 0-307-15802-0

Little Monster’s Mother Goose (1979) ISBN 0-307-13742-2

Little Monster’s Scratch and Sniff Mystery (1980) ISBN 0-307-13546-2

Little Monster’s Sports Fun Sticker Book (with reusable stickers) (1985) ISBN 0-590-48644-6

Little Monster’s Moving Day Sticker Book (with reusable stickers) (1995) ISBN 0-590-48643-8

Little Monster Private Eye: The Smelly Mystery (1998) ISBN 1-57719-319-9 (re-release edited version of Scratch and Sniff Mystery without Scratch and Sniff Spots, all dialogue balloons removed, major text changes, and 5 pages less in length) (also released as part of a Detective Kit gift set ISBN 1-57719-259-1)

Little Monster Private Eye: The Lost Wish (by Erica Farber and J. R. Sansevere) (1998) ISBN 1-57719-318-0

Little Monster Private Eye: How The Zebra Lost His Stripes (by Erica Farber and J. R. Sansevere)(1998) ISBN 1-57719-317-2 (also released with the Little Monster Private Eye Goes on Safari gift set ISBN 1-57719-306-7)

Mercer Mayer’s Little Monster Private Eye: The Mummy Mystery (by Erica Farber) (also released with The Treasure of the Nile gift set ISBN 1-57719-661-9)

Mercer Mayer’s Little Monster Private Eye: 101 Penguins (by Erica Farber and J. R. Sansevere) (1998) (also came in a 101 Penguins A Polar Adventure gift set with a Snow Globe that has two penguins in it) ISBN 1-57719-395-4

Mercer Mayer’s Little Monster Private Eye: The Bubble Gum Pirates (by Erica Farber and J. R. Sansevere) (1998) ISBN 1-57719-604-X (also came as part of a pirate themed gift set featuring a sword and other items)

Mercer Mayer’s Little Monster Treasury Book (contains 11 previously released Little Monster stories, some edited)

Professor Wormbog series

Creatures in the Professor Wormbog series tend to also appear in the Little Monster series of books.

Professor Wormbog in Search for the Zipperump-A-Zoo (1976)

Professor Wormbog’s Gloomy Kerploppus: A Book of Great Smells (and a Heart-Warming Story, Besides) (1977)

Professor Wormbog’s Cut It, Glue It, Tape It, Do It (1980)

Professor Wormbog’s Crazy Cut-Ups (1980) ISBN 0-307-15807-1

Other Little Monster related books

Books that feature characters that also appear in the Little Monster and Professor Wormbog series.

One Monster After Another (1974)

How the Trollusk Got His Hat (1979)

Mercer’s Monsters (a “Golden Book of Picture Postcards” with verses by Seymour Reit) (1977) ISBN 0-307-11105-9

Boy, Dog, Frog series

A series of 6 wordless books. These have been re-released in many formats, but they are usually smaller in size.

A Boy, a Dog and a Frog (1967)

Frog, Where Are You? (1969)

A Boy, a Dog, a Frog, and a Friend (1971)

Frog on His Own (1973)

Frog Goes to Dinner (1974)

One Frog Too Many (1975)

Four Frogs In a Box (1976) (collection of the first four “Frog” mini-books in a box set) ISBN 0-8037-2776-3

Tink Tonk series

AKA A Tiny Tink! Tonk! Tale series published by Bantam Books. Also see the Mercer Mayer Computer Software section for the video game titles related to this series that were developed by Mercer Mayer.

Tinka Bakes a Cake (1984) ISBN 0-553-15295-5

Tink Goes Fishing (1984) ISBN 0-553-15297-1

Tuk Takes a Trip (1984) ISBN 0-553-15296-3

Tonk Gives a Magic Show (1985) ISBN 0-553-15313-7

Teep and Beep Go to Sleep (1985) ISBN 0-553-15298-X

Zoomer Builds a Racing Car (1985) ISBN 0-553-15314-5

“There’s a…” series

There’s a Nightmare in My Closet (AKA There’s a Nightmare in my Cupboard – Australia) (1968)

There’s an Alligator Under My Bed (1987)

There’s Something in My Attic (AKA There’s Something Spooky in My Attic) (1988)

There’s Something There: Three Bedtime Classics (1998) ISBN 0-7607-1173-9 (Re-prints Nightmare, Alligator, and Attic)

There Are Monsters Everywhere (2005) ISBN 0-8037-0621-9

One word series

A series of virtually wordless books featuring a male and a female anthropomorphic hippopotamus or elephant and the word that is in the title.

Hiccup (1976)

Ah-choo (1976)

Oops (1977)

Liverwurst series

Both books in this series are written by Mercer Mayer, but illustrated by Steven Kellogg:

Appelard and Liverwurst (1978)

Liverwurst is Missing (1981)

Fairy tale and classic story re-telling

Beauty and the Beast (with Marianna Mayer) (1978) ISBN 1-58717-017-5

East of the Sun & West of the Moon (1980)

Favorite Tales from Grimm (Retold by Nancy Garden) (1982)

The Sleeping Beauty (1984) ISBN 0-02-765340-4

A Christmas Carol (1986) (retold with mice, originally by Charles Dickens) ISBN 0-02-730310-1

The Pied Piper of Hamelin (1987)

Moral Tales series

Wordless flip-books featuring two stories

Two Moral Tales (1974) featuring:

“Bird’s New Hat”

“Bear’s New Clothes”

Two More Moral Tales (1974) featuring:

“Sly Fox’s Folly”

“Just a Pig at Heart”

Other Mercer Mayer books

Terrible Troll (1968) (re-released as The Bravest Knight in May, 2007 with ISBN 0-8037-3206-6)

If I Had (1968) (re-released as If I Had a Gorilla)

I Am a Hunter (1969)

A Special Trick (1970)

Mine! (with Marianna Mayer) (1970)

Me and My Flying Machine (1971)

The Queen Always Wanted to Dance (1971)

A Silly Story (1972)

Bubble Bubble (1973)

Mrs. Beggs and the Wizard (re-released as The Wizard Comes to Town) (1973) ISBN 1-57768-388-9

Walk, Robot, Walk (1974)

You’re the Scaredy-Cat (1974)

What Do You Do with a Kangaroo? (1974)

The Great Cat Chase: A Wordless Book (1975) (originally released with black and white illustrations, it was re-released as just The Great Cat Chase in the 1990s with added words and in color)

Liza Lou and the Yeller Belly Swamp (1976) ISBN 0-8193-0801-3

Herbert the Timid Dragon (1980) ISBN 0-307-13732-5

Whinnie the Lovesick Dragon (illustrated by Diane Dawson Hearn) (1986)

Mercer Mayer’s a Monster Followed Me to School (1991) ISBN 0-307-61466-2

Rosie’s Mouse (1992) ISBN 0-307-11468-6

Shibumi and the Kitemaker (1999) ISBN 0-7614-5145-5

The Rocking Horse Angel (2000) ISBN 0-7614-5072-6

The Little Drummer Mouse (2006) ISBN 0-8037-3147-7 (Mercer Mayer also narrates the audio version, and he wrote the music)

Illustrations for other author’s books

The Master and Margarita – by Mikhail Bulgakov (1967 English edition by Harper & Row) (features a winking cat holding a gun on the front cover)

Logan’s Run – by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson (Dial Press, 1967 first printing hardcover)

Outside My Window – by Liesel Moak Skorpen (1968) (re-issued 2004) ISBN 0-06-050774-8

The Boy Who Made A Million – by Sidney Offit (1968)

Golden Butter – by Sheila LaFarge (1969)

Boy Was I Mad – by Kathryn Hitte (1969) ISBN 0-8193-0273-2

The Mousechildren and the Famous Collector – by Warren Fine (1970)

Jack Tar – by Jean Russell Larson (1970) ISBN 0-8255-5200-1

The Bird of Time – by Jane Yolen (1971) ISBN 0-690-14425-3

Altogether, One At a Time – by E.L. Konigsburg (1971) ISBN 0-689-71290-1

Good-bye Kitchen – by Mildred Kantrowitz (1972) ISBN 0-8193-0542-1

Kim Ann and the Yellow Machine – by Candida Palmer (1972) ISBN 0-663-22972-3

While the Horses Galloped to London – by Mabel Watts (1973) ISBN 0-8193-0652-5

The Greenhouse – by Antonia Lamb (1974 paperback version)

The Figure In the Shadows – by John Bellairs (1975) (Re-released in 2004 as A John Bellairs Mystery Featuring Lewis Barnavelt: The Figure in the Shadows) ISBN 0-14-240260-5

A Poison Tree and Other Poems – written by various poets, poems selected by and llustrated by Mercer Mayer (1977)

A Book of Unicorns – by Welleran Poltarnees (various illustrators including a Mercer Mayer’s Unicorn illustration from Amanda Dreaming) (1978)

Illustrations for George Mendoza’s books

Books written by George Mendoza that Mercer Mayer illustrated:

The Crack in the Wall & Other Terribly Weird Tales (1968) ISBN 0-8037-1547-1

The Gillygoofang(1968) ISBN 0-8037-2899-9

Illustrations for Jan Wahl’s books

Book by Jan Wahl that Mercer Mayer illustrated:

Margaret’s Birthday (1971)

Grandmother Told Me (1972) ISBN 0-316-91744-3

Illustrations for Jay Williams’ books

Book by Jay Williams that Mercer Mayer illustrated:

Everyone Knows What a Dragon Looks Like (1976)

The Reward Worth Having (1977)

Illustrations for John D. Fitzgerald’s The Great Brain series

Books from John D. Fitzgerald’s The Great Brain series that were originally illustrated by Mercer Mayer. Some later releases had new front covers by a different illustrator, but were still illustrated by Mercer Mayer on the inside. The Great Brain series by John D. Fitzgerald

The Great Brain (1967) (by John D. Fitzgerald)

More Adventures of the Great Brain (1969) (by John D. Fitzgerald) ISBN 0-8037-5819-7

Me and My Little Brain (1971) (by John D. Fitzgerald) ISBN 0-8037-5531-7

The Great Brain at the Academy (1972) (by John D. Fitzgerald) ISBN 0-8037-3039-X

The Great Brain Reforms (1973) (by John D. Fitzgerald) ISBN 0-8037-3067-5

The Return of the Great Brain (1974) (by John D. Fitzgerald) ISBN 0-8037-7403-6

The Great Brain Does it Again (1975) (by John D. Fitzgerald) ISBN 0-8037-5065-X

Illustrations for Barbara Wersba’s books

Books by Barbara Wersba that Mercer Mayer illustrated:

Let Me Fall Before I Fly (1971)

Amanda Dreaming (1973)

Magazine appearances

Harper’s Magazine, April 1967. Vol. 284. No. 1403. – features, The War with the Birds by Philip Wagner with drawings by Mercer Mayer)

Harper’s Magazine, June 1967. Vol. 234. No. 1405. – features, The Riddle of the Dangerous Bean: A Scientific Detective Story by Judith R. Marcus and Gerald Cohen with a drawing by Mercer Mayer)

Harper’s Magazine, August 1967. Vol. 235. No. 1407. – features, What Keeps Nixon Running by Stephen Hess and David S. Broder with a drawing by Mercer Mayer)

Children’s Digest, December 1968 – front cover illustration

Cricket Magazine, Vol. 4 No. 9 (May, 1977) – reprints Ah-Choo.

Mercer Mayer Recordings (Audio Books and Other)

Audio Books

From Disneyland Records and Little Golden Books (usually labeled as a “Little Golden Book & Cassette” or “Little Golden Book & Record”). These are books that came with a word for word audio recording on record (speed = 33 1/3, size = 7″) or cassette tape of someone reading the story. They usually included music, sound effects, and original songs too. Sometimes the cassettes were labeled “Record your own story” on the B-side (with the original recording on the A-side. “SEE the pictures HEAR the record READ the book”, was a catch phrase that was written on most of these books.

Just For You (1984) ASIN B000JFJCIM

Just Me and My Dad

Merry Christmas Mom & Dad (Includes the original songs “Merry Christmas Mom and Dad” and “Dear Santa”) Series # 226 (1983) ISBN per Amazon was 9-9963-6247-7 (out of print)

Just Go To Bed (1986) ISBN 0-307-13798-8

Just Grandpa and Me (1986) ISBN 0-307-13942-5

Just Grandma and Me (1986) ISBN per Amazon was 9-9988-8357-1

Just Me and My Babysitter (1986) ISBN 0-307-13943-3

When I Get Bigger (1986) ISBN 0-307-13799-6

Mercer Mayer recordings

Audio CDs that are available on Mercer Mayer’s official site.

Mercer Mayer Alligator Under My Bed and Other Story Songs CD (Featuring the songs: “What Do You Do With A Kangaroo,” “Critters Of The Night (Theme),” “Alligator Under My Bed,” “Let’s Go Camping,” “Me And My Mom,” “If I Had A Gorilla,” “Big Paw’s Coming,” “The World Goes Around”)

The Little Drummer Mouse A Christmas Story CD (Featuring the story read by Mercer Mayer and the songs: “Three Kings From Far Away,” “I Wish,” “The New Baby King,” “Me And My Drum,” “The Blessing,” “You Must Be From The City”)

Other Known Mercer Mayer songs

These songs are either mentioned on the official Mercer Mayer website or featured on it, but are not currently available otherwise.

“Sunshine” (AKA “Sunshine Makes You Sneeze”)

“My Momma Said” (AKA “Clean Up Your Room”)

“Clean up My Doggie” (AKA “My Doggie Lies in a Mud Puddle”)

Mercer Mayer Computer Software

The CD-Roms usually included the original story and additional material (animations, audio) for fun and educational purposes (they were produced in association with Mercer Mayer’s company Big Tuna New Media, LLC).

The Tink! Tonk! series of games were educational and action video game style.

Mercer Mayer’s Just Grandma and Me CD-Rom (part of the Living Books series) (1993) ISBN 1-57135-002-0

Mercer Mayer’s Little Monster at School (part of the Living Books series) CD-Rom (1994) ISBN 1-57135-037-3

Mercer Mayer’s Just Me and My Dad CD-Rom (1996)

Mercer Mayer’s Just Me and My Mom CD-Rom (1996)

The Smelly Mystery Starring Mercer Mayer’s Little Monster, Private Eye CD-Rom (1997) ISBN 1-56893-402-5

The Mummy Mystery Starring Mercer Mayer’s Little Monster, Private Eye CD-Rom (2001)

Mercer Mayer’s Little Critter and the Great Race CD-Rom (2001)

Tink! Tonk! Tink’s Adventure Atari / Commodore 64 /Apple II (C64) (Sprout Software)

Tink! Tonk! Tonk in the Land of Buddy Bots Atari / C64 /Apple II (Sprout Software)

Tink! Tonk! Tinka’s Mazes Atari / C64 / Apple II (Sprout Software)

Tink! Tonk! Tuk Goes to Town Atari / C64 / Apple II (Sprout Software)

Tink! Tonk! Tink’s Subtraction Fair Atari / C64 / Apple II (Sprout Software)

Tink! Tonk! Castle Clobber Atari / C64 / Apple II (Sprout Software)

Forbidden Castle PC booter / Apple II (Mindscape, Inc.) (1985)

Announced but unreleased books

Critter Kids

This is a list of Critter Kids books with dates originally scheduled for late 2006 but they have yet to be released:

Danger Down Under (by Erica Farber and Mercer Mayer) (Date unknown) ISBN 0-7696-4774-X

The Return of the Dinosaurs (by Erica Farber and Mercer Mayer) (Date unknown) ISBN 0-7696-4772-3

Canyon River Camp (by Erica Farber and Mercer Mayer) (Date unknown) ISBN 0-7696-4773-1

The Secrets of Snowy Mountain (by Erica Farber and Mercer Mayer) (Date unknown) ISBN 0-7696-4776-6

The Critter Kids Talent Show (by Erica Farber and Mercer Mayer) (Date unknown) ISBN 0-7696-4777-4

The Mystery of the Missing Vase (by Erica Farber and Mercer Mayer) (Date unknown) ISBN 0-7696-4775-8

External links

Mercer Mayer bibliography in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

Little Critter, Mercer Mayer’s official website

Categories: Bibliographies by author | American children’s writers | American illustrators

Youth

The neighborhood where William Gillette was born, Nook Farm in Hartford, Connecticut, was a literary and intellectual center, with such residents as Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Charles Dudley Warner.

Gillette’s father was Francis Gillette, a former United States Senator and crusader for the abolition of slavery, public education, temperance and women’s suffrage. His mother was Elisabeth Daggett Hooker, a descendant of the Reverend Thomas Hooker, the Puritan leader who founded the town of Hartford and either wrote or inspired the first written constitution in history to form a government. In the Gillette home, young Will grew up with his three brothers and a sister. One other sister, Mary, died as a small child. Another brother, Edward H. Gillette, later became a farmer, newspaper editor and congressman from Iowa.

His oldest brother, Frank Ashbell, went to California and died there in 1859 from consumption (tuberculosis). The next brother, Robert, joined the Union army and served in the Antietam campaign, was invalided home sick, recovered, and joined the Navy. Assigned to the U.S.S. Gettysburg, Robert took part in both assaults on Fort Fisher, but was tragically killed the morning after the surrender of the fort when the powder magazine exploded. When brother Edward went west to Iowa, and sister Elisabeth married George Henry Warner, both in 1863, William was left as the only child in the household.

As a student, Gillette specialized in oratory and engineering. But he had always wanted to be an actor and, at age 20, left Hartford to begin his apprenticeship. He briefly worked for a stock company in New Orleans and then returned to New England where, on Mark Twain’s own recommendation, he debuted at the Globe Theater of Boston with Twain’s stage-play The Gilded Age, in 1875. Afterward, Gillette was a stock actor for six years through Boston, New York and the Midwest.

During these years, Gillette irregularly attended classes at a few institutions, although he never completed their programs. His family was not overly happy about his chosen profession, but (contrary to many sources) he was not disinherited. In fact, his father, Francis, who had held the strongest objections to the theater in general, offered the least resistance, and drove him to the train station, telling his son that he had driven two other sons to this same station and they had never returned; William was to make sure he was the exception. Francis supplied him with an allowance on which to subsist (his apprenticeship was without pay). And, when the old Senator’s health went downhill late in 1878, William forsook the stage for more than a year to care for his father in his final illness. Upon the old Senator’s death, Will and George Henry Warner were named executors of Francis’ estate, and they, Elisabeth and Edward shared in the inheritance.

In 1882 Gillette married Helen Nichols of Detroit. They were blissfully happy. She died in 1888 from peritonitis, caused by a ruptured appendix. He was grief-stricken for years and in the Spring of 1890 was struck down with tuberculosis. He did not act again for four years, and he never remarried.

Playwright, Director and Actor

Gillette in Secret Service.

In 1881, while performing at Cincinnati, Gillette was hired as playwright, director and actor for per week by two of the Frohman brothers, Gustave and Daniel. The first play he wrote and produced was The Professor. It debuted in the Madison Square Theater, lasting 151 performances, with a subsequent tour through many states (as far west as St. Louis, Missouri). That same year, he produced Esmeralda, written together with Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Early in his career, Gillette figured out that it would be in the triple role of playwright, director and actor that he would make the most money, and he also figured out that the best way to fill theaters was by giving the public what it wanted: clear, wholesome entertainment focusing on issues of love, honor, integrity and nobility. He also realized, and his mechanical and engineering inclinations helped, that special effects in sound, lighting, and stage settings would bring the customers out. When he was starring in Held by the Enemy, he invented a manner in simulating the sound of a horse’s hoofs, and for Sherlock Holmes he developed the rising and lowering of the curtain in total darkness at the beginning and the end of each act.

Among the premier matinee idols of his day, he was described by Amy Leslie as ne of Gibson notables materialized.” He stood six feet, three inches tall, slender but well-proportioned, with an aristocratic face and a quietly dignified and manly demeanor. He belonged to the “heroic school,” standing strong and silent in the midst of chaos. His typical quiet “he-man” role would later be taken over by such stalwarts as Gary Cooper, Clint Eastwood and John Wayne. Never bombastic, neither an orator nor a declaimer, his acting was understated, always spontaneous and natural, subtle, and quiet, his effects achieved by suggestion rather than overt action. Lewis Strang observed that “he rarely gesticulates, and his bodily movements often seem purposely slow and deliberate. His composure is absolute and his mental grasp of a situation is complete.15]

He moved with skill and a commanding dignity, all eyes riveted to his stark, spare frame, his piercing eyes, and his metallic voice. Tall, dignified, impassive, and imperturbable, he was one of those actors whose own personality dominated every role he played, varying only in relation to which part of him the role demanded the whimsical and witty, or the strong and heroic. He believed that the actor whose personality best fits a role will perform it well; and the roles he created for himself were fashioned to fit his own personality and acting skills. On stage he was mesmerizing and profound, but not versatile. He was by all accounts a superior actor in every respect, but only within a limited range of roles.

He could mesmerize an audience simply by standing motionless and in complete silence, or by indulging in any one of his grand gestures or subtle mannerisms. He did not gesture often but, when he did, it meant everything. He would steal a scene with a mere nod, a shrug, a glance, a twitching of the fingers, a compression of his lips, or a hardening of his face. Slight inflections in his voice spoke wonders. ccasionally, Georg Schuttler pointed out, hen it was least expected, he gestured or moved his body so quickly that the speed of the action was compared to the swift opening and closing of a camera shutter.16]

He used his mind rather than his emotions, and carefully calculated every move, every nuance, every twitch, every change of expression, in order to produce the best effect. S. E. Dahlinger summed him up: ithout seeming to raise his voice or ever to force an emotion, he could be thrilling without bombast or infinitely touching without descending to sentimentality. One of his greatest strengths as an actor was the ability to say nothing at all on the stage, relying instead on an involved, inner contemplation of an emotional or comic crisis to hold the audience silent, waiting for the moment when he would speak again.17]

He was an unemotional actor, unable to emote, even in love scenes, about which Montrose Moses commented, e made appeal through the sentiment of situation, through the exquisite sensitiveness of outward detail, rather than through romantic attitude and heart fervor.”

His performances were renowned for the halting, even stumbling way he went about it. Life elements had entered acting, he declared, so to him each performance was a “life-simulation.” Therefore, it was important for actors and actresses to speak their lines lines already written and learned as if they are making them up as they go along, which of course is how real people talk in real life. The actor, Gillette said, must speak each line as if this was the first time those words were being said, and enter each room as if it was the first time he had done it, not the one hundredth. Thus, he would hesitate at times, stumble over words, and act as if he was truly making it up as he went along and not repeating lines he had been reciting over and over again in previous performances. Therefore, his performances were not smooth and seemingly effortless. He looked as if he hadn learned his part, as if he was ad-libbing or struggling to remember lines, or even making it up as he went along which was precisely the impression he wished to create, precisely the effect he was trying to achieve.

His repressed style also helped him to accommodate a voice that was really not strong to begin with. It was thin and light, crisp and clear, with a head-tone quality and a limited range. Morehouse described it as “dry, crisp, metallic, almost shrill.” Gretchen Finletter recalled that it was “a dry, almost monotonous voice admirably suited to the great Holmes.” Monotonous, Dennis Sherk pointed out, is ardly a complimentary term for an actor of Gillette stature, but it would appear that this monotonous delivery was deliberately effected. The ruse was evidently successful, for it was reported the monotone of his voice ad magic in it and lent quality to other voices speaking against it.21]

Most of all, his acting remained contemporary and modern. The Times noted in 1937 that, “it would be hard to convince that portion of the American public that knew and followed him that any better actor had ever trod the American stage. And it might be impossible to find any other actor who at 76 could revive a role from the Nineties and make a smashing tour with it through two seasons over the length and breadth of the country. It would be conservative to say that Mr. Gillette was the most successful of all American actors.”

In spite of his superior talent as an actor, however, Gillette left his original impact on the Western theater as a dramatist. His plays were known for their unity and tight construction at a time when most plays were not. And it was Gillette who led the way in providing realism in stage setting. He brought exquisite and authentic detail to his sets, realistic sound effects and startling lighting effects to all of his productions. He contributed technical and mechanical ideas that improved stage effects, his greatest single effect being the raising and the lowering of the curtain in total darkness so as to hide scene changes and, at the rising of the curtain, to reveal in the dawning light the set for the next scene. This, and eliminating between-act curtain calls and speeches, helped maintain the illusion the actors were trying to create. And the curtain effect was one of the means by which he not only maintained but actually emphasized the fourth wall separating the audience from the make-believe world on the stage. His dialogue was realistic and his characters, within the realms of farce and melodrama, were natural in both their behavior and their mannerisms. This made them easier to identify with and it made the dramatic scenes all the more dramatic.

He had a heightened sense of the dramatic, and his two most riveting scenes the hospital scene in Held by the Enemy and the Telegraph Office scene in Secret Service are still considered to be among the most dramatic scenes in the history of the American theater. Add to these the Stepney Gas Chamber scene in Sherlock Holmes and the blackout scene in Electricity, and you have a dramatist with an astounding knack for spine-tingling excitement.

He was creative in the way he developed his characters, and this really first came out in Held by the Enemy in which he did away with the traditionally clear-cut distinction between hero and villain, introduced characters who were sometimes a mixture of both, and made a spy the sympathetic hero of the play. Cousin Richard Burton wrote that illette has from the first been daring in his treatment of character. He hates the conventional as the devil holy water, and sometime puzzles his audience a bit by portraying a person who refuses to go into a category and be labeled villain or hero.24]

What made Gillette two Civil War plays unique and popular was that he refused to take sides. He treated North and South equally, bestowing integrity, loyalty and honor on both, even as he made a spy each play sympathetic hero. Yet, what set Gillette apart from all the rest was not simply his reliance on realism, his imperturbable naturalistic acting, or his superior sense of the dramatic. At a time when American art of all kinds was held by the British in very low esteem, he as also a pioneer in making American drama merican, rejecting what had been up until that time a pervasive European influence on American theater.25]

He was, in fact, the first American playwright whose authentically American plays were not only accepted but highly regarded on both sides of the Atlantic. This was no small achievement when, since his country founding, actors from both countries preferred only British plays to perform in, audiences in both countries wanted only British plays to watch, and American plays exported to England had to be converted by British play-doctors into British-flavored productions to even be staged. Gillette changed all that with Held by the Enemy. By the time Secret Service hit the sceptered isle, the conquest was history.

Inventor

During an 1886-87 production of Held by the Enemy, Gillette introduced a new method of his own devising which simulated the galloping of a horse. Where men had slammed halves of coconut shells on a slab of marble to simulate the sound, Gillette found this clumsy and unrealistic. Applied for on June 9, Letters Patent No. 389,294 was issued to him on September 11. It title is ethod of Producing Stage Effects. It was a method, not a mechanical device, so there were no illustrations in the two-page document. And the patent was very broad, introducing new and useful method of imitating the sound of a horse or horses approaching, departing, or passing at a gallop, trot, or any other desired gait, the same to be used in producing stage effects in theatrical or other performances or entertainments, exhibitions, &c.

His method consisted in eating with clappers, that represent the hoofs of a horse, upon some material that serves to represent the road-bed over which the horse is supposed to be traveling as well as tamping, pawing, or jumping about in a restive manner while the rider is mounting, and then starting off, first at a trot, then a gallop, and finally a run, or at any gait desired, in any order. He could also imitate the sounds of the hoofs pounding on different surfaces: tone, brick, clay, gravel, greensward, or when crossing bridges.26]

It was not the first patent he had applied for and received. In 1883 he filed the first of four patent requests with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for a Time-Stamp “as stamps upon the upper surface of papers a dial and one or more dial-pointers, representing the time of day at which the papers stamped by it were respectively so stamped.” All four requests were granted.

Comeback

Charles Frohman was a young Broadway producer who had been successful with the exchanging of theater productions between the USA and the UK. After he produced some of Gillette’s plays, the two formed a greater partnership. Their productions had great success, sweeping Gillette into London’s society spot, which had been historically reluctant to accept American theatre. With Held by the Enemy in 1887, Gillette became the first American playwright to achieve true success on British stages with an authentic American play.

Secret Service

Gillette finally came fully out of retirement in October 1894 in Too Much Johnson, adapted from the French farce, La Plantation Thomassin, by Maurice Ordonneau. Following its debut at the Park Theatre in Waltham, Massachusetts, it opened on October 29 at the Columbia Theatre in Brooklyn. This farce was extremely popular, and has been produced on stage several times in the century since its debut.

In 1895 he brought forth the greatest play he would ever write, Secret Service. It was the absolute best of the many Civil War plays produced after the war, and it was the literary apex of his career as a playwright and dramatist. His approach was even-handed and wholly nonpartisan, bestowing on characters from both sides of the conflict all the finer qualities of patriotism, courage and honor that good melodrama demanded. He never got into the reasons for the war. The only motivation he allowed his characters was their allegiances to their respective causes, and the allegiances of both sides were given equal honor and nobility of purpose and action. Also, as he had in Held by the Enemy, Gillette turned a spy into the sympathetic hero of the play, and he made a romance the main focus of the play rather than the military conflict in which the protagonists were involved.

Secret Service was first performed in the Broad Street Theatre in Philadelphia for two weeks beginning on May 13, 1895, with Maurice Barrymore in the lead role. Gillette rewrote some of the script and starred in the play when it opened at the Garrick Theatre on October 5, 1896. It was the first time he had taken on the role of the romantic hero in one of his own plays. The production ran until March 6, 1897, and was an enormous critical and popular success.

Following its American success, Frohman booked Secret Service to open at the Adelphi Theatre on the West End in London on May 15, 1897, and it became the cornerstone of Frohman achievements in England.

Sherlock Holmes

Meanwhile Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, feeling that Holmes was stifling him and keeping him from more worthy literary work, had finished his Sherlock Holmes saga and killed Holmes off in The Final Problem, published in 1893. Afterwards, however, Doyle found himself in need of further income, as he was planning to build a new home. He decided to take his character to the stage, and wrote a play. Holmes had appeared in two earlier stage works by other authors, Charles Brookfield’s skit Under the Clock (1893) and John Webb’s play Sherlock Holmes (1894); nevertheless, Doyle now wrote a new 5-act play with Holmes and Watson in their freshmen years as detectives.

Doyle offered the role first to Henry Irving and then to Beerbohm Tree. But Irving turned it down and Tree demanded that Doyle readapt Holmes to his peculiar acting profile; he also wanted to play both Holmes and Professor Moriarty. Doyle turned down the deal, considering that this would debase the character.

Noting that the play needed a lot of work, literary agent A. P. Watt sent the script to Charles Frohman who traveled to London to meet Doyle. There, Frohman suggested the prospect of an adaptation by Gillette. Doyle endorsed this and Frohman obtained the staging-copyright. Doyle insisted on only one thing: there was to be no love interest in “Sherlock Holmes.” Frohman uttered a Victorian rendition of “Trust me!”

Gillette, who then read the entire collection for the first time, liked the idea and started the piece’s outlining in San Francisco, while still touring in Secret Service. Both artists became confident. On one occasion, after they had exchanged numerous telegrams about the play, Gillette telegraphed Doyle: “May I marry Holmes?” The unwavering Doyle responded: “You may marry him, or murder or do what you like with him.”

The love interest was in keeping with the melodramatic style of the time, which centered on romance and happy endings. Gillette always gave his audiences some degree of romance, and always happy endings.

Coins Famous Phrase

Gillette’s version consisted of five scenes in two acts. Combining elements from several of Doyle’s stories, he mainly utilized the plots “A Scandal in Bohemia” and “The Final Problem”. Also, it had elements from A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, The Boscombe Valley Mystery and The Greek Interpreter. However, with the exception of Holmes, Watson, Moriarty and Billy the Pageboy, all the other characters were his own inventions.

Different from the intellectual-only original, “a machine rather than a man,” Gillette portrayed Holmes as brave and open to express his feelings. He wore the deerstalker cap on stage, which was originally featured in illustrations by Sidney Paget in the 1890s. Gillette also introduced the curved or bent briar pipe, instead of the straight pipe pictured by illustrators, supposedly so that Gillette could pronounce his lines more easily; actually, it’s as difficult to pronounce lines clearly whether the pipe is bent or straight, and it may have been that Gillette’s face was easier to see from the seats with a bent briar in his mouth. Gillette also made use of a magnifying-glass, a violin and a syringe, which all came from the Canon and which were all now established as “props” to the Sherlock Holmes character.

Gillette formulated the complete phrase: “Oh, this is elementary, my dear fellow”, which was later reused by Clive Brook, the first spoken-cinema Holmes, as: “Elementary, my dear Watson”, Holmes’ best known line and one of the most famous expressions in the English language.

Irene Adler, The Woman of the series, was replaced by Alice Faulkner, young and beautiful lady who was planning to avenge her sister’s murder but eventually falls in love with Holmes; and the pageboy, nameless in the Canon, was given the name Billy by Gillette, a name he carried over into the Basil Rathbone films and has retained ever since.

Sherlock Holmes, or The Strange Case of Miss Faulkner (later renamed Sherlock Holmes – A Drama in Four Acts) was finished. Then, one night as the Secret Service company was playing in San Francisco and staying in the Baldwin Hotel. The script was in the possession of his secretary, William Postance, in his room at the Baldwin when fire swept from the property room of the Baldwin Theatre through the hotel in the early morning hours of November 23. The financial loss was estimated at nearly ,500,000. Only two deaths were known at first, though several people were missing; and, while the flames were confined to the Baldwin, smoke and water damaged the adjoining structures.

Postance barely escaped, but the entire script was reduced to ashes. Postance went to the Palace Hotel, where Gillette was sound asleep, and awakened him at 3:30 in the morning to break the bad news. Not overly happy about being disturbed in the middle of the night, Gillette simply asked, s this hotel on fire? Assured that it was not, he told Postance, ell, come and tell me about it in the morning.31]

With both original scripts — Doyle’s and Gillette’s adaptation — destroyed, Gillette rewrote the piece, either from notes or an extra copy, in a month.

Doyle and Gillette had never met. So Doyle’s shock was understandable when the train came to a halt and Sherlock Holmes himself stepped onto the platform. Yet, there he was, the long spare figure with the aquiline features and deep-set eyes. Sitting in his landau, Doyle contemplated the apparition with open-mouthed awe until the actor whipped out a magnifying lens, examined Doyle’s face closely, and declared (precisely as Holmes himself might have done), “Unquestionably an author!”

Doyle broke into a hearty laugh and the partnership was sealed with the mirth and hospitality of the weekend at Undershaw. The two became lifelong friends.

Holmes Tour

Wiliam Gillette as Sherlock Holmes

Lithograph – 1900

Library of Congress Collection

After a copyright performance in England, Sherlock Holmes debuted on October 23, 1899, at the Star Theatre in Buffalo. Following appearances in Rochester and Syracuse, and Scranton and Wilkes-Barre in Pennsylvania, Sherlock Holmes made its Broadway debute at the Garrick Theater on November 6, 1899, performing until June 16, 1900. It was an instant success. Gillette applied all his dazzling special effects over the massive audience.

But he faced sharp, even derisive, criticism from the newspapers, especially about Holmes falling in love. In Conan Doyle’s original novels, Holmes was said to have an “aversion to women.” As a matter of fact, throughout 34 years, the critics nearly always praised the acting and the special effects, but not the play itself.

The company also toured nationally, along the western United States, from October 8, 1900, to March 30, 1901. This was bolstered by another company also, with Cuyler Hastings, through minor cities and Australia.

After a pre-debut week in Liverpool, the company debuted in London (September 9, 1901), at the Lyceum Theatre, performing in Duke of York’s Theatre later.

It was another hit with its audience, despite not convincing the critics. The 12 weeks originally appointed were at full-hall. The production was extended until April 12, 1902 (256 presentations), including a gala for King Edward VII on February 1. Then it toured England and Scotland with two ancillary groups: North (with H.A. Saintsbury) and South (with Julian Royce). At the same time, the play was produced in foreign countries (such as Australia, Sweden, and South Africa).

The dean of British actors, Sir Henry Irving, was touring America when Sherlock Holmes opened at the Garrick Theatre, and Irving saw Gillette as Holmes. The two actors met and Irving concluded negotiations for Sherlock Holmes to begin an extended season at the Lyceum Theatre in London beginning in early May. Gillette was the first American actor ever to be invited to perform on that illustrious stage, which was an enormous honor. Irving was the dean of British actors, the first ever to be knighted, and the Lyceum was his theater.

Sherlock Holmes made its British debut at the Shakespeare Theatre in Liverpool on September 2, 1900. It was the beginning of a major triumph. Gillette then opened Sherlock Holmes at the Lyceum in London on September 9. The Lyceum tour alone netted Gillette nearly 0,000, and it made the most money of all the productions in the final years of Irving tenure at the Lyceum.

In the USA, Gillette toured again from 1902 to 1903, until November 1903, when Gillette starred in The Admirable Crichton by James M. Barrie, requested personally by Barrie. His own play, Electricity, appeared in 1910, and he starred in Victorien Sardou’s Diplomacy in 1914, Clare Kummer’s A Successful Calamity in 1917, Barrie’s Dear Brutus in 1918, and his own The Dream Maker in 1921. A brief revival of Sherlock Holmes in early 1923 did not generate enough interest to return to Broadway, so he retired to his Hadlyme estate.

Worldwide Fame

In his lifetime, Gillette presented Sherlock Holmes approximately 1,300 times (third in the historical stage-record), before American and English audiences. He was also shown widely, through appearances in many magazines, by way of photographs or illustrated caricatures, and was also well represented on the covers of theater programs.

Meanwhile, around the world, other productions took place, based on Gillette’s Sherlock Holmes. These were either satiric, which were very successful, and/or undue; some lasted several seasons. Frohman’s lawyers tried to curb the illegal phenomenon exhaustedly, traveling overseas, from court to court.

Even Gillette parodied it once. The Painful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes the first of a handful of one-act plays he would write was written for two benefits, and was performed for the first time at the Joseph Jefferson Holland Benefit at the Metropolitan Opera House on March 24. Holland was an actor who had been forced to retire the year before due to illness. The skit was titled The Frightful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes, and there were but five characters in the entire skit: Holmes, Billy the pageboy, the madwoman Gwendolyn Cobb (who had nearly all of the dialogue), and the two aluable assistants who come to take the madwoman away. Its original title was A fantasy in about one-tenth of an act, and the entire scene transpires in Holmes Baker Street room omewhere about the date of day before yesterday.34]

Retitled The Harrowing Predicament of Sherlock Holmes, it was performed again on April 14 for the benefit of the Actors Society of America at the Criterion Theatre, and again at the Duke of York Theatre in London when Gillette inserted it on October 3 as a curtain-raiser for Clarice. Playing Billy in the curtain-raiser, as well as in Clarice, was young Charles Chaplin.

Models for Holmes’ portrait

The magazines Collier’s Weekly (USA) and The Strand (UK) pushed Conan Doyle avidly, offering to continue the Sherlock Holmes series for a generous salary. The new chapters were first published in 1901, first with a prequel and later with Holmes revived definitively (1903). It continued for another quarter-century.

Gillette was the model for pictures by the artist Frederic Dorr Steele, which were featured in Collier’s Weekly then and reproduced by American media. Additionally, Steele contributed to Conan Doyle’s book-covers, Gillette’s short stories (Baker Street Irregulars) and, later, doing marketing when Gillette made his farewell performances.

As international copyright did not yet exist, Conan Doyle’s series were widely printed throughout the USA, mostly with pictures of Gillette on stage. P. F. Collier & Son owned the copyrights of Steele’s illustrations and issued drawings in many editions.

In 1907 he was caricatured on the cover of Vanity Fair Magazine by the famous Sir Leslie Ward (who signed his work “Spy”), and later became the subject of such famous American caricaturists as Pamela Coleman Smith, Ralph Barton and Al Freuh.

By means of such international exposure, Gillette became the image of Holmes for decades, created the very image of Holmes that remains to this day, and made the detective so real that many, both then and now, believe the detective really lived.

Gillette Castle

Gillette Castle.

While most of Gillette work has long been forgotten, his last great masterpiece is still well known today: his castellated etirement home.

The Washington Post called it he acme of his dreams.38] He once called it his “Hadlyme stone heap. Others called it he rock pile or illette’s folly.” Today, we call it simply Gillette Castle.

Ironically he never referred to it as a castle, although his neighbors often did, but it ummarizes the success upon which all his dreams were built, dreams that urned his picturesque estate into a small boy dream of paradise.38]

In 1913, while sailing up the Connecticut River in his houseboat, Gillette spotted a hill, part of the Seven Sisters, over a ferry’s pier in Hadlyme. He docked, disembarked and climbed up. He was so amazed by the view that he purchased 115 acres (0.47 km2) of land, the next month. He decided to build up a castle at this location, supposedly inspired by or modeled loosely after the Chteau de Moulineaux, a French feudal castle built during the era of the Dukes of Normandy and associated in folklore with Robert Le Diable (Robert the Devil). The design of the castle and its grounds features numerous innovative designs, and the entire castle was designed, to the smallest details, by Gillette himself.

During the five years of construction, Gillette lived aboard his houseboat, the Aunt Polly, named after a mountain woman in South Carolina who tended to him when he was sick, or at a home he had purchased in Greenport, Long Island. The material for the castle was carried up by an aerial-trolley designed by him. The castle’s walls tapered from 5 feet (1.5 m) thick at the base to 3 feet (0.91 m) at the upper levels. The castle possessed 24 rooms and 47 doors, with hand-carved puzzle locks, which were also devised by Gillette. The main salon measured 30 by 50 feet (15 m) and was 19 feet (5.8 m) in height, featuring a complex mirrored system of surveillance of the castle’s public rooms from his bedroom. He explained this as a means “to make great entrances in the opportune moment.”

The mansion was finished in 1919, at a cost of 1 million US dollars. Gillette called it Seven Sisters. Its small train was his personal pride. The train’s layout was 3 miles (4.8 km) long, and it traveled all around the property, crossing several bridges and going through one tunnel designed by Gillette. Gillette also enjoyed strolls on his property in company of his guests, who included the noted physicist Albert Einstein, former U.S. President Calvin Coolidge, and former Mayor of Tokyo Ozaki Yukio, whose 1912 gift of the Yoshino cherry blossoms still beautifies the nation’s capital.

After Gillette died with no wife or children, his will stated

I would consider it more than unfortunate for me should I find myself doomed, after death, to a continued consciousness of the behavior of mankind on this planet to discover that the stone walls and towers and fireplaces of my home founded at every point on the solid rock of Connecticut; that my railway line with its bridges, trestles, tunnels through solid rock, and stone culverts and underpasses, all built in every particular for permanence (so far as there is such a thing); that my locomotives and cars, constructed on the safest and most efficient mechanical principles; that these, and many other things of a like nature, should reveal themselves to me as in the possession of some blithering saphead who had no conception of where he is or with what surrounded.

In 1943, Connecticut’s government took the property, re-baptizing it Gillette’s Castle and Gillette Castle State Park.

Located in 67 River Road, East Haddam, Connecticut, it was reopened in 2002. After a four years of restoration, costing 11 million dollars, it now includes a museum, park, and many theatrical celebrations. It receives 100,000 annual visitors, who can hike or picnic there.

The castle is now No. 86002103 on the National Register of Historic Places., and it remains a distinctive feature of the view from the Connecticut River.

Last Years and Farewell Tour

Gillette announced his retirement many times throughout his career, despite not actually accomplishing this until just after his death. The first announced retirement took place after the turn of the century, after he purchased the boat Aunt Polly which was 144 feet (44 m) in length and weighed 200 tons.

Naturally, Sherlock Holmes was Gillette’s foremost production with 1,300 performances (in 1899-1901, 1905, 1906, 1910, 1915, 1923, and 1929-1932). While performing on other tours, he was always forced by popular demand to include at least one extra performance of Sherlock Holmes.

In 1929, at the age of 76, Gillette started the farewell tour of Sherlock Holmes, in Springfield, Massachusetts. Scheduled for two seasons, it was eventually extended into 1932. The first run of the tour included in the cast Theatre Guild actress Peg Entwistle as Gillette’s female lead. Entwistle was the young ingenue who committed suicide by jumping from the Hollywoodland sign in 1932.

In the New Amsterdam Theater of New York, on November 25, 1929, a great ceremony took place. Gillette received a signature book, autographed by 60 different world eminences. There, in his speech, Arthur Conan Doyle stated: “I consider the production a personal gratification… My only complaint is that you made the poor hero of the anemic printed page a very limp object as compared with the glamour of your own personality which you infuse into his stage presentment.” Former President Calvin Coolidge commented that the production was a “public service”. And Booth Tarkington told him, “I would rather see you play Sherlock Holmes than be a child again on Christmas morning.” On the same occasion, the critics concurred, praising the performance’s sentimentally. His final appearance on stage as Sherlock Holmes took place on March 19, 1932, in Wilmington, Delaware.

His last appearance on stage was in Austin Strong Three Wise Fools in 1936, co-starring with Charles Coburn, James Kirkwood, Brandon Tynan, Isabell Irving, and Mary Rogers, daughter of comedian Will Rogers.

Gillette died on April 29, 1937, in Hartford, due to a pulmonary hemorrhage. He was buried in the Hooker family cemetery, at Farmington, Hartford County, Connecticut, next to his wife.

Bibliography

In his life, Gillette wrote 13 original plays, 7 adaptations and some collaborations, encompassing farce, melodrama and novel adaption. Two pieces about the Civil War remain his greatest works: Held by the Enemy (1886) and Secret Service (1896). Both were successful with both the public and the critics, and Secret Service remains the only one of his plays available today on commercial VHS and DVD from a 1977 Broadway Theater Archive production starring John Lithgow and Meryl Streep. He reaped more than million dollars in gaining, most of it from his own and other touring productions of Sherlock Holmes.

Bullywingle the Beloved (performed in Hartford, Connecticut, October 3, 1892, again in March 1873).

The Twins of Siam (July 1879, never produced).

The Professor (Summer 1879, tryout in Columbus, Ohio).

Esmeralda (adapted from short story by Frances Hodgson Burnett, October 29, 1881, Madison Square Theatre, New York; published by the Madison Square Theatre in 1881).

Digby Secretary (adapted from Gustave Von Moser’s Der Bibliothekar, September 29, 1884, New York Comedy Theatre, New York).

The Private Secretary (adapted from Gustave Von Moser’s Der Bibliothekar, February 9, 1885, Madison Square Theatre, New York).

Held by the Enemy (February 22, 1886, Criterion Theatre, Brooklyn, New York; published by Samuel French Ltd. in 1898).

She (Dramatization of novel by Rider Haggard, November 29, 1887, Niblo Garden, New York).

A Legal Wreck (August 14, 1888, Madison Square Theatre, New York; published by the Rockwood Publishing Company in 1890).

A Legal Wreck (Novelization, Rockwood Pub. Co., 1888).

A Confederate Casualty (1888, Never produced).

Robert Elsmere (Partial dramatization of novel by Mary Augusta Ward; unable to obtain Mrs. Ward’s permission, Gillette discontinued work on the project, and it was dramatized by other playwrights and produced without his participation).

“Mr. William Gillette Surveys the Field, Harper Weekly, Vol. XXXIII, No. 1676, February 2, 1889, Supplement, pp. 98-99.

All the Comforts of Home (adapted from Carl Lauf’s Ein Toller Einfall, March 3, 1890, Boston Museum, Boston, Massachusetts; published by H. Roorbach in 1897).

Maid of All Work (1890, never produced).

Mr. Wilkinson Widows (adapted from Alexandre Bisson Feu Toupinel, March 23, 1891, National Theatre, Washington, D.C.).

Settled Out of Court (adapted from Alexandre Bisson La Famille Pont-Biquet, August 8, 1892, Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York).

The War of the American Revolution (January 1893, ine scenes with historical commentary, written for the arnum & Baily people, for a libretto to use with their ast Episodic Drama of the Revolution).

Ninety Days (February 6, 1893, Broadway Theatre, New York).

Too Much Johnson (adapted from Maurice Ordonneau La Plantation Thomassin, November 26, 1894, Standard Theatre, New York; published in 1912).

Secret Service (May 13, 1895, Broad Street Theatre, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; published in 1898; published by Samuel French Ltd. in 1898).

“The Tale of My First Success, New York Dramatic Mirror, The Christmas Number 1886, December 26, 1896, p. 30.

Because She Loved Him So (October 28, 1898, Hyperion Theatre, New Haven, Connecticut).

Sherlock Holmes (with Arthur Conan Doyle, October 23, 1899, Star Theatre, Buffalo, New York; published by Samuel French, Ltd., in 1922, by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., in 1935, and by Doubleday in 1976 and 1977).

“The House-Boat in America, The Outlook Magazine, Vol. 65, No. 5, June 2, 1900.

The Frightful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes (March 24, 1905, Joseph Jefferson Holland Benefit, Metropolitan Opera House; later retitled The Harrowing Predicament of Sherlock Holmes and finally The Painful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes, published by B. Abramson in 1955).

Clarice (September 4, 1905, Liverpool, England).

Ticey, or That Little Affair of Boyd (June 15, 1908, originally retitled A Private Theatrical, then retitled A Maid-of-All Work, later retitled That Little Affair of Boyd, Columbia Theatre, Washington, D.C.

Samson (adapted from Henri Bernstein Samson, October 19, 1908, Criterion Theatre, New York).

The Red Owl, originally titled he Robber (One-Act Play, August 9, 1909, London Coliseum; published in One-Act Plays for Stage and Study, Second Series, Samuel French, Ltd., 1925, pp. 47-80.

Among Thieves (One-Act Play, September 6, 1909, Palace Theatre, London; published in One-Act Plays for Stage and Study, Second Series, Samuel French, Ltd., 1925, pp. 246-267.

Electricity (September 26, 1910, Park Theatre, Boston, Massachusetts; published by Samuel French Ltd. in 1924).

Secret Service: Being the Happenings of a Night in Richmond in the Spring of 1865 (Novelization, Dodd, Mead and Company, New York, and Kessinger Publishing in the United Kingdom, 1912).

Butterfly on the Wheel (1914, never produced).

Diplomacy (adapted from Victorien Sardou Dora, October 20, 1914, Empire Theatre, New York).

William Hooker Gillette: The Illusion of the First Time in Acting (The Dramatic Museum of Columbia University in Papers on Acting, Second Series, Number 1, 1915).

hen a Play Is Not a Play, Vanity Fair, Vol. 5, Nos. 5-7 – vol. 6, Nos. 2-4, January-June 1916, pp. 53.

Introduction to How to Write a Play, edited by Miles Dudley, Papers on Playmaking II (Dramatic Museum of Columbia University, 1916), pp. 1-8.

How Well George Does It (1919, never produced; published by Samuel French Ltd. in 1936).

merica Great Opportunity, in The World War: Utterances Concerning Its Issues and Conduct by Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Printed for It Archives and For Free.

The Dream Maker (November 21, 1921, Empire Theatre, New York).

Sherlock Holmes, A Play (Samuel French, Ltd., 1922).

Winnie and the Wolves (dramatized from Bertram Atkey stories in the aturday Evening Post, May 14, 1923, Lyric Theatre, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania).

The Astounding Crime on Torrington Road (Novel, Harper & Brothers, 1927).

The Crown Prince of the Incas (1932-36, never completed).

Sherlock Holmes, A Play (Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1935).

In-life Published Editions of Sherlock Holmes

1922. First publication by Samuel French.

1935. Published by Doubleday, Doran & Co. It was a pricey edition, containing Gillette’s foreword, multi-paged feature on trivial data and illustrations by Frederic Dorr Steele.

Filmography

In 1916, Gillette starred the first cinema-adaptation of his Sherlock Holmes, albeit it was not the first film about Holmes. It was a seven-reel silent film by Essanay Film Manufacturing Co. directed by Arthur Berthelet. Marjorie Kay played Alice Faulkner and Ernest Manpani was Moriarty. One acid critic noted that Gillette was “about to lose his physical strength to perform the character” since then, insisting that he would not be able to repeat it over the 60 years old. No copy of the film has survived.

In 1922, Goldwyn Pictures filmed another version of Gillette’s play. It was directed by Albert Parker and John Barrymore played Holmes. This has recently been restored by the George Eastman House.

Secret Service was filmed in 1919 by Paramount Pictures, directed by Hugh Ford with Robert Warwick in Gillette’s role and Shirley Mason as the female lead.

Secret Service was filmed again in 1931 by Radio Pictures. It was directed by J. Walter Ruben and Richard Dix was the Union’s spy.

In 1977, as part of the Broadway Theatre Archive, a production of Secret Service was filmed starring a pair of young unknowns John Lithgow as Captain Thorne and, as Edith Varney in her very first appearance in a full-length film, Meryl Streep. This is the only play by Gillette still available on commercial VHS or DVD.

In 1981, Gillette play Sherlock Holmes was produced by Home Box Office, in only its second theater production, in collaboration with the Williamstown Theater Festival and artistic director Nikos Psacharopoulos, and was broadcast on November 19, 1981, with repeats on November 23, 27, 29, and December 1 and 5. This production starred Frank Langella as Holmes, Stephen Collins as Larrabee, Susan Clark as Madge Larrabee, Richard Woods as Dr. Watson, and 12-year-old Christian Slater as Billy the Pageboy. This production is not available on commercial VHS or DVD.

Radio

On October 20, 1930, Gillette performed the first serial radio-version of Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Speckled Band. It was based on the original theater version by Conan Doyle, re-adapted by Edith Meiser, and was the first time Holmes was portrayed on radio as part of a continuing series. It was transmitted by WEAF-NBC (New York) and sponsored by G. Washington Coffee Co.. This show became the pilot of a series and, after Gillette, Richard Gordon took over the part for the remaining 34 programs in the series.

On November 18, 1935, Gillette, now 82 years old, performed his own Sherlock Holmes on WABC radio of New York. His play was again re-adapted by Edith Meiser. Reginald Mason played Dr. Watson and Charles Bryant played Professor Moriarty. Its duration was 50 minutes. This play too was the pilot for a new Holmes series by Lux Radio Theater. The New York Times said that Gillette was “still the best, with all his shades and improvisation.”

As Novelist

1927, The Astounding Crime on Torrington Road. Only mystery novel.

Legacy

Tryon, North Carolina

In 1891, after his first visiting of Tryon, North Carolina, Gillette began building his bungalow, which he later enlarged into a house. He named it Thousand Pines and it is privately owned today. In past years, in November, the town of Tryon celebrated the William Gillette Festival, honoring Gillette.

Read about Tryon’s 1998 Festival (External Link)

New York City

On December 7, 1934, Gillette attended the first dinner meeting of the Baker Street Irregulars in New York. To this day, the BSI honors him with the William Gillette Memorial Luncheon on the Friday afternoon of their annual January meeting in New York City.

Baker Street Irregulars Weekend, The Annual Gathering of the oldest Literary Society dedicated to Sherlock Holmes (External Link)

The Illusion of the First Time

As a theorist, Gillette is remembered for The Illusion of the First Time in Acting, a paper containing nothing new but all that was important to performance on the stage, collected for the first time into one expression. While all of it is common knowledge today, it was revolutionary when he wrote it, and it was a major departure from theatrical tradition and practice. Booth, Macready, Kean, Forrest, and Boucicault would have rejected it outright. Naturalness and realism, while expected today, and the norm, were not within the old school grasp.

Yet, up into the twenty-first century, there is hardly a concept referred to more often than the Illusion of the First Time. It is referred to over and over again in one school or another, in one writeup or another; and, in the year 2001, specific references, by his name, to his description of it were applied to two of the finest actors of the new generation.

D. K. Holm wrote of Johnny Depp in the Portland Mercury, merican playwright/actor William Gillette called good acting he illusion of the first time. This is Depp’s strong suit.46]

And, Steve Vineberg wrote of Robert Downey, Jr., at that time appearing in the hit Fox television sitcom, Ally McBeal and most recently the latest actor to play Sherlock Holmes, that here’s a mysterious beauty to Mr. Downey’s reading of (his lines), not only in his application of what William Gillette called he illusion of the first time the actor’s trick of making the lines sound as if they were newly minted but more movingly in Larry’s struggle to admit to feelings that he tends to submerge because they call up so much loss.47]

Quotations

“Elementary, my dear fellow! Elementary!”

“There isn any reason in the world why we can do as well in this farewell business as any other country on the face of the globe. We have the farewellers and the people to say farewell to. If I can only keep it up I will be even with my competitors by the Spring of 1922, and by the Winter of 1937 I will be well in the lead.”

“It just seems, somehow, that every five years finds me back again, so you can expect me back at it again once more in 1941. Probably in 1976, when they are celebrating the two-hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the Declaration of Independence, or what ever it is, 40 years from now, I’ll still be farewelling. I should apologize for being here, but I am a man among Yankees, and they take promises with a grain of salt in fact they usually take them home and pickle them in brine, so they probably knew I’d be back. Besides I have several good excuses but they really don’t count. And besides and you men who follow horse racing will know what I mean I’m not running against anyone, they’re merely letting me trot around the track.”

“Farewell, Good Luck, and Merry Christmas.”

References

^ Short biography on Henry Zecher website – http://www.henryzecher.com/gillettebio.htm

^ Riley, Dick; Pam McAllister (2005). The Bedside Companion to Sherlock Holmes. Barnes & Noble Books. pp. 5960. ISBN 978-0-7607-7156-3. ; Short biography on Henry Zecher website – http://www.henryzecher.com/gillettebio.htm

^ See Andrews, Kenneth R., Nook farm, Mark Twain’s Hartford Circle (Harvard University Press, 1950) and Van Why, Joseph S., Nook Farm (Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, Hartford, CT, 1975).

^ Andrews, Kenneth R., Nook Farm, Mark Twain’s Hartford Circle (Harvard University Press, 1950).

^ Hooker, Edward W., The Descendants of Rev. Thomas Hooker: Hartford, Connecticut, 1586-1908 (Edited by Margaret Huntington Hooker and printed for her at Rochester, N.Y., 1909; Legacy Reprint Series, Kessinger Publishing, LLC, 2007).

^ Sacramento Daily Union, August 8, 1859, notice, compiled by David Murray, Superintendent of the City Cemetery, reads: Mortality of the City. In the 1860 Mortality Schedule Index at the California State Library in Sacramento is an entry under Gillett, Frank A.; age 23; male; CT listed for state of birth; died Aug; listed as Farmer for occupation; died Sacramento County; enumeration district 2; township Sacramento City.

^ Burton, Nathaniel J., A Discourse Delivered January 29th, 1865, in Memory of Robert H. Gillette (Press of Wiley, Waterman & Eaton), 1865.

^ Robinson, Charles M., III, Hurricane of Fire, the Union Assault on Fort Fisher (Naval Institute Press, 1998), p. 184; Gragg, Rod, Confederate Goliath, the Battle of Fort Fisher (Harper Collins, 1991), p. 235; Hartford Courant, “Death of Paymaster Gillette,” January 21, 1865, p. 2; Burton, Nathaniel J., A Discourse Delivered January 29th, 1865, in Memory of Robert H. Gillette.

^ Duffy, Richard, “Gillette, Actor and Playwright,” Ainslee Magazine, Vol. VI, No. 1, August 1900, p. 54.

^ Letter to George Warner, Gillette Correspondence, Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, Hartford, Connecticut.

^ Last Will of Francis Gillette, Signed October 12, 1877, City of Hartford Probate Records, 1876-1880, Microfilm #LDS1314362, CSL #986, continued on LDS #987,Pages 435-436, and 539-541.

^ Helen Gillette Death Certificate, Office of Vital Statistics, Office of the Town Clerk, Town Hall, Greenwich, Connecticut, September 1, 1888.

^ Frohman, Daniel, Daniel Frohman Presents An Autobiography (Claude Kendall & Willoughby Sharp, 1935), p. 51; Gerzina, Gretchen, Frances Hodgson Burnett (Chatto & Windus,2004), p. 89, 93-95, 99; Gillette, William, Esmeralda in The Century Magazine, Vol. XXIII, New Series VOL I, November 1881 to April 1882 (The Century Co., 1882), pp. 513-531; Hartford Courant, musements, smeralda, November 6, 1882, p. 3; New York Times, rs. Burnett New Play, October 30, 1881, p. 8.

^ Leslie, Amy, Some Players (Hebert S. Stone & Company, 1899), p. 302.

^ Strang, Lewis C., Famous Actors of the Day in America (L.C. Page and Company, 1900), p. 178.

^ Schuttler, George William, William Gillette, Actor and Director (An unpublished thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Speech Communication in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1975), p. 97; Schuttler, Georg William, (1983) “William Gillette: Marathon Actor and Playwright,” The Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 17, Issue 3, Winter 1983, pp. 115129. doi:10.1111/j.0022-3840.1983.1703_115.x, p. 124-125.

^ Dahlinger, S. E., he Sherlock Holmes We Never Knew, Baker Street Journal, Vol. 49, No. 3, September 1999, p. 10.

^ Moses, Montrose J., The American Dramatist (Little, Brown, and Company, 1925), p. 369.

^ Morehouse, Ward, Matinee Tomorrow (Whittlesey House, 1949), p. 23.

^ Finletter, Gretchen, From the Top of the Stairs (Little, Brown, 1946), p. 44.

^ Sherk, H. Dennis, William Gillette: His Life and Works, (An unpublished thesis in English submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School, Department of English, at the Pennsylvania State University, June 1961), pp. 199-200.

^ New York Times, illiam Gillette, Actor, Dead at 81, April 30, 1937, p. 21.

^ Murphy, Brenda, American Realism and American Drama, 1880-1940 (Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 162; Dithmar, Edward, ecret Service, Harper Weekly, October 10, 1896, p. 215.

^ Burton, Richard, illiam Gillette, The Book Buyer, February 1898, p. 28.

^ Films for the Humanities & Sciences http://www.films.com/Films_Home/Item.cfm/1/6018.

^ Letters Patent No. 389,294, ethod of Producing Stage Effects, September 11, 1887, U.S. Patent Office.

^ United States Patent and Trademark office, Letters Patent No. 289,404, Filed April 25, 1883, granted December 4, 1883; Letters Patent No. 300,966, filed May 2, 1883, granted June 24, 1884; Letters Patent No. 302,559, filed on May 14, 1883, and approved July 29, 1884; and Letters Patent No. 309,537, filed December 5, 1883, and issued December 23, 1884.

^ New York Sun Journal, September 11, 1887, quoted in Schuttler, Georg William, William Gillette, Actor and Playwright, p. 11; Price, E. D., FGS, Editor, Hazell’s Annual Cyclopedia (London: Hazell, Watson, and Viney, 1888), p. 191; Deshler, Welch, Editor, The Theatre, Vol. III, No. 6, April 25, 1887, Whole No. 58, in The Theatre (Theatre Publishing Company, 1888), p. 107; London Times, “Princess’s Theatre,” April 4, 1887, p. 5; London Daily Telegraph, “Princess’s Theatre,” April 4, 1887, p. 3.

^ Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, Memories and Adventures (Wordsworth Editions Limited, 2007), p. 87; Starrett, Vincent, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes(The MacMillan Company, 1933), p. 139.

^ New York Times, an Francisco Hotel Fire, ucky Baldwin House Laid in Ruins by Flames, Loss of Life May Be Great, Only Two Victims Bodies So Far Recovered Theatre in the Building Also Burned, November 24, 1898, p. 1.

^ Shepstone, Harold J., “Mr. William Gillette as Sherlock Holmes,” The Strand Magazine, April 1901, p. 615.

^ Higham, Charles, The Adventures of Conan Doyle, the life of the creator of Sherlock Holmes (W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1976), pp. 153-154; Encyclopedia Sherlockiana, illette, William (MacMillan, 1994), p. 90.

^ Cullen, Rosemary, & Don B. Wilmeth, Plays by William Hooker Gillette (Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 16 Plays by William Gillette, Rosemary Cullen, Don B. Wilmeth.

^ Gillette, William H., The Painful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes (Ben Abramson, 1955).

^ Vanity Fair Magazine, “Sherlock Holmes,” February 27, 1907, Front Cover.

^ Smith, Pamela Coleman, William Gillette As Sherlock Holmes (R. H. Russell, 1900).

^ Celebrity Caricature in America, http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/caricatures/intro.htm.

^ a b Washington Post, “Gillette’s Castle,” February 2, 1936, p. B6.

^ Monagan, Charles A., Connecticut icons: 50 Symbols of the Nutmeg State, illette Castle (Globe Pequot, 2006), p. 77; Ojeda, Miguel, Circulo Holmes, (Harold Stackhurst) martes, 20 de mayo de 2008 (Tuesday, May 20, 2008).

^ Van Name, Fred, Gillette Castle at Hadlyme, A State Park (Connecticut Vignettes, Copyright by Fred Van Name, 1956).

^ Gillette, William, Last Will and Testament, 1/27/37; Hartford ourant, illette Will Requests His Home Not Be Sold To lithering Saphead, May 4, 1937, p. 1.

^ 9 National Register of Historic Places www.nationalregisterof historicplaces.com/CT/New+London/state4.html.

^ Letters of Salutation and Felicitation Received by William Gillette on the Occasion of His Farewell to the Stage in Sherlock Holmes (1929).

^ William Gillette Medical Certificate of Death, Connecticut State Department of Health, signed by Dr. John A. Wentworth, April 29, 1937.

^ Oonnor, John J., V: H.B.O. Offers herlock Holmes, New York Times, November 19, 1981.

^ Holm, D.K., Nose for Movies Johnny Depp is Really the Best Actor in Hollywood, The Portland ercury, Vol. 1, No. 44, April 5 – Apr 11 2001, http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/Content?oid=24307&category=22133.

^ Vineberg, Steve, elivering Something Real To ‘Ally McBeal’, New York imes, Sunday TELEVISION/RADIO, March 18, 2001 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B05E6D6113AF93BA25750C0A9679C8B63.

^ Gillette, William, Sherlock Holmes, A Play, Wherein is set forth The Strange Case of Miss Alice Faulkner (Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1935), p. 82.

^ New York Times, “The Au Revoir Tour,” October 17, 1915, Fashions Society Queries Summer White House Music & Drama Pages Hotels & Restaurants, p. X8.

^ a b Hartford Courant, “Death Seals Last Gillette Retirement,” April 30, 1937, pp. 1, 6.

“Sherlock Holmes: The Published Apocrypha”, compiled by Jack Tracy.

“The Final Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”, compiled by Peter Haining.

Most of this information is from the full-length biography of William Gillette by Henry Zecher, soon[when?] to be published by the Mountainside Press in Shaftsbury, Vermont.

External links

William Gillette at the Internet Movie Database

William Gillette Introduction

The Baker Street Journal – writings about Sherlock Holmes

Gillettes Castle at Connecticut

Website of Gillette biographer Henry Zecher, whose full-length biography is soon to be published by the Mountainside Press in Shaftsbury, Vermont

William Gillette at Find a Grave

Categories: American actors | American dramatists and playwrights | People from Hartford, Connecticut | Sherlock Holmes | 1853 births | 1937 deaths | Deaths from pulmonary hemorrhageHidden categories: Articles with unsourced statements from March 2008 | All articles with unsourced statements | Vague or ambiguous time

Early life

Williams was born in Chicago, Illinois. His mother, Laura (ne Smith, 19222001), was a former model from New Orleans, Louisiana. His father, Robert Fitzgerald Williams (September 10, 1906  October 18, 1987) was a senior executive at Lincoln-Mercury Motorship in charge of the Midwest area. Williams was raised in the Episcopal Church, though his mother practiced Christian Science. He grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where he was a student at the Detroit Country Day School, and Marin County, California, where he attended the public Redwood High School. Williams also attended Claremont McKenna College (then called Claremont Men’s College) for four years.

He has two half-brothers: Todd (who died August 14, 2007) and McLaurin.

Williams has described himself as a quiet child whose first imitation was of his grandmother to his mother. He did not overcome his shyness until he became involved with his high-school drama department.

In 1973, Williams was one of only 20 students accepted into the freshman class at the Juilliard School, and one of only two students to be accepted by John Houseman into the Advanced Program at the school that year, the other being Christopher Reeve. In his dialects class, Williams had no trouble mastering all dialects quickly. WIlliams left Juilliard in 1976.

Television career

After appearing in the cast of the short-lived The Richard Pryor Show on NBC, Williams was cast by Garry Marshall as the alien Mork in the hit TV series “Happy Days”. As Mork, Williams improvised much of his dialogue and devised plenty of rapid-fire verbal and physical comedy, speaking in a high, nasal voice. Mork’s appearance was so popular with viewers that it led to a spin-off hit television sitcom, Mork and Mindy, which ran from 1978 to 1982. Although playing the same character as in his appearance in Happy Days, the show was set in the present day, in Boulder, Colorado, instead of late ’50s in Milwaukee. Mork was an extremely popular character, featured on posters, coloring books, lunchboxes, and other merchandise.

Starting in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, Williams began to reach a wider audience with his standup comedy, including three HBO comedy specials, Off The Wall (1978), An Evening with Robin Williams (1982), and Robin Williams: Live at the Met (1986). Also in 1986, Williams reached an ever wider audience to exhibit his style at the 58th Academy Awards show; noting the Hollywood writers strike that year he commented that the Hollywood writer… “is the only man in the world that can blow smoke up his own ass.” As a result, Williams has never hosted the Academy Awards again.

His standup work has been a consistent thread through his career, as is seen by the success of his one-man show (and subsequent DVD) Robin Williams Live on Broadway (2002). He was voted 13th on Comedy Central’s list “100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time” in 2004.

After some encouragement from his friend Whoopi Goldberg, he was set to make a guest appearance in the 1991 Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “A Matter of Time”, but he had to cancel due to a scheduling conflict; Matt Frewer took his place as a time-traveling con man, Professor Berlingoff Rasmussen.

Williams also appeared on an episode of the American version of Whose Line Is It Anyway? (Season 3, Episode 9: November 16, 2000). During a game of “Scenes from a Hat”, the scene “What Robin Williams is thinking right now” was drawn, and Williams stated “I have a career. What the hell am I doing here?”

Cinema career

Most of Williams’ acting career has been in film, although he has given some performances on stage as well (notably as Estragon in a production of Waiting for Godot with Steve Martin). His performance in Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) got Williams nominated for an Academy Award. Many of his roles have been comedies tinged with pathos, for example The Birdcage and Mrs. Doubtfire.

His role as the Genie in the animated film Aladdin was instrumental in establishing the importance of star power in voice actor casting. Williams also used his voice talents in Fern Gully, as the holographic Dr. Know in the 2001 feature A.I. Artificial Intelligence, the 2005 animated feature Robots, the 2006 Academy Award winning Happy Feet, and an uncredited vocal performance in 2006′s Everyone’s Hero. Furthermore, he was the voice of The Timekeeper, a former attraction at the Walt Disney World Resort about a time-traveling robot who encounters Jules Verne and brings him to the future.

Williams has also starred in dramatic films, which got him two subsequent Academy Award nominations: First for playing an English teacher in Dead Poets Society (1989), and later for playing a troubled homeless man in The Fisher King (1991); that same year, he played an adult Peter Pan in the movie Hook. Other acclaimed dramatic films include Awakenings (1990) and What Dreams May Come (1998). In the 2002 dramatic thriller Insomnia, Williams portrays a writer/killer on the run from a sleep-deprived Los Angeles policeman (played by Al Pacino) in rural Alaska. And also in 2002, in the psychological thriller One Hour Photo, Williams played an emotionally disturbed photo development technician who becomes obsessed with a family for whom he has developed pictures for a long time.

In 1998, he won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor for his role as a psychologist in Good Will Hunting. However, by the early 2000s, he was thought by some to be typecast in films such as Patch Adams (1998) and Bicentennial Man (1999) that critics complained were excessively maudlin. In 2006 Williams starred in The Night Listener, a thriller about a radio show host who realizes he has developed a friendship with a child who may or may not exist.

He is known for his improvisational skills and impersonations. His performances frequently involve impromptu humor designed and delivered in rapid-fire succession while on stage. According to the Aladdin DVD commentary, most of his dialogue as the Genie was improvised.

In 2006, he starred in five movies including Man of the Year and was the Surprise Guest at the 2006 Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards. He appeared on an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired on January 30, 2006.

At one point, he was in the running to play the Riddler in Batman Forever until director Tim Burton dropped the project. Earlier, Williams had been a strong contender to play the Joker in Batman. He had expressed interest in assuming the role in The Dark Knight, the sequel to 2005′s Batman Begins, although the part of the Joker was played by Heath Ledger, who went on to win, posthumously, the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

He was portrayed by Chris Diamantopoulos in the made-for-TV biopic Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Mork & Mindy (2005), documenting the actor’s arrival in Hollywood as a struggling comedian.

Disputes with Disney

In gratitude for his success with the Disney/Touchstone film Good Morning, Vietnam, Robin Williams voiced the Genie in the Disney animated film Aladdin for SAG scale pay (,000), on condition that his name or image not be used for marketing, and his (supporting) character not take more than 25% of space on advertising artwork, since Toys was scheduled for release one month after Aladdin’s debut. The studio went back on the deal on both counts, especially in poster art by having the Genie in 25% of the image, but having other major and supporting characters portrayed considerably smaller. Disney’s Hyperion book, Aladdin: The Making Of An Animated Film, listed both of Williams’ characters “The Peddler” and “The Genie” ahead of main characters, but was forced to refer to him only as “the actor signed to play the Genie”.

Williams and Disney had a bitter falling-out, and as a result Dan Castellaneta voiced the Genie in The Return of Jafar, the Aladdin animated television series, and had recorded his voice for Aladdin and the King of Thieves. When Jeffrey Katzenberg was fired from Disney and replaced by former 20th Century Fox production head Joe Roth (whose last act for Fox was greenlighting Williams’ film Mrs. Doubtfire), Roth arranged for a public apology to Williams by Disney. Williams agreed to perform in Hollywood Pictures’ Jack, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, and even agreed to voice the Genie again for the King Of Thieves sequel (for considerably more than scale), replacing all of Castellaneta’s dialogue.

When Williams re-teamed with Doubtfire director Chris Columbus for 1999′s Bicentennial Man, Disney asked that the budget be cut by approximately  million, and when the film was released on Christmas Day, it flopped at the box office. Williams blamed Disney’s marketing and the loss of content the film had suffered due to the budget cuts. As a result, Williams was again on bad terms with Disney, and Castellaneta was once again recruited to replace him as Genie in the Kingdom Hearts video game series and the House of Mouse TV series. The DVD release for Aladdin has no involvement whatsoever from Williams in the bonus materials, although some of his original recording sessions can be seen.

Robin Williams has recently made peace with the Walt Disney Company and in 2009 agreed to be inducted into the Disney hall of fame, designated as a Disney Legend.

Stand-up career

Robin Williams has done a number of stand-up comedy tours since the early 1970s. Some of his most notable tours include An Evening With Robin Williams (1982), Robin Williams: At The Met (1986) and Robin Williams LIVE on Broadway (2002). The latter broke many long held records for a comedy show. In some cases, tickets were sold out within thirty minutes of going on sale.

After a six-year break, in August 2008 Williams announced a brand new 26-city tour titled “Weapons of Self Destruction”. He was quoted as saying that this was his last chance to make cracks at the expense of the current Bush Administration, but by the time the show was staged only a few minutes covered that subject. The tour started at the end of September 2009, finishing in New York on December 3, and was the subject of an HBO special on December 8, 2009.

Controversy

Robin Williams gained a reputation for stealing material from other comics to the extent that David Brenner claims that he confronted Williams personally and threatened him with bodily harm if he heard Williams utter another one of his jokes.

Personal life

Robin Williams’ first marriage was to Valerie Velardi on June 4, 1978, with whom he has one child, Zachary Pym (Zak) (born April 11, 1983). During Williams’ first marriage, he was involved in an extramarital relationship with Michelle Tish Carter, a cocktail waitress whom he met in 1984. She sued him in 1986, claiming that he did not tell her he was infected with the herpes simplex virus before he embarked on a sexual relationship with her in the mid-1980s, during which, she said, he transmitted the virus to her. The case was settled out of court.

On April 30, 1989, he married Marsha Garces, his son’s nanny who was already several months pregnant with his child. They have two children, Zelda Rae (born July 31, 1989) and Cody Alan (born November 25, 1991). However, in March 2008, Garces filed for divorce from Williams, citing irreconcilable differences.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Williams had an addiction to cocaine; he has since quit. Williams was a close friend and frequent partier alongside John Belushi. He says the death of his friend and the birth of his son prompted him to quit drugs: “Was it a wake-up call? Oh yeah, on a huge level. The grand jury helped too.”

On August 9, 2006, Williams checked himself in to a substance-abuse rehabilitation center (located in Newberg, Oregon), later admitting that he was an alcoholic. His publicist delivered the announcement:

“After 20 years of sobriety, Robin Williams found himself drinking again and has decided to take proactive measures to deal with this for his own well-being and the well-being of his family. He asks that you respect his and his family’s privacy during this time. He looks forward to returning to work this fall to support his upcoming film releases.”

On August 20, 2007, Williams’ elder brother, Robert Todd Williams, died of complications from heart surgery performed a month earlier.

Williams is a member of the Episcopal Church. He has described his denomination in a comedy routine as “Catholic Lite ; same rituals, half the guilt.”

While studying at Juilliard, Williams befriended Christopher Reeve. They had several classes together in which they were the only students, and they remained good friends for the rest of Reeve’s life. Williams visited Reeve after the horse riding accident that rendered him a quadriplegic, and cheered him up by pretending to be an eccentric Russian doctor (similar to his role in Nine Months). Williams claimed that he was there to perform a colonoscopy. Reeve stated that he laughed for the first time since the accident and knew that life was going to be okay.

Health

Williams was hospitalized in March 2009 due to heart problems. Williams postponed his one-man tour in order to undergo surgery to replace his aortic valve. The surgery was successfully completed on March 13, 2009, at the Cleveland Clinic.

Other interests

Williams speaking at the 2008 BBC World Debate

Williams is an avid enthusiast of games (even naming his daughter after Princess Zelda from The Legend of Zelda video game series), enjoying pen-and-paper role-playing games and online video games, recently playing Warcraft 3, Day of Defeat, Half-Life, and the first-person shooter Battlefield 2 as a sniper. On January 6, 2006, he performed live at Consumer Electronics Show during Google’s keynote. In the 2006 E3, on the invitation of Will Wright, he demonstrated the creature editor of Spore while simultaneously commenting on the creature’s look: “This will actually make a platypus look good.” He also complimented the game’s versatility, comparing it to Populous and Black & White. Later that year, he was one of several celebrities to participate in the Worldwide Dungeons & Dragons Game Day.

Williams has gone on record as a fan of the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion, and incorporated a scene referencing it in One Hour Photo where he purchases a model kit from it as a gift.

A fan of professional road cycling, he was a regular on the US Postal and Discovery Channel Pro Cycling team bus and hotels during the years Lance Armstrong dominated the Tour de France. He owns over 50 bicycles.

He also enjoys rugby union and is a big fan of former All Black, Jonah Lomu.

Williams is a supporter of eco-friendly vehicles. He currently drives a Toyota Prius, but is on the waiting list to be an early adopter of the Aptera 2-series electric vehicle.

Charity work

Williams and his former wife, Marsha, founded the Windfall Foundation, a philanthropic organization to raise money for many different charities. Williams devotes much of his energy doing work for charities, including the Comic Relief fund-raising efforts. In December 1999, he sang in French on the BBC-inspired music video of international celebrities doing a cover of the Rolling Stones’ “It’s Only Rock & Roll” for the charity Children’s Promise.

Williams has performed with the USO for U.S. troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Filmography

Year

Film

Role

Notes

1977

Can I Do It ‘Till I Need Glasses?

Himself

1980

Popeye

Popeye

1982

The World According to Garp

T.S. Garp

1983

The Survivors

Donald Quinelle

1984

Moscow on the Hudson

Vladimir Ivanov

Nominated  Golden Globe Award for Best Actor Motion Picture Musical or Comedy

1986

Seize the Day

Tommy Wilhelm

Club Paradise

Jack Moniker

The Best of Times

Jack Dundee

1987

Good Morning, Vietnam

Adrian Cronauer

Golden Globe Award for Best Actor Motion Picture Musical or Comedy

Nominated  Academy Award for Best Actor

Nominated  BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role

1988

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

King of the Moon

Credited as Ray D. Tutto

Portrait of a White Marriage

Air Conditioning Salesman

Rabbit Ears: Pecos Bill

Narrator

Voice

1989

Dead Poets Society

John Keating

Nominated  Academy Award for Best Actor

Nominated  BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role

Nominated  Golden Globe Award for Best Actor Motion Picture Drama

I’m from Hollywood

Himself

1990

Awakenings

Dr. Malcolm Sayer

Nominated  Golden Globe Award for Best Actor Motion Picture Drama

Cadillac Man

Joey O’Brien

Back to Neverland

Himself

1991

Hook

Peter Banning / Peter Pan

The Fisher King

Parry

Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy

Nominated  Academy Award for Best Actor

Dead Again

Doctor Cozy Carlisle

“Rabbit Ears: The Fool and the Flying Ship”

Narrator

Voice

1992

Toys

Leslie Zevo

voice

Aladdin

Genie/Merchant

Voice

The Timekeeper

The Timekeeper

FernGully: The Last Rainforest

Batty Koda

Voice

Shakes the Clown

Mime Class Instructor

1993

Mrs. Doubtfire

Daniel Hillard/Mrs. Doubtfire

Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy

Being Human

Hector

1994

In Search of Dr. Seuss

Father

1995

Aladdin and the King of Thieves

Genie

Voice

Jumanji

Alan Parrish

To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar

John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt

Nine Months

Dr. Kosevich

1996

Hamlet

Osric

The Secret Agent

The Professor

Jack

Jack Powell

The Birdcage

Armand Goldman

Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture

1997

Good Will Hunting

Sean Maguire

Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor

Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role

Nominated  Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor Motion Picture

Nominated  Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture

Flubber

Professor Philip Brainard

Deconstructing Harry

Mel/Harry’s Character

Fathers’ Day

Dale Putley

1998

Patch Adams

Hunter “Patch” Adams

Nominated  Golden Globe Award for Best Actor Motion Picture Musical or Comedy

Junket Whore

Himself

What Dreams May Come

Chris Nielsen

1999

Bicentennial Man

Andrew Martin

Jakob the Liar

Jakob Heym/Narrator

Get Bruce

Himself

2000

Model Behavior

Faremain

2001

A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Dr. Know

voice

2002

The Rutles 2: Can’t Buy Me Lunch

Hans Hnkie

Insomnia

Walter Finch

Death to Smoochy

‘Rainbow’ Randolph Smiley

One Hour Photo

Sy Parrish

2004

Noel

Charlie Boyd/The Priest

House of D

Pappass

The Final Cut

Alan W. Hakman

2005

The Big White

Paul Barnell

Robots

Fender

voice

The Aristocrats

Himself

2006

Man of the Year

Tom Dobbs

Night at the Museum

Theodore Roosevelt

Happy Feet

Ramon/Lovelace

(voice)

Everyone’s Hero

Napoleon Cross

(voice)

RV

Bob Munro

The Night Listener

Gabriel Noone

2007

License to Wed

Reverend Frank

August Rush

Maxwell “Wizard” Wallace

2009

Shrink

Holden

World’s Greatest Dad

Lance Clayton

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

Theodore Roosevelt

Old Dogs

Dan Rayburn

2010

Wedding Banned

John Fischer

In development

2011

Happy Feet 2 in 3D

Ramon/Lovelace

Voice role

Filming

Television

Year

Title

Role

Notes

1977

Richard Pryor Show

Himself

Writer

“Man with Bad Arm,” “John Brownstein, Defense Attorney/Archeologist/Shopper,” “Himself,” “Himself/Titanic Survivor/Voice of Gun”

Laugh-In

Eight is Enough

Episode: “The Return of Auntie V”

1978

Happy Days

Mork

Episode: My Favorite Orkan

America 2-Night

Jason Shine

Episodes: “Jason Shine” and “Olfactory Distosis Telethon”

19791982

Mork & Mindy

Mork

Appeared in 92 episodes

1979

Happy Days

Mork

Episode: “Mork Returns”

Out of the Blue

Episode: “Random’s Arrival”

1981

Saturday Night Live

Himself

Host/Various

1982

The Billy Crystal Comedy Hour

Himself

Episode: #1.1

Faerie Tale Theatre

Frog/Prince Robin

Episode: “Tale of the Frog Prince”

SCTV Network 90

Various

Episode: “Jane Eyrehead”

1984

Saturday Night Live

Himself

Host/Various

Pryor’s Place

Gaby

Episode: “Sax Education”

1986

Saturday Night Live

Himself

Host/Various

The Max Headroom Show

Himself

Episode: “Max Headroom’s Giant Christmas Turkey”

1988

Saturday Night Live

Himself

Host/Various

Wogan

Himself

1991

Wogan

Himself

1992

The Larry Sanders Show

Himself

Episode: “Hank’s Contract”

1994

Homicide: Life on the Streets

Robert Ellison

Episode: “Bop Gun”

Live & Kicking

Himself

The Larry Sanders Show

Himself

Episode: “Montana”

Nyhetsmorgon

Himself

Episode: “Filmen ‘Mrs. Doubtfire’ svensk premir”

In the Wild

Himself

Episode: “In the Wild: Dolphins with Robin Williams”

1995

Primer Plano

Himself

1996

American Masters

Himself

Episode: “Take Two: Mike Nichols and Elaine May”

Primer Plano

1996

Friends

Tomas

Uncredited

HBO First Look

Himself

Episode: “Fathers Day”

1998

Nyhetsmorgon

Himself/Sean Maguire

Episode: “Filmen ‘Good Will Hunting”

Hollywood Squares

Himself

Guest appearance

Noel’s House Party

Himself

Episode: #8.10

1999

L.A. Doctors

Hugo Kinsley

Episode: “Just Duet”

2000

Whose Line Is It Anyways?

Himself

Episodes: #3.4 and #3.9

2002

Comedy Central Canned Ham

Himself

Episode: “Death to Smoochy”

Leute heute

Himself

Supermarket Sweep

Himself

2003

Player$

Himself

Episodes: “E3 03, Playa;” “Players Halloweenie Televizzie”

Freedoom: A History of Us

Josiah Quincy/Ulysses S. Grant/Missouri Farmer/Wilbur Wright/Orville Wright

Episodes: “Wake Up America,” “A War to End Slavery,” “Liberty for All,” and “Safe for Democracy”

Life With Bonnie

Kevin Powalski

Episode: “Psychic”

2004

This Hour Has 22 Minutes

Himself

2005

Just For Laughs

Himself

2006

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

Himself

Mind of Mencia

Himself

Episode: “That’s F**king Historical”

Getaway

Himself

Episode: #15.15

2008

American Idol: The Search for a New Superstar

Ivan “Bob” Poppanoff the “Russian Idol”/Himself

Episodes: “Idol Gives Back” and “Live Results Show: One Contestant Eliminated”

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

Merrit Rook

Episode: “Authority”

2009

SpongeBob SquarePants

Himself

Episode: “Truth or Square”

TV Land Moguls

Himself

Episode: “The 80s”

Discography

Williams sings a version of “Come Together” with Bobby McFerrin on In My Life, a Beatles tribute album produced by George Martin. He also sings “A Mi Manera (My Way)”, on the Happy Feet soundtrack. For the 1993 soundtrack of Mrs. Doubtfire, and the film, he sings a rendition of a fragment of Gioachino Rossini’s “Largo al factotum” from The Barber of Seville.

Williams appeared in the music video of Bobby McFerrin’s hit song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”.

Reality…What a Concept (1979)

Throbbing Python of Love (1983)

A Night at the Met (1986)

Pecos Bill (1988)

Live 2002 (2002)

DVDs and videos

An Evening with Robin Williams (1982, VHS)

Robin Williams: Live at the Met (1986, VHS)

Robin Williams: Live on Broadway (2002)

Robin Williams: Raul’s House 2 (2009)[citation needed]

Robin Williams: Weapons of Self Destruction (TBA)

References

^ Thomas, Mike (2002-02-24). “A nose for laughs”. Chicago Sun-Times. http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=CSTB&p_theme=cstb&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0F360C3C1592F9AE&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM. Retrieved 2009-12-14. 

^ McMullen, Marion (2002-10-05). “Article: WEEKEND TV: STAR PROFILE.(Features)”. Coventry Evening Telegraph. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-92577025.html. Retrieved 2009-12-14. 

^ Sources conflict. The print biographies The Life and Humor of Robin Williams: A Biography and Robin Williams: A Biography give his birth year as 1952. The Robin Williams Scrapbook also gives a birth year as 1952, as does Encyclopedia Britannica. Williams refers to himself as being “55″ in an interview published July 4, 2007. Monk, Katherine (2007-07-04). “Marriage 101 with Robin Williams”. StarPhoenix. http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/news/lifestyle/news/lifestyle/story.html?id=8b777192-8e77-464d-b8da-0cb90be40901&k=1045.  He also verifies his date of birth as July 21, 1951 in a fansite interview: Stuurman, Linda. RWF talks with Robin Williams: Proost!, May 25, 2008.

^ “If Robin Williams’ comedies are inspired by his life no wonder he’s been in therapy”. Sunday Herald. 1999-03-14. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/smgpubs/access/70123882.html?dids=70123882:70123882&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Mar+14,+1999&author;=&pub=Sunday+Herald&desc=If+Robin+Williams’+comedies+are+inspired+by+his+life+no+wonder+he’s+been+in+therapy&pqatl=google. Retrieved 2009-12-14. 

^ Gristwood, Sarah (1998-06-18). “Bobbin’ Robin”. Mail & Guardian Online. http://www.chico.mweb.co.za/mg/art/film/9806/980618-robin.html. Retrieved 2007-12-26. 

^ Topel, Fred (2007-07-03). “Robin Williams on License to Wed”. CanMag. http://www.canmag.com/nw/8218-license-to-wed-robin-williams. Retrieved 2007-12-26. 

^ Detroit Country Day: Frequently Asked Questions

^ McLellan, Dennis (2007-08-18). “R. Todd Williams, 69; winery founder, comic’s brother” (pdf). Los Angeles Times. http://www.toadhollow.com/pdf/memorial/ToddLATimesObit.pdf. Retrieved 2008-02-10. 

^ “Robin Williams: ‘The Night Listener’”. Terry Gross (host). Fresh Air from WHYY. National Public Radio. 2006-08-03.

^ a b Reeve, Christopher (1998). Still Me. New York: Random House. pp. 167172. ISBN 978-067945235-5. 

^ YouTube – Happy Days – Richie Meets Mork

^ “Comedy Central Presents: 100 Greatest Stand-Ups of All Time”. Internet Movie Database. http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0429332/. Retrieved 2007-12-26. 

^ “Biography for Robin Williams”. Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000245/bio. Retrieved 2008-04-13. 

^ “Episode 9″. Whose Line Is It Anyway?. 2000-11-16.

^ a b c “Robin Williams”. James Lipton (host). Inside the Actors Studio. Bravo. 2001-06-10. No. 710, season 7.

^ Otto, Jeff (2006-06-26). “Robin Williams, Joker?”. IGN. http://au.movies.ign.com/articles/714/714752p1.html. Retrieved 2007-12-26. 

^ “DISNEY’S GOT A BRAND-NEW BAGHDAD”. Entertainment Weekly. 1992-09-04. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,312562,00.html. Retrieved 2007-03-16. 

^ Hill, Jim (April 2000). “Be Careful What You Wish For”. Jim Hill Media. http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hill/archive/2000/12/31/312.aspx. Retrieved 2008-03-15. 

^ “2009 Disney Legends Award Recipients to Be Honored During D23 Expo in Anaheim”. PR Newswire. 2009-09-01. http://news.prnewswire.com/ViewContent.aspx?ACCT=109&STORY;=/www/story/09-01-2009/0005086237. Retrieved 2009-09-01. 

^ robinwilliams.com

^ Richard Zoglin (2008). Comedy at the Edge. Bloomsbury USA. ISBN 978-1582346243. 

^ Hoffman, Jan (1992-08-09). “THE SEXES; Pillow Talk”. The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE2DF153FF93AA3575BC0A964958260. Retrieved 2007-12-26. 

^ Robin Williams’ wife files for divorce after nearly 19 years

^ http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=2515796

^ “Robin Williams Enters Rehab for Alcohol”. People. August 9, 2005. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,26334,1224730,00.html. Retrieved 2007-04-28. 

^ http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre5247lm-us-williams/

^ Johnson, Caitlin A. (2007-07-03). “A “License” to Laugh”. CBS News. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/07/03/earlyshow/leisure/boxoffice/main3011495.shtml. Retrieved 2009-03-27. 

^ “Robin Williams in South Florida hospital”. The Miami Herald. 2009-03-04. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/933065.html. Retrieved 2009-03-04. 

^ Jones, Kenneth.”Robin Williams’ Spring Broadway Bow Postponed Due to Heart Surgery”,playbill.com, March 5, 2009

^ “Robin Williams’s Heart Surgery Called a Success”. http://www.peop/le.com/people/article/0,,20267281,00.html. 

^ “Robin Williams’ heart surgery goes ‘extremely well’”. http://edition.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/03/23/robin.williams.health/. 

^ http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3177150

^ Interview at Pro-HL.com

^ “Mork & Me”. The Archies. 2005-12-05. http://thearchies.blogspot.com/2005/12/mork-me.html. 

^ Engadget.com

^ Robin Williams plays Spore

^ Dungeons and Dragons Game Day at London Dungeon, ViewLondon.co.uk

^ Murphy, Brian. “Tour de Lance: 100 percent pure”. ESPN. http://espn.go.com/page2/s/murphy/020729.html. Retrieved 2007-06-29. 

^ http://www.bikeforums.net/archive/index.php/t-10161.html

^ http://www.ticketsnow.com/Robin-Williams-Tickets.html

^ http://www.granvilleonline.ca/gr/features/2008/11/12/toyota-prius-hybrid-2009

^ http://www.roadandtrack.com/article.asp?section_id=10&article_id=7651

^ “Stones cover enters festive race”. BBC NEWS. 1999-12-10. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/558252.stm. 

^ “Good Morning, Iraq”. San Francisco Chronicle. 2005-02-09. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/02/09/DDG5AB3TBJ38.DTL. Retrieved 2009-09-04. 

^ World Entertainment News Network. “Williams rekindles failed marriage on film”, San Francisco Chronicle, August 28, 2009. Retrieved August 29, 2009.

^ Bobby McFerrin Homepage

“Road Trip with Robin”

“Robin Williams mimic ends ‘fraud’” (BBC News)

“Robin Williams’ impersonator stopped” (AskMen.com)

“Robin Williams Enters Rehab”, August 9, 2006 (Access Hollywood)

Lovece, Frank, New York Newsday (April 27, 2006)

Bibliography

Jay David (1999). The Life and Humor of Robin Williams: A Biography. New York: Quill. ISBN 978-068815245-1. 

Andy Dougan (1999). Robin Williams: A Biography. Thunder’s Mouth Press. ISBN 978-156025213-9. 

Stephen J. Spignesi (1997). The Robin Williams Scrapbook. Secaucus, NJ: Carol Pub.. ISBN 978-080651891-6. 

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Robin Williams

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Robin Williams

Robin Williams at the Internet Broadway Database

Robin Williams at the Internet Movie Database

Robin Williams at the TCM Movie Database

Robin Williams at TV.com

Robin Williams at Yahoo! Movies

 

Awards for Robin Williams

v  d  e

Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor

John Gielgud (1981)  Louis Gossett, Jr. (1982)  Jack Nicholson (1983)  Haing S. Ngor (1984)  Don Ameche (1985)  Michael Caine (1986)  Sean Connery (1987)  Kevin Kline (1988)  Denzel Washington (1989)  Joe Pesci (1990)  Jack Palance (1991)  Gene Hackman (1992)  Tommy Lee Jones (1993)  Martin Landau (1994)  Kevin Spacey (1995)  Cuba Gooding, Jr. (1996)  Robin Williams (1997)  James Coburn (1998)  Michael Caine (1999)  Benicio del Toro (2000)

Complete list  (19361940)  (19411960)  (19611980)  (19812000)  (2001-present)

v  d  e

Primetime Emmy Award for Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program

Harvey Korman / Brenda Vaccaro (1974)  Jack Albertson / Cloris Leachman (1975)  Chevy Chase / Vicki Lawrence (1976)  Tim Conway / Rita Moreno (1977)  Tim Conway / Gilda Radner (1978)  George Hearn (1985)  Whitney Houston (1986)  Robin Williams (1987)  Robin Williams (1988)  Linda Ronstadt (1989)  Tracey Ullman (1990)  Billy Crystal (1991)  Billy Crystal (1992)  Dana Carvey (1993)  Tracey Ullman (1994)  Barbra Streisand (1995)  Tony Bennett (1996)  Bette Midler (1997)  Billy Crystal (1998)  John Leguizamo (1999)  Eddie Izzard (2000)

Complete list: (19742000)  (2001resent)

v  d  e

Golden Globe Award for Best Actor Motion Picture Musical or Comedy

Dudley Moore (1981)  Dustin Hoffman (1982)  Michael Caine (1983)  Dudley Moore (1984)  Jack Nicholson (1985)  Paul Hogan (1986)  Robin Williams (1987)  Tom Hanks (1988)  Morgan Freeman (1989)  Grard Depardieu (1990)  Robin Williams (1991)  Tim Robbins (1992)  Robin Williams (1993)  Hugh Grant (1994)  John Travolta (1995)  Tom Cruise (1996)  Jack Nicholson (1997)  Michael Caine (1998)  Jim Carrey (1999)  George Clooney (2000)

Complete List  (19501960)  (19611980)  (19812000)  (2001resent)

v  d  e

Golden Globe Award for Best Actor Television Series Musical or Comedy

Flip Wilson (1970)  Carroll O’Connor (1971)  Redd Foxx (1972)  Jack Klugman (1973)  Alan Alda (1974)  Alan Alda (1975)  Henry Winkler (1976)  Henry Winkler (1977)  Robin Williams (1978)  Alan Alda (1979)  Alan Alda (1980)  Alan Alda (1981)  Alan Alda (1982)  John Ritter (1983)  Bill Cosby (1984)  Bill Cosby (1985)  Bruce Willis (1986)  Dabney Coleman (1987)  Michael J. Fox/Judd Hirsch/Richard Mulligan (1988)  Ted Danson (1989)

Complete List  (1970-1989)  (1990resent)

v  d  e

Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role

Martin Landau (1994)  Ed Harris (1995)  Cuba Gooding, Jr. (1996)  Robin Williams (1997)  Robert Duvall (1998)  Michael Caine (1999)  Albert Finney (2000)

Complete list  (1994-2000)  (2001-present)

v  d  e

MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic Performance

Billy Crystal (1992) Robin Williams (1993) Jim Carrey (1994) Jim Carrey (1995) Jim Carrey (1996) Jim Carrey (1997) Jim Carrey (1998) Adam Sandler (1999) Adam Sandler (2000) Ben Stiller (2001) Reese Witherspoon (2002) Mike Myers (2003) Jack Black (2004) Dustin Hoffman (2005) Steve Carell (2006) Sacha Baron Cohen (2007) Johnny Depp (2008) Jim Carrey (2009)

v  d  e

Hosts of the Academy Awards ceremonies

Johnny Carson (1981)  Johnny Carson (1982)  Liza Minnelli / Dudley Moore / Richard Pryor / Walter Matthau (1983)  Johnny Carson (1984)  Jack Lemmon (1985)  Alan Alda / Jane Fonda / Robin Williams (1986)  Chevy Chase / Goldie Hawn / Paul Hogan (1987)  Chevy Chase (1988)  None (1989)  Billy Crystal (1990)  Billy Crystal (1991)  Billy Crystal (1992)  Billy Crystal (1993)  Whoopi Goldberg (1994)  David Letterman (1995)  Whoopi Goldberg (1996)  Billy Crystal (1997)  Billy Crystal (1998)  Whoopi Goldberg (1999)  Billy Crystal (2000)

Complete List  (19291940)  (19411960)  (19611980)  (19812000)  (2001-present)

Persondata

NAME

Williams, Robin

ALTERNATIVE NAMES

Williams, Robin McLaurim

SHORT DESCRIPTION

Academy Award-winning American actor and comedian

DATE OF BIRTH

1952-7-21

PLACE OF BIRTH

Chicago, Illinois, United States

DATE OF DEATH

PLACE OF DEATH

Categories: 1951 births | Living people | Actors from California | Actors from Chicago, Illinois | 20th-century American Episcopalians | 21st-century American Episcopalians | American film actors | American impressionists (entertainers) | American stand-up comedians | American television actors | American voice actors | Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe (film) winners | Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe (television) winners | Best Supporting Actor Academy Award winners | MTV Movie Award winners | Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Screen Actors Guild Award winners | California Democrats | People self-identifying as alcoholics | Grammy Award winners | Juilliard School alumni | People from Marin County, CaliforniaHidden categories: Wikipedia indefinitely semi-protected biographies of living people | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements from November 2009

Early life and career

Morillo was raised in Dominican Republic and Union City, New Jersey, where he attended grammar school at Saint Joseph and Michael School, a private Catholic school, graduating in 1985. He graduated from Emerson High School in Union City in 1989. His childhood musical influences include exposure to Latin rhythms, reggae, and hip hop.

Morillo began his DJ career at age eleven, DJing on the local party circuit, and paying his dues by pinning at weddings for family and friends. After seeing television commercial ad for New York City Center for the Media Arts, Morillo enrolled at the school to learn audio engineering. While working at a club in nearby Weehawken, Morillo met Latin reggae star El General, with whom Morillo became friends. The two collaborated in 1992 on the single, uevelo, a mixture of reggae, house music, and a sample of T99 techno single nasthasia. The single went platinum, and Morillo records and remixes became familiar staples of Latin club music.

Morillo decided to branch out musically, and became friends with a then-unknown singer-songwriter Marc Anthony, who introduced Morillo to his partner on the 1992 house anthem ide On The Rhythm, Little Louie Vega, who advised Morillo to focus on vocals.

Reel to Real and Like to Move It

Morillo created a new act, Reel 2 Real, which was signed by the label Strictly Rhythm. Morillo first release for Strictly Rhythm was he New Anthem, which fared well in the music charts and in clubs, and garnered Morillo considerable attention.

Morillo would surpass this success with the 1993 hit Like to Move It, latin house with ragga vocals by native Trinidad and Tobago rapper Mark Quashie (also known as he Mad Stuntman). Like to Move It became an international smash, enjoying mainstream radio airplay, reaching #89 on the Hot 100, #5 on the UK Singles Chart, and made Morillo a millionaire. Both I Like To Move It and House Of Love (a song he released as part of Smooth Touch) hit #1 on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart, and Morillo became a world traveler, often traveling between Europe, where he would tape for MTV Europe, and The United States, where he would return for promotional work.

In 1994, Like to Move It was used in a series of promotional television advertisements for the Australian National Basketball League. It was a montage of various players slam dunking with the song played over the top of it, to highlight the game’s fast pace. In the late 1990s, the song was used in adverts for the confectionery Chewits, with the lyrics changed from “I like to move it” to “I like to chew it”. The song would later be used in DreamWorks’ 2005 animated film Madagascar, making it a hit once again. The song was covered by the Crazy Frog that same year, and released both as a ringtone (with an accompanying ad) and on the album Crazy Frog Presents Crazy Hits.

Reel 2 Real’s other top 10 dance hits, which featured vocals by The Mad Stuntman, Barbara Tucker, Charlotte Small and Proyecto Uno. Estimates are that Morillo made over million from Reel 2 Real two albums.

From Reel to Real to Subliminal

Fearing that his financial success from Real 2 Real may have hurt both his creative drive and his street credibility. Morillo abandoned the Reel 2 Real alias in 1996, after which he spent a few years establishing himself as an underground DJ, of which he is one of the top-five highest-paid in the world.

His desire to produce respectable house music, and to distance himself from Reel to Real pop music past resulted in the successful azz It Up which he produced under the he Erick Morillo Project. He and Louie Vega collaborated as Lil Mo Ying Yang and released the 1995 single each. Morillo intended a third album for Reel to Real, but his relationship with the Mad Stuntman soured, which derailed the project.

Finishing his relationship with Strictly Rhythm, Morillo took the advice of Strictly Rhythm owner Mark Finkelstein, whom Morillo calls fair person and a business mentor, and decided to the launch the Double Platinum management company in 1997 with fellow DJs and producers Jose Nunez, Harry Choo Choo Romero, Carlos Sosa (aka J Sneak), and Junior Sanchez, and his own imprint, Subliminal Records. Its first single was 1998 un which featured Chicago diva Dajae, which drew positive response via test pressings and buzz across the Atlantic. Dajae refused to sign the contract with Subliminal, and vocalist Jocelyn Brown was brought in to re-record the vocals. Brown collaboration with Subliminal is known as a Mob, and their version of un became a #1 Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play hit. Soon after, however, DJ Sneak left the group for Toronto to start his own management company, and Junior Sanchez united with Roger S. to start one of their own. The remaining trio of Morillo, Romero and Nunez formed the finalized core of Subliminal, and are also known as the remix team The Dronez. With the Subliminal label, which is based in Weehawken, New Jersey, Morillo managed to find the balance between “underground” respectability and financial success. The trio won the Muzik Magazine Remixer of the Year award in 1999. In 2004, he released his first album under his real name, My World, which features collaborations with such artists as Sean iddy Combs, who collaborated with Morillo on three tracks. The label has also spawned other labels, such as Sondos, Subliminal Soul, Bambossa and SUBUSA. The label was distributed by Strictly Rhythm until that label ceased operations in 2002. Today, Subliminal is independently distributed, although Strictly Rhythm reopened its doors in 2007.

Club nights

In the fall of 1999, Morillo completed a U. S. tour and his club night, dubbed ubliminal night, is credited with single-handedly resuscitating New York City ailing club scene[citation needed], a feat he accomplished by signing up Danny Tenaglia, Darren Emerson, Bob Sinclar, Derrick Carter, Tiger Tim Stevens, Mark Farina and Tony Humphries in guest spots. Morillo has also hosted various other club nights across the globe, such as his weekly essions parties in New York, the annual Crobar party in Miami(ULTRA), and his legendary Subliminal Sessions parties at Pacha in Ibiza, which was named “Best International Club” of 2002 and “Best Ibiza Party” of 2001 by Muzik magazine. Ibiza is also where Morillo was crowned “Best International DJ” in 2002 and “Best House DJ” in 1999 and 2001 at the Pacha Ibiza awards. He has been known to play up to 30 gigs a month in locations including Greece, Malta, Amsterdam, London, Madrid, Belfast, and Russia. According to Morillo, his most memorable job was on Ibiza White Isle after the September 11 attacks:

“I was playing the closing party of the Space Terrace straight after September 11th. I ended the night with Frank Sinatra’s ew York, New York. People were crying and waving American flags, everybody was singing. It’s my most emotional memory as a DJ.”

In addition to his MTV UK appearances, Morillo has also hosted MTV Ibiza for two years, and presented the UK Dancestar Awards and starred in a seven-part Channel 4 series documenting his world travels as a party DJ.

Legal troubles

While touring in December 2008, he was arrested for possession of cocaine in Glasgow Airport. He pleaded not guilty in court on December 22. Morillo was released on bail and ordered to return to Scotland for trial in March 2009.

Discography

Singles e EP

1992 The New Anthem (Funky Budda) (Reel 2 Real)

1992 Muevelo (Reel 2 Real)

1992 Te Ves Buena (Reel 2 Real)

1993 I Like To Move It (Reel 2 Real)

1993 Latin Flavor (R.B.M.)

1993 Gettin’ Me Hot (Platinum Crew)

1993 Carnival ’93 (Club Ultimate)

1993 The Boy (R.B.M)

1993 Rhythmz (Deep Soul)

1993 Unbe (R.A.W.)

1993 House Of Love In My House (Smooth Touch)

1993 Go On Move (Reel 2 Real)

1995 Carnival ’95 (Club Ultimate)

1995 Reach (Lil Mo’ Yin Yang)

1995 Conway (Reel 2 Real)

1996 Dime Si Son Latinos (Reel 2 Real feat. Proyecto Uno)

1996 Mueve La Cadera (Reel 2 Real feat. Proyecto Uno)

1996 Jazz It Up (Reel 2 Real)

1996 Are You Ready For Some More (Reel 2 Real)

1997 Fun (Da Mob feat. Jocelyn Brown)

1997 Partay Feeling (B-Crew)

1997 Tripping (Smooth Touch)

1998 It’s All Good (Da Mob feat. Jocelyn Brown)

1998 Distortion (Pianoheadz)

1999 Believe (Ministers De-La-Funk feat. Jocelyn Brown)

2002 Come Make Me Over

2003 Dancin’ (Erick Morillo feat. {Harry “Choo Choo” Romero & Jose Nunez)

2004 Refresher (Time Of Your Life)

2004 My World (Erick Morillo feat. P. Diddy)

2005 Break Down The Doors (Erick Morillo feat. Audio Bullys)

2005 What Do You Want (Erick Morillo feat. Terra Deva)

2005 Waiting In The Darkness (Erick Morillo feat. Leslie Carter)

2006 Jazz In Your Face

2006 Call Me (The Dronez feat. Shawnee Taylor)

2006 Tonite (MNM feat. Shawnee Taylor)

2006 Dance I Said (Erick Morillo feat. P. Diddy)

2007 Life Goes On (Richard Grey vs. Erick Morillo feat. Jose Nunez & Shawnee Taylor)

2008 Make A Move {Harry “Choo Choo” Romero feat. Erick Morillo & P. Diddy)

2008 Where Are You Now? (DJ DLG feat. Erick Morillo)

Remixes

1993 Yolanda – Reality

1993 Whoomp There It Is – Tag Team

1995 One Moment In Time – Stex

1995 What I Need – Crystal Waters

1996 Keep It Up – Hipgrinders

1997 Dreams – Smokin’ Beats

1997 Fly Life – Basement Jaxx

1998 She Wants You – Billie

1998 Found A Cure – Ultra Nat

1998 In My Life – Jos Nuez

1998 Good Love – Richard F.

1998 Ain’t No Mountain High Enough – Jocelyn Brown

1999 Don’t Call Me Baby – Madison Avenue

1999 Bailamos – Enrique Iglesias

1999 Not Over You Yet – Diana Ross

1999 Red Alert – Basement Jaxx

1999 Big Love – Pete Heller

1999 Hold On – Jos Nuez

2000 Welcome To The Jungle – Thick Dick

2000 My Only Love – Bob Sinclar

2000 Scream & Shout – The Committee

2000 I Feel For You – Bob Sinclar

2000 Brasil Over Zurich – Tanga Chick

2000 Sunday Shouting – Johnny Corporate

2000 I’m Your Baby Tonight – Whitney Houston

2001 Sexual Revolution – Macy Gray

2001 I’m So Crazy – Par-T-one

2001 Keep On Touchin’ Me – Jaimy & Kenny D.

2001 Keep The Love – Money Chocolate

2001 Austin’s Groove – Kid Crme

2001 You & Me – LL Cool J

2001 Close to My Heart (Ano Natsu no Mama de) – Misia

2001 Last Dance – Superfunk

2002 Air Race – Jos Nuez

2002 Thrill Me – Junior Jack

2002 Lady – Modjo

2003 Born Too Slow – Crystal Method

2004 What Happened – Harry “Choo Choo” Romero

2005 Father – Anthony Rother

References

^ 1989 Altruist: A Classic Year The Emerson High School yearbook for 1989

^ Toni Wry. “ERICK MORILLO: THE GLOBE-TROTTING DJ” Event Orb; January 13, 2009

^ “Double honours for dance stars”. BBC News. 1999-10-16. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/474765.stm. Retrieved 2009-01-03. 

^ “Superstar DJ denies drugs charge” BBC; December 22, 2008

Ressler, Darren; rick Morillo Shakes Up New York; Mixer magazine; April 2000.

See also

List of number-one dance hits (United States)

List of artists who reached number one on the US Dance chart

External links

Official Site

Myspace

Label

Discogs

Categories: Living people | 1971 births | Club DJs | American DJs | American dance musicians | American house musicians | American electronic musicians | Colombian-Americans | Colombians of Black African descent | People from Union City, New JerseyHidden categories: BLP articles lacking sources | Articles lacking reliable references from February 2007 | All articles lacking sources | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements from December 2008

HAITI: THE MAGIC LAND

By Alejandro Guevara Onofre

INTRODUCTION

In 1492 Christopher Columbus wrote about Haiti: “The most beautiful in the world”. Certainly, Haiti is a wonderful country in the Caribbean. I think that has a special beauty, with a geography and traditional culture that is totally different from all the other countries in Latin America.

Now, this essay is a historical information about Haiti, the first black republic in the modern history and one of the poorest nations on Earth. Each chapter provides details on history, economy, biographies, sport, awards, foreign relations, culture and other important aspects of Haiti. The people that don’t know Haiti very much think that Haiti is only one of the world’s poorest countries, but the Island is known for its traditional culture, hospitality, superstitions, history. Furthermore, Haiti is the home to National Park History, one of the ancient wonders of the world, and renowned women such as Edwidge Danticat and Michaëlle Jean were born there.

Since then, the dictatorships have destroyed Haitian society, economy, ecology and sport. Since 1950, two million Haitian people emigrated to the United States and other countries. Haitian-American arrived from Haiti with nothing more than their clothes. If we compare the Haiti of today to Haiti of thirty years ago, we see a change: a new multiparty democracy. Today, a vast part of the Third World and more than a billion people are under dictatorships.

Eventually, I would like to finish my introduction with a message by Albert Mangones: “Haiti is unique in history, going directly from slavery to nationhood”.

CHRONOLOGY:

1492: Columbus discovered Haiti in the 15th Century.

1520-1697: Haiti is a Spanish territory. In the late 1500 and early 1600, African slaves flocked to Island.

1697-1790: Haiti is a French colony. After 16th Century, Haiti became the most important French colony in the Americas. Island´s export to Europe included sugar, coffee and corn. The beauty of Haiti is recognized by the French in the mid-1700 Century, when they called it “Pearl the Caribbean”.

1790-1803: During the French colonization slaves suffers from maltreatment. By the late 1790, pro-independence demonstrations. An Anti-slavery movement under Toussaint L´Ouverture began. L´Ouverture is one of the most important black leaders in the history.During this period of time, Haitian slaves attack villages. Anti-French protests riots brutally suppressed. By the late 1803, under leadership of Jean Jacques Dessalines, Haiti army defeated the French forces at the Battle of Vertieres.

1804-1806:A French colony for more than hundred years, Haiti becomes independent, one of the most important events in the history. Jean Jacques Dessalines became the first president of new republic of Haiti, the first black republic in the modern history. Dessalines is the “Father of Modern Haiti”. Haiti occupies the Western third of Hispaniola, the second-largest Island in the Caribbean.

1804-1820: Unfortunately; Haiti is divided into two zones. Northern Haiti is occupied by Henri Christopher, who is named Emperor, while the north is occupied by Alexander Petion. Petion is probably the greatest Haitian politician who ever lived.

1880: Haiti has one of the richest ecosystems in the Caribbean.

1900: Haiti´s modern political has been tumultuous, marked by dictatorships

1915-1934: Haiti has not had an effective national government Invasion by United States forces. US troops sent to Haiti during civil sub-war.

1918: The Presidential Palace, one of the best national palaces in the world, is originally designed by the Haitian Georges Bassan. Bassan is inspired to White House Washington.

1926: Emily Greene Balch, a human rights activist, went to Haiti.

1928: Cator is the only Haitian ever to win olympic silver medal. After, Haitian athlete Sylvio Cator breaks the men’s long jump record in Paris. Cator was given a hero’s welcome when he returned to his country.

1937: In the Dominican Republic, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo ordered national troops to massacre of 20000 Haitian emigrants.

1940-1950: Haiti is one of the most popular travel destinations in the Caribbean.

1944: Dewitt Peters, an American school-teacher, founded the Centre d’Art in Port -au-Prince Since 1944, Centre d’Art became the centre of the Haitian painting. It is now one of Haiti´s biggest tourist attractions, and every year thousands of people came to see the paintings and other work of Haitian art.

1945: Haiti becomes the 26th member of the United Nations in October.

1956: Haiti establishes diplomatic relations with the Republic of China (Taiwan).

1956: Daniel Fignolé is President of the Provisional Council and Head of State of Haiti

1957-1971:After working for a time as a traditional doctor, Francois Duvalier became one of Haiti’s most famous doctors. In 1957, Duvalier is elected President of the Republic of Haiti. President Duvalier announced: “My government will guarantee the exercise of liberty to all Haitians”. Francois Duvalier, also known for his nickname “Papa Doc”, emerged as Head of State and quickly gained nearly absolute power. In 1961 “Papa Doc” rewrote the National Constitution. After, he became the first “President for Eternity of Haiti”. In the 1960s and 1970s “Papa Doc” popularizes superstitions ideas to Haiti through a series of important voodoo rites. The Duvalier dictatorship instituted rig press censorship. International agencies accuse government of grave human rights abuses. His regime of terror resulted in the deaths of least 30000 Haitian. The Island is one of the most dangerous countries in the Third World.

1957-1981: Haitian First Lady Simone Ovide became one of the most dominant women in the history of Haiti. Simone, wife of the most famous dictator of Haiti, gained in influence and power through corruption and crime.

1957-1989: For many decades, Haiti does not have diplomatic relations with the USSR, People’s Republic of China, Cuba, Hungary, South Africa and East Germany.

1960: The Tonton Macoutes, the brutal secret police, initiated a “Haitian genocide” in which political prisoners were tortured and executed.

1964: Joseph Eduard Gaetjens, the idol of millions of Haitians, is arrested and killed by the Tonton Macoutes, the sinister Haitian secret police. Like John Barnes (Jamaica) and Everald “Gally” Cummings (Trinidad Tobago), he was a great footballer in the Caribbean. After, Gaetjens become a world symbol of the struggle against dictatorship in the Third World. He had dual Haitian and American nationality and played at 1950 World Cup for the United States. Son of Haitian mother and Belgium father, he played for many clubs in the United States. The year 1950 was a very important year for Gaetjens: the United States beat England 1-0, the birthplace of the modern football.

1964: Francois Duvalier changed the national flag. Black and red are the colors chosen by Duvalier. Black, which is similar to the Angolan flag, represents the descendants of the patriot Francois Toussaint L’Ouverture and is also the traditional color of the Haitian people. While, red symbolizes the country`s independence. But the original flag, used since 1803, was removed in 1986 by order of the new government.

1966: Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia, arrives in Port-au-Prince. Under the leadership of Dictator Francois Duvalier, many African countries maintain official diplomatic relations with Haiti.

1967: The Comedians, a film by British director Peter Glenville, inspired in the cruel Haitian dictatorship by the Duvalier family.

1971: After Duvalier’s death, power passed to his son Jean Claude Duvalier, the man who became known throughout the world as “Baby Doc”. Baby Doc is as dictatorial as his father. Haiti is ruled by iron hand. Duvalier, best known for his anticommunist political, is omnipresent. Many opposition leaders were arrested. He is accused of human rights abuses. Thousand of Haitian people fled the country. Corruption is prevalent at all levels of government. The health system is one of the worst in the Americas.

1974: The sporting system is one of the worst in the Third World, but Haiti qualified for the 1974 FIFA World Cup. Haiti beat Trinidad-Tobago in the World Cup qualifiers. Is one of the greatest sporting moment, in the chronology, comparing it to something like Sylvio Cator, who won a silver medal in long jump in the 1928 Olympics Games in Holland.

1975: In El Salvador, Miss Haiti, Gerthie David, is named first runner up at Miss Universe Pageant… transmitting live to millions by CBS. After, Gerthie David is acclaimed in Port-au-Prince as a national heroine. Miss Haiti competed with 71 other women from around the world for the title of Miss Universe, including Miss USA, Summer Barthollomew.

1980: Like Canada, West Germany South Korea and Kenya, Haiti boycott the Moscow Olympic Games in protest for Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

1980-1986: Jean-Claude Duvalier, Haiti’s longtime dictator, married Michelle Bennett, an aristocratic lady. A little more than three months later, Bennett-Duvalier becomes First Lady of Haiti. Like Eva Peron (Argentina) or Jiang Qing (People’s Republic of China), she was a woman with great power. Michelle Bennett promoted her mulatto countrymen to positions of leadership in the dictatorship at his expense of the African-Haitians.

1982: The National History Park (La Citadelle Laferriere, Sans Souci Palace and Ramiers) is designated as a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO. Like Machu Picchu (Peru) and Angkor What (Cambodia), the National History Park is considered among the wonders of the world.

1982: Ronald Agenor wins a gold medal in men’s tennis singles at the Central American and Caribbean Sports Games La Havana. He captures the hearts of the Island.

1983: Pope John Paul arrives in Haiti for a visit. “Things most change here”, said John Paul II.

1986: As Jean-Claude consolidated his power, he consistently refused to consider constitutional reform. The insurrection against the dictator Jean Claude Duvalier began…Antigovernment protesters in the capital. Many deaths, injuries and arrests. Seeming end to long Haitian dictatorship with fall of Duvalier regime.

1987: Haiti has one of the America’s rates of HIV infection

1987: The New Constitution restored many of the liberties abolished by the Duvalier family. The National Constitution recognizes both French and Creole as official languages. A new opposition emerged under Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

1988: Writer Rene Depestre wins the Prix Ranandot. Depestre, a Haitian dissident now living in France, was cited his novel Hadriana dans tous mes reves. By the mid-1980s Rene Depestre had become well known in literacy circles outside Haiti.

1990: Ertha Pascall-Trouillot becomes the first black woman elected of head of state in the world.

1990: First multi-party elections. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a charismatic black leader, was elected president of Haiti. Aristide is the first democratic president since 1804.He was elected with the most popular support of any Haitian presidential candidate in the history.

1991: Military coup in the country. Raoul Cedras, leader of the coup, emerged as head of the new government. This year marked the end of eight months of democracy. Under new government, all political parties were dissolved.

1991-1995: Like Equatorial Guinea, Cuba and North Korea, Haiti has one of the most serious human rights problems in the Third World.

1993: United Nations imposed economic sanctions on Haiti, one of the most densely populated nations in the Americas.

1994: Peaceful occupation by United States forces to restore democratic electoral system. Raoul Cedras and his family went into exile in Panama City. Aristide was restored to power.

1995: In Port-au-Prince, sub-war violence includes assassination of Meireille Durocher Bertin.

1995: In Beijing, the capital of city of the People’s Republic of China, Haiti participated in the UN`s Fourth World Conference on Women

1996:More than 5,000 Haitians had been killed and miles more fled to abroad, United States, Canada, Bahamas and Dominican Republic, since 1991.

1998: Haitian president Renè Garcia Preval arrives in Taipei (Taiwan) for a four-day state visit. He and President Lee will sign a communiqué to strengthen bilateral friendship and cooperation.

1999: Dominican president Leonel Fernandez visit to Haiti as part of a new diplomacy.

2002: In Paris, Dudley Dorival finished 3rd in the 110 hurdles at the World Championships. He becomes the 1st Haitian to win an individual international medal since 1928.Dorival was born in New Jersey, United States, to Haitian parents on 1 September 1975. He in 2000 officially became a citizen of Haiti.

2000: Haiti is one of the thirty poorest countries in the Third World.

2000-2001: The elections were boycotted by the main opposition political parties. Aristide was again elected President. Widespread violent in Haiti allege that Aristide’s election victory is fraudulent. Total political censorship exists in national media.

2004: This year Haiti is celebrating the 200th Anniversary of their National Independence. President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti flees to Central African Republic following anti-government demonstrations. Haiti has one of the most violent conflict areas in the Americas. After, UN troops sent to Haiti during civil sub-war.

2006: Rene Preval is sworn in as President of Haiti. Since the peaceful transfer of power in February, Haiti is the newest democracy in the Third World.

ECONOMY

Like Bangladesh, Uganda or Tanzania, Haiti is one of the poorest countries on Earth. In 1997, the Haiti’s economic growth rate (real GDP) per capita was U$ 1,300. GDP per capita for Namibia, Botswana and Equatorial Guinea are higher than for Haiti. In the country 4 million people living on less than U a day. More than 6 million of the Haiti’s population still does not have access to potable water and electricity. For years of dictatorships had left the country’s economy in ruins. The country dependent on international aid. Several hundred thousand farm workers migrate each year to Dominican Republic.

In 1997, total exports for the year were U0 million, while total imports were US$ 486 million. Since 1804, the US market has been the most important export destination for Haiti. Nearly 80 percent of Haiti’s total exports are destined for the United States. Haiti’s exports include sisal, mangoes, coffee, cotton, bauxite, and sugar. The Island’s imports from the United States include cement, oil, food, machinery and transport equipment. France has been the second largest exports destination for Haitian products.

In the past, the tourism industry occupied an eminent place in the Haitian economy, but several political problems have blocked tourism. Haiti was the first country in the Caribbean to promote tourism in an accelerated form. Haiti is a small country with vast mountains, tropical beaches and beautiful historic buildings.

CULTURE

Like Katherine Dunham, Lillian Hellman, W.B. Seabrook, Erik Leonard Ekman, Alejo Carpentier, Selden Rodman, Noel Coward and Angeline Jolie, many people say that Haiti is the most beautiful country in the Caribbean. Known as the “Magic Land”, Haiti is famous for its culture. Certainly, Haiti its culture, its superstitions and its music. The superstitions or voodoo plays a profound role in the lives of many Haitians. The voodoo was introduced into Haiti in the late 16th Century. Haiti is also famous for its painting, and finally for its ruins…for example the Sans Souci Palace, the most famous ruins in the Caribbean. Exactly, this enigmatic palace is considered a Cultural Heritage for Humanity by UNESCO. Originally constructed by black slaves, now Sans Souci is one of Haiti’s main tourist attractions.

Since the late 1940s, Haitian painting, best known as “naïve art” or “intuitive art”, is famous all around the World. The most important figure was Hector Hyppolite. His work made its biggest splash in the United States in the 20th Century. Other artists known internationally include Rigaud Benoit, Castera Bazile, Joseph Jean-Giles and Jean-Baptista Bottlex.Haiti is famous for its traditional sculpture. The best Haitian sculptor is Albert Mangoes.

FAMOUS HAITIAN

Nelust Wyclef Jean (singer/Haitian-American): Original member of 1990s hip hop group The Fugees. Wyclef Jean is probably the most popular Haitian singer of all time. Jean was born in Croix des Bouquets (Haiti) on October 17, 1972. When he was just ten years old, he moved to the United States. Under leadership of Wyclef Jean and Lauryn Hill, The Fugees had several hits in the 1990s, including The Score (The Score album sold 6 million copies). Since 1997, Wyclef Jean, as soloist, became well-known on the international music scene. Like songwriter and producer, Jean collaborated with superstars as Santana, Withney Houston, Mick Jagger,Bono,Tevin Cambpell, Bounty Killer, Eric Benet, Sarah Connor, Claudette Ortiz, Tarkan, Michael Jackson, Youssou N´Dor, Shakira, Olga Tañon, Carlos Ponce and Julio Voltio. During the last seven years, he has sold more than 10 millions albums worldwide. In 2002, his single Masquerade was a great success.

Since then, Wyclef Jean is a man that always works with love for Haiti, one of the World’s poorest countries. Recently, he makes perhaps his best work: “Yele Haiti”, a foundation which works for the human development in the Island. Like Miriam Makeba in South Africa or Bianca Jagger in Nicaragua, Jean loves his roots. In an interview for Magazine, Wyclef Jean discussed about Haitian roots: “I am 100% Haitian. I am proud to be Haitian. I still have my Haitian passport. I represent Haiti in everything that I do. Every head in the industry knows that I am Haitian…they know what I’m about. I was Haitian forst. Haitian till die!”, said Jean.

Discography: Wyclef Jean Present the Carnival Featuring the refugee All-Stars (1997) / The Ecleftic:2 Sides II a Book/ Masquerade (2002) / The Preacher’s (2003)/ Sak Pasé Presents: Creole 101( 2004) /Hips Don’t Lie (with Shakira, 2006).

SPECIAL AWARDS

Gerthie David “The Black Goddess”

In 1975, many Haitian people were shocked to open their newspapers and see photographs of Gerthie David Miss Haiti in El Salvador. On the night of July 19th 1975, in San Salvador, Gerthie David, Miss Haiti, was the second black woman to first runner-up in the history of Miss Universe Pageant. After winning the Miss Haiti title, Gerthie went to San Salvador, the capital city of El Salvador, to enter the Miss Universe Contest. The competence was exhausting, very hard, for example Miss Bolivia, Jackeline Gammarra, great favorite, was eliminated. This day, Miss Haiti looks like a black goddess. Her exotic beauty and charming personality are amazing! At 1,72m in height, she was the best in the evening gown competition, but her speech about the Haitian superstitions swayed thousands of applauses in the 25th Edition of the Contest. Certainly, Miss Haiti captive to the judges Sarah Vaughan (American black singer), Maribel Arrieta (Miss El Salvador 1955 and First runner-up at Miss Universe 1955), Jean Claude Killy (French sportsmen) and Leon Uris(American writer ).

When Bob Barker, the host this pageant, announces the final placements, Gerthie was cheered by the entire auditorium. Suddenly, her pulse rate beats at thousand per minute… “First runner-up is Miss Haiti!”, said Barker. She was one of the most exotic delegates in all history of Miss Universe. In the 1970s, Gerthie David was a model from Port-au Prince and she became a symbol to the Haitian youth. Next months, in London, Joelle Apollon, Miss Haiti-World, came in sixth place at Miss World 1975.After sixteen years, Marjorie Vincent, formerly Miss Illinois 1991,won the title of Miss America Pageant. The first Miss America to originate from the Caribbean. In other words, Marjorie Vincent has Haitian roots. Furthermore, she was the second black woman to win the pageant.

SPORTS

Like in Brazil or Italy, the football is the most popular sport in Haiti. Certainly, the national pastime is the football. A different of the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico, the Haitian people don’t like the baseball. In the 20th Century, football became the most popular sport in the Island, thanks to such heroes as Sylvio Cator, Joseph Gaetjens and Emmanuel Sanon. In 1974 Haiti qualified for the World Cup in Germany.

Emmanuel Sanon was one of the Haiti’s most popular players and played at the 1974 World Cup. Sanon made a great contribution to Haitian football because he played in more World Cup qualifiers any other Haitian. He is still very popular with local fans. Other phenomenal talent was Joseph Eduard Gaetjens. He represented both Haiti and the United States. He made FIFA World Cup History: When scored United States opening goal in the 1950 World Cup against England. Joseph came to the United States in the 1940s to play in the American Soccer League. His beautiful play in the Brookhattan Club made in a national star. In 1953, he played for Haiti for the first time.

It’s practically impossible to talk about Haitian athletes without mentioning Sylvio Cator. He is a legend in this sport. Cator won the silver medal in the long jump at 1928 Amsterdam Olympics. Cator returned home to a hero’s welcome. From 1928 to 1930, he was record man in the long jump. Cator was a marvelous jumper and footballer. He also played an important role in popularizing football in the Island (it was the captain of Haitian National Team).

Since then, he is an example for young people in Haiti. He died in November 1938, but today the people of Haiti still think of him with respect. Many years after Cator’s death, the National Stadium in Por-au-Prince was renamed in his honor. Cator was the first of the great Caribbean sportsmen that would come to dominate world track and field.

FAMOUS ATHLETES

Bruny Surin (Canada-Haiti/track field)/ Edrick Floreal (Canada-Haiti/track field)/ Samuel Dalembert ( USA-Haiti/basketball) / Ronald Agenor (USA-Haiti/tennis)/ Sylvio Cator (track and field)/ Yves Jeudy (Box)/ Dieudonne Lamothe (marathon)/ Ludovic Augustin (shooting)/ Ludovic Volborge (shooting)/ Joseph Eduard Gaetjens (Haiti-USA/football)/ Dudley Dorival (track field)/ Fitz Plantin Andre (football)/ Emmanuel Sanon (football)/ Josmer Altidore (Haitian-American/football).

Dudley Dorival (track and field): Dudley Dorival was born on 1 September 1975 in Elizabeth (New Jersey, USA). Dorival is the son of Haitian parents and got Haitian nationality just in time for the XXVII Summer Olympics Games. Since the 2000 Olympics, Dudley Dorival has competed in international competitions under the banner of Haiti. In Sydney (Australia) Dorival finished 7th in the 110m hurdles. He became the first Haitian to Olympic finalist since Yves Jeudy (boxer) in 1976. He won the silver medal at the 1994 World Junior Championship, the bronze at the 2001 World Chanpionship and the gold medal at the 2002 Central American and Caribbean Games El Salvador. Dorival is one of the best sportsman in the history of Haiti.

FAMOUS WOMEN

Michaëlla Jean (Governor-General of Canada)/ Yvonne Neptune (former Prime Minister)/Claudette Werleigh (Prime Minister 1995-1996)/Lina Blanchet (singer)/ Edwidge Danticat (writer)/ Michelle Bennett Duvalier(First Lady of Haiti 1981-1986)/ Luce Turnier (painter)/ Ertha Pascal-Trouillot (Head of State 1990-1991)/ Marie Casimir (journalist) / Sonia Sekula (Painter) / Marie Chauvet (writer)/ Suzanne Comhaire-Sylvain (writer)/ Carmen Brouard (singer)/Dayana Bennett (journalist and actress) / Elie Price (singer)/ Blanche Bosselman (singer)/ Lina Mathon (singer)/ Georgette Moliere (singer)/ Simone Ovide Duvalier (First Lady of Haiti 1957-1981)/ Marleine Bastien (human rights leader)/ Garcelle Beauvais (actress and model)/ Deborah Saint-Phard (track and field)/ Antoinette Gauthier (track and field), Louise Pierre (track and field)/ Rose Gauthier (track and field)

Edwidge Danticat (writer): One of the Caribbean’s most famous writers in the 21st Century. She has written several novels and collections of shore stories, including Kri? Kra!, nominated for a National Book Award. Danticat attracted international attention in 1997 when she wrote perhaps her most famous novel Farming of the Bones, a story about genocide Haitians under the repressive dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo.

Garcelle Beauvais (actress): She is the first Haitian actress to star on television. Although she has lived in the United States for many years, the actress and former fashion model Garcelle Beauvais was born in Saint Marc, a city in Haiti, in 1966. She is perhaps best known for her role as Francesca Monroe on TV’s the Jamie Foxx Show. Like Gerthie David, Joelle Apollon, Evelyn Miot, and Marjorie Vincent, she has the classic beauty of the Haitian black woman

REFERENCES:

-Bennet Patterson, Carolyn.”Haiti: Beyond mountains, more mountains”, National Geographic, Washington DC, January 1976

-Bishop,Randa. “Imponentes monumentos haitianos”, Americas, Washington DC, enero-febrero 1987

-Cobb,Charles. “Haiti against all odds”, National Geographic, November 1987

-Encyclopaedia Britannica Book of the Year 1981, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Chicago, 1980

-Encyclopaedia Britannica Almanac 2003, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Chicago, 2002

-Guevara Onofre, Alejandro. Enciclopedia Mundototal 1999, Editorial San Marcos, Lima, 1998

-Hunter, Brian. The Statesman’s Year-Book 1991-92, The Macmillan Press, 1991

-Moritz, Charles. Current Biography Yearbook 1972, H.W Wilson Company, NY

-Sconfield, John. “Haiti-West Africa in the West Indies”, National Geographic, Washington DC, February 1961

-The International Who’s Who 1996-97, Europe Publications, London, 1996

-The World Almanac 2001, World Almanac Books, New Jersey, 2001

-Tibballs, Geoff. The Olympics´ strangest moments, Robson Books, London, 2004

-Vargas Llosa, Mario. “Haití: la muerte”, El Comercio, Lima, 25.4.1994

-Visión. “Imperio del Poder Vitalicio”, Santiago de Chile, 17 de marzo de 1967

-Wallechinsky, David. The complete Book of the Olympics, Aurum Press, London, 2004

-Wallechinsky, David-Wallace, Irving. The People’s Almanac2, Batam Book Inc

-WWW.Yotube.com “1975 El Salvador Miss Universe” (video)

Translation of poetry is one of the most difficult and challenging tasks for every translator. According to Robert Frost’s definition, “Poetry is what gets lost in translation”. This statement could be considered as a truthful one to a certain extent because there is no one-to-one equivalent when comparing two languages. Even if the translators possess a profound knowledge in the source language they would not be able to create a replica of the original text. What should be preserved when translating poetry are the emotions, the invisible message of the poet, the uniqueness of the style in order to be reached the same effect in the target language as it is in the source. When talking about the translation of poetry we could not but mention some of the numerous problems encountered during this process. The essential problem with translation is an obvious one. A word has more qualities than just its denotation. For one, a word has a sound, an attribute which has great importance in poetry (though we should not underestimate its significance in prose, as well). Also, a word consists of various connotations, meanings which only rarely cross over from language to language. Complicating matters is the nature of literature itself. Writers and poets put pressure on the language; they often choose words because of their rich variety of meanings, complicating rather than clarifying their subjects. Unfortunately, then, for the translator of literature, the currency of words is not as easy to exchange as the other kind of currency. Italian has a saying, “traduttore-traditore” (translator-betrayer). The phrase reveals at once the problem of all translators – words don’t have literal equivalents in different languages. To say “translator-traitor” in English would be unduly dramatic!
But, as Christopher Caudwell notes in his “Illusion and Reality”, while the qualities of great novels can survive translation, those of poetry cannot. Surprisingly enough, this is not due to the difficulty of translating metrical pattern, but to the nature of poetry itself. The usefulness of the debate on translating is that it compels us to look more critically at the task of the poet and the function of poetry. Poetry is neither just words, nor just metre. It is a music of words, and is a way of seeing and interpreting the world and our experience of it, and of conveying to the listener a heightened awareness of it through an intense concentration of metaphor and words in which the natural flow of speech sounds is moulded to some kind of formal pattern. Such patterns can never be the same after the act of translation. Pattern, obviously, is governed by the rules of syntax and prosody that language has inherited from the historical and social pressures that shaped it. Poets may accept or reject these rules, but this is also determined by historical and social tensions. Some who choose to modify the rules may, like Lear or Carroll, for example, or Edith Sitwell, do so by writing “sound poems” or nonsense verse, musical but meaningless. Emerging from the same social tensions, poetic “movements” have expressed widely divergent views on what should be the purpose and the structure of poetry. What, then, is a translator to do? Which of the many threads of which poetry is made must he capture in his translation? Luckily, we don’t have to answer that question. He answers it for us. He responds to his own poetic instincts. He chooses which of the poems many threads he will seek to interpret. If he aims at literal translation, he will not necessarily expect a “poetic” result. He may aim to translate a poem’s “music” or “mood”. But the sounds of words and the norms of prosody make of every language a fortified compound, as hard to escape from as to access. E. V. Rieu recognizes the inherent difficulty of translation. Perfect translation may be impossible, so the best we can hope for, he writes in the following, is a translation of the spirit of the work: “I call it the principal of equivalent effect and regard it as signifying that that translation is the best which comes nearest to creating in its audience the same impression as was made by the original on its contemporaries” (55). Rieu criticizes the translators of the King James Version of the Bible for remaining stubbornly faithful to the original language. Here he presents a parable, the moral of which is undoubtedly weakened by awkward translation. St. Luke in (xvii reports Jesus as imagining a scene in which a master says to his slave, “Get something ready for my supper.” The Greek is colloquial and the master is not represented as speaking politely. Yet the authorized translators put into his mouth the words: “Make ready wherewith I may sup.” (55) In that example the superiority of Rieu’s plain-spoken translation is obvious, but it begs the question of how much freedom does one give a translator. Rieu’s ideal that a translated work must cause “the same impression” as the original seems to give scholars license to embellish. Werner Winter believes that, regardless of the degree of embellishment, translation cannot avoid altering the work. Try as we might, Winter writes, “Meaning and form cannot be dissociated from one another” (70). That is, just the basic look and sound of a group of words lined up together is tied up with their meaning, and the differences between languages make impossible their unaltered, undefiled translation. He compares the translator to a sculptor who attempts to replicate a marble statue without the benefit of marble. “Whatever his material,” Winter writes, “if he is a good craftsman, his work may be good or even great; it may indeed surpass the original, but it will never be what he set out to produce, an exact replica of the original” (65). Words, like marble, have certain intrinsic qualities that are indivisible from the form they take. If perfect translation is impossible, as Winter regards it to be, how much imperfection do we allow before we give up the whole thing? There arise certain difficulties in poetic translation process; the losses are the result of the existing divergences in the grammatical structure or in the means of expression in the two languages, first of all in the greater number of syllables in the same words in Persian, which is a tangible obstacle for the translators of poetry. That is why in order to maintain the poetic metre of the lines in the original stanza above the translator had to transform them. By studying and analyzing Robert Frost’s heritage and translating his poems into the target language in the light of his own understanding, the translator made an attempt to make an adequate contribution into literary translation development and transform the values of the source culture into the target culture through the subjective innovative perception of the translator, tried to achieve the “translation of full value”, to find the core of translation and tried to create the version of translation in the target language so that it should make sense and bring aesthetic and emotional pleasure to the target reader with minimum losses in perception and created a more precise and detailed translation, enriching it with his own vision preserving details and subtle shades of the source poem with minimized losses in its form and content in comparison with other versions of translation. In her essay “The Politics of Translation,” Gayatri Spivak writes about the responsibilities that we have as Western readers and writers to question our position and privileged identity over, in particular, third-world translated texts. “Translation is the most intimate act of reading,” she writes. “I surrender to the text when I translate (398).” Surrendering to the text means careful attention and awareness of both the logic and the rhetoric of the original language–an attention that would be difficult to master without doing the hard work of actually immersing oneself in the culture and language of the text being translated. Ammiel Alcalay, in an interview with Benjamin Hollander, writes that learning another language is crucial in the agenda to “stretch the American context to engage with experiences that are not made to fit existing models”(184). To Alcalay it is crucial to resist mono-lingualism and to “give permission to other languages, literatures, and cultures to come into the space of the language you happen to be writing in (194).” Shafi’ee Kadkani (2001) believes that “good poetry, ranging from the most modern to the most traditional types, is one which would sediment totally or partially in the memory of serious readers of poetry…” (p.23).This ‘sedimentary’ aspect of poetry among Persian speakers can be traced in their appreciation of their great poets such as Ferdowsi, Rumi, Sa’di, and Hafiz. Among these great figures, Sa’di was the one who, according to Arberry (1945), “brought the high style down to the understanding of the masses, but without sacrificing either purity or elegance.” (p. 22). Among the huge bulk of Sa`di’s masterpieces a very short but universally known piece has been selected for this study, i.e. “Oneness of Mankind.” This has been done for two reasons: First, Sa`di’s style is a model of ‘elegant simplicity,’ i.e. while his poems are not devoid of the artificial aids of such figures of speech as puns, allusions, and metaphors, he nevertheless keeps a tight rein upon his exuberant fancy and avoids the pitfalls of becoming precious and obscure, of overloading his matter with too great a burden of learning (Arberry 1945). Thus, it seems that one who wants to translate Sa`di would not have to tread a ‘thorny’ road. Second, the availability of different English translations of the selected piece persuaded the researchers to examine it through a comparative analysis, with the purpose of coming up with a clear understanding of the rhetorical diversities involved in translating poetry. Most translation authorities believe in some sort of stylistic loss in translating poetry into prose, let alone for rendering a poem into its equivalent verse. This is partly true for Sa`di, where the intended meaning and the whole beauty of his style lies in the beautiful wording of his poems and the application of ‘art prose’ (Saj’). This will be better clarified by taking a look at the prose version of Rehatsek (1964) below: All men are members of the same body, Created from one essence. If fate brings suffering to one member, The others cannot stay at rest. You who remain indifferent To the burden of pain of others, Do not deserve to be called human. (p. 85) Although faithful to the meaning of the original poem, this rendering has not been able to create its aesthetic effect. Sa`di’s art is to put the most manifest truths into the most memorable words. But Rehatsek’s version has just considered the first part of this reality, i.e. putting the simplest truths into the simplest words. Moreover, he has not been able to show the sense of religiosity characterizing Sa`di’s poetry. At the same time, the last two-three lines are so pedantic and laborious that one may feel the translator is not a native speaker of English. Theodore Savory regards translation as a worthwhile enterprise, despite the built-in flaws. As the following passage suggests, Savory does not regard these flaws as terribly serious ones: “… losses in translation occur only when the original words contain something more than their plain meaning. In Savory’s view, prose offers little problem to the translator, since the complications making the translation of poetry difficult reside solely in the domain of poetry and are in fact what elevates poetry above prose (78). One wonders what Savory would make of the translation of an especially poetic bit of prose–the last paragraph in James Joyce’s “The Dead,” for instance–but his point is clear. Poetic devices, then, are “characteristics which cannot be translated” (78). What can be translated is the poet’s vision; Savory writes, “The poet has seen or heard or otherwise experienced something that we might never have known but for his poetry; and these experiences can be expressed in another tongue by simple and faithful translation” (88). In other words, although alliteration, assonance, consonance, punned expressions, rhyme and meter may be lost in translation, the poet’s unique vision will remain, if translated simply and faithfully, and that alone makes translation worthwhile. Your job as a translator is not only to pass the meaning of the poem into another language but to respect and honor its spirit. I don’t mean you need a séance with a thousand candles, begging the poem to breathe your page. I mean that there are some rules to respect when you translate a poem. 1. Stay Close to the Poem. Read the poem again and again until the words become second nature on your tongue. By doing this, you will be able to feel the rhythm of the poem. You will recognize the pace, the pauses, the beats, the swirls of energy. Write the poem in longhand and make ten copies. Stick these where you can see and read them. Try the bathroom, the kitchen cabinet, or the freezer door, leading to the Ben & Jerry’s. These copies will familiarize you with the poem’s grammatical structure: Where the adjectives are, where there is a break in tenses. Plus, if you put them on that package of Oreo’s, it’ll take you longer to gobble the bag down. You will have to read the poem first! 2. Know the poet. If you are lucky enough to pick a living poet to translate, write to him or her. Get to know the person; ask him or her questions about the poem. What was the poet thinking when writing the poem? What does the poet think the poem means? Is there any imagery or language that is repeated? Is there anything symbolic from his or her life? What does the poet think of poetry? The more you know about the poet and his or her life, the better able you are to understand the nuances of the poem. Be courteous and grateful. The poet is answering your questions to help you with your translation. If, however, you choose a poet who has passed on, your job is a little harder. Try and find out as much as you can about the poet’s life. Most countries have national writer’s associations. If they don’t, check the web and university libraries and language departments. Maybe from there you can find other people who knew the poet or can help guide you. Build as many contacts as you can. Be familiar with the poet and you will get a sense for the poem. 3. Go for Grace. When you translate a poem, your job is to stay as close to the meaning as possible. That said, you also have artistic license to use (not abuse) the meaning to make a clear and graceful translation. Translating slag is an excellent example of when to use artistic license. Some slang has absolutely no meaning in another language. In fact, a direct translation would make the poem fail. In that case, turn the meaning of the slang into its equivalent. Remember, you want readers in your language to enjoy the poem, not marvel at how well you can directly translate words. 4. Be Wary. This tip is for those of you who think translating takes a few minutes’ tops. There are some great computer programs that are designed for translation. There are also some excellent dictionaries and phrase books. But do not rely on them to give you the end-all-be-all translation. You must do the footwork. You can use these computer programs and dictionary translations as a guide. They may help get to the bones of the poem but your job is to put heart and live language on those bones. 5. Take a Deep Breath. When you finish a translation, sit tight for a few days, maybe even a week, before you go over it. Take some time to think about something else, in your own language. Then come back and see where the gaps and the goodies are. 6. Have a Self- Confidence in Translating of Poem You as a translator should have courage and dare to translate every text specially the poetry texts which have many complexities of meaning per itself. Do not worry about the misunderstanding and comprehension of the readers or poem translating well. More exercise over and over makes you perfect translator. We still must ask, however, what can be left of poetry after its passage, whether in literal or in free translation, across so forbidding a frontier? How can even the most talented of translators presume to take it across undamaged? Poetry has deeper roots in our consciousness that most of us are aware. From our earliest days we are nourished with nursery rhymes. Rhymes at school help us remember rules of grammar and arithmetic. Rhymes help drivers remember the rules of the road, and pilots their take-off checks. Poetry read, or sung, has helped man face heavy labour and adversity. And chanted patterns of words assisted – and still assist – the performance of physical labour.
The origins of poetry pre-date written literature. Speech rhythms fitted to metrical designs assisted memory in distant ages when learning existed but writing did not. Some of the earliest written languages were hieroglyphic, and what are hieroglyphs if not metaphors, the images from which poetry is constructed? Poetry is, indeed, deep in our roots. It is not uncommon to find illiterate people who may not normally be articulate, who can and often do, when stirred by emotion, lapse into rhythmic, poetic speech.
A “gooseflesh reaction” then tell you that you are listening to poetry. Is it justifiable to think that stirring such emotions – that we believe also stirred the poet – is a part of the translator’s purpose? Certainly, the translator’s first task is to dismantle the linguistic part of this organic structure. How can he then, or can he, claim to be faithful to the poet in doing so? How can he, or can he, reproduce in another tongue the music of a poet’s words? How can he, or can he, awaken in another language the emotions that stirred the poet and his listeners in their own tongue – not just emotions but gooseflesh also, not the translator’s but the poet’s also? How freely may the translator translate before he ceases to be a translator? At what point can he, or does he become a plagiarizer, or a copyist? Let me close with an example of a free translation, and a question. Is it faithful to the poem’s creator who wrote in long unrhymed polysyllabic lines? It is assumed that though the translation of literary texts in general and that of poetry in particular seems a far-fetched challenge and, in rare cases, only possible with partial semantic and stylistic loss, it is by no means totally impossible. The evidence of past masterly achievements indicates that a skilled translator with a poetic taste can achieve this end with the necessary literary features and devices of the source text kept intact. Translating a poem is a lot like writing a poem yourself. You have to know what you want to say. You have to feel what you want to say. You have to be focused. There are a thousand other jobs that are easier, better paid, and eyesight-saving, but translating has its own glories. Putting poems into another language is one of the best ways to share culture, honor poets, and remind us that we can transcend geography. Do your best. Adam’s sons stem from the same holy trunk; With the first sacred clot they’ve become drunk.
When Father Time afflicts a fellow with pain, Others will restlessly start to complain.
You heedless of other humans’ distress, Deserve never to don Adam’s dress. (Sa’di) References Alcalay, Ammiel. From the warring factions, Venice, CA: Beyond Baroque, 2002. Arthur L. Clements. 1962. John Donne’s poetry. New York: W.W. NORTHON & COMPANY. Arberry, A. J. (1945). Kings and Beggars: the first two chapters of Sadi’s Gulistan, Luzac & co., London.
Aryanpoor, M. (1970). Classical Persian Literature. Tehran: College of Translation Press. Borges, Jorge Luis. “The Translators of The Thousand and One Nights,” translated by Esther Allen. From The Translation Studies Reader, edited by Lawrence Venuti, (New York: Routledge, 2000). 34-47. Cocteau, Jean. “L’Ange Heurtebise,” translated by Kristin Prevallet. Chicago Review, (Winter 2001/Spring 2002), 181-186. Eastwick, E. B. (1984). The Rose-Garden of Shaikh Muslihud-Din Sadi of Shiraz. London: The Octagon Press. Furooqi, M. A.(1987). The Collection of Sa`di’s Works. Tehran: Tulooa’ Press.
Ilaahii Qumsheii, H. (2000). A Study of Translated Islamic Texts. Tehran: SAMT.
Jackson, R (2003). From Translation to Imitation. Retrieved March 12.2003 from the Worldwide Web: http://www.utc.edu/~engldept/pm/ontransl.htm.
Khatiib Rahbar, Kh. (1983). Gulistan. Tehran: Safi Alishah Press.
Kopp, M (1998). Poetry in Translation. Retrieved March 12.2003 from the Worldwide Web: http://www.geocities.com/paris/bistro/2207/apoetrytr.htm.
Lefevere, A. (1975). Translating poetry: seven strategies and a blueprint. Assen: Van Gorcum.
Newmark, P. (1988). A Textbook of Translation. New York: Prentice Hall. Paayadeh, A. (1982). Nahjul Fasaaha. Tehran: Jaavidaan Press.
Rehatsek, E. (1964). The Gulistan or Rose Garden of Sa’di. London: George Allen & Unwin LTD.
Ross, J.(1890). Sadi’s Gulistan. Shiraz: Marefat Bookseller & Publisher. Shafi’ii Kadkani, M. R. (2001). The Music of Poetry. Tehran: Aagaah Press.
Sharp, N. in Dehqani-Tafti, H.B.(2004). An awareness of Christian Thought in Persian Poetry http://www.farsinet.com/ChristInPersian/classical_poets1.html. Vahid Dastjerdi, H. (1999). An Anthology of Wise Sayings. Isfahan: Basaaer Press.

Life and career

Goldings was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His father was a classical music enthusiast, and Larry studied classical piano until the age of twelve. In high school he attended a program at the Eastman School of Music. During this period Erroll Garner, Oscar Peterson, Dave McKenna, Red Garland, and Bill Evans were prime influences. As a young teenager, Larry studied privately with Ran Blake and Keith Jarrett.

Larry moved to New York in 1986 to attend a newly formed jazz program under the leadership of Arnie Lawrence at The New School. During college he studied piano with Jaki Byard and Fred Hersch. While still a freshman, Sir Roland Hanna invited Larry to accompany him to a three-day private jazz party in Copenhagen. While there, Larry met jazz legends Sarah Vaughan, Kenny Burrell, Tommy Flanagan, and Hank Jones; and he also played piano in a band with Sarah Vaughan, Harry “Sweets” Edison, and Al Cohn. While still a college student, he embarked on a worldwide tour with Jon Hendricks and worked with him for a year. A collaboration lasting almost three years with jazz guitar legend Jim Hall followed.

In 1988, Larry began his development as an organist during a regular gig at a pianoless bar called Augie’s (now Smoke) on New York’s Upper West Side. He was featured with several bands, and his own trio with guitarist Peter Bernstein and drummer Bill Stewart got its start there. His own first release was Intimacy Of The Blues in 1991. He has released ten or more albums since then, and has appeared as a sideman on hundreds of recordings. Over the course of his career, his distinctive keyboard sound has been sought out more and more by pop, R&B, Brazilian, and alternative artists, including De La Soul, India.Arie, Tracy Chapman, Colin Hay, Madeleine Peyroux, Luciana Souza, Rebecca Pidgeon, Melody Gardot, Walter Becker, Robben Ford, Steve Gadd, Al Jarreau, David Sanborn, Till Bronner, Priscilla Ahn, Jesse Harris, Sia, John Mayer, and Norah Jones. He has had long term collaborations with musicians such as Maceo Parker, John Scofield, Carla Bley, Michael Brecker and Pat Metheny, John Pizzarelli, Jack DeJohnette and Charlie Haden, in genres including jazz, Brazilian, funk, and pop music as pianist (since 2001) for singer-songwriter, James Taylor.

Larry’s melodic style of organ playing has often been compared to that of Larry Young. On organ, Larry cites as his first inspirations the solo piano style of Dave McKenna “who walks his own bass lines better than anyone” and Billy Preston accompanying Aretha Franklin on “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” Other influences were the Wes Montgomery records featuring Mel Rhyne and Jimmy Smith; Shirley Scott; Chester Thompson; Joe Zawinul; and Jack McDuff.1 Among jazz enthusiasts, Larry’s organ trio with Peter Bernstein and Bill Stewart has been recognized for charting new ground, with the musicians’ synergistic playing and their hard-swinging, yet very thoughtful, music.

Larry is a composer, arranger, and producer of music. His music reflects a wide listening palette, from Beethoven and Gabriel Faur to contemporary artists like The Beatles, Randy Newman, and Bjrk. His compositions have been recorded by Michael Brecker, Jack DeJohnette, Bob Dorough, Jim Hall, John Scofield, and Toots Thielemans, among others; and his songs and arrangements appear in the films Clint Eastwood’s, “Space Cowboys,” John Madden’s “Proof,” and, more recently, the Judd Apatow film, “Funny People.” Larry also is a featured performer in the 2009 Clint Eastwood documentary, “The Dream’s on Me,” playing original arrangements of several classic Johnny Mercer tunes on piano and Hammond organ.

In addition to film, Larry’s composing, arranging and producing credits include four albums with the vocalist Curtis Stigers in which one can hear their original co-writes as well as Larry’s musical arrangements of a variety of contemporary songs and jazz standards. Larry’s musical arrangements also can be heard on several James Taylor albums, including October Road, James Taylor at Christmas, One Man Band, and most recently, Covers.

In 2007, Larry Goldings, Jack DeJohnette and John Scofield, received a Grammy nomination in the category of Best Jazz Instrumental Album Individual or Group for their performance on the album, “Trio Beyond – Saudades” (ECM). The album captures their live performance in 2004 at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. Its title is in reference to the musicians’ collaboration that began as a tribute to the music of Tony Williams Lifetime group and has now moved beyond to include original works and other music in a similar vein.

Also, in 2006, 2007 and 2008, Larry toured the United States and Europe with James Taylor, as his One Man Band, a collaborative project that culminated in the joint CD/DVD release by the same name (Hear Music). The album, which was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), features an original composition by Larry entitled “School Song.”

He is the perpetrator of the hoax Hans Groiner Plays Monk, which purports to be the MySpace page of an Austrian pianist “from Braunau, also the birthplace of Hitler, but please don’t hold that against me,” who plays easy listening versions of Thelonious Monk tunes.

Selected discography

Trio Beyond – Saudades, 2006, ECM

Quartet, 2006, Palmetto

Sweet Science, 2002, Palmetto

As One 2001, Palmetto

Voodoo Dogs, 2000, Palmetto

Moonbird, 1999, Palmetto

Awareness, 1997, Warner Bros.

Big Stuff, 1996, Warner Bros.

Whatever It Takes, 1995, Warner Bros.

Caminhos Cruzados, 1994, Novus/BMG

Light Blue 1992, Minor Music

Intimacy of the Blues, 1991, Verve

Selected sideman discography

Other Covers, 2009 James Taylor (piano, organ, pump organ, accordion)

Bare Bones, 2009, Madeleine Peyroux (Hammond organ, pump organ)

Last Kiss, 2009, Zachary Richard (piano, Hammond organ)

Tide, 2009, Luciana Souza (organ, piano, accordion, pump organ, Fender Rhodes piano)

My One and Only Thrill, 2009, Melody Gardot (Hammond organ)

Our Bright Future, 2008, Tracy Chapman (piano, Hammond organ, Wurlitzer)

Some People Have Real Problems, 2008, Sia (keyboards)

Incandescence, 2008, Bill Stewart (Hammond organ, accordion)

Covers, 2008, James Taylor (piano, organ, cello arrangement)

Stones World: The Rolling Stones Project, 2008, Tim Ries (organ)

Thirteens, 2008, Leona Naess (keyboards)

Like a Fire, 2008, Solomon Burke (piano)

Circus Money, 2008, Walter Becker (organ)

Christmas, 2008, Al Jarreau (organ)

Good Day, 2008, Priscilla Ahn (piano, organ)

Cannon Reloaded: An All-Star Celebration of Cannonball Adderley, 2008, Tom Scott (organ)

Behind the Velvet Curtain, 2008, Rebecca Pidgeon (Wurlitzer)

One Man Band, 2007, James Taylor (piano, organ, harmonium, synthesizer, keyboards)

Real Emotional, 2007, Curtis Stigers (producer, composer, arranger, piano, organ, keyboards)

Are You Lookin’ At Me?, 2007, Colin Hay (piano, organ)

Sitting in Limbo, 2007, Jessica Molaskey (piano, organ, arranger)

Not Too Late, 2007, Norah Jones, (organ, Hammond organ)

Truth, 2007, Robben Ford, (Hammond organ, Wurlitzer)

Continuum, 2006, John Mayer (organ, keyboards)

James Taylor at Christmas, 2006, (arranger, piano, organ, melodica, harmonium)

Oceana, 2006, Till Bronner (composer, piano, Hammond organ, electric piano, Wurlitzer)

Mineral, 2006, Jesse Harris (piano, organ, Wurlitzer, accordion, vibraphone, Kalimba)

Half the Perfect World, 2006, Madeleine Peyroux (celeste, Wurlitzer, soloist)

That’s What I Say: John Scofield Plays the Music of Ray Charles, 2005, (arranger, Hammond organ, vibraphone, Wurlitzer)

Knowing You, 2005, John Pizzarelli (arranger, piano, organ)

Closer, 2005, David Sanborn (piano, organ)

Way It Really Is, 2004, Lisa Loeb (piano)

Chiara Civello, 2004, Chiara Civello (Hammond organ)

Careless Love, 2004, Madeleine Peyroux (piano, celeste, Hammond organ, pump organ, Wurlitzer)

Colour the Small One, 2004, Sia (piano, composer)

You Inspire Me, 2003, Curtis Stigers (producer, arranger, piano, organ)

October Road, 2002, James Taylor (piano)

Pentimento, 2002, Jessica Molaskey (piano, arranger)

Four Songs, 2002, Alexi Murdoch (piano, organ)

Play It Cool, 2001, Lea DeLaria (bass, piano, arranger)

Acoustic Soul, 2001, India.Arie (organ, Wurlitzer, string contractor)

AOI: Bionix. 2001, DeLaSoul (organ)

Arts and Crafts, 2001, Matt Wilson (piano)

Christmas in Swingtime, 2001, Harry Allen (organ)

Buttermilk Channel, 2001, Adam Levy (organ)

Four by Four, 2000, Carla Bley (organ)

The Still of the Night, 2000, Tom Wopat (arranger, piano)

Time is of the Essence, 1999, Michael Brecker (composer, piano, organ)

Minh, 1998, Chris Minh Doky (piano)

Earth Tones, 1998, Peter Bernstein (organ)

Warner Jazz Christmas Party, 1997, compilation featuring the Warner Jazz Artists (Joshua Redman, Al Jarreau, Kirk Whalum, Michael Franks,

Gabriela Anders, Larry Goldings, Boney James, Kevin Mahogany, Mark Turner, Brad Mehldau, Bob James)(Hammond organ)

Warner Jams 2: The Two Tenors with Larry Goldings, 1997, James Moody and Mark Turner (piano, arranger)

Kevin Mahogany, 1996, Kevin Mahogany (arranger, piano, organ)

Young At Heart, 1996, James Moody (piano)

Groove Elation, 1995, John Scofield (piano, organ)

Pure (Concord Records), 1994, Chris Potter (piano, organ)

Hand Jive, 1993, John Scofield (piano, organ)

Something Special, 1993, Jim Hall (piano)

Six Pack, 1992, Gary Burton & Friends (organ, keyboards)

Life on Planet Groove, 1992, Maceo Parker (organ)

Mo’ Roots, 1991, Maceo Parker (organ)

Subsequently, 1991, Jim Hall (piano)

Freddie Freeloader, 1990, Jon Hendricks & Friends (piano)

Best of John Scofield, 1989, John Scofield (organ)

Selected Film and TV Credits

2009 “The Dream’s on Me” (featured in film and on soundtrack)

2009 “Funny People” (featuring “Tuscany” (originally titled “Dario and Bario”), an original composition)

2008 “Bernard and Doris” (HBO) (performs on soundtrack)

2008 “The Office” (NBC)

2005 “Proof”(featuring “Uganda,” an original composition)

2000 “Space Cowboys” (performing several arrangements of jazz standards)

Awards and Recognition

2007 Grammy Nomination Best Jazz Album of the Year

2001 Jazz Journalists Association Winner Best Organist/Keyboardist of the Year

2000 Jazz Journalists Association Winner Best Organist/Keyboardist of the Year

1997 The New Yorker Magazine Best Jazz Albums of 1997 (“Awareness”)

1996 The New Yorker Magazine Best Jazz Albums of 1996 (“Big Stuff”)

References

1 http://www.allaboutjazz.com/iviews/lgoldings.htm

External links

Larry Goldings – official website

Larry Goldings – BBC bio

Larry Goldings sideman discography (partial)

All About Jazz Interview with Larry Goldings

KKJZ’s 2-part radio interview with Larry Goldings (first aired Dec. 13, 2006)

Categories: 1968 births | Living people | American jazz composers | American jazz pianists | American jazz organists | People from Boston, Massachusetts | Palmetto Records artists

Early life

Willy DeVille was born William Paul Borsey Jr. in Stamford, Connecticut. The son of a carpenter, he grew up in the working-class Belltown district of Stamford. His maternal grandmother was a Pequot, and he was also of Basque and Irish descent. As he put it, “A little of this and a little of that; a real street dog.” DeVille said about Stamford, “It was post-industrial. Everybody worked in factories, you know. Not me. I wouldn’t have that. People from Stamford don’t get too far. That’s a place where you die.” DeVille said about his youthful musical tastes, “I still remember listening to groups like the Drifters. It was like magic, there was drama, and it would hypnotise me.”

DeVille quit high school and began frequenting New York’s Lower East Side and West Village. “It seemed like I just hung out and hung out. I always wanted to play music but nobody really had it together then. They had psychedelic bands but that wasn’t my thing.” In this period, DeVille’s interests ran to blues guitarists Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, and especially John Hammond. “I think I owe a lot about my look, my image on stage, and my vocal riffs to John Hammond. A lot of my musical stance is from John”, DeVille said. He credited Hammond’s 1965 album So Many Roads with “changing my life”.

As a teenager, DeVille played with friends from Stamford in a blues band called Billy & the Kids, and later in another band called The Immaculate Conception.

At the age of 17, he married Susan “Toots” Berle; they had a son named Sean in 1970. DeVille struck out in 1971 for London in search of like-minded musicians (“obvious American with my Pompadour hair”), but was unsuccessful finding them; he returned to New York City after a two-year absence.

His next band, The Royal Pythons (“a gang that turned into a musical group”), was not a success either. Said DeVille:

I decided to go to San Francisco; there was nothing really happening in New York. Flower power was dead. All the day-glo paint was peeling off the walls. People were shooting speed. I mean, it was real Night of the Living Dead. So I bought a truck and headed out west. I traveled all around the country for a couple of years, looking for musicians who had heart, instead of playing 20-minute guitar solos, which is pure ego.

Mink DeVille years

For a complete history of this band, see Mink DeVille.

Louis X. Erlanger (left) and Willy DeVille of Mink DeVille in 1977.

In 1973, DeVille was living in a cold water flat in Oakland, California and playing gigs in San Francisco in a band that would become Mink DeVille. “We were playing the leather bars down on Folsom Street,” he recalled. “We were Billy de Sade and the Marquis then. We played the Barracks. After a while they would take their clothes off. This one guyesus Satin he called himselfe’d dance on the pool table. It was nuts! Crazy!”

The band changed its name to Mink DeVille in 1974; William Borsey took the name Willy DeVille. In 1975, DeVille persuaded the band members to try their luck in New York City. “I conned the guys into believing that if we went back to New York I could get us work, because I knew the city and the ropes of how stuff worked, which was stretching it.” In New York, they hired guitarist Louis X. Erlanger, whose blues sensibilities helped shape the band’s sound.

Mink DeVille became one of the original house bands at CBGB, the New York nightclub where punk rock music was born in the mid 1970s. “We played (at CBGB) for three years…. [D]uring that time we didn’t get paid more than fifty bucks a night”, DeVille said.DeVille had only sour memories of CBGB. He did not play any benefit concerts or recordings for the nightclub. He told Music Street Journal, “The whole band only got dollars a night, even to the end. That’s why I never went back there. I’ve never walked through those doors other than to have maybe a beer once. I was down in New Orleans and I came up here, kind of going down Memory Lane so to speak. I ended up on Bowery down there and I thought, ‘Let’s see what’s going on here.’ I walked in (to CBGB) and I saw Hilly (Hilly Kristal) standing there. I had a big straw hat on, silk suit. He bought me a beer and it got around to ‘Would you like to come back?’ I said, ‘No, Hilly and you know wny? Because you never treated me right. You never were fair to me.’”(Olma, Greg (2006) “Interview with Willy DeVille” at Music Street Journal) He told Leap in the Dark: “They keep asking me to come and play there (at CGBG) for ‘old times’ sake’ and you know that’s not for me. That’s for people who want to go there and say they saw me there, or Lou Reed in sunglasses or some such stuff”. The band appeared on Live at CBGB’s (1976), a compilation album of bands that played at CBGB.

There was the Ramones, Patti Smith, Television, the Talking Heads, and us. We were the five big draws. And then one night this blond-headed guy came in to CBGB, Ben Edmonds (an A&R man for Capitol Records, and previously an editor for Creem). He was the guy who was responsible for being the visionary who saw that we were different than they were and that we could probably have a career playing music. So we went into this cheap little studio and did four songs, which Edmonds gave to Jack Nitzsche. I didn’t even know who Nitzsche was. Nitzsche did all the Phil Spector stuff that we grew up with and loved. We just fell in love with each other. We were buddies to the end. He was like my crazy uncle. I called him my mentor and my tormentor.

In December 1976, Ben Edmonds signed the band to a contract with Capitol Records. Wrote Edmonds:

When Mink DeVille took the stage (at CBGB) and tore into “Let Me Dream if I Want To”, followed by another scorcher called “She’s So Tough”, they had me. These five guys… were obviously part of the new energy, but I also felt immediately reconnected to all the rock & roll I loved best: the bluesy early Stones, Van Morrison…, the subway scenarios of the The Velvet Underground, Dylan’s folk-rock inflections, the heartbreak of Little Willie John, and a thousand scratchy old flea market 45s. Plus they seemed to contain all the flavors of their New York neighborhood, from Spanish accents to reggae spice.

Working with Jack Nitzsche

In January 1977, Mink DeVille recorded its debut album, Cabretta, produced by Jack Nitzsche. Nitzsche, a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, would produce three albums for Mink DeVille. Nitzsche said about DeVille, “We hit it off right away. Willy pulled out his record collection, he started playing things, that was it. I thought, ‘Holy shit! This guy’s got taste!’” Nitzsche was a perfect fit for Willy DeVille, whose tastes ran to the Brill Building sound that Nitzsche and Phil Spector had pioneered in the early 1960s. Said DeVille, “You listen to that music and you hear those really high strings, and that percussion, and the castanets; that’s all Jack’s (Jack Nitzsche’s) work. All that really cool stuff”.

Cabretta, a spicy, multifaceted album of soul, R&B, rock, and blues recordings, was selected number 57 in the Village Voice’s 1977 “Pop & Jazz Critics Poll”; a single from the album, panish Stroll, was a top-20 hit in the United Kingdom. The band’s follow-up album, Return to Magenta (1978), continued in the same vein as Cabretta, but with a twist. “We went against strings on the first albumecided it should be outright, raw, and rude.” On Return to Magenta, Willy DeVille and producers Nitzsche and Steve Douglas employed lavish string arrangements on several songs.

Le Chat Bleu

“That World Outside”

Sample of “That Word Outside”, one of three songs DeVille co-wrote with Doc Pomus for Le Chat Bleu.

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For Mink DeVille’s next album, Le Chat Bleu (1980), Willy DeVille wrote several songs with Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Doc Pomus. Guitarist Louis X. Erlanger had become acquainted with Pomus while frequenting New York City’s blues clubs and had urged Pomus to check out the group. Wrote Alex Halberstadt, Pomus’s biographer:

One night Doc’s pub crawl took him to The Bottom Line just a block east of Washington Square Park (in New York City). He sat at his usual table and watched an empty spotlight. Cigarette smoke wafted into the shaft of light from offstage while the sax player blew Earle Hagen’s “Harlem Nocturne”. DeVille strode out of the wings and snatched the mike. With his pedantically trimmed pencil mustache he looked like a cross between a bullfighter and a Puerto Rican pimp. The tightest black suit clung to his thin frame; he wore a purple shirt, a narrow black tie and shoes with six-inch points. A Pompadour jutted out above his forehead like the lacquered hull of a submarine. The show was the most soulful Doc had seen in ages. Onstage, Willy’s band, Mink DeVille, had nothing in common with the New Wave CBGB bands that the press had lumped them with. Unlike Television, the Ramones, or Blondie, at heart Mink DeVille was an R&B band, and Willy an old-fashioned soul singer. He borrowed much of his phrasing from Ben E. King and couldn’t believe it when someone told him that Doc Pomus wanted to meet him after the show. “You mean the guy who wrote ‘Save the Last Dance for Me’?” He was even more amazed when Doc asked whether he’d write with him. “Look me up. I’m in the book”, Doc hollered before rolling away (in his wheelchair).

DeVille said about their first meeting, “Now here I am at 29, a writer, doing pretty good and I’ve just been asked if I want to write songs with a guy who helped lay the foundations for the music I fell in love with sitting at my mother’s kitchen table when I was only seven years old. You’ve got to be kidding!” The Rolling Stone Critic’s Poll named Le Chat Bleu the fifth best album of 1980; music historian Glenn A. Baker declared it the tenth best rock album of all time. Of the original members of Mink DeVille, only Willy and guitarist Louis X. Erlanger played on the album. It was recorded in Paris. Said DeVille: “I wanted to record the album in Paris… because I desperately wanted to use Jean-Claude Petit, whom I had contacted through dith Piaf’s songwriter Charles Dumont, for string arrangements… The band with me was a dream come true. I’ve got Phil Spector’s horn player, Steve Douglas (who also served as producer), on tenor and baritone. Elvis Presley’s rhythm section, Ron Tutt and Jerry Scheff, want to play with me. Wow! That’s pretty cool! Songwriting with Doc Pomus. Not to mention Jean-Claude doing the strings. How can I go wrong?” Wrote Alex Halberstadt:

(Willy DeVille) created a record that sounded like nothing that had come before… It was clear that Willy had realized his fantasy of a new, completely contemporary Brill Building record. To the symphonic sweetness of the Drifters he added his own Gallic romance and, in his vocal, a measure of punk rock’s Bowery grit. Doc (Pomus) was elated when he heard it. Thinking they’d signed a New Wave band, Capitol didn’t know what to do with Willy’s rock and roll chanson and shelved it for a year. When it was finally released in 1980, Le Chat Bleu remixed by Joel Dorn, made nearly every critic’s list of the year’s best records.

Kenny Margolis, a longtime Willy DeVille sideman who played accordion and keyboards on Le Chat Bleu said, “Capitol in the U.S. did not know what to do with Le Chat Bleu because they perceived Willy as this punk rocker from CBGBs and he came back from Paris with a very different kind of record. They didn understand the record, but they understood it in Europe. They released it immediately in Europe and everybody loved it”. “It says something about the state of the American record businessomething pathetic and depressinghat Willy DeVille’s finest album fell on deaf ears at Capitol,” wrote Kurt Loder of Rolling Stone. Capitol Records released the album only in Europe. Le Chat Bleu sold well in Europe and in the USA as an import. Capitol finally released it in the United States in 1981.

The Atlantic albums

“Willy had found a more appreciative reception at Atlantic Records, where head man Ahmet Ertegn signed him to a fat new recording deal and promised to personally shepherd his career…”, reported Rolling Stone in 1980. “According to Willyever one to let false modesty intrude on a good storyhe Atlantic Records chairman said, ‘You got the look, the performance, the writing, you know exactly what to do.’”

DeVille continued recording and touring under the name Mink DeVille. “Those boys went through the wars with me, the a night bars, and I had to turn on them and lop their heads off and say, ‘I love you man, but that’s the way it gotta be.’ I still feel guilty about it, but we were just a good bar band. That’s all we were. We weren’t ready to make great rock and roll records.”

Wrote critic Robert Palmer in 1981:

Mr. DeVille’s career never quite took off, despite the impressive breadth and depth of his talent. He is recording a new album for Atlantic records, having departed from his previous recording commitment under less than amicable circumstances. And on Friday night he was at the Savoy, where he demonstrated with an almost insolent ease that he is still ready for the recognition that should have been his several years ago. He has the songs, he has the voice, and he has the band. And he has expanded the scope of his music by adding elements of French cafe songs and Louisiana zydeco to the mixture of rock, blues, Latin and Brill Building soul that was already there.

Said DeVille:

I had band problems, manager problems, record company problems. And yeah, I had drug problems. Finally I got a new recording contract, with Atlantic, and a new manager. I cleaned up my act. I figured that since playing music with people I was friends with didn’t seem to work out, I would hire some mercenaries, some cats who just wanted to play and get paid. And those guys turned out to be more devoted to the music than any band I ever had. They’re professional, precise, but they’re full of fire, too.”

DeVille recorded two albums for Atlantic, 1981′s Coup de Grce (produced by Jack Nitzsche) and 1983′s Where Angels Fear to Tread. Both albums featured saxophonist Louis Cortelezzi and had a full-throated Jersey Shore sound that evoked Bruce Springsteen and Southside Johnny. Wrote Thom Jurek about Coup de Grce:”The band’s sound combined with Nitzsche timeless production style, which combined with that voice to create a purer rock and roll noise than even Bruce Springsteen’s in 1981.” Jurek wrote about Where Angels Fear to Tread:

DeVille and his band were burning through the pages of rock and R&B history (there are a couple of doo wop and New Orleans-flavored cuts as well) with raw swagger and astonishing musicianship. Why they didn’t catch and George Thorogood and Southside Johnny (briefly) did is a mystery that will be up to 1980s historians to figure out.

The albums DeVille recorded for Atlantic sold well in Europe but not in the United States. Explained Kenny Margolis, who played piano and accordion in DeVille’s early 1980s bands, “I don think the American public had a chance to experience him because in America at that time you had MTV telling you what to like. Europe had not had MTV at that point and they were very open to different music.” DeVille said about his years with Atlantic Records, “Ahmet Ertegn and I got along, but we never got anything done.”

Sportin’ Life

In 1985, DeVille recorded Sportin’ Life for the Polydor label. As he had done on Le Chat Bleu, DeVille wrote some songs with the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame member Doc Pomus. The album was recorded at the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama with DeVille and Duncan Cameron producing. The song talian Shoes was a hit in Europe, but some critics thought the album was overproduced. Wrote Allmusic: “Its sound is steeped in mid-’80s studio gloss and compression that often overwhelms quality material.” However, David Wild of Rolling Stone praised Sportin’ Life, calling it “[t]he most modern, polished sound of (Willy DeVille’s) career… Pushed to center stage, DeVille delivers, singing with more passion and more personality than ever before”.

In 1986, DeVille filed for bankruptcy as part of what Billboard called “a major restructuring of his career.” He fired his personal manager Michael Barnett and announced that he would “put Mink DeVille to bed” and start a solo career.

“Storybook Love” collaboration with Mark Knopfler

Although Willy DeVille had been recording and touring for ten years under the name Mink DeVille, no members of his original band had recorded or toured with him since 1980′s Le Chat Bleu. Beginning in 1987 with the album Miracle, DeVille began recording and touring under his own name. He told an interviewer, “Ten years with the band was enough for Mink DeVille; everyone was calling me ‘Mink.’ I thought it was about time to get the name straight.”

“Storybook Love”

Sample of “Storybook Love,” which was nominated for an Academy Award for best song in 1987.

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DeVille recorded Miracle in London with Mark Knopfler, the Dire Straits guitarist, serving as his sideman and producer. He said, “It was Mark (Knopfler) wife Lourdes who came up with the idea (to record Miracle). She said to him that you don’t sing like Willy and he doesn’t play guitar like you, but you really like his stuff so why don’t you do an album together?” “Storybook Love”, a song from Miracle and the theme song of the movie The Princess Bride, was nominated for an Academy Award in 1987; DeVille performed the song at that year’s Academy Awards telecast.

Knopfler heard (“Storybook Love”) and asked if I knew about this movie he was doing. It was a Rob Reiner film about a princess and a prince. The song was about the same subject matter as the film, so we submitted it to Reiner and he loved it. About six or seven months later, I was half asleep when the phone rang. It was the Academy of Arts and Sciences with the whole spiel. I hung up on them! They called back and Lisa (his wife) answered the phone. She came in to tell me that I was nominated for “Storybook Love.” It’s pretty wild. It’s not the Grammys it’s the Academy Awards, which is different for a musician. Before I knew it, I was performing on the awards show with Little Richard. It was the year of Dirty Dancing, and they won.

In New Orleans

In 1988, DeVille relocated from New York to New Orleans, where he found a spiritual home. “I was stunned”, he said in a 1993 interview. “I had the feeling that I was going back home. It was very strange… I live in the French Quarter, two streets away from Bourbon Street; at night, when I go to bed, I hear the boogie that comes from the streets, and in the morning, when I wake up, I hear the blues.”

In 1990, DeVille made Victory Mixture, a tribute album of classic New Orleans soul and R&B which he recorded with some of the songs’ original composers. The album was recorded without the use of overdubbing or sound editing with the goal of capturing the spirit of the original recordings.

I got all the original guys to come back in, like Earl King, Dr. John and Eddie Bo. Allen Toussaint played side piano. I brought in the rhythm section of The Meters on a couple of cuts. We call it the ‘little’ record. It’s funny, because I was just trying to get them money, the writers of the songs, ’cause they all got ripped off in the 1950s and 1960s. They were all fascinated, and Dr. John (who had played on DeVille’s 1978 album Return to Magenta and who DeVille knew from his association with Doc Pomus) convinced them that they wouldn’t get ripped off by this northern white boy. That’s when I crossed over to being a local here in New Orleans. We were all pleased with it. It’s recorded the way it was originally done back then. It’s live with no overdubs anywhere, no digital, no editing. We played the song several times and just picked the best take, the one that was the most natural. It’s on Fnac/Orleans Records. I’m really proud of that one.

Victory Mixture was recorded for a small independent label, Orleans Records, which licensed it to Sky Ranch (Fnac Music) in France. “It sold over 100,000 units in Europe very quicklyur first gold disc,” said Carlo Ditta, founder of Orleans Records and the producer of Victory Mixture.

In the summer of 1992, DeVille toured Europe with Dr John, Johnny Adams, Zachary Richard, and The Wild Magnolias as part of his “New Orleans Revue” tour. “The travel, buses, and planes and the accommodations had to be some of the worst I’ve ever experienced… but the shows themselves were great. At the end of each show we’d throw Mardi Gras rows out to the audience, you know strands of purple and gold beads, and they’d never seen anything like it and they loved it.”

Recording in L.A.

In 1992, DeVille recorded Backstreets of Desire, the first of four albums he would record in Los Angeles with producer John Philip Shenale. “I say it every time I record in L.A. that I’ll never do it again, and I keep doing it… It’s crazy. I just record and go to the hotel, and never go out, then back to the studio. I hate L.A. It’s the worst. I think they eat their children there. I never saw any kids. It’s a pity there aren’t more studios in New Orleans.” Although DeVille complained about having to record in Los Angeles, recording in that city put him in touch with many talented Latino musicians who helped shape his distinctive Spanish-Americana sound. For Backstreets of Desire, he was joined by David Hidalgo of Los Lobos, Efrain Toro, Mariachi los Camperos, and Jimmy Zavala, as well as New Orleans musicians Dr. John and Zachary Richard and L.A. session musicians Jeff Baxter, Freebo, Jim Gilstrap, and Brian Ray. Allmusic said about the album:

Willy DeVille’s Backstreets of Desire stands tall as his masterpiece as both a singer and a songwriter. DeVille’s considerable reputation in Paris buoyed him up to make this disc… With guest spots by Dr. John, Zachary Richard, and David Hidalgo, DeVille creates a tapestry of roots rock and Crescent City second line, traces of ’50s doo-wop, and elegant sweeping vistas of Spanish soul balladry, combined with lyrics full of busted-down heroes, hungry lovers, and wise men trying to get off the street. The sound of the album balances Creole soul and pure rock pyrotechnics. DeVille sounds like a man resurrected, digging as deep as the cavernous recesses of the human heart.

“Hey Joe”

Sample of DeVille’s mariachi arrangement of “Hey Joe.” The song was an international hit in Europe in 1992.

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Backstreets of Desire included a novel mariachi version of the Jimi Hendrix standard ey Joe that was a hit in Europe, rising to number one in Spain and France. DeVille said about “Hey Joe”: “The song originally comes from the Texas-Mexico border area … [T]hey call it Texico. I tried, instead of doing something that sounded like Jimi Hendrix that would have been a clich, I tried to take the song back to the way that it must originally have sounded, which would be with mariachis. It’s classic, but it’s classic with a little twist. A little different. I put a bit of pachuco Canal Street slang talking. I added a couple of verses of my own.” Backstreets of Desire was released in the United States in 1994 on Rhino Record’s Forward label.

Continued success in Europe

In 1984, DeVille married his second wife, Lisa Leggett, who proved to be an astute business manager. On the strength of his success touring and selling albums in Europe, they bought a horse farm, Casa de Sueos, in Picayune, Mississippi and began living there as well as at their apartment and studio in the French Quarter of New Orleans. DeVille told an interviewer in 1996: “I finally got the plantation… I just bought this house and 11 acres (45,000 m2). It looks a little bit like Graceland… I got into horses since my wife is into them. We’re raising Spanish and Portuguese bullfighting horses. The bloodline is 2000 years old. She’s into breeding, but I just love riding. I’ve also got five dogs, four cats and a partridge in a pear tree.”

DeVille did not have a recording contract with an American label in the mid-1990s. His next two albums, Willy DeVille Live (1993) and Big Easy Fantasy (1995), were recorded for Fnac Music, a French label. Willy DeVille Live was a number one record in Spain. Big Easy Fantasy presents live recordings of Mink DeVille Band playing with New Orleans legends Eddie Bo and The Wild Magnolias and remixes from the Victory Mixture sessions.

DeVille said, “I was pissed off and I didn’t have a record deal for a few years. At the time I didn’t want one. I was getting very gun-shy about labels. I was performing in Europe and I was doing great without one. When you get to that stage in your mind, they all start coming around. It’s pretty strange the way that happens”.

In 1995, he returned to Los Angeles to record Loup Garou, again with producer John Philip Shenale. Musician said about the album: “Loup Garou is subtle in nuance but staggering in scope, it connects the dots between all of the artist’s sacrosanct influences, often within the framework of a single song… All of it is on the money, performed from the heart…” Loup Garou featured a duet with Brenda Lee; DeVille said: “She didn’t know who the hell I was. I just called her up, played the song for her, and she loved it. She had her business people check me out, and they reported that I was big in Europe and had been recording for twenty years. So I flew to Nashville [to record with her]… That’s got to go down in my book as one of the most memorable experiences in my career.”

The cover of Loup Garou showed DeVille in turn-of-the-century New Orleans garb posing on a street corner in New Orleans’ French Quarter. It included voodoo chants and a song subtitled “Vampire’s Lullaby”. The singer had completely immersed himself in New Orleans culture. Percussionist Boris Kinberg, a longtime member of the Mink DeVille Band, said about the stages of Willy DeVille’s career:

To my mind there were three main eras. The first era was the Lower East Side, skinny tie, purple shirt, West Side Story, Puerto Rican Sharks gang vibe. Then it transmuted into the Mississippi plantation-gambler riverboat rogue, the Rhett Butler thing where he had had custom-made suits, and really got into the period and the clothes and just totally immersed himself in New Orleans, not the present New Orleans, but the New Orleans of the 1880s and 1890she Absinthe-drinking, voodoo New Orleans. He totally immersed himself in that. Then he left New Orleans and moved to the Southwest and came back as the second coming of Black Elk.

Before moving to the Southwest in 2000, DeVille recorded Horse of a Different Color in Memphis. The 1999 album, produced by Jim Dickinson, includes a chain-gang song, a cover of Fred McDowell’s “Going over the Hill,” and a cover of Andre Williams’s “Bacon Fat”. Allmusic said about the album, “Simply put, no one has this range or depth in interpreting not only styles, but also the poetics of virtually any set of lyrics. DeVille makes everything he sings believable. ‘Horse of a Different Color’ is the most consistent and brilliant recording of Willy DeVille’s long career.” Horse of a Different Color was the first Willy DeVille album since 1987′s Miracle to be released simultaneously in Europe and the United States. His previous five albums had been released first in Europe and picked up later, if they were picked up at all, by American record labels.

Epiphany in the Southwest

Willy DeVille performing in 2004.

By 2000, DeVille had cured his two-decades-long addiction to heroin. He relocated to Cerrillos Hills, New Mexico, where he produced and played on an album, Blue Love Monkey, with Rick Nafey, a friend from his youth in Connecticut who had played in DeVille’s first band, Billy & the Kids, as well as The Royal Pythons. In New Mexico, DeVille’s wife Lisa committed suicide by hanging; DeVille discovered her body. He said:

I got in a car accident because I got crazy. I think I was somewhat taunting death because somebody who I loved very much died. And I found them. That’s what that lyric in that song means (“she hurts me still since I cut her down” [from "Downside of Town" on Crow Jane Alley]). I cut her down. Next thing you know the police show up, I was in tears… I was in love with another woman and we were going through some hard times, and I got in the car and I wanted to go off the cliff. I was in the mountains in New Mexico… They came right around the corner head on. You know how big a Dodge Ram truck is? I broke my arm in three places and my knee went into the dash board… It was bone to bone… I was on crutches and on a cane for about three years and I couldn go anywhere or do anything. I was fucked up. I was ready for the scrapheap.

“I guess I was testing the waters to see if I would live through it”, DeVille told another interviewer. “It was a foolish, foolish thing to do.” For the next five years, DeVille walked with a cane and performed sitting on a barstool, until he had hip replacement surgery in 2006.

DeVille’s stay in the Southwest awakened his interest in his Native American heritage. On the cover of his next album, 2002′s Acoustic Trio Live in Berlin, recorded to celebrate his 25 years’ of performing, DeVille wore long hair. He began wearing Native American clothing and jewelry on stage. In 2004, DeVille returned to Los Angeles to record Crow Jane Alley, his third album with producer John Philip Shenale. The album continued his explorations of his Spanish-Americana sound and featured many prominent Los Angeles Latino musicians. On the cover, DeVille wore a Native American headdress and breastplate. Richard Marcus said of the album, “Crow Jane Alley is the work of an artist who after thirty plus years in the business still has the ability to surprise and delight his listeners. Listening to this disc only confirms that Willy DeVille is one of the greats who have been ignored for too long.”

Return to New York

After living for 15 years in New Orleans and the Southwest, DeVille returned to New York City in 2003, where he took up residence with Nina Lagerwall, his third wife. He continued touring Europe, usually playing music festivals in the summer.

On Mardi Gras Day, 2008, Pistola, DeVille’s sixteenth album, was released. Independent Music said about the album: “(Willy DeVille) has never been more artistically potent than on Pistola, confronting the demons of his past with an impressive lyrical honesty and unexpectedly diverse musical imagination.”

Personal life

Willy DeVille was married in the late 1970s to Susan Berle (February 19, 1950ugust 12, 2004), who was known as Toots. Toots and Willy had known each other in high school and had a son, Sean, in 1970. Alex Halberstadt, Doc Pomus’s biographer, wrote about Toots, “Half French and half Pima Indian, Toots favored a pair of nose rings, snow-white kabuki make-up and a Ronettes-style beehive the color of tar. She’d once put out a lit Marlboro in a woman’s eye just for staring at Willy.” The Guardian’s Garth Cartwright wrote about Toots, “(DeVille’s) combative approach with the media was made worse by his wife, Toots, who shadowed him and would threaten anyone she took against.”

In 1984, DeVille married his second wife, Lisa Leggett, who he met in California.. She became his business manager. They lived in New Orleans and on a horse farm in Picayune, Mississippi. After her suicide in 2001, he married Nina Lagerwall (daughter of Sture Lagerwall), his third wife, and returned to New York City, where he spent the rest of his life. In February 2009, DeVille was diagnosed with Hepatitis C, and in May of that year doctors discovered pancreatic cancer in DeVille in the course of his Hepatitis C treatment. He died in New York City in the late hours of August 6, 2009, three weeks shy of his 59th birthday.

Legacy

About his legacy, DeVille told an interviewer, “I have a theory. I know that I’ll sell much more records when I’m dead. It isn’t very pleasant, but I have to get used to this idea.”

Thom Jurek wrote about him after his death, “Willy DeVille is America’s loss even if America doesn know it yet. The reason is simple: Like the very best rock and roll writers and performers in our history, he one of the very few who got it right; he understood what made a three-minute song great, and why it matteredecause it mattered to him. He lived and died with the audience in his shows, and he gave them something to remember when they left the theater, because he meant every single word of every song as he performed it. Europeans like that. In this jingoistic age of American pride, perhaps we can revisit our own true love of rock and roll by discovering Willy DeVille for the first timer, at the very least, remember him for what he really was: an American original. The mythos and pathos in his songs, his voice, and his performances were born in these streets and cities and then given to the world who appreciated him much more than we did.”

Discography

For a complete discography of Willy DeVille recordings, see Willy DeVille discography.

With Mink DeVille:

1977: Cabretta (in Europe); Mink Deville (in the U.S.) (Capitol)

1978: Return to Magenta (Capitol)

1980: Le Chat Bleu (Capitol)

1981: Coup de Grce (Atlantic)

1983: Where Angels Fear to Tread (Atlantic)

1985: Sportin’ Life (Polydor)

As Willy DeVille:

1987: Miracle (Polydor)

1990: Victory Mixture (Sky Ranch) 1990 (Orleans Records)

1992: Backstreets of Desire (Fnac Music) (Rhino, 1994)

1993: Willy DeVille Live (Fnac Music)

1995: Big Easy Fantasy (New Rose)

1995: Loup Garou (EastWest) (Discovery, 1996)

1999: Horse of a Different Color (EastWest)

2002: Acoustic Trio Live in Berlin (Eagle)

2004: Crow Jane Alley (Eagle)

2008: Pistola (Eagle)

References

^ For example, the term “Spanish-Americana appears on DeVille’s MySpace Music page (Retrieved 01-24-2008)

^ Edmonds, Ben (2001) Liner notes to Cadillac Walk: The Mink DeVille Collection. Edmonds wrote, “During my last conversation with Nitzsche, only months before his death last year, the irascible old witch doctor couldn’t stop taking about the new album he’d been plotting with Willy, and how DeVille was the best singer he had ever worked with.”

^ Palmer, Robert (September 18, 1980) “Pop: Willy DeVille Band”, New York Times; p. C32.

^ This quote comes from the back cover of Mink DeVille’s 1978 album Return to Magenta.

^ “Willy DeVille, RIP” Allmusic.com blog

^ Marcus, Richard (August 7, 2009) “Willy DeVille: Rest In Peace” Leap In The Dark blogsite

^ Fusilli, Jim (August 7, 2009) “Willy DeVille Dies at 58.” Wall Street Journal. (Retrieved 8-11-09)

^ Editors (August 10, 2009) “Punk pioneer Willy DeVille dies.” BBC News. (Retrieved 8-11-09.)

^ Grimes, William (August 10, 2009) “Willy DeVille: Punk Rock Pioneer.” The Miami Herald. (Retrieved 8-12-09)

^ Sneum, Jan (2004) (in Danish). Politikens Store Rock Leksikon (4th ed.). Politikens Forlag. pp. 890-891. ISBN 978-87-567-6201-4. http://www.politikensforlag.dk/Musik/Rock/Politikens_store_rockleksikon(9788756762014).aspx. Retrieved June 1, 2009 (2009-June-01). 

^ a b Editors (September 9, 2009) “Music Obituaries: Willy DeVille” The Daily Telegraph (Retrieved 9-9-09)

^ Cohen, Elliot Stephen (August/September 2006). illy DeVille Dirty Linen #125, p. 37

^ Marcus, Richard (2006) nterview: Willy DeVille at Leap in the Dark blogsite

^ Cohen, Elliot Stephen (August/September 2006) illy DeVille. Dirty Linen #125, p. 37

^ See Rhodes, Dusty (1978) ssue 13: Mink DeVille: Smooth Running Caddy: The Tale of the Mink, Rock Around the World (Retrieved 01-29-2008) DeVille said, “I was always considered an asshole… I never fit in at school… I was always looked upon as the weird.”

^ Rhodes, Dusty (1978) ssue 13: Mink DeVille: Smooth Running Caddy: The Tale of the Mink Rock Around the World] (accessed 01-29-2008)

^ DeVille said “I heard John Lee Hooker when I was twelve years old. When I heard that voice, I said, ‘Man I gotta sound like that.’ So I was 12 years old, with my face full of freckles… I went around saying ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah….’ trying to sound like John Lee Hooker. I’m very happy that he has finally got the commercial success, because he has influenced so many people….”, nterview: Concierto Bsico Canal magazine

^ a b c d e Marcus, Richard (2006) nterview: Willy DeVille at Leap in the Dark (blogsite)

^ Harris, Craig (2006) “Willy DeVille: Biography” Allmusic.com

^ Billy Pinnell interview with DeVille on Australian radio on the 1994 Raven CD reissue of Miracle

^ “About the Blue Love Monkey”, which describes singer-songwriter Rick Nafey’s collaborations with DeVille in Billy & the Kids (“a blues-rock group in the Rolling Stones-Kinks vein”), The Immaculate Conception (“a wildly eclectic collection of original material with influences ranging from The Holy Modal Rounders to George Jones and Tammy Wynette”), and the Royal Pythons (“performing original material as well as folk, country and blues numbers”).

^ Susan Berle was later known as Toots DeVille. She was born on February 19, 1950 and died on August 12, 2004 as per the Social Security Death Index search under the name Susan Martincak

^ Ryan, Tom (2003) “In Memory of Willy Deville A Re-broadcast of Our 2003 Interview” “Shaddup and Listen” on American Hit Radio (48:32). “How long have you been married now?” “Since I was seventeen.” “Is this the same wife?” “No, this is my third.” (Retrieved 10-09-09)

^ FaceCulture Interview (June 7, 2006) “Willy about funerals, songwriting, second sight, his grandmother”

^ Rhodes, Dusti (1978) “Mink DeVille: Smooth Running Caddy: The Tale of the Mink”

^ Klein, Howard (October, 1977) “Mink De Ville: Slick Fur Fury”. Creem. Vol. 9, No. 5; p. 28

^ Marcus, Richard (2006) nterview: Willy DeVille at Leap in the Dark (blogsite)

^ nterview: Willy DeVille at Leap in the Dark (blogsite))

^ See interviews on Live in the Lowlands (DVD) (2006; Eagle Rock)

^ See Edmonds, Ben (2001) Liner notes to Cadillac Walk: The Mink DeVille Collection.

^ McDonough, Jimmy (2005) “Jack Nitzsche 1937-2000″ Jack Nitzsche’s Magical Musical Word

^ Christgau, Robert (1977) he 1977 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll Robert Christgau website (Retrieved 02-01-2008)

^ Ankeny, Jason (2005) ink DeVille at Answers.com website (Retrieved 02-01-2008)

^ Rhodes, Dusti (1978) ssue 13: Mink DeVille: Smooth Running Caddy: The Tale of the Mink at Rock Around the World (Retrieved 01-29-2008)

^ Halberstadt, Alex (2007) Lonely Avenue: The Unlikely Life and Times of Doc Pomus. New York: De Capo Press; p. 213

^ See the “as told to Lawrence Albus” notes on the 2003 Raven CD reissue of Le Chat Blue

^ Rolling Stone magazine. 1980 – Critics, Rolling Stone End off Year Critics & Readers Polls (Retrieved 03-14-2008)

^ Baker, Glenn A. (1987) “Individual Critics Top 10s”, The World Critics Lists ~ 1987. (Retrieved 03-14-2008)

^ See the “as told to Lawrence Albus” notes on the 2003 Raven CD reissue of Le Chat Blue

^ Halberstadt, Alex (2007) Lonely Avenue: The Unlikely Life and Times of Doc Pomus. New York: De Capo Press. pp. 214-15

^ a b c See interviews on Live in the Lowlands (DVD) (2006; Eagle Rock).

^ Loder, Kurt (December 11, 1980) “Willy DeVille’s best: Le Chat Bleu”. Rolling Stone; no. 332, pp. 55-56

^ Sears, Rufus (October 30, 1980) “Willy’s backnd knocking ‘em dead: Mink DeVille spurred on by success of ‘Le Chat Bleu’”, Rolling Stone, pp. 20-22

^ Cohen, Elliot Stephen (August/September 2006). illy DeVille, Dirty Linen #125, p. 38

^ Palmer, Robert (April 20, 1981) “Willie DeVille and Band”, New York Times

^ Palmer, Robert (September 25, 1981) “Pop Jazz; Willy DeVille and the Mink in Weekend at the Savoy”, New York Times

^ Jurek, Thom (2006) eview: Coup de Grace at Allmusic.com (Retrieved 02-01-2008)

^ Jurek, Thom (2007) “Review: Where Angels Fear to Tread” at Allmusic.com (Retrieved 02-01-2008)

^ a b Eagle Rock Entertainment (2007) “DeVille, Willy”, Web site of Eagle Rock Entertainment. (Retrieved 03-08-2008)

^ Jurek, Thom (2007) eview: Sportin’ Life at Allmusic.com (Retrieved 03-16-2008.)

^ Wild, David (March 27, 1986) “Sportin’ Life: Mink DeVille”, Rolling Stone, pp. 114-15

^ Wilner, Rich (March 1, 1986) “DeVille Files for Bankruptcy”. Billboard; Vol. 98, No. 9, p. 77

^ See the Billy Pinnell interview with DeVille on Australian radio on the 1994 Raven CD reissue of Miracle.

^ Marcus, Richard (2006) nterview: Willy DeVille Leap in the Dark (blogsite) (Retrieved 03-06-2008.)

^ a b c d e Rene, Sheila (1996) nterview with Willy DeVille, Willy DeVille Fan Page (Retrieved 01-30-2008)

^ Laura Rangel (1993) Interviews: King Creole, Willy DeVille: Spanish Stroll (Retrieved 01-29-2008)

^ Sinclair, John (August 24eptember 5, 1998) rleans Records Story. On the Road with John Sinclair. (Retrieved 03-06-2008)

^ Marcus, Richard (2006) nterview: Willy DeVille, Leap in the Dark (blogsite) (Retrieved 03-06-2008)

^ DeVille recorded these albums in Los Angeles with John Philip Shenale as producer: Backstreets of Desire (1992), Loup Garou (1995), Crow Jane Alley (2004), and Pistola (2008).

^ Jurek, Thom (2007) eview: Backstreets of Desire Allmusic. (Retrieved 02-02-2008)

^ See Rene, Sheila (1996) nterview with Willy DeVille Willy DeVille fan page. (Retrieved 02-02-2008)

^ Editors (1994) Interview: Concierto Bsico. Canal magazine. (Retrieved 03-09-2008)

^ a b Trynka, Paul (2007) Iggy Pop: Open Up and Bleed. New York: Broadway Books. p. 346. A footnote in this book reveals wife Lisa’s maiden name.

^ Editors (September 1996) “Review of Loup Garou”, Musician magazine, p. 90

^ Ren, Sheila (1996) “Interview with Willy DeVille” Willy DeVille fan page (Retrieved 03-09-2008)

^ See interviews on Live in the Lowlands (DVD) (2006; Eagle Rock).

^ Jurek, Thom (2007) eview: Horse of a Different Color Allmusic. (Retrieved 03-09-2008)

^ DeVille’s addiction to heroin began in the mid-1970s and lasted until the mid-1990s. In a 1996 interview, he said, “I’ve been addicted to morphine and if you managed to evade that you would be envied. I’ve been addicted for twenty years, okay? I took enough to kill the whole of Paris.” (Editors [October 14, 1996] a Laiterie Interview on Route 66, French RDL Radio. [Retrieved on 03-09-2008]) He said in a 2006 interview, “If I told you I was totally clean now, I don’t think you believe me, but I can get out a cake and cut the candles because I’ve been clean now for almost 10 years, except for when I had to go back on morphine right after the car accident just to be able to walk.” (Cohen, Elliot Stephen [August/September 2006]. illy DeVille Dirty Linen #125, p. 39)

^ Blue Love Monkey CD Baby. (Retrieved 04-20-2009)

^ FaceCulture Interview (June 7, 2006) Willy DeVille: Willy DeVille about his metal hip, his car accident, going crazy and sacred stuff!. FaceCulture.com (Retrieved 04-29-2009)

^ Cohen, Elliot Stephen (August/September 2006) illy DeVille. Dirty Linen #125 p. 39

^ Cohen, op cit supra.

^ Marcus, Richard (June 24, 2006) D Review: Crow Jane Alley Willy DeVille Leap in the Dark (blogsite) (Retrieved 03-25-2008)

^ Grimes, William (August 10, 2009) “Willy DeVille: Punk Rock Pioneer.” The Miami Herald. (Retrieved 8-12-09.)

^ Gill, Andy (January 24, 2008) “Willy DeVille: Pistola” The Independent (Retrieved 02-04-2008)

^ For more information about Toots, see Herwig, Jana (August 7, 2009) “What ever happened to Toots DeVille? (Did Heroin kill her?”) digiom (blogsite). Retrieved 8-17-2009.)

^ Halberstadt, Alex (2007) Lonely Avenue: The Unlikely Life and Times of Doc Pomus, New York: De Capo Press. p. 214. DeVille said about Toots in 1996, “I haven’t seen her in over ten years. I ran off on her, I guess. She was fascinating, all right. She loved to fight and pull knives out. She used to get me into a lot of trouble.” nterview with Willy DeVille Willy DeVille Fan Page (Retrieved 01-30-2008))

^ Cartwright, Garth (August 11, 2009) “Willy DeVille: Singer and songwriter whose creativity and influence outgrew the New York punk scene.” The Guardian. (Retrieved 8-26-09.)

^ News, Willy DeVille: Official Website. (Retrieved 4-22-2009)

^ “Punk pioneer Willy DeVille dies”. BBC News. 2009-08-10. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8193234.stm. Retrieved 2009-08-11. 

^ Rangel, Laura (January 1991) Interviews: King Creole. Willy DeVille: Spanish Stroll (Retrieved on 1-29-08)

^ Jurek, Thom (August 10, 2009) “Willy DeVille, RIP: Remembering an American Original”, The Allmusic Blog. (Retrieved 08-14-2009)

External links

The Official Willy DeVille Website

Willy DeVille Photo Gallery

Willy DeVille International Fan Club

Willy DeVille and The Mink DeVille Band on MySpace

Willy Deville at the Internet Movie Database

Interview with Willy at “Leap In The Dark with Richard Marcus”

FaceCulture: Video interview with Willy DeVille

“Music Obituaries: Willy DeVille” – Daily Telegraph obituary

“Willy DeVille, Mink DeVille Singer and Songwriter, Is Dead at 58″ – New York Times obituary

“Willy DeVille, RIP: Remembering an American Original” – Allmusic obituary

v  d  e

Willy DeVille

Studio albums

Miracle  Victory Mixture  Backstreets of Desire  Big Easy Fantasy  Loup Garou  Horse of a Different Color  Crow Jane Alley  Pistola

Live albums

Willy DeVille Live  Acoustic Trio Live in Berlin

Compilation albums

Les inoubliables de Willy DeVille  Best of Willy DeVille  Collection lgende  Introducing Willy DeVille

Videos and films

From the Bottom Line to the Olympia  25 Years of Heart & Soul  The Berlin Concerts  Live in the Lowlands  Live at Montreux 1982  Live at Montreux 1994

Related articles

Discography  Mink DeVille

Categories

Albums

v  d  e

Mink DeVille

Willy DeVille  Rubn Sigenza  Thomas R. anfred Allen, Jr.  Fast Floyd  Louis X. Erlanger  Ritch Colbert  Bobby Leonards  Allen Rabinowitz  Vinnie Cirincioni

Studio albums

Cabretta/Mink Deville  Return to Magenta  Le Chat Bleu  Coup de Grce  Where Angels Fear to Tread  Sportin’ Life

Compilation albums

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Categories: 1950 births | 2009 deaths | American blues guitarists | American blues singers | American harmonica players | American rock guitarists | American rock singer-songwriters | American rhythm and blues musicians | American rhythm and blues singers | American singer-songwriters | American soul musicians | American soul singers | Cancer deaths in New York | Deaths from pancreatic cancer | Musicians from New Orleans, Louisiana | Musicians from Connecticut | Musicians from New York | Slide guitaristsHidden categories: Wikipedia articles needing style editing from January 2010 | All articles needing style editing | Articles that may be too long from January 2010 | Too long article

Early life

Phillips was born in Parris Island, South Carolina. His father was a retired United States Marine Corps officer who won an Oklahoma bar from another Marine in a poker game on the way home from France after World War I. His mother was a Cherokee Indian his father met in Oklahoma. According to his autobiography, Papa John, Phillips’ father was a heavy drinker who suffered from poor health.

Phillips grew up in Alexandria, Virginia, where he was inspired by Marlon Brando to be “street tough”. He formed a group of teenage boys, who also sang doo-wop songs. He played basketball at George Washington High School, where he graduated in 1953, and gained an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy. However, he resigned during his first (plebe) year. Phillips then attended Hampden-Sydney College on a partial athletic scholarship, but dropped out and married his first of four wives: Susan Adams, the daughter of a wealthy Virginia family. They had a son, Jeffrey, and a daughter, Laura Mackenzie (known as “Mackenzie”) Phillips.

The Mamas & the Papas

Phillips longed to have success in the music industry and traveled to New York to find a record contract in the early 1960s. His first band, The Journeymen, was a folk trio, with Scott Mckenzie and Dick Weismann. They were fairly successful, putting out 3 albums and several appearance on the 1960s TV show, Hootenanny. All three albums, as well as a “Best of the Journeymen” were reissued on CD. He developed his craft in Greenwich Village, during the American folk music revival, and met his future The Mamas & the Papas bandmates Denny Doherty and Cass Elliot there. Lyrics of their song “Creeque Alley” describe this period.

While touring California with The Journeymen, he met his future second wife, the teenage Michelle Gilliam. Their affair finally forced the dissolution of his first marriage. Phillips was married to Michelle Phillips from 1962 to 1970. They had one child together, Chynna Phillips, vocalist of the 1990s’ pop trio Wilson Phillips.

Phillips was the primary songwriter and musical arranger of The Mamas & the Papas. Early in the band’s history, John and Michelle were responsible for writing most of the band’s songs. John would often come up with a melody and some lyrics and Michelle would help him complete the lyrical portion of the song. After being signed to Dunhill Records, they had several Billboard Top Ten hits during the group’s short lifetime, including “California Dreamin’”, “Monday, Monday”, “I Saw Her Again”, “Creeque Alley”, and “12:30 (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon)”. John Phillips also wrote “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)”, the 1967 Scott McKenzie hit that was to become the Summer of Love anthem. Phillips also wrote the oft-covered “Me and My Uncle”, which was the song performed more times than any other over 30 years of Grateful Dead concerts.

The Phillipses became Hollywood celebrities, living in the Hollywood Hills and socializing with stars like Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty, and Roman Polanski. The group broke up largely because Cass Elliot wanted to go solo and because of some personal problems among Phillips, Michelle, and Denny Doherty. Michelle had been fired briefly in 1966, for having had affairs with both Gene Clark and Denny, and was replaced for two months by Jill Gibson, their producer Lou Adler’s girlfriend. Although Michelle was forgiven and asked to return to the group, the personal problems would continue until the band split up in 1968. Cass Elliot went on to have a successful solo career until her death from heart failure in 1974.

Later life

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Phillips released his first solo album John, the Wolf King of L.A. in 1970. The album was not commercially successful, although it did include the minor hit “Mississippi”, and Phillips began to withdraw from the limelight as his use of narcotics increased.

Actress Genevive Wate became his third wife in 1972. The couple had two children, Tamerlane and Bijou Phillips. Reportedly, both parents were drug addicts and infidelity marked their marriage. Phillips produced a Genevieve Waite album, Romance Is On the Rise and wrote music for films. Between 1969 and 1974, Phillips and Waite worked on a script and composed over 30 songs for a space-themed musical called Man On The Moon, which was eventually produced by Andy Warhol but played for just two days in New York after receiving disastrous opening night reviews.

Phillips moved to London in 1973; Mick Jagger encouraged him to record another solo album. It was to be released on Rolling Stones Records and funded by RSR distributor Atlantic Records. Jagger and Keith Richards would produce and play on the album, as well as former Stone Mick Taylor and future Stone Ronnie Wood. The project was derailed by Phillips’ increasing use of cocaine and heroin, substances that he shot into his body, by his own admission, “almost every fifteen minutes for two years”. In 2001, the tracks of the Half Stoned or The Lost Album album were released as Pay Pack & Follow a few months after Phillips’ death.

In 1975 Phillips, still living in London, was commissioned to create the soundtrack to the Nicolas Roeg film The Man Who Fell to Earth, starring David Bowie. Phillips asked Mick Taylor to help out; the film was released in 1976.

In 1981 Phillips was convicted of drug trafficking; subsequently, he and his television star daughter Mackenzie Phillips made the rounds in the media, instructing kids and their parents how not to become addicts. This public relations campaign helped reduce his prison time to only a month in jail. Upon release, he re-formed The Mamas & the Papas, with Mackenzie Phillips, Spanky McFarlane (of the group Spanky and Our Gang) and Denny Doherty. Throughout the rest of his life, Phillips toured with various versions of this group.

Phillips was divorced from Waite in 1985. In 1986, his best-selling autobiography, Papa John, was published. With Terry Melcher, Mike Love and his former Journeyman colleague Scott McKenzie, he co-wrote the number 1 single for the Beach Boys, “Kokomo”, which was also nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Song Written specifically for a Motion Picture or Television category (it lost to Phil Collins’s “Two Hearts”, from the film “Buster”).

In the 1990s, his years of addiction led to the need for a liver transplant in 1992. Several months later, however, he was photographed drinking alcohol in a bar in Palm Springs, California, as published in the National Enquirer newspaper. Phillips was questioned about the photo on the Howard Stern radio show, and explained, “I was just trying to ‘break in’ the new liver”.

The Mamas and the Papas were inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame on Jan 12th, 1998.

John Phillips died on March 18, 2001 in Los Angeles of heart failure at the age of 65. He is interred in an outdoor crypt at Forest Lawn Cemetery (Cathedral City) near Palm Springs, California, where he had lived with his fourth wife, Farnaz. He died just days after completing sessions for a new album. Phillips 66 was released posthumously in August 2001.

Claims of sexual relationship with his daughter

In September 2009, John’s daughter Mackenzie Phillips claimed in a new memoir, High on Arrival, that she and her father had a ten-year incestuous relationship. She stated that the relationship began when she was 18 years old in 1979, after Philips raped her while they were both under the influence of heavy narcotics on the eve of her first marriage.

Phillips appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show on 23 September 2009 in which she told Winfrey that her father injected her with cocaine and heroin. According to Phillips, the incestuous relationship ended when she became pregnant and did not know who had fathered the child. These doubts resulted in an abortion, which her father paid for, “and I never let him touch me again.”

Genevieve Waite, John’s wife at the time the claimed abuse occurred, denied the allegations and said they were totally incongruous with his character. Michelle Phillips, John’s second wife, also stated that she had “every reason to believe [Mackenzie's account is] untrue.”

Chynna Phillips, Mackenzie’s half-sister, stated that she believed Mackenzie’s claims and that Mackenzie first told her about the relationship during a phone conversation in 1997, approximately 11 years after the supposed relationship had ended. Bijou Phillips, Mackenzie’s other half-sister, said in a statement that Mackenzie had informed her of the relationship when Bijou was 13 years old, but also stated, “I’m 29 now, I’ve talked to everyone who was around during that time, I’ve asked the hard questions. I do not believe my sister. Our father is many things, this is not one of them.” Jessica Woods, the daughter of Denny Doherty, said that her father knew of the relationship.

Solo discography

John Phillips (John, the Wolf King of L.A.) (04/1969)

Brewster McCloud (12/1970) Soundtrack with Merry Clayton vocals

John Phillips (John, the Wolf King of L.A.) (04/05/1994 Edsel Records UK CD reissue)

Pay Pack & Follow (04/24/2001)

Phillips 66 (08/21/2001)

John Phillips (John, The Wolfking Of L.A.) (09/12/2006 Varese Sarabande CD reissue)

Jack Of Diamonds (07/10/2007)

Pussycat (09/09/2008)

Man On The Moon (07/21/2009)

References

^ The E! True Hollywood Story, Episode: “Mackenzie Phillips”. Entertainment Television Network, 1999. Phillips admits this in an on camera interview.

^ “Mackenzie Phillips: I slept with my own father”. People. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32976391/ns/entertainment-celebrities/. Retrieved 2009-09-23. 

^ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/23/mackenzie-phillips-to-opr_n_296431.html

^ http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/20090826-tows-mackenzie-phillips-book

^ Eng, Joyce. “Mackenzie Phillips’ Family Split Over Star’s Incest Claims”. Seattle Post-Intelligencer. http://www.seattlepi.com/tvguide/410465_tvgif23.html. Retrieved 2009-09-24. 

^ Everett, Cristina. “Chynna Phillips recalls learning about sister Mackenzie Phillips’ affair with father, John Phillips”. New York Daily News. http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2009/09/23/2009-09-23_chynna_phillips_recalls_learning_about_sister_mackenzie_phillips_affair_with_fat.html. Retrieved 2009-09-24. 

^ “Bijou Phillips reacts to Mackenzie’s Claims”. Oprah. http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/20090925-tows-mackenzie-chynna-phillips/2. Retrieved 2009-09-24. 

^ http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/dailydish/detail?blogid=7&entry_id=48565

^ “Denny Doherty’s Daughter Corroborates Mackenzie Phillips’ Story”. Oprah. http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/20090925-tows-mackenzie-chynna-phillips/8. Retrieved 2009-09-24. 

^ The E! True Hollywood Story, Episode: “Mackenzie Phillips”. Entertainment Television Network, 1999. Phillips admits this in an on camera interview.

^ “Mackenzie Phillips: I slept with my own father”. People. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32976391/ns/entertainment-celebrities/. Retrieved 2009-09-23. 

^ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/23/mackenzie-phillips-to-opr_n_296431.html

^ http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/20090826-tows-mackenzie-phillips-book

^ Eng, Joyce. “Mackenzie Phillips’ Family Split Over Star’s Incest Claims”. Seattle Post-Intelligencer. http://www.seattlepi.com/tvguide/410465_tvgif23.html. Retrieved 2009-09-24. 

^ Everett, Cristina. “Chynna Phillips recalls learning about sister Mackenzie Phillips’ affair with father, John Phillips”. New York Daily News. http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2009/09/23/2009-09-23_chynna_phillips_recalls_learning_about_sister_mackenzie_phillips_affair_with_fat.html. Retrieved 2009-09-24. 

^ “Bijou Phillips reacts to Mackenzie’s Claims”. Oprah. http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/20090925-tows-mackenzie-chynna-phillips/2. Retrieved 2009-09-24. 

^ http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/dailydish/detail?blogid=7&entry_id=48565

^ “Denny Doherty’s Daughter Corroborates Mackenzie Phillips’ Story”. Oprah. http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/20090925-tows-mackenzie-chynna-phillips/8. Retrieved 2009-09-24. 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32976391/ns/entertainment-celebrities/

External links

Papa John Phillips Official Website

John Phillips at the Internet Movie Database

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

The Mamas & The Papas Online Price Guide

Categories: 1935 births | 2001 deaths | American expatriates in the United Kingdom | American male singers | American rock singers | American songwriters | Americans of Cherokee descent | Welsh Americans | Cardiovascular disease deaths in California | Military brats | People from South Carolina | People self-identifying as alcoholics | The Mamas & the Papas members | English-language singersHidden categories: Wikipedia articles needing style editing from September 2009 | All articles needing style editing