Roberta Flack Roberta Flack was born February 10, 1940, in the small town of Black Mountain, NC, but she grew up in Arlington, VA. She was the daughter of Loran and Irene Flack, who were both skilled musicians. Her father taught himself to play the piano and her mother had formal piano lessons, which had Roberta around music all the time. She started taking formal piano lessons at the age of nine. At the age of 13 she had won second place in a state-wide piano competition between the black students. By the age of 15 she had already graduated from high school and earned a piano scholarship to Howard University.
Kenny Chesney Kenny Chesney was born March 26, 1968 in Knoxville, Tennessee. He went gold with Me and You in 1996, platinum with I Will Stand in 1997 and double platinum with Everywhere We Go in 1999. By 2000, Chesney was a bona fide star who was adored by legions of country music fans. In 2001 he released his first Greatest Hits album. In 2008 he toured, and was nominated for seven CMA Awards.
Dorothy Dandrige By: Erykah Hunter Early life Dorothy Dandrige was born on November 9, 1922 in Cleveland Ohio to aspiring entertainer Ruby Dandrige and Cyril Dandrige a cabinet maker and minister, who seperated just before her birth. Ruby created a song and a dance for her two daughters, Vivian and Dorothy, under the name of The Wonder Children, that was managed by Geneva Williams. Dorothy and her sister toured the Southern United States almost nonstop for five years (rarely attending school) while Ruby worked and performed in Cleveland. During the Great Depression, work virtually dried up for the Dandriges, as it did for many Chitlin circuit preformers. The Wonder Children were renamed The Dandrige Sisters
After six successful reprints of the Spanish-issue, "People" decided to release a Spanish-language version of their magazine, "People en Española" which became a popular selling magazine. Selena had many nicknames as a child including preciosa, and la Rena de tex-mex. Her trademarks were her sequin purple jumpsuit, silky pure black hair, and her shiny red lip-gloss. Selena was working on her first English album at the time she was killed. Sources say she was on her way to the studio when she was murdered.
A singer, pianist and songwriter, with a 'wispy, little-girlish' voice, Dearie is regarded as one of the great supper club singers (Line) <br>Her father was of Scottish and Irish descent; her mother emigrated from Oslo, Norway. Countless rumors surround the origin
She and Weston developed a comedy routine in which they assumed the identity of an incompetent lounge act named Jonathan and Darlene Edwards, parodying well-known songs. The act proved popular at parties and among the wider public when the couple released an album as the Edwardses in 1957. In 1961, the album Jonathan and Darlene Edwards in Paris won Stafford her only Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album, and was the first commercially successful parody album. Stafford largely retired as a performer in the mid-1960s, but continued in the music business. She enjoyed a brief resurgence in popularity in the late 1970s when she recorded a cover of the Bee Gees hit, "Stayin' Alive" as Darlene Edwards.
Wilma Glodean Rudolph was born prematurely at 4.5 pounds (2.0 kg), the 20th of 22 siblings from two marriages;[4][3] her father Ed was a railway porter and her mother Blanche a maid. [9] Rudolph contracted infantile paralysis (caused by the polio virus) at age four. She recovered, but wore a brace on her left leg and foot (which had become twisted as a result) until she was nine. She was required to wear an orthopaedic shoe for support of her foot for another two years. Her family traveled regularly from Clarksville, Tennessee, to Meharry Hospital (now Nashville General Hospital at Meharry) in Nashville, Tennessee for treatments for her twisted leg.
Unfortunately, Marilyn's fame and sexual image became a theme that haunted their marriage. Nine months later on October 27, 1954, Marilyn and Joe divorced. On June 29, 1956, Marilyn wed playwright Arthur Miller. The couple met through Lee Strasberg, and friends reported she made him "giddy." At the 1962 Golden Globes, Marilyn was named female World Film Favorite, once again demonstrating her widespread appeal.
He goes back to Sun Label supplementary to record more songs. He gets another chance to perform at the Louisiana Hayride. 00 later around this time, he records his first two songs at Sun Label. This was an audience of an elder generation who grew up with Frank Sinatra and business suit singing. He received the most applause of all the acts, won the talent show, and even performed and encore.
Florence Ballard Born in Mississippi, Florence Ballard's family relocated to Detroit during her childhood so that her father could find work in the city's then still-thriving auto industry. It was he, an amateur musician, that first instigated his daughter's interest in performing, teaching her various songs while providing accompaniment on the guitar. Florence continued developing her vocal skills through the choir and music classes provided by her school, and by her early teens her abilities had become well-established throughout the neighborhood of the Brewster Housing Project where her family resided. It was two of these neighbors, Eddie Kendricks and Paul Williams of a male vocal group called The Primes (which would later