Bessie Virginia Blount was born on November 24, 1914, in Hickory, Virginia. During World War II as a part of her work working with wounded soldiers,, Blount invented a device to help amputees feed themselves, the apparatus. She invented the electric feeding device in 1951, a feeding tube that delivered one mouth full of food at a time. Blount device was not accepted by the American Veteran’s Administration, so Blount sold it to the French Government. Bessie Blount was once a physical therapist for Theodore Edison son of famed inventor Thomas Edison. Blount and Edison became very close friends while in his home Blount invented the disposable cardboard emesis basin, this invention was also rejected by the American Veterans Administration and…
Eve Smith was the founder of Eve’s Phoenix Print shop, located in Toronto area is a socially and environmentally responsible commercial print shop that helps homeless and at risk youth to achieve self-reliance. Company mission is to work hard and find the solutions that create opportunities for homeless and at-risk youth to build healthy and productive futures that enable them to dismount the street life. There is a high demand for workers in the printing industry but very few Business initiatives that encourage young people to consider printing as a career choice. At the Eve’s Print Shop youths are receives: life skills training and counseling; on-the-job print shop training in graphic design and career development assistance. Eva’s Phoenix offers this advantage to the industry as well as providing guidance to homeless and at risk youth by giving them structure, education and a path to self-improvement. Eve Phoenix mission is well recognized by its staff, partners and stakeholders.…
In 1929, Smith made her film appearance, in “St. Louis Blues”. In the film, she sings the title song with members of Fletcher Henderson's orchestra, the Hall Johnson Choir, pianist James P. Johnson.…
This paragraph will be on Yesterday & Today: Country Music Singers. The first article will be on Loretta Lynn and the second article will be on Carrie Underwood. First is Ms. Loretta Lynn she grow up in a poor Kentucky mining town. Loretta comes from a family with no too little money, her father works long hard hours in a coal mine, while her mother takes care of her and you seven siblings. Second is Ms. Carrie she grow up in Checotah Oklahoma and she became and overnight celebrity. On the TV in 2005 she saw a story that change her life, she saw that thousands of 18-to-25 year old were sleeping in tents in Ohio, just to try out for the TV show American Idol, and with that her family begged her to go and try out. In the end both became well…
Aretha Franklin is nicknamed the queen of soul and that nickname suits her well. She was born in Memphis, Tennessee on March 25, 1942. Aretha Franklin recorded her first album at the age of 14. “The Gospel Sound of Aretha Franklin” She was exposed to gospel music and soul music in large part because of her father Reverend C.L. Franklin who was a minister and gospel musician. Her father was unfortunately killed in 1979 and remained in a coma for 5 years. As tragic as that was she kept pushing forward and her work clearly paid off as Aretha was the first woman to be inducted in to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She was also considered to be the icon of soul music and black pride. She was first signed to Columbia records in the early 60s and…
In the late 1930's, during the Harlem Renaissance, when Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God was written, the sounds of jazz and blues music filled the air (Hurston). Revolutionary artists such as Duke Elington, Teddy Wilson and Bessie Smith became household names as African-Americans began to develop a reputation for themselves as musicians (Blackburn). Among these artists was Billie Holiday, "the first popular jazz singer to move audiences with the intense, personal feeling of classic blues, changing the art of American pop vocals forever (Billie)." It was not only musicians who were participating in this renaissance, there where painters, activists and…
During the years 1954 through 1968, times were hard for african american people. In Alabama, african american people did not have access to the same equipment and things that white people had. When going to places, africans could only go to certain areas in certain places, or they would get arrested. For example, some places and things that required you to be white to get the better quality were school's, restrooms, water fountains, and restaurants. African american people would be discriminated, and racism scattered all over Alabama. During these hard times, african americans would wear the usual regular clothes, which were denim jeans, blue jeans, and regular T-shirts. African american people would also dress decent because when protesting…
Carl T. Rowan (1925-2000) was born in Tennessee and received degrees from Oberlin College and the University of Minnesota. He worked for years as a columnist for the Minneapolis Tribune and the Chicago Sun Times, expressing his views of a variety of issues, especially race relations. Rowan also served as the director of the United States Information Agency and was the ambassador to Finland.…
According to Megill and Demory(1989), the blues is the root of jazz music. Indeed, without the blues there would be no jazz as we know it today. However, Kamien (2015) stated that blues are form of vocal and instrumental music style of performance. The development of blues music starting at “ African American folk music, such as work songs, spirituals,and the field hollers of slave” (Kamien, 2015, p. 474). He also mentioned that the characteristic of blues usually have twelve bars in length in terms of harmonic framework and it only consist of three basic chords : tonic (I), subdominant(IV), and dominant(V). Apart from that blues rhythm is also very flexible. This is because usually performers often sing or play around the with the beat by accenting the notes either just before the beat or after (Kamien, 2015). Blues jazz are still heard until today. There are few legendary blues musicians. Those famous musician and singers are B.B. King, Bessie Smith,Robert Johnson and John Lee Hooker and Herbie Hancock. Megill and Demory (1989) also claim that blues singer were actually accompanied by pianist or small ensemble. He states that blues music are relatively unstructured and include a good deal of improvisation.…
This girl regrets nothing! I mean literally nothing! I'm talking about my best friend Rylie Smith. She was born 4/21/2003. Rylie was born in Finely Hospital, Dubuque, Ia. She has two younger brothers, three older sisters, one older brother and one brother and sister on the way. When Rylie was little she had 28 pet's. There are ten pet's alive write know. She has four cats, four dogs, and two fat goldfish. Eighteen of the pet's are either dead or disappeared there were ten cats, one dog and seven snails that died or disappeared.…
Blues music or R&B has a variety of different types of music. It is produced and supported by primarily blacks around the world. Beginning in the early 1940s, rhythm and blues music embraced genres as jump blues, club blues, black rock, and roll, doo wop, soul, Motown, funk, disco, and rap. It was first coined in 1949 by Jerry Wexler, who became prominent with Atlantic Records. Southern soul was originated by James Brown and Ray Charles. On many of the early soul records, Charles would take a traditional religious song and transform it into a secular paean to love. Handyside states Rhythm and Blue’s first true superstar and all around musical innovator was Ray Charles. It is not often that one can point to a single song and claim that it invented a new genre, but this was the case with Charles. In 1954 Charles hit song “I Got a Woman” was the popular notion of soul music.…
The earliest roots of rock and roll can be seen in jazz and blues music. Jazz was most often played with big bands but smaller combinations of bands started to evolve late in the music era that included guitar, stand-up bass, piano, drums, and a horn section. These bands soon created a jazz and blues hybrid sound. One of the first musicians to combine jazz and blues was Louis Jordan who originated the "jump blues", an up-tempo, hard driving, blues-based dance music (Kallen 14). Jordan's jump blues inspired many musicians including Wynonie Harris, an R&B singer that is credited with pioneering rock in roll in 1947.…
Particularly from the southern part of Mississippi, blues came into being with its first ever recorded blues…
Along with its Jazz counterpart, Blues is the only true American music form and has deep roots in American history, particularly African-American history. The blues originated on the Southern plantations in the 19th Century. Its inventors were slaves, ex-slaves and the descendants of slaves. During their back-breaking work in the fields of the Southern plantations, black slaves developed a way of singing to make the pain of their enslavement more bearable. This way of singing was known as ‘call and response’, and began when one man with a strong voice would start a song, which all of the other workers seemed to know and would have a response back to the call. These "field hollers" served as a basis of all blues music that was to…
As vaudeville grew in the early 1900's, it was mainly composed of northern performers. However, their example showed southern performers that one could make music playing in public. This realization spawned the first generation of "hillbilly" performers. The term "hillbilly" was popularized in the 1920's after a musician by the name of Al Hopkins. He told his producer to name his band whatever he liked because they were just a bunch of hillbilly's from North Carolina and Virginia.…