Mary Jewel King (June 21, 1910 – November 25, 1997) was an American rhythm and blues singer in New Orleans.
She is thought to have been born in Texas, and to have moved to New Orleans in the mid 1940s. Described as “an earthily unsophisticated singer,” by 1948 she was popular in New Orleans clubs such as the Dew Drop Inn. Sax man Red Tyler, a member of Dave Bartholomew’s Orchestra, remembered, “Jewel sang with us quite often. She was tall, attractive, and had a lot of stage presence. She worked real hard and was a good draw.” She made some unissued recordings in 1948, and returned to record in November 1949 at Cosimo Matassa’s studio. The session was produced by local bandleader Dave Bartholomew for Imperial Records, and was one of Bartholomew’s first productions. Musicians included Bartholomew, Herb Hardesty, Red Tyler, Ernest McLean, Frank Fields, and Earl Palmer. One of the tracks recorded, 3 x 7 = 21, written by Bartholomew and with a saxophone solo by Tyler, became a hit, reaching #4 on the Billboard R&B chart.
Imperial Records set up a tour for King, headlining over Fats Domino, who also had his first hit record at the time, but King withdrew at the last minute because her husband, Paul Gayten’s guitarist Jack Scott, refused to let her tour with Bartholomew’s band. Although Imperial released several further singles by King, they were not successful. She continued to tour in Texas and Oklahoma, and performed regularly with Scott’s band, appearing in clubs in San Antonio, Texas, in the mid-1950s.
Sorry, Wrong Number is a 1948 American thriller film noir directed by Anatole Litvak, from a screenplay by Lucille Fletcher, based on her 1943 radio play of the same name. The film stars Barbara Stanwyck and Burt Lancaster, with Ann Richards, Wendell Corey, and Harold Vermilyea.
Lucille Fletcher’s play originally aired on the Suspense radio program on May 25, 1943, essentially a one-woman show with Agnes Moorehead as Mrs. Stevenson, an imperious invalid who accidentally intercepts a phone call between two men plotting a murder for that evening. She tries to enlist the help of the telephone operator, the police, and a hospital, becoming more frantic as the time passes. In the final moments of the play, she realizes that she herself is the intended victim. The play was reprised seven times (on August 21, 1943, 1944, 1945, 1948, 1952, 1957 and 1960). The final broadcast was on February 14, 1960. Orson Welles called Sorry, Wrong Number “the greatest single radio script ever written.” In 2015, the May 25, 1943 broadcast was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the Library of Congress and selected for inclusion in the National Recording Registry.
Sorry, Wrong Number conforms to many of the conventions of film noir. The film plays in real time with many flashbacks, and adds more characters and backstories. The bedroom window overlooks the night skyline of Manhattan. The film is shot very dark, with looming shadows and a circling camera used to maintain a high level of suspense. Hollywood’s Production Code Administration initially objected to elements of Fletcher’s screenplay, including its depiction of drug trafficking, and the script was significantly revised to win approval. The other major change changes Agnes Moorehead to Leona Stevenson. Although not as well received as the radio play, with some critics noting the plot is too padded out, the movie adaptation is considered a classic of the film noir genre. Its twist ending is often cited as one of the era’s most memorable. Stanwyck’s performance was highly acclaimed, and garnered her a fourth Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.
Waking and Dreaming is the fourth studio album by American pop rock band Orleans. It was released on August 1976 by Asylum Records. The album reached #30 on Billboard’s Top LPs & Tape chart and spawned the singles Still the One (#5) and Reach (#51).
On the album cover, the five members appear shirtless. The cover has been proclaimed by various sources to be one of the worst attempts at a sexy album cover.
Here’s a recipe for disaster: give a child a toy that requires placing the item to the mouth to blow an object out, and then count the seconds until choking ensues. This is the Zulu Blow Gun in a nutshell. Rising to popularity among children back in the ’50s, the Zulu Blow Gun allowed kids to shoot harmless foam pellets at each other. Problem is, the Zulu Blow Gun requires a mighty gust of breath to launch its projectile.
Thus, kids would often breathe in too deeply, which could cause the projectile to be inhaled, potentially leading to death. The Zulu Blow Gun is seen as so dangerous that it has been outright banned in the United Kingdom, but the toy remains widely available in the States.
The Entire Town Buried Under a Lake (Urban Legend)
In the 1940s, an entire (evacuated) town in Georgia was purposefully flooded with water in order to build what is now known as Lake Lanier. The entire community, including a racetrack, was submerged by the lake-building project.
Lake Lanier is a North Georgia jewel: 38,000 acres of water for boating, drinking water and hydroelectric power.
The Buford Dam on Lake Lanier was a billion-dollar project. The groundbreaking was in 1950. The project was so big, it took an army to make it happen: the Army Corps of Engineers.
Now Army Corps rangers are seeing for the first time the maps of what would become the lake and surrounding area. They were discovered abandoned in a government warehouse near Washington D.C., about to be tossed in the trash, until Ranger Russ Lundstrum found out about them in 2014.
“I said, ‘Absolutely. Yes, send them to me.’ It was like Christmas,” Lundstrum said.
There are 44 maps in all, each one painting the picture of what the now submerged land was like before the dam went in.
Local farm homes, cemeteries and even a racetrack were submerged. During the extreme drought of 2007, the grandstands of the half mile track were uncovered.
The Corps of Engineers was given the Lake Lanier project in 1946, a year after the end of World War II. They didn’t make the first purchase of land until two years later.
Henry Shadburns’ Forsyth County farm and home were sold for $4,100. In all, 700 families were relocated along with local businesses and even railroad tracks. The maps detail it all, said Lundstrum.
“I have a great level of respect for the level of work that was put into these maps they all were hand-drawn with an ink pen,” Lundstrum said.
Lundstrum hopes the Corps will exhibit the maps one day. Not only for history buffs, but for the descendants of those who once lived on the land now under the lake.
In 2015, a tropical house cover of Fast Car was released by British record producer Jonas Blue. It is Blue’s debut single and features the vocals from British singer Dakota. It is the lead single of Blue’s debut album Blue. The Club Mix was included on Blue’s compilation, Jonas Blue: Electronic Nature – The Mix 2017.
In an interview with iHeartRadio, Blue stated Tracy Chapman’s original 1988 hit is a favorite of Blue’s mother’s, who would often play it in the car. “It was a good song in London [during] that time when I was growing up, so it was always on the radio,” he went on to say. “And it just kind of stuck with me. It was that song on the long journeys, and I loved it.”
Regarding Dakota, who provides vocals on the song, Blue said, “… she [said], ‘Oh, I’ve never done dance music before or anything like that so, I’m not kind of sure.’ And I was like, ‘Listen, you’d be great.’ And she came the next day to record it, and what you hear on the radio is her coming in the next day after her show to record it.” Blue also admitted that he wanted to create a Swedish-esque sound on the record: “I think with things like the synth lead lines in it, giving it that second hook, I was kind of going for a very kind of Swedish-y kind of sound. That’s kind of the influence behind that kind of lead synth line, and that was something which I don’t think people have picked up on yet, but they just like the song because of what it is.”
The Jonas Blue version peaked at #2 on the UK Singles Chart, behind Zayn Malik’s Pillowtalk. Its UK peak meant it charted higher than Chapman’s original, which peaked at #5 on the chart in May 1988 and a position higher upon a re-release in April 2011.
Outside the United Kingdom, the Jonas Blue version reached #1 in Australia and Hungary, whilst also peaking within the top ten in Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, New Zealand and Sweden. In the United States, the Jonas Blue version went to #1 on the Dance Club Songs chart.
Born Richard Terrance Knapp, Terry Knight was an American rock and roll music producer, promoter, singer, songwriter and radio personality, who enjoyed some success in radio, modest success as a singer, but phenomenal success as the original manager-producer for Grand Funk Railroad and the producer for Bloodrock.
Knight was born in Lapeer, Michigan, United States. After graduating from high school in 1961, he briefly attended Alma College before dropping out. Knight’s music career began as a DJ at Flint, Michigan’s Top 40 rock station WTAC, then going to Detroit in 1963 where he replaced Dave Shafer as “Jack the Bellboy” on WJBK. The following year, he moved across the river to CKLW in Windsor, Ontario. One of the first American DJs to air the Rolling Stones, he hosted a late night show from high-powered CKLW, bringing the British Invasion to the Northern states. He was awarded the honorary title of “The Sixth Stone” for his early support of the Stones. By the end of 1964, however, Knight had left CKLW and the radio business, intending to pursue his own career in music.
Around 1965, Knight fashioned a songwriting and performing career in Flint by becoming the front man for Terry Knight and the Pack. With this band, Knight recorded a handful of regional hits for Lucky Eleven Records, part of the Cameo-Parkway Records group, including his self-penned generation gap anthem A Change On the Way, and scored two national hits, a cover of the Yardbirds’ (You’re a) Better Man Than I, and his ultra-lounge reading of Ben E. King’s I (Who Have Nothing), which peaked at #46 nationally. The band left three garage rock classics before breaking up in 1967. Brownsville Station honored Knight and the Pack with a cover of the Knight-penned Love, Love, Love, Love, Love on their 1973 album Yeah!
In 1967 Knight moved to New York, and attempted a solo career as a singer and staff producer with the Cameo-Parkway label, with limited success. He produced and wrote a handful of tracks by other artists, including garage band ? & the Mysterians, and the easy-listening International Pop Orchestra. He also scored music for the 20th Century Fox noir film, The Incident (1967).
Knight traveled to London in 1968, hoping to become a recording artist or producer for the Beatles’ newly formed Apple Records. Knight met Paul McCartney and was present at some of the recording sessions for the band’s 1968 double album The Beatles (also known as the White Album), including the session when Ringo Starr temporarily quit the group. Knight was surprised to find the band members arguing with each other. He soon left London after he was unable to negotiate a contract with acceptable terms.
In early 1969, Knight secured a producer’s contract with Capitol Records which also allowed him to release his own songs as a solo artist. He wrote and recorded a single, Saint Paul, which may have contributed to the “Paul is dead” hoax that erupted late in the year. The cryptic lyrics of the song are generally thought to allude to Knight’s failed relationship with McCartney and his apparent belief that the Beatles would soon break up. The lyrics do not refer to death, but were interpreted by some fans as containing clues. The ending repeats the phrase “hey Paul” in an arrangement that sounds similar to the Beatles’ song Hey Jude. There are two versions, both in stereo. The full five-minute version contains a high-pitched voice singing lines from Beatles songs, including Hello, Goodbye, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and She Loves You, while the four-minute edit does not contain additional song excerpts.
Initial copies of the single listed Knight’s company Storybook Music as the publisher of Saint Paul. After Capitol received a cease and desist letter from the Beatles’ music publisher, Maclen Music (the U.S. division of Northern Songs), the record was pulled from distribution.
A deal was then worked out between Knight and Maclen Music. About a month later, in May 1969, Saint Paul was reissued with a publishing credit by Maclen. The second pressing of the record also contained a note on the label that stated that Hey Jude was “used by permission.” The reassignment of the publishing rights made Knights’ song the only non Lennon–McCartney tune owned by Maclen. Saint Paul reached the top 40 in some cities in the upper Midwest region but failed to make the Billboard Hot 100 national chart. The fact that Saint Paul was re-published by Maclen was seen by some Beatle fans as evidence of a conspiracy involving Knight, the Beatles and the “Paul is dead” rumor.
Saint Paul was re-recorded in 1969 by New Zealand singer Shane and became one of the best-selling singles of the 1960s in that country. In the early 1990s author Andru Reeve repeatedly tried to interview Knight while writing a book about the “Paul is dead” hoax. Reeve was unable to get Knight to talk about the song.
Still working as a producer with Capitol, Knight renewed his connection with two former Pack members, guitarist Mark Farner and drummer Don Brewer. Knight encouraged the two to add a new bass player and become a “power trio” along the lines of Cream. The group quickly added former Mysterians bassist Mel Schacher and changed their name to Grand Funk Railroad. While becoming their manager-producer, Knight helped steer the trio to international fame, beginning with his getting them onto the bill—for free—at the 1969 Atlanta Pop Festival. This live performance convinced Capitol to sign the trio. For the next two years, Grand Funk Railroad became the most popular rock attraction in the United States despite mixed critical reviews that Knight exploited as part of their appeal; he also discovered and produced the Fort Worth, Texas group Bloodrock, who hit the Top 40 in early 1971 with the unlikely death anthem D.O.A. (Dead On Arrival).
Between Grand Funk and Bloodrock, Knight racked up an unprecedented eight gold albums while simultaneously waging a war of words with Rolling Stone over the magazine’s frequent pannings of the two acts. But by early 1972, both Grand Funk and Bloodrock had severed their professional relations with Knight. In Grand Funk’s case, it involved court actions that kept the band tied up for almost two full years; they had demanded full royalty accounting and accused Knight of double-dipping as manager-producer, while the trio had not been getting all the monies they had earned. For his part, Knight would claim the band had had only three months left on their contract with him when they first took him to court, and could have been free with half the legal aggravation; the trio ultimately won their separation from Knight but at heavy cost, before adding keyboard player Craig Frost and continuing a successful recording and touring career through 1976.
Knight was also dropped from Capitol soon after the Grand Funk court actions were resolved and began his own label, Brown Bag Records, releasing albums and singles by Mom’s Apple Pie, John Hambrick, Wild Cherry and Faith Band. None of them found commercial success and, in late 1973, Knight retired permanently from show business. He associated with super model Twiggy and raced cars with film star Paul Newman in the mid-1970s before becoming addicted to cocaine, which consumed him. By the 1980s he had straightened himself out, settling in Yuma, Arizona with his daughter Danielle. He melded into the community working in advertising sales for a weekly newspaper.
On November 1, 2004, Terry Knight was murdered at the age of 61. He was stabbed multiple times by his teenage daughter’s boyfriend Donald A. Fair in their shared apartment in Temple, Texas, after Knight attempted to intercede in an argument over Fair’s use of methamphetamine. Fair claimed he was high on methamphetamine at the time of the killing, in an attempt to mitigate his sentence. Fair was sentenced on May 26, 2005 to life in prison. Terry Knight was cremated and buried in a family plot in Lapeer, Michigan. He is survived by daughter, Danielle. Four years after his death, Terry Knight and The Pack were voted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Online Hall of Fame.
Rage (written as Getting It On; the title was changed before publication) is a psychological thriller novel by American writer Stephen King, the first he published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. It was first published in 1977 and then was collected in 1985 in the hardcover omnibus The Bachman Books. The novel describes a school shooting, and has been associated with actual high school shooting incidents in the 1980s and 1990s. In response King allowed the novel to fall out of print, and in 2013 he published a non-fiction, anti-firearms violence essay titled “Guns.”
Charlie Decker, a Maine high school senior, is called to a meeting with his principal about a previous incident in which he struck his chemistry teacher with a pipe wrench, leading to the teacher’s hospitalization and Charlie’s suspension. Charlie then subjects the principal to a series of insulting remarks, resulting in his expulsion. Charlie storms out of the office and retrieves a pistol from his locker, then sets the contents of his locker on fire. He then returns to his classroom and fatally shoots his algebra teacher, Miss Jean Underwood. The fire triggers an alarm, but Charlie forces his classmates to stay in the room, killing a history teacher, Mr. Peter Vance, when he attempts to enter. As the other students and teachers evacuate the school, the police and media arrive at the scene.
Over the following four hours, Charlie toys with various authority figures who attempt to negotiate with him, including the principal, the school psychologist, and the local police chief. Charlie gives them certain commands, threatening to kill students if they do not comply. Charlie also admits to his hostages that he does not know what has compelled him to commit his deeds, believing he will regret them when the situation is over. As his fellow students start identifying with Charlie, he unwittingly turns his class into a sort of psychotherapy group, causing his schoolmates to semi-voluntarily tell embarrassing secrets regarding themselves and each other.
Interspersed throughout are narrative flashbacks to Charlie’s troubled childhood, particularly his tumultuous relationship with his abusive father Carl. Several notable incidents include a violent disagreement between two female students and a police sniper’s attempt to shoot Charlie through the heart. However, Charlie survives due to having earlier put the combination lock from his locker into the breast pocket of his shirt, where it stops the bullet.
Charlie finally comes to the realization that only one student is really being held against his will: a seeming “Big Man On Campus” named Ted Jones, who is harboring his own secrets. Ted realizes this and attempts to escape the classroom, but the other students brutally assault him, driving him into a battered catatonic state. At 1:00 p.m., Charlie releases the students, but Ted is unable to move under his own power and remains. When the police chief enters the classroom, the now-unarmed Charlie moves as if to shoot him, attempting suicide by cop. The chief shoots Charlie, but he survives and is found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a psychiatric hospital in Augusta, Maine until he can answer for his actions.
The final chapters contain an inter-office memo concerning Ted’s treatment and prognosis at the hospital where he is now a patient, and a letter from one of Charlie’s friends describing assorted developments in the students’ lives during the months following this incident. The story ends with Charlie addressing the reader: “That’s the end. I have to turn off the light now. Good night.”
Pioneer Chicken (or Pioneer Take Out, as it is officially named) is an American fried chicken restaurant chain which was founded in Echo Park, Los Angeles in 1961 by H. R. Kaufman.
It was named after Pioneer Market, a now-defunct small chain of supermarkets in Los Angeles. The original location in Echo Park was located next to the 1980s-era Pioneer Market (the original 1932 market was razed in the 1980s due to the Sylmar earthquake) at Echo Park Avenue and Sunset Boulevard, which was replaced by a Walgreens Pharmacy in 2004. Due to considerable redevelopment activity in the neighborhood, the original Pioneer Chicken location was shut down in March 2009 and replaced by a Little Caesar’s Pizza the following year. During the 1980s, Los Angeles Lakers announcer Chick Hearn and former football player O. J. Simpson advertised for the restaurant.
Pioneer Chicken was remembered for its bright orange deep fried chicken, menu option of gizzards and livers as appetizers, and Pioneer Pete, the company mascot and main character in comic books that were provided with their kid’s meals.
In 1988 founder H. R. Kaufman and business associate Terrence P. Goggin filed for Chapter 11 in Federal Bankruptcy Court. At that point, Pioneer Chicken had 220 franchise owners and 270 stores. The company faltered under competition pressure from Kentucky Fried Chicken.
In 1993, Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits owner AFC Enterprises purchased the franchise and converted most locations to Popeyes.
There are two remaining locations in the Los Angeles area: 1) 904 S. Soto Street, Los Angeles; 2) 6323 E. Florence Avenue, Bell Gardens.
Skins is a British teen comedy-drama television series that follows the lives of a group of teenagers in Bristol, South West England, through the two years of sixth form. Its controversial story-lines have explored issues like dysfunctional families, mental illness (such as depression, eating disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, and bipolar disorder), adolescent sexuality, gender, substance abuse, death, and bullying.
Each episode generally focuses on a particular character or subset of characters and the struggles they face in their lives, with the episodes named after the featured characters. The show was created by father-and-son television writers Bryan Elsley and Jamie Brittain for Company Pictures, and premiered on E4 on 25 January 2007. Skins went on to be a critical success as well as a ratings winner and has developed a cult following.
Over its initial six-year run, Skins was atypical of ongoing drama series in that it replaced its primary cast every two years. Plans for a film spin-off were first discussed in 2009, but ultimately did not come to fruition. Instead, a specially-commissioned seventh and final series of the show was broadcast in 2013, featuring some of the cast from its 2007–2010 run.
Co-creator Bryan Elsley recalls his first conversation with his son Jamie Brittain, soon to be co-creator, which led to the creation of the popular and edgy show. Brittain critiqued many of his father’s other ideas for a TV series. He started with the idea that being a teenager co-existed with poor behaviour, casual sex, and experimenting with drugs and alcohol. Most shows with teenagers pretended that these things did not happen especially involving consequences, which this show also lays bare. Elsley has been defending his controversial show for years. His philosophy explored how teenagers believe adults act in corrupted ways, which explains why most adults in the show appear to be crooked, in poor relationships, swearing, and overall poor parents.
The show’s writing team has an average age of 21, and includes several “teenage consultants.” Elsley said, “It’s all about the writing. […] We’re about letting our audience feel they are not alone. […] We’re always having people miss [writing] meetings because they’ve got A-levels or even GCSEs.”
In January 2011, Jamie Brittain announced a writing competition open to the public to help with the developing and writing of Series 6. According to Brittain, the winner will receive “a four-month placement in the Skins writers’ room, where you’d be invited to attend at least 10 of our top secret meetings, working with [Brittain] and the other Skins writers,” as well as monetary compensation. The winners of the 2011 competition were Sophie Boyce (18) and Joe Hampson (21). The winner of the 2008 competition, Dan Lovett, went on to become an official member of the Skins writing team.
Other ventures to expand the brand have included a short-lived American remake, which aired on MTV in 2011, but was cancelled after one season after advertisers abandoned the series in response to low ratings.