Finally Friday Lake Party

19/08/2023

It wasn’t just a dream. Ahead of a show at Arrowhead Stadium Saturday night, the music star graced a Westport hair salon to get prepped.

16/08/2023

The body in charge of managing the Eiffel Tower said they would file a criminal complaint against the tourists.

16/08/2023

Some swear by a night on their side, others on their back. But which sleeping position is the best for a good night's rest?

31/07/2023

https://www.ranker.com/list/american-flag-etiquette/elise?utm_source=newsletters&utm_medium=weirdhistory&utm_campaign=wh_active&utm_content=%7Bdate%28%27yyyyMMdd%27%29%7D&lctg=

If you’re going to live in America then there are a few things that you should know: Bruce Springsteen rules, baseball is America's pastime, and the American flag is one of the most important pieces of living history that we have. Every good American should display an American flag somewhere in or...

28/07/2023

Last week, Taylor Swift had 4 albums in the Top 10 on the Billboard 200 chart. Herb Alpert accomplished this same historic feat in 1966! We put together a special playlist of those 4 Herb albums that were simultaneously in the Top 10 during that storied year. Enjoy!
Playlist on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3cXaIFxOy28gy8ouI8vhdf?si=5f612f74748a4ccf

28/07/2023

Born on This Day, July 27, 1944 in Chickasaw County, Mississippi was Roberta Lee Streeter, better known by her stage name, Bobbie Gentry.

Although Bobbie Gentry's career as a country and pop music performer was short-lived, her "Ode to Billie Joe" remains one of popular music's all-time classics. The mystery of the song inspired a movie of the same name, and even years after the fact, listeners continue to ask what Billie Joe threw off of the Tallahatchie Bridge. Keep reading, we give that answer a little later…

Although Gentry remained a one-hit wonder in many people's minds, she enjoyed several smaller hits, including a version of Burt Bacharach and Hal David's "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" that topped the charts in England. She also recorded several durable albums and was a pathbreaker as an ambitious female songwriter.

Her parents divorced soon after she was born, and she grew up in poverty on her grandparents' farm living with her father in Greenwood, Mississippi, where she attended elementary school. The hardship of her early life and of the Mississippi landscape would later permeate her music.

After her grandmother traded one of the family's milk cows for a neighbor's piano, seven-year-old Gentry taught herself to play the piano and composed her first song, "My Dog Sergeant Is a Good Dog".

When Gentry was 13, she moved to Arcadia, near Palm Springs, California to live with her mother, Ruby Bullington Streeter. Gentry soon learned to play guitar, banjo, bass, vibes, and began her performing career in local country clubs while she was in high school encouraged by Palm Springs celebrity Bob Hope.

Gentry borrowed her stage name from Ruby Gentry, a 1952 film starring Jennifer Jones as a heroine born into poverty but determined to make a success of her life. The name change not only confirmed Gentry's determination to be successful in show business, but also showed that she, unlike many other women singers of her time, would take charge of her own career.

After graduating from Palm Springs High School in 1962, Gentry settled in Las Vegas, where she appeared in the Les Folies Bergère nightclub r***e. She also worked clerical jobs and sang in nightclubs to save money to attend college. After a short career as a Las Vegas showgirl, she returned to California, studying philosophy at U.C.L.A. before transferring to the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music to hone her composition and performing skills.

She teamed with rockabilly singer Jody Reynolds to make her first singles in 1964, "Ode to Love" and "Stranger in the Mirror." Her career failed to take off, however, and she continued performing in nightclubs until Capitol Records executive Kelly Gordon heard a demo she recorded in 1967.

Although Capitol staffer rejected "Ode to Billie Joe" because he believed the lyrics were about abortion, Kelly offered Gentry's publisher $10,000 for the song. Capitol released her first single, "Mississippi Delta," but disc jockeys preferred the B-side, which was "Ode to Billie Joe." By August of 1967, the song rose to number one on American pop charts and remained there for the entire month. "Ode to Billie Joe" would also win Gentry three Grammy awards for Best New Artist, Best Vocal Performance (Female), and Best Contemporary Female Solo Vocal Performance.

In many ways "Ode to Billie Joe" was quite different from the usual country song of its the day. First of all, it was over four minutes long, and the musical production was spare, allowing Gentry's husky voice to take center stage. "The song sounded to me like a movie," producer Jimmy Haskell told Robert Webb of the Independent. Unlike many story songs, the lyric of "Ode to Billie Joe" was elliptical, neither offering a reason why Billie Joe committed su***de nor revealing the relationship between Billie Joe and the narrator. The unreleased demo ran for seven minutes, perhaps filling in more details, but despite much speculation, the song remains a mystery. "Whatever the story's secret," wrote Webb, "Gentry has kept her silence."

Gentry's career moved slowly after her first hit, but she nonetheless fashioned a number of artistic successes. Her second single, "I Saw an Angel Die," never reached the charts, though she had a minor hit with "Okolona River Bottom Band" in 1968. Despite the weak performance of her single releases, Gentry excelled in the studio, cutting fine albums such as The Delta Sweete and Local Gentry. "She later maintained she helmed the sessions herself," wrote Ankeny, "drawing on her Mississippi roots to compose revealing vignettes that typically explored the lifestyles, values, and even hypocrisies of the southern culture." Gentry also recorded with Glen Campbell, and the pair had a top 20 hit with "Let It Be Me."

Gentry recorded another well-received album in 1969; Ankeny contended that "Touch 'em With Love is Bobbie Gentry's finest studio effort, a fascinatingly eclectic and genuinely affecting record that broadened her musical horizons far beyond the limitations of the Nashville sound." Although her singles continued to struggle on the charts in the United States, her version of "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" reached number one in England, and the single's success prompted a short-lived BBC television show. As her chart presence dwindled, Gentry turned her talent toward mounting a r***e in Las Vegas, a variety show in which she starred, and for which she also helped to develop the costumes and choreography. She married Bill Harrah, manager of the Desert Inn Hotel, in 1969, but the marriage only lasted three months.

Gentry pioneered a splashy fusion of show biz pop and country-funk, a sound that reached its apex on 1969's self-penned, "Fancy", recorded with Rick Hall in Muscle Shoals, which rose to No. 26 on the Country chart and 31 on the Pop chart. “Fancy” seemed almost autobiographical. Gentry never said as much, but the sassy story of a girl who “might have been born just plain white trash but Fancy was my name... and I ain’t done bad” sounded like a sly confession-cum-celebration. What’s more, the smoky, bordello-set painting on the album cover was a self-portrait. So was the painting on the cover of 1971’s Patchwork, this time with Gentry sitting on the stoop of a southern shack, looking out into the distance. Patchwork turned out to be her last album to date.

Reba McEntire later turned "Fancy" into a major success in 1991, and a country music standard, signaling how deep and pervasive Gentry's influence was: she set the stage for generations of pop-savvy singers who blurred the lines between country and pop.

In the summer of 1974, she appeared in four episodes of The Bobbie Gentry Happiness Hour, a CBS summer replacement series. In 1976 she received a co-writing credit for Ode to Billie Joe, an intriguing television movie. The movie also provided its own answer to the question of what was thrown off of the Tallahatchie Bridge: a rag doll.

By the end of the 1970s, Gentry had quietly left the music scene behind and dropped out of public view, reportedly working behind the scenes in television production. "She just disappeared," Lucinda Williams told Rolling Stone, "and I heard she married some rich guy in Vegas. It just adds to the mystery of it all."

Her last public appearance as a performer was on Christmas night 1978, as a guest on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. She has deliberately remained out of the limelight ever since.

27/07/2023

Here's how 'heat-assisted detection and ranging,' aka HADAR, could revolutionize AI visualization systems.

26/07/2023

The two sides reached a tentative agreement on safety issues, including equipping more trucks with air conditioning equipment.

24/07/2023

Lisa Delap Treece

23/07/2023

On This Day, July 22, 1995:
Shania Twain scored her first career #1 hit with “Any Man of Mine”

Shania Twain put men in their place with her hit single "Any Man of Mine." The Canadian country-pop star laid down the law when she released the song in April of 1995 as the second single off her record The Woman in Me. It became Twain's first No. 1 on country radio and her second Top 40 on the pop charts, immediately endearing her to U.S. audiences.

She co-wrote "Any Man of Mine" with her then-husband and producer, Robert John "Mutt" Lange, a gutsy song she credits for bringing a lot of her success that followed.

"'Any Man of Mine' was a risky song to release," Twain told CMT Insider. "At the time, a lot of people were afraid of it. It was way too edgy for what was going on. Everybody was kind of leery about releasing it. And I remember when I went on the radio tour to introduce all this new music, it was so amazing getting a reaction to that song. Some people just loved it. They just fell in love with it right away. And other people it really did scare. I don't know whether they just didn't like it or whether they thought, 'Whoa!'"

Twain says she calls the song her "career song."

"That's the song I think that really, really broke me in a big way, because it was so different," she said.

How could she not, with the song earning Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance nominations during the 1996 Grammy Awards? The song also won Single of the Year at the Canadian Country Music Awards in 1995, proving that it really did resonate with more fans than it actually scared. She was a true trailblazer from the beginning, pushing boundaries and making the music she wanted to, even if it was scary at the time.

Twain knew that with every great song, there must be a great music video, so she definitely delivered. She uploaded a video on her Youtube channel called Behind The Video. There, the superstar reminisced on the location of the shoot, working with John and Bo Derek, and how she ended up being the fashion director on the set.

Her department store fashion didn't come without a cost, though. In the video, the star wears a pair of denim jeans, a denim vest, and a white t-shirt that does not cover her midriff. THE AUDACITY! A woman in country music not dressing modestly was nearly unheard of at the time.

CMT's Chet Flippo wrote, "Twain's allure was greatly enhanced by her videos, which truly were revolutionary for the time for country music. She was hectored at the time of the 'Any Man of Mine' video, with its belly button barrage, for ruining country music by exposing her navel. But that's about all she ever really did show, when you look back at her video work. She slyly hinted at the rest. And six months after that video midriff revelation, you couldn't walk down Music Row without encountering seeming hordes of midriff-baring babes with their navels hanging out."

Twain will always be remembered for being revolutionary in country and pop music. Her strong personality set her apart from those around her and made her a music and fashion icon. Twain's incredible songwriting brought her even more notable hits throughout her career, including "If You're Not In It For Love," "You're Still The One," "That Don't Impress Me Much," "Man, I Feel Like A Woman," and "Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under."

20/07/2023

We've been told the uncooked rice draws out moisture from the phone, but guess what? You’re actually doing more harm than good.

19/07/2023

Anyone have an opinion on this?
I can see both ways.
As an artist, you want to know your art is appreciated.
On the other hand, the girls were having a good time. Isn’t that what a concert is all about?

Miranda Lambert called out fans taking selfies during her concert and one of the women spoke to "GMA" about the incident.

17/07/2023

Had THE BEST time last night at the Kilde Barnfest in Black Duck MN. Some of the nicest folks anywhere, they not treated me great, but made a donation in my name to one of my favorite organizations, Vanderbilt Ingram cancer center! Thank you To Dewey and all the folks there!

13/07/2023

Dynamic entertainer! 38 year veteran of the Grand Ole Opry stage. 2022 inducted into the North Ameri

12/07/2023

Who is June? . Ok, I can die now… 😜😁


Written by: muuuahhhh, and

12/07/2023

This is really cool for Heidi.

Who is June? . Ok, I can die now… 😜😁


Written by: muuuahhhh, and

12/07/2023

Some even say the two-day tour stop had a bigger economic impact than the NFL Draft

12/07/2023

Congratulations to my sister, Barbara, on her well deserved artist career achievement award at last night’s Country Radio Hall of Fame awards.

Barbara invited me to attend with her. I spent the night and we had a great time getting ready for the event together.

Trisha Yearwood performed a tribute to Barbara singing “If loving you is wrong, I don’t wanna be right” and “I was country when country wasn’t cool”. The audience was extremely surprised when Garth Brooks joined Trisha on the ending of the song.

Barbara gave a heartfelt speech to a standing ovation. I could not be more proud of my big sister.

💕 Louise

12/07/2023

"It's a planet that shouldn't exist."

12/07/2023

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/first-blush/201908/how-people-really-feel-about-kissing

New research reveals what we really think about kissing.

10/07/2023

Lisa Delap Treece
Wish we were going!!
That’s a great show!!

Leroy Van D**e, of “Auctioneer” and “Walk On By” fame, star of the movie, “What Am I Bid?” is known around the world as an entertainer, recording artist, radio and television star, actor, auctioneer and veteran of the Nevada circuit. He has recorded over 500 songs, and probably holds the...

10/07/2023

The Very, Very, Very Long Run!
The Eagles announce a farewell tour that will last until 2025 - maybe longer! Good news Steely Dan will be joining them!

Writer TINA BENITEZ-EVES for www.americansongwriter.com has the story: After more than 50 years, the Eagles will close the chapter on their touring days with their The Long Goodbye Final Tour. The tour will kick off in the fall of 2023, and dates are expected to run through 2025.

“The Eagles have had a miraculous 52-year odyssey, performing for people all over the globe, keeping the music alive in the face of tragic losses, upheavals, and setbacks of many kinds,” said the band in a statement. “Credit and thanks go to our longtime management team, our dedicated road crew, and our exceptional backup musicians for providing skilled and steadfast support, throughout these many years. We know how fortunate we are, and we are truly grateful. Our long-run has lasted far longer than any of us ever dreamed. But, everything has its time, and the time has come for us to close the circle.”

The final tour, featuring the Eagles’ Don Henley, Joe Walsh, and Timothy B. Schmit, with Vince Gill and Deacon Frey, is currently scheduled to start on Sept. 7 at Madison Square Garden in New York City and go through several major cities within the U.S. before wrapping up on Nov. 14 in Lexington, Kentucky.

Still in its planning stages, according to the band, with more dates possibly added on at a later date, the 12-date tour will feature Steely Dan.

“We want to give all our fans a chance to see us on this final round,” said the Eagles. “So, scheduling information will be released as dates are set. The difficulties of booking venues for multiple nights may require us to return to certain cities, depending on demand.”

The band continued, “We hope to see as many of you as we can before we finish up. Most importantly, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for embracing this band and its music. At the end of the day, you are the reason we have been able to carry on for over five decades. This is our swan song, but the music goes on and on.”

Thursday, September 7 New York, NY Madison Square Garden
Monday, September 11 Boston, MA TD Garden
Saturday, September 16 Newark, NJ Prudential Center
Wednesday, September 20 Belmont Park, NY UBS Arena
Thursday, October 5 Denver, CO Ball Arena
Monday, October 9 Indianapolis, IN Gainbridge Fieldhouse
Friday, October 13 Detroit, MI Little Caesars Arena
Tuesday, October 17 Cleveland, OH Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse
Thursday, November 2 Atlanta, GA State Farm Arena
Tuesday, November 7 Charlotte, NC Spectrum Center
Thursday, November 9 Raleigh, NC PNC Arena
Tuesday, November 14 Lexington, KY Rupp Arenanergy Center

06/07/2023

The entire planet sweltered to the unofficial hottest day in human recordkeeping on July 3, according to University of Maine scientists at the Climate Reanalyzer project.

06/07/2023

Talking The Taylor Experience on this week’s Party!

"KC Welcomes Taylor ❤️" that's the message in one farmer's field in Ray County, MO. Will you be attending the concert?
https://www.kmbc.com/article/crop-art-in-missouri-welcomes-taylor-swift-to-kansas-city/44422878

05/07/2023

Kansas City is set to see a different type of RED at Arrowhead Stadium this weekend

02/07/2023

'Dark Kingdom,' the iconic Frank Frazetta painting that graced the cover of Molly Hatchet's 'Flirtin' With Disaster,' sold for $6 million in June 2023.

02/07/2023

When you come into head to the second floor to see Annie Get Your Gun memorabilia from Reba's Broadway debut starring as Annie Oakley!

01/07/2023

I have reached 170K followers! Thank you for your continued support. I could not have done it without each of you. 🙏🤗🎉

28/06/2023

You sleep for seven to eight hours almost every night, only to feel unrested through the morning or even most of the day. How could you be following a golden rule of sleep so right yet feel so wrong?

25/06/2023

Lisa Delap Treece

James Taylor has fallen ill, causing several concert cancellations. The six-time Grammy Award [...]

25/06/2023

For a country singer who was born in Houston, was raised in California, and has ties to Hot Springs, Arkansas, it all started with a song written by soul icon Otis Redding.
Barbara Mandrell's father grew up in Arkansas and was a musician. The Mandrells had a family band and Barbara grew up playing a variety of instruments including steel guitar and sax. Mandrell toured with Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline as a child. She came to Nashville in 1971 and quickly signed with Columbia Records.
Mandrell's first charted record in 1969 was "I've Been Loving You Too Long" that was written by Otis Redding (who had died in a plane crash a couple of years before). That record went to #55 but the next one, "Playing Around With Love" went to #18. Her next appearance on the charts was a duet with David Houston called "After Closing Time" which climbed to #5. Her next hit, "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" was the inspiration for her naming her band the "Do-Rites".
By 1977, Mandrell's hits were so consistent, she had 18 top 10 records out of the next 20 singles issued. Back when cable was in its infancy, Mandrell and her talented sisters had an NBC variety show for two years. At that time, a network show meant tens of millions of viewers saw you each week.
Despite a serious car wreck, Mandrell continued to be one of country's biggest stars though the 1980's. She voluntarily retired from music in the 1990's and since then has kept a low public profile although she did appear on the Grand Old Opry in 2022 to celebrate her 50th anniversary as a member.
Mandrell scored 28 top ten records including 5 number ones in a chart career that spanned 20 years. She was known as a consummate performer and did much to bring country music into the mainstream...and it all started with an r & b song written by a soul legend.

18/06/2023

Having a blast out on the road with my buddies Aaron Tippin & Sammy Kershaw on the Roots & Boots tour! Hope to see you at a show this summer!

18/06/2023

Gloria Estefan Wants Dolly & Kelly Clarkson To Record her Music. Check out the full article here at Music On The Rox. Stay tuned for more music news.

16/06/2023

How do you file a claim?

15/06/2023

Join us for an AARP Virtual Concert celebrating the connection between music and brain health

15/06/2023

How can cool your house this summer for less money to keep those bills down? Here are some answers.

15/06/2023

The series, titled Quarterback, is slated to debut on July 12, 2023