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Procol Harum

Procol Harum were an English rock band formed in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, in 1967. Their best-known recording is the 1967 hit single "A Whiter Shade of Pale", one of the few singles to have sold more than 10 million copies. Although noted for their baroque and classical influence, Procol Harum's music is described as psychedelic rock and proto-prog with hints of the blues, R&B, and soul.

In 2018, the band was honoured by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when "A Whiter Shade of Pale" was inducted into the new Singles category. They were previously nominated as performers in 2012.

Formation
In 1966, after Southend-on-Sea-based group The Paramounts were unable to generate any follow-up success with their UK top 40 single "Poison Ivy", the group disbanded. Their frontman Gary Brooker decided to retire from performing and focus on songwriting, and his old friend Guy Stevens introduced him to lyricist Keith Reid. In April 1967, after several months writing together while failing to find any artists interested in performing their songs, Brooker and Reid decided to form their own band which would use their songs as their sole material. Brooker, in addition to vocals and the piano, was also proficient on the organ, trombone, cornet, piano accordion and Bengal flute. Paramounts drummer Barrie "B. J." Wilson agreed to stay on and rehearse for the new group and auditions brought them bassist David Knights and two members of George Bean and the Runners, Richard Brown (guitar) and Alan Morris (organ). But the lack of gigs and money led to the dispersal of this grouping before they even got out of the rehearsal hall, with only Knights staying on. They next teamed with organist Matthew Fisher, who had left Screaming Lord Sutch's backing group The Savages and advertised for work. Reid said he was right for Procol Harum just from talking to him and decided before hearing him play. Guitarist Ray Royer was chosen after the group placed an advertisement for players and were inundated, so the band "really grilled the applicants" to find "someone with the right state of mind." Reid said bassist David Knights had also been chosen in a similar manner to Fisher, in that he was right for the group "as a person", and had an original playing style. Drummer Bobby Harrison completed the line-up, after the group had tried out up to nine drummers by this point. Reid said Harrison was the first that the band "could really work with", and had a sense of humour that helped balance out the more serious personality that Reid and the rest of the band had. The band chose Stevens as their manager.

The group named themselves after a male blue Burmese cat, which had been bred by Eleonore Vogt-Chapman and belonged to Liz Coombes, a friend. Stevens suggested the group name themselves after the cat, which the group immediately accepted. However, the cat's pedigree name was in fact Procul Harun, the Procul being the breeder's prefix, but the name was taken down over the telephone, leading to a misspelling. Although people informed the band that the name is Latin for "beyond these things", this is incorrect as the correct term would be procul hīs.

"A Whiter Shade of Pale" and debut album (1967–1968)
In April 1967 the group entered Olympic Studios in London to record their debut single, "A Whiter Shade of Pale". They were joined by session drummer Bill Eyden in place of Harrison (though Harrison did play on the B-side "Lime Street Blues"), producer Denny Cordell and sound engineer Keith Grant. With a structure reminiscent of Baroque music, the song features a countermelody based on J. S. Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major played by Fisher's Hammond organ. An enthusiastic response from listeners of the pirate radio station Radio London prompted Deram Records to rush-release the single for 12 May 1967. It was an instant worldwide success, reaching No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart for six weeks and the same spot in eleven countries. In three weeks, it became the fastest selling record by a new group. In the US, it peaked at No. 5 and the song has since sold over 10 million copies worldwide. Around the same time, Cordell suggested that Jonathan Weston be brought in to co-manage the band with Stevens.

Procol Harum played their first live gig at London's Speakeasy club on the day "A Whiter Shade of Pale" was released. They performed a set of mostly Brooker/Reid songs mixed with covers of Bob Dylan, The Rascals and Tim Rose tunes. Jimi Hendrix was an early vocal supporter of the band and attended their first show where, at the start of their performance of Rose's "Morning Dew", he went on stage, took Knights' bass and joined in.

After 18 June, the group would not play live in the UK until the following year.

On 15 July 1967 the group announced the departure of Royer and Harrison and their split from Weston as manager. Fisher later said that the major issue for the split with Weston was when he organised an extensive UK tour for Procol Harum too soon after the release of "A Whiter Shade of Pale", resulting in the group performing "for £60 per night instead of £500." Following the addition of guitarist Robin Trower and the return of B. J. Wilson, the band secured new management under Tony Secunda. The departures brought about what Brooker described as "great lawsuits and expense" from Royer, Harrison, and Weston, and initial session drummer Eyden filed his own suit. Roughly three months into their partnership with Secunda, the band hired two Americans, Bennett Glotzer and Ronnie Lyons, to manage them in the US.

The group's follow-up single, "Homburg", was released in September 1967. The song reached No. 6 in the UK and No. 34 in the US. In the same month their debut album, Procol Harum, recorded between the two hit singles, was released in the US. Brooker said its release soon after the singles put the band in good stead in the US, but the problems created by the line-up changes, subsequent lawsuits and new management delayed its release in the UK until December. Brooker said it was at this point where the band "had lost the British audience."

Follow-up albums and break-up (1968–1977)
The band's follow-up album, Shine on Brightly was released the following year and saw a greater excursion into progressive rock stylings. It reached number 24 in the US but failed to chart in the UK. Finding themselves labelled as one-hit wonders in their home country, while in the US their reputation as a live act only continued to improve, for the next several years Procol Harum spent most of their time touring America.

Their third album, A Salty Dog (1969), was popular among fans and their first album to sell well in the UK. The title track in particular gained a good deal of US FM radio airplay, and the album is now considered a rock classic, appealing to fans of The Beatles, The Moody Blues and Pink Floyd. Procol Harum were asked to perform at the Woodstock Festival in August 1969, but were unable after Trower's wife was expecting a baby and needed to return to England.

Later in 1969, Fisher left the band and was replaced by Chris Copping, another former member of The Paramounts, who played organ and bass. The group appeared at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival.

By 1971, the disparities in style had become too great and, after the release of their fifth album Broken Barricades, Trower left to form his own power trio. He was replaced by Dave Ball, while Alan Cartwright (a former bandmate of Wilson's in Freddie Mack's band) took over bass from Copping, who remained on organ.

In mid-1971, Procol Harum severed ties with Glotzer and Lyons and legally fought an accounting dispute which was settled out of court. The band went on to sign with Chrysalis Records and completed a successful UK tour opening for Jethro Tull.

During the band's 1971 tour, Procol Harum recorded their show on 18 November in Edmonton, Alberta with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and a choir for a live album. Released in April 1972, Procol Harum Live: In Concert with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra was met with commercial success when it peaked at No. 5 in the US, where it was certified gold for selling 500,000 copies. In the UK, it peaked at No. 48. The live rendition of "Conquistador" from their debut album reached No. 16 in the US and No. 22 in the UK.

After Dave Ball left, Mick Grabham was the group's guitarist from 1972 until 1977.

The band continued with their new symphonic rock sound on their follow-up, Grand Hotel. Released in March 1973, the album reached No. 21 in the US. It did not chart in the UK, but it was certified silver for selling over 60,000 copies there.

The band returned to its hard rock roots with their seventh studio album Exotic Birds and Fruit, released in April 1974. Reid said the group made a conscious attempt to "dispel that symphonic image" that they had been attached to and has a similar sound to their debut. The album's sleeve was absent of lyrics in the liner notes.

In 1975 Procol Harum played the final night at the Rainbow Theatre in London before its refurbishment.

The personnel changes contributed to declining sales in the later part of the 1970s, with "Pandora's Box" being the final UK Top 20 hit in 1975. Its parent album Procol's Ninth saw a re-connection with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who both produced and wrote with the band.

In 1976 the band regrouped to record their final album of the 1970s, Something Magic. This marked the departure of Cartwright, after Brooker thought Copping was a better bassist which led to the arrival of newcomer Pete Solley on keyboards. The album's producers were not impressed with the group's material, which took the form of "The Worm and the Tree", an extended track that originated from a theme of Brooker's that the band had attempted some years before, but the group "made it up as we went along" in the studio.

Something Magic was released in March 1977 and peaked at No. 147 in the US. During the subsequent tour, the band celebrated their tenth anniversary with a concert at the Palladium Theatre in New York City in May.

In April 1977, during the promotional tour for Something Magic, Copping joined Frankie Miller's band and was replaced in Procol Harum by Elton John's former bassist Dee Murray. The tour ended in May, and the following month Grabham announced that he had left the band, claiming that he had been "generally dissatisfied with my role ... for some months". The band played one final show in October when "A Whiter Shade of Pale" co-won the Single of the Year award at the 1977 Brit Awards, with Brooker, Wilson and returning members Cartwright and Copping joined by guitarist Tim Renwick.

Reformation and the 1990s
After Reid and Brooker teamed up to write once again in late 1989, the band reformed in 1991, with Brooker, Fisher, Trower and Reid (Wilson had died in 1990 after three years in a persistent vegetative state following a drug overdose) and released The Prodigal Stranger, but sales were modest. After the album's release, a new incarnation of the band, with Brooker and Fisher but not Trower, toured the US and the world for a few years in the first half of the 1990s. Tim Renwick took over on guitar, with Dave Bronze on bass and Mark Brzezicki on drums. Renwick was replaced later in the year by Geoff Whitehorn.

After a tour which spawned One More Time: Live in Utrecht 1992, Fisher briefly stepped away from the band to focus on studying for a degree, with Don Snow temporarily taking over for a summer tour. Laurence Cottle substituted for Bronze, who was performing with the Hamsters, at a show in August.

After nearly a year of inactivity, Procol Harum performed a handful of shows in May and June 1993, with former Diamond Head keyboardist Josh Phillips filling in for Fisher and former King Crimson drummer Ian Wallace in place of Brzezicki, who had rejoined Big Country. Fisher returned for shows starting in July, and Matt Pegg replaced Bronze the following month. Touring continued sporadically throughout the rest of the decade – Graham Broad performed drums for a run of shows in July and August 1995, and Henry Spinetti took over for shows in 1996.

In August 1995 Procol Harum played at the Cropredy Music Festival, as guests of Fairport Convention. They also toured US and UK the same year, performing at several locations.

In July 1997 fans arranged the celebration of the 30th anniversary of the success of "A Whiter Shade of Pale" and invited the then-inactive band to play a concert at Redhill, Surrey. The band played a one-off show in celebration of the 30th anniversary of "A Whiter Shade of Pale", with the regular lineup joined on several songs by former members Mick Grabham, Peter Solley, Alan Cartwright, Dave Bronze and Chris Copping.

In late 1999, Brooker promised that "Procol will play in 2000", and in September the band played an open-air gig with the New London Sinfonia in Guildford.

2000s
In 2000 Procol Harum received some attention after the song "In Held Twas in I" appeared on the band Transatlantic's debut album.

Since 2001 the band, comprising Brooker, Fisher, Geoff Whitehorn (guitar), Matt Pegg (bass) and Mark Brzezicki (drums), has made several tours of mostly Europe, but also Japan and the US. A 2001 concert in Copenhagen, Denmark was released on DVD in 2002. In 2003 the band released a new studio album, The Well's on Fire and appeared at the Progman Cometh festival in Seattle. Their concert in London on Friday 12 December 2003, with much of the material from that album, was released on DVD in 2004: Live at the Union Chapel.

Long-time organist Matthew Fisher left the band in June 2004 due to "unresolved matters", with former stand-in Josh Phillips taking his place on Hammond again, leaving Brooker as the only original performing member. These matters were later revealed to have been a lawsuit filed by Fisher against Brooker and the band for songwriting credits and a share of royalties on "A Whiter Shade of Pale", which he won in December 2006.

The band resumed a limited touring schedule in 2005. In June 2006 they played at the Isle of Wight Festival. In August they played two outdoor concerts with the Danish Radio Orchestra at Ledreborg Castle in Denmark, which were tele-recorded. An hour-long edit of the show was broadcast on Christmas morning 2008 on Danish Channel DR2 and the full concert was issued on DVD on 11 May 2009 (with six extra tracks from a Danish television recording of the band from 1974).

Later in 2006, they played in Switzerland, Norway and Denmark, but with Geoff Dunn replacing Brzezicki on drums, because the latter's other band Casbah Club was touring with The Who. Then Dunn ended up replacing Brzezicki permanently for the band's European tour in 2007. Recordings from the Italian concerts were later released as One Eye to the Future – Live in Italy 2007. Procol Harum also played an orchestral concert in Sweden on 30 June. They performed with the Gävle Symphony Orchestra at the outdoor opera venue Dalhalla, near Rättvik.

On 20 and 21 July 2007 fans arranged the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the success of "A Whiter Shade of Pale" and invited the band to play. This took the form of two concerts at St John's, Smith Square in London. 20 July saw Procol Harum play a mixture of songs from their early days through to the début of a couple of new songs, "Sister Mary" and "Missing Persons". The following night 'Gary Brooker and Guests' performed a mixture of obscure songs by Brooker–Reid that had either never been recorded, never been performed live before or were significantly different from the versions they recorded.

Although there was no Procol Harum activity in 2008, their manager Chris Cooke, on the web site Beyond the Pale, announced plans for a live DVD and a new album in 2009, as well as festival concerts in Norway on 17 July and Finland on 23 July. Just before the latter concert, Brooker fell off a pile of road-side logs in Finland and broke several ribs. The show went ahead but he was unable to sing properly, and many of the songs were performed either as instrumentals or sung by others in the band.

In October 2009 with Brooker fully recovered, the band performed four concerts – in Hagen (Germany), Drammen (Norway), Moscow and St Petersburg. All This and More, a four-disc retrospective (three CDs and a DVD with historical notes) was released in the autumn of 2009, and Salvo also issued all of the band's previous albums as remastered CDs with extra tracks, some never previously heard.

2010s
Procol played a string of US (and Toronto) concert dates in June 2010, mostly opening for Jethro Tull. On 22 July Procol again headlined at the Keitelejazz Festival in Äänekoski, Finland – the venue where the band performed with an injured Brooker in 2009. They described this loyal Finnish audience as "the best in the world" and played a unique three-verse version of "A Whiter Shade of Pale" with a guitar solo from Geoff Whitehorn. 48 hours later Procol were invited to give a free concert at the courtyard of the Palace of the Province of Bergamo in Italy.

In August 2010 they appeared in Bad Krozingen in Germany and a Rock Legends event at the Dolina Charlotty Amphitheater in Poland. After a Halloween gig in Leamington Spa (their first in the UK for three years) the band returned to North America in November, including a return orchestral event with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra on 9 November. After playing in Tallinn, Estonia on 18 November, they returned to the US for an orchestral concert in Wilmington, Delaware on 4 December. Over 13,000 people saw eight New Year concerts with the Danish Radio Orchestra in Copenhagen and other Danish cities in January 2011.

On 29 May 2012 Gary Brooker was hospitalised after suffering a fall in his hotel room in Cape Town. He was due to have performed with his band at GrandWest Arena on the 30th, with fellow Brits 10cc and The Moody Blues, in a tour billed as the 'British Invasion' and then again in Johannesburg on Friday 1 June 2012. Brooker (whose birthday it was) had been in his room at the five-star Table Bay Hotel. He was admitted to the ICU of the Christiaan Barnard Memorial Hospital with a serious skull fracture.

The band returned to Denmark for the Kløften Festival on 25 June before embarking on a 27-date U.S. tour supporting Yes.

In 2012 the Japanese artist Yumi Matsutoya came to London to record "A Whiter Shade of Pale" with Procol Harum, a band she considered an inspiration for her work. She sang a duet with Gary Brooker on this new version of the 1967 classic, which featured three verses and a guitar solo by Geoff Whitehorn. Yumi and Procol Harum then played a series of December concerts in major Japanese cities, one of which was recorded for a later television showing (on 31 March 2013).

Also in 2012, Henry Scott-Irvine published a biography of the band, Procol Harum – The Ghosts of A Whiter Shade of Pale. Scott-Irvine also hosted a rare Procol Harum film evening at the BFI on the South Bank, which was attended by members of the group.

In September 2012 Procol Harum was among fifteen final nominees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Class of 2013 (induction 18 April 2013). In the subsequent election that December, however, the band failed to gain enough votes for election.

In March and April 2013 Procol Harum played a series of five orchestral concerts in Denmark and two such events in Wuppertal in Germany. Four band-only concerts in Sweden & Finland were held in early October.

In 2014 the band toured again in France, Switzerland, Germany, Canada (Ottawa with orchestra) and the Eastern U.S. The band also played a five-song set at Kenney Jones' Rock'n'Horsepower charity event at Ewhurst, Surrey in June, on a bill including Alvin Stardust, John Lodge, Nik Kershaw, Mike Rutherford, Judie Tzuke and The Who. A twin CD, Inside & Outside, was issued with studio tracks from the Chrysalis years and a live CD including new material and performances of tracks from their first four Zonophone albums.

On Monday 24 November Procol Harum appeared at the Dominion Theatre in London with the BBC Concert Orchestra and Crouch End Festival Chorus in an event recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 2's Friday Night is Music Night on 28 November. Guitarist Geoff Whitehorn was hospitalised during rehearsals and at short notice Rick Wakeman's guitarist Dave Colquhoun deputised (on crutches, after a broken ankle). He played a guitar solo in the first extended, orchestrated version of Keith Reid's 9/11 tribute song "Blink of an Eye", dedicated by Gary Brooker to the brave firefighters of the 8th Avenue station who the band often talked with after gigs in New York.

The band's 13th album, Novum, was released on 21 April 2017 and the band played 36 dates in the UK and Europe to promote it. However, the most significant concert of the year came in March when the band played with an orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Whilst leaving the stage at the end of the first half, Gary Brooker fell and was seriously hurt. He reappeared for the second half with his head bandaged and nursing "a broken hand".

In 2018 the band again toured in Europe, including an orchestral show at the London Palladium on 9 October. They commenced 2019 with a Caribbean cruise hosted by Justin Hayward, with many well-known rock acts. A US tour was due to follow.

Brooker's death
Brooker, the only constant member of the band and the main songwriter, died on 19 February 2022. The band's website described him as "a brightly shining, irreplaceable light in the music industry". "A Whiter Shade of Pale" entered the UK Official Singles Sales Chart Top 100 at number 38 on 25 February 2022. After his death, Procol Harum disbanded for good.

Authorship lawsuit
In July 2009, Matthew Fisher won a British court judgment awarding him 40% of the music royalties from 2005 onwards for 1967's "A Whiter Shade of Pale", which had previously gone 50% to Brooker for the music and 50% to Reid for the lyrics.

Discography

 * Studio albums

 * Procol Harum (1967)
 * Shine on Brightly (1968)
 * A Salty Dog (1969)
 * Home (1970)
 * Broken Barricades (1971)
 * Grand Hotel (1973)
 * Exotic Birds and Fruit (1974)
 * Procol's Ninth (1975)
 * Something Magic (1977)
 * The Prodigal Stranger (1991)
 * The Well's on Fire (2003)
 * Novum (2017)

title: Procol Harum


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Universal Studios, Inc.

Universal Studios, Inc. (formerly as MCA Inc., also known simply as Universal) is an American media and entertainment conglomerate and is owned by NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast.

Originally founded in 1924 as Music Corporation of America by Jules C. Stein and William R. Goodheart Jr., the company became a major force in the film industry, and later expanded into television production. MCA published music, booked acts, ran a record company, represented film, television, and radio stars, and eventually produced and sold television programs to the three major television networks, especially NBC. Its studios are located in Universal City, California, and its corporate offices are located in New York City.

Early years
Universal Studios was formed in 1924 by Jules Stein and William R. Goodheart, Jr., as Music Corporation of America, a music booking agency based in Chicago, Illinois. MCA helped pioneer modern practices of touring bands and name acts. Early on, MCA booked such prominent artists as King Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton for clubs and speakeasies run by legendary notorious Chicago mobsters such as Al Capone and others.

Lew Wasserman joined MCA in 1936 at the age of 23 and rose through the ranks of MCA for more than four decades, with Sonny Werblin as his right-hand man. Wasserman helped create MCA's radio show, Kay Kyser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge, which debuted on NBC Radio that same year. Following that success, Stein installed Wasserman in New York City in 1937, but Wasserman convinced him that Hollywood was the best place for the company's growth.

"The Rules of the Road"
The company was guided by a codification of Stein's pet policies known as "The Rules of The Road". The Rules were passed down from the Prohibition era, Chicago–area MCA (referenced in books like Citizen Cohn and The King and Queen of Hollywood) to the 1940s Los Angeles–area firm, which focused on representing movie actors.

The Rules were next passed to the 1950s generation of MCA talent agents, including Jerry Perenchio, who later owned and headed a number of businesses including Univision from 1992 to 2007. Perenchio was well known for his version of the Rules (up to twenty rules), which varied from year to year and had some internal contradictions (In 2006, Perenchio pointed out that while there was a "no nepotism" rule, he was aware his son was on the company's board of directors at the time).

Move to Hollywood: "The Octopus"
In 1939, based on Wasserman's recommendation, MCA's headquarters moved from Chicago to Beverly Hills, California, creating a movie division. The company began to acquire talent agencies, representing established actors such as James Stewart, Henry Fonda, Bette Davis, Jane Wyman and Ronald Reagan, whom Wasserman became very close with personally. In later decades, Wasserman became a guiding force in Reagan's political ambition by helping Reagan to win the presidency of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), then election as Governor of California in 1966, and finally President of the United States in 1980.

By the end of the 1930s, MCA had become the largest talent agency in the world, with over 700 clients, including movie stars, recording artists, Broadway actors, radio stars, and directors. The company's aggressive acquisition of clientele in all entertainment sectors earned MCA the nickname of "The Octopus". The company's activities led U.S. Department of Justice agents to investigate not only whether MCA was a monopoly breaking antitrust laws, but also its suspected connections to underworld criminal activities. This investigation continued for the next few decades.

Revue Productions and the early days of television
In 1948, Jules Stein moved up as MCA's first chairman, giving Lew Wasserman charge of day-to-day operations of the company as president. That year, Stein and Wasserman decided to get into a new medium that would soon change the entertainment industry: television. Although many motion picture studios would not touch this new medium, thinking it was just a fad and would fade away, MCA decided to embrace it. First, however, the company needed to get a waiver from the Screen Actors Guild, which ruled at the time that talent agencies such as MCA were prohibited from producing TV shows or films. Thanks to the newly elected SAG president, Ronald Reagan (an MCA client), MCA was granted a waiver to start producing TV shows.

After the waiver was granted, the company formed MCA Television Limited for syndication. In 1950, Revue Productions, once a live concert promotion division that produced "Stage Door Canteen" live events for the USO during World War II, was re-launched as MCA's television production subsidiary. By 1956, Revue became the top supplier of television for all broadcast networks, spanning three decades of television programs such as Armour Theater, General Electric Theater, The Jane Wyman Show, Leave It to Beaver, Wagon Train, and many others. Prior to 1958, all Revue's shows were filmed at the old Republic Pictures studio lot in Studio City, California.

In February 1958, MCA acquired Paramount Pictures' pre-1950 sound feature film library for $10 million, through a newly created MCA subsidiary, EMKA, Ltd.

In December 1958, MCA bought the 423 acre Universal Studios lot from Universal Pictures for $11,250,000 and renamed it, as well as the actual television unit, Revue Studios. As part of the deal, MCA leased the studios back to Universal for $2 million a year, plus unlimited access to MCA's clients such as Jimmy Stewart, Rock Hudson, Doris Day and Alfred Hitchcock to make films for Universal.

Stein, who by this time was the sole owner of MCA, decided to take the company public by giving 51% of his ownership of MCA to his employees, which included a 20% stake for Wasserman. The company went public on the New York Stock Exchange and was incorporated as MCA Inc. on November 10, 1958. A couple of years later, Alfred Hitchcock gave MCA his rights to Psycho and his television anthology in exchange for 150,000 shares, making him the third largest investor in MCA, and his own boss at Universal.

Takeovers of Universal Pictures and Decca Records
On June 18, 1962, Decca Records shareholders agreed to MCA's buyout offer after the record label had entered into talks about a merger that April. Decca at the time owned Coral Records and Brunswick Records, and an 89% stake in Universal Pictures Company, Inc.

On July 13, 1962, the United States Department of Justice filed suit against MCA, charging that its acquisition of Decca's controlling interest in Universal violated antitrust laws. In order to retain Universal, MCA would have to close its talent agency, which represented most of the industry's biggest names (a select few handled by Wasserman personally). In reality, MCA's talent agency arm became defunct the day the DOJ filed the suit; dissolving it that October was a mere formality.

MCA's now-former agents quickly formed new agencies, many of which are woven into the corporate fabric of today's talent management; Jerry Perenchio's Chartwell Artists represented Elizabeth Taylor and Muhammad Ali. Former MCA agents Freddie Fields and David Begelman formed Creative Management Associates, another important new agency.

By the end of 1962, MCA assumed full ownership of Universal.

In 1964, MCA entered the music publishing business when it acquired Lou Levy's Leeds Music, and formed Universal City Studios the same year in effort to merge under one umbrella both Universal Pictures and its Revue Studios division, which was later reincorporated as Universal Television in 1966.

On July 15, 1964, MCA established the Studio Tour, which provided guests a behind-the-scenes glimpse of film and television production at Universal Studios. This established a footprint of what is now known as Universal Studios Hollywood theme park. Over the next few decades, similar parks were built and expanded under MCA for Universal Orlando Resort in Orlando, Florida and Universal Studios Japan in Osaka.

In 1966, MCA formed Uni Records in Hollywood, California, and in 1967, MCA bought New York–based Kapp Records. That same year MCA also acquired guitar maker Danelectro and mall retailer Spencer Gifts.

Further expansion
In 1967, the MCA Records label was established outside the United States and Canada to issue releases by the MCA group of labels. Decca, Kapp, and Uni were merged into MCA Records at Universal City, California in 1971; the three labels maintained their identities for a short time but were soon retired in favor of the MCA label. The first MCA Records release in the US was former Uni artist Elton John's "Crocodile Rock" in 1972. In 1973, the final Decca pop label release, "Drift Away", a #5 pop hit by Dobie Gray, was issued.

MCA had two failed mergers in 1969. Initially, it planned a merger with Westinghouse Electric Corporation but that collapsed in April, and in July, they announced a proposed merger with the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, but this too was called off in September.

In 1973, Stein stepped down from the company he founded and Wasserman took over as chairman and chief executive officer, while Sidney Sheinberg was appointed president and chief operating officer of MCA. Other executives within MCA were Lawrence R. Barnett, who ran the agency's live acts division during its glory agency years in the 1950s and 1960s, and Ned Tanen, head of Universal Pictures. Tanen was behind Universal hits such as Animal House, and John Hughes's Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club.

MCA issued soundtrack albums for most films released by Universal Pictures.

In 1975, the company entered the book publishing business with the acquisition of G. P. Putnam's Sons. In 1979, it acquired ABC Records along with its subsidiaries Paramount Records, Impulse! Records, and Dot Records. ABC had acquired the Paramount and Dot labels when it purchased Gulf+Western's record labels in 1974, then the parent company of Paramount Pictures.

From 1983 to 1989, Irving Azoff was chairman of MCA Records and is credited for turning around the fortunes of the label.

The Chess Records catalog was acquired from the remnants of Sugarhill in 1985. Motown Records was bought in 1988 (and sold to PolyGram in 1993). GRP Records (which became for some years MCA's jazz music label and thus began managing the company's jazz catalogue) and Geffen Records (which served as another mainstream music subsidiary) were acquired in 1990.

MCA also acquired other assets outside of the music industry. It became a shareholder in USA Network in 1981, eventually owning 50% of the network (the other half was owned by Paramount). In 1982, its publishing division, G. P. Putnam's Sons, bought Grosset & Dunlap from Filmways. In 1984, MCA bought Walter Lantz Productions and its characters, including Woody Woodpecker. In 1985, MCA bought toy and video game company LJN. It also bought a TV station in New York City, WWOR-TV (renamed from WOR-TV), in 1987, from RKO General subsidiary of GenCorp, which was in the midst of a licensing scandal.

In 1982, MCA decided to start out its video game unit, MCA Video Games, led by technicians of the MCA DiscoVision unit.

In 1983, MCA Videogames, the video game division of MCA itself and video game developer/publisher Atari Inc. entered into a partnership to start out Studio Games, a joint venture that would develop video games based on MCA's film and television properties, most notably from then-sister Universal Pictures, and decided that they would give them access to all motion picture and television properties coming from the unit.

In 1990, MCA hired Hanna-Barbera executive Jeff Segal in order to start out its MCA Family Entertainment arm (aka Universal Family Entertainment) and had Universal Cartoon Studios as its subsidiary.

Later years as Universal Studios, Inc.
On November 26, 1990, Japanese multinational conglomerate Matsushita Electric agreed to acquire MCA for US$6.59 billion. MCA was forced to sell WWOR-TV in 1991 to Pinelands, Inc. because of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules that foreign companies could not own over 25% of a U.S. TV station.

In 1995, Seagram acquired 80% of MCA from Matsushita. On November 26, 1996, MCA announced that it would acquire television syndication company Multimedia Entertainment from Gannett, who acquired its parent company in 1995, for $40 million.

On December 9, 1996, the new owners dropped the MCA name; the company became Universal Studios, Inc. and MCA's music division, MCA Music Entertainment Group, was renamed Universal Music Group. MCA Records continued to live on as a label within the Universal Music Group. The following year, G. P. Putnam's Sons was sold to the Penguin Group subsidiary of Pearson PLC.

In 1996, Universal Studios filed a lawsuit against Viacom over the latter's launch of the TV Land cable network. Viacom had purchased Paramount in 1994, and the contract for USA Network prohibited either of their owners from owning cable channels outside the joint venture. Viacom had owned MTV Networks (the parent of TV Land) since 1985. The suit was settled when Viacom sold MCA its half of the joint venture. TV Land eventually added shows from the MCA/Universal library in 1999.

Vivendi and NBCUniversal
To raise money, Seagram head Edgar Bronfman Jr. sold Universal's television holdings, including cable network USA, to Barry Diller (these same properties would be bought back later at greatly inflated prices). In June 2000, Seagram was sold to French water utility and media company Vivendi, which owned StudioCanal; the conglomerate then became known as Vivendi Universal.

In the spring of 2003, MCA Records was folded into Geffen Records. Its country music label, MCA Nashville Records, is still in operation. MCA's classical music catalog is managed by Deutsche Grammophon.

Burdened with debt, in 2004, Vivendi Universal sold 80% of Vivendi Universal Entertainment (including the studio and theme parks) to General Electric (GE), parent of NBC. However, the sale of Universal to NBC and GE did not include Universal Music Group, which had been a part of the film company since 1962. UMG was placed under separate management through Vivendi. The resulting company was named NBCUniversal, while Universal Studios Inc. remained the name of the production subsidiary. After that deal, GE owned 80% of NBC Universal; Vivendi held the remaining 20%, with an option to sell its share in 2006.

In late 2005, Viacom's Paramount Pictures acquired DreamWorks SKG after acquisition talks between GE and DreamWorks stalled. Universal's long-time chairperson, Stacey Snider, left the company in early 2006 to head up DreamWorks. Snider was replaced by then-Vice chairman Marc Shmuger and Focus Features head David Linde. On October 5, 2009, Marc Shmuger and David Linde were ousted, and their co-chairperson jobs were consolidated under former president of worldwide marketing and distribution Adam Fogelson, becoming the single chairperson. Donna Langley was also upped to co-chairperson. In 2009, Stephanie Sperber founded Universal Partnerships & Licensing within Universal to license consumer products for Universal. GE purchased Vivendi's share in NBCUniversal in 2011.

Comcast
GE sold 51% of the company to cable provider Comcast in 2011. Comcast merged the former GE subsidiary with its own cable-television programming assets, creating the current NBCUniversal. Following Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval, the Comcast-GE deal was closed on January 29, 2011. In March 2013, Comcast bought the remaining 49% of NBCUniversal for $16.7 billion.

Universal Filmed Entertainment Group
Universal Filmed Entertainment Group (UFEG) is an organizational unit within Universal Studios, a film studio and a division of NBCUniversal, which is a division of Comcast Corporation. UFEG functions as a coordinated framework encompassing various subsidiary companies and divisions responsible for the creation, marketing, and distribution of films and audiovisual content. UFEG operates under the umbrella of Universal Studios, serving as a key division overseeing several entities, including Universal Studios, Universal Pictures, Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, Illumination, DreamWorks Animation, and Focus Features. The CEO of Universal Filmed Entertainment Group is Donna Langley.

Units

 * Universal Pictures
 * Universal Pictures International
 * Universal International Distribution
 * Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
 * Universal Home Entertainment Productions
 * Universal 1440 Entertainment
 * DreamWorks Animation Home Entertainment
 * Universal Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Australia (joint venture with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)
 * Universal Playback
 * Studio Distribution Services (joint venture with Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment)
 * Illumination
 * Illumination Studios Paris
 * Illumination Labs
 * Moonlight
 * DreamWorks Animation
 * DreamWorks Animation Television
 * DreamWorks Classics
 * Big Idea Entertainment (in-name-only unit of DreamWorks Animation)
 * Bullwinkle Studios (JV)
 * Harvey Entertainment (in-name-only unit of DreamWorks Animation)
 * DreamWorks Theatricals
 * DreamWorks New Media
 * DreamWorksTV
 * DreamWorks Press
 * Focus Features
 * Universal Pictures International Entertainment
 * NBCUniversal Entertainment Japan
 * Working Title Films
 * WT2 Productions
 * Working Title Television
 * Carnival Films
 * Rede Telecine (12.5%, joint venture with Canais Globo, Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)
 * Universal Brand Development
 * Universal Global Talent Development and Inclusion
 * Universal Products & Experiences
 * Back Lot Music
 * United International Pictures (50%, joint venture with Paramount Global's Paramount Pictures)
 * Amblin Partners (minor stake) (JV)
 * Amblin Entertainment
 * Amblin Television
 * DreamWorks Pictures
 * Storyteller Distribution

Film library
Universal Studios holds the rights to the film library through its divisions and subsidiaries such as Universal Pictures, Universal Animation Studios, Focus Features, Illumination, and DreamWorks Animation.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Universal Studios, Inc.


text:
Kirby Muxloe

Kirby Muxloe is a large village and civil parish that forms part of the Blaby district of Leicestershire, England. Located to the west of Leicester, its proximity to the city has resulted in its inclusion in the Leicester Urban Area. The Leicester Forest East parish border runs along the Hinckley Road A47. According to the 2001 census, the parish had a population of 4,523, which had increased to 4,667 at the 2011 census.

History
The name "Kirby" comes from the Dane Caeri who established the community here in the late ninth or early tenth century. The settlement was known as Carbi, and then later Kirby. The village was recorded in the Domesday book as 'Carbi'. (Caeri's settlement) with a working population of 8. At the time the land in Kirby Muxloe was owned by Hugh de Grandesmaynel and by William Peverel. In 1461, William Hastings, the 1st Baron Hastings of Hungerford, became the Steward of the Honor of Leicester and Ranger of Leicester Forest. His father, Sir Leonard Hastings, had owned a modest estate in Leicestershire and Gloucestershire, where the family had long been established. On 14 April 1474 Hastings acquired the manorial right to Kirby from the Pakeman family, although he had rented it for some years previous to this. In 1480 he began to build the moated Kirby Muxloe Castle during the period of the Wars of the Roses. However, work on the castle stopped soon after Lord Hastings was executed on 13 June 1483 on the orders of Richard, Duke of Gloucester (days later to become King Richard III) at the Tower of London for conspiracy. William was caught up in the rivalry for the throne after the death of Edward IV.

In 1582 the name of the village is recorded as Kirby Muckelby, with variants Mullox, Muckle. About 50 years later in 1628 disafforestation of Leicester Forest occurred, effectively dividing the land near Kirby Muxloe into forest and pasture. The results are visible today. In 1636, the Hastings families sold the castle, and estates in Kirby and Braunstone, to the Winstanley family. The first official use of Kirby Muxloe was in 1703 in the Oxford Dictionary of Placenames, which states that 'Muxloe' is a family name. There was such a family but they lived three miles away, in the village of Desford.

An early Quaker, John Penford, was a substantial resident of Kirby Muxloe and member of the Leicester Quarterly Meeting. A business meeting of the Society held at his home to consult on works of charity in 1670 was interrupted by informers, with the result that Penford and others were heavily fined.

The railway came to Kirby Muxloe in 1848 when the Midland Railway built a line through Kirby, and on 1 July 1859 Kirby Muxloe railway station opened at Kirby fields. (The station closed on 7 September 1964 as part of the Beeching cuts). In 1882, the fields known as Far and Near Townsend Close were bought by Kirby Muxloe Land Society. Barwell Road, Castle Road, and Church Road were laid out for the village and building went on over the next 30 years.

In 1911, Kirby Muxloe Castle was handed over to the Office of Works. It is now in the care of English Heritage. In 1941, during World War II, the village was heavily bombed. A German bomber returning from an attack on Coventry emptied its load on two streets, destroying the Free Church and several houses. Gaps left in the houses can still be seen.

The village has a primary school which is rated as one of the top schools in the county. There is a chemist, bakery, supermarket, two pubs, a popular sports and social club and a golf club.

Many people who lived there during the late 20th century were born in either a small maternity home in Station Road, near Barwell Road or Roundhill Maternity Home (NHS) in Hastings Road, Kirby Fields. Both are now private residences, as they were before they became Maternity Homes. What was the nurses' home at the entrance to Roundhill is now also a private residence.

Places of interest
Sports clubs/leisure:

 * Kirby Muxloe S.C.
 * Kirby Muxloe Cricket Club
 * Kirby Muxloe Bowls Club

Notable former residents

 * Alison King, actress
 * Alfie Dibrowa, musician

title: Kirby Muxloe


text:
Widespread Panic

Widespread Panic is an American rock band from Athens, Georgia. The current lineup includes guitarist/singer John Bell, bassist Dave Schools, drummer Duane Trucks, percussionist Domingo "Sunny" Ortiz, keyboardist John "JoJo" Hermann, and guitarist Jimmy Herring. The band's original guitarist and sometime songwriter, Michael Houser, died of pancreatic cancer in 2002, and the original drummer, Todd Nance, left in 2016 and died in 2020.

The band was formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1986, and is influenced by the Southern rock, blues-rock, progressive rock, funk and hard rock genres. They have been compared to other jam bands such as the Grateful Dead and Phish. Widely renowned for their live performances, they have held the record for number of sold-out performances at Red Rocks Amphitheatre (Morrison, Colorado) and State Farm Arena (Atlanta).

1981–1995: early years and rise to national attention
John Bell and Michael Houser met in 1981 in their dorm at the University of Georgia. Bell had been playing guitar as a solo act, and invited his new friend Houser, also a guitarist, to join him. They began living together and collaborating on music in that year, writing still-popular songs such as "Driving Song" and "Chilly Water" together. Bassist Dave Schools met Bell and Houser in 1984 and first played with them on February 24, 1985, at the A-Frame house on Weymanda Court in Athens. On February 6, 1986, Houser called childhood friend and drummer Todd Nance to sit in with Houser, Bell, and Schools for a charity event in Athens; it was their first show as "Widespread Panic." The band was named for Houser's once-frequent panic attacks. Texan percussionist Domingo S. Ortiz ("Sunny") began sitting in with the band regularly later that year.

The band played in fraternities and bars regularly before Panic signed a contract with Landslide Records in 1987. In February 1987 the band played the now-legendary series of one dollar Monday night shows at the Uptown Lounge in Athens and the crucial local press began to take notice—FLAGPOLE & Athens Observer art columnist Shan Clark emphasized Widespread Panic's musical virtuosity, songwriting and professionalism. In September of the same year, they recorded their first album, Space Wrangler, at John Keane's studio in Athens. Col. Bruce Hampton is rumored to have delivered the first pressing to the band. Songs on the album included "Chilly Water", "Travelin' Light", "Space Wrangler", "Coconut", "The Take Out", "Porch Song", "Stop-Go" and "Driving Song." After Space Wrangler, touring expanded to include additional northeastern dates, along with Texas, Colorado, the west coast, and internationally to Vancouver, Canada. It was also around this time (late 1988 or early 1989) that Domingo Ortiz joined the band full-time. They played their first show in Colorado in March 1990, opening for Jerry Joseph's band Little Women.

Widespread Panic signed with Capricorn Records in January 1991. Later that year, they released their major label debut, Widespread Panic (a.k.a. Mom's Kitchen). That same year Billy Bob Thornton directed the movie Widespread Panic: Live from the Georgia Theatre which was recorded over two nights in Athens, Georgia.

As the band began to tour more, John Hermann ("JoJo") joined the band as a keyboardist in March 1992 replacing Dixie Dregs keyboardist T. Lavitz who joined the band a year earlier. The band continued to tour throughout the entire US in 1992 joining the famous H.O.R.D.E. tour with Blues Traveler, Phish, and the Aquarium Rescue Unit, among others. They released Everyday in March 1993 and Ain't Life Grand in September 1994. Panic marked their rise by playing on network television for the first time in November 1994.

1996–2002: peak touring years and Houser's death

On April 18, 1998, to celebrate the release of their first live album, Light Fuse, Get Away, Widespread Panic offered a free "CD release party" concert in Athens Georgia. An estimated 80,000–100,000 fans descended on the town, transforming it into one of the largest CD release parties in history.

In 2002, the band received gold certification for their concert DVD Live at Oak Mountain. They also headlined two nights of the first annual Bonnaroo Music Festival which drew a crowd upwards of 70,000 people.

In early 2002, guitarist Michael Houser was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Houser continued to perform with the band into the middle of that year, but following a performance on July 2, 2002, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa he left the tour because of his declining health. Guitarist George McConnell, a former bandmate of JoJo Hermann's in Beanland, took over as lead guitarist for the remainder of the band's scheduled dates. Michael Houser died on August 10, 2002.

2003–2006: George McConnell joins
In 2003, the band released Ball, the first studio album with McConnell as the guitarist. The album was unique among the band's offerings in that none of the songs included had been performed live by the band prior to the recording. All of the material included was written specifically for the album with the exception of "Time Waits", a song which John Bell had performed in solo appearances, and "Don't Wanna Lose You", a song John Hermann had performed with his side-project Smiling Assassins. Late in 2003, the band announced that they would be taking a hiatus from both recording and performing in 2004. However, 2004 did see the release of three live albums, engineered by Billy Field: Night of Joy and Über Cobra—both of which were recorded during a November 2003 three-night run of shows at the House of Blues in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina—as well as Jackassolantern, a compilation of cover songs performed during the band's Halloween shows over the years. A third release from the Myrtle Beach shows, Live at Myrtle Beach was released in early 2005.

In January 2006, the band recorded their 9th studio album, Earth to America, in Nassau, Bahamas at Compass Point Studios, with Terry Manning producing. It was released June 13, 2006. Their May 9 show at Atlanta's Fox Theatre was simulcast in LIVE HD, via satellite, in select movie theatres nationwide. Over 60,000 fans across the country watched it live in the theatres. This show was also released in DVD format on November 14, 2006, entitled Earth to Atlanta.

On August 2, 2006, nearing the end of the summer tour, the band announced that George McConnell had left the band, making July 30, 2006 at the Fox Theater in St. Louis, his last show. Producer John Keane and former guitar technician Sam Holt filled in on guitar for the remaining two weeks of the tour.

2006–2014: Jimmy Herring joins
In late 2006, Fayetteville, North Carolina native Jimmy Herring joined the band in the role of lead guitarist. His first shows started their fall tour with three nights at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.

Panic's 7th annual New Year's shows on December 30 and 31, 2007, marked their 15th and 16th sellout performance at Philips Arena.

The band released their 10th album, Free Somehow, on February 12, 2008. It, too, was recorded with producer Terry Manning at Compass Point Studios.

Following the release of the new studio album, Widespread Panic began to release vintage concert performances from the Widespread Panic Archives. Carbondale 2000 was released on June 10, 2008, followed by Valdosta 1989 released on February 24, 2009, and Huntsville 1996 released on June 23, 2009. The band will continue to dig into their show archives, which encompasses the past 25 years, and release these shows as multi-track recordings.

June 27, 2008, marked the band's 32nd sold-out show at Red Rocks Amphitheatre. This was more than any other band in the venue's history. Mayor John Hickenlooper proclaimed Friday, June 27 "Widespread Panic Day" in the City and County of Denver. The same year, Widespread Panic was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame on September 20.

The band continued to tour throughout the rest of 2008 and the spring of 2009. In the summer of 2009, Widespread Panic teamed up with fellow southern rockers, The Allman Brothers to do a summer and fall co-headlining tour.

In March 2010, it was announced that Widespread Panic would be releasing a new album entitled Dirty Side Down on May 25, 2010. 2010 would also see the release of Live in the Classic City II, containing music from its 2000 shows.

On September 29, 2010, Widespread keyboardist Jojo Herman announced that the band would be going on hiatus in 2012. In an interview with The Vanderbilt Hustler, Herman explained, "Next year will be our 25th anniversary. After that, we're probably going to call it (quits) for a while. So we're looking forward to next year and going out on a high note."

The band went on to tour steadily throughout 2011, ending the year with their first show at Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina. In early 2012, the band played a limited number of shows. From January to February the band embarked on their first ever tour billed as completely acoustic. Dubbed the Wood Tour, it started in January at the Fillmore in Silver Spring, Maryland and ended at The Belly Up in Aspen, Colorado. Two recordings from the Wood Tour were released in 2012, a special Record Store Day-only vinyl record entitled Live Wood in April and later Wood, on October 16.

The rest of 2012 saw the band on hiatus but band members were active with other projects. Dave Schools toured with the Mickey Hart Band, Jimmy Herring recorded a new album and toured with his own band, and Jojo Hermann played shows with the Missing Cats, occasionally opening and sitting in with the North Mississippi Allstars. On August 17, the band announced their first scheduled shows after hiatus, including two nights in Charlotte, North Carolina and a 4-night run in the Dominican Republic.

Between the two short legs that made up the 2012 Wood Tour, the band played a four night run in Mexico, marking their first shows in the country, and beginning what would become an annual tradition called Panic en la Playa. The first Panic En La Playa was held on the beach at the Now Sapphire Resort in Puerto Morelos, Mexico in 2012. For 2013 and 2014, The concert was held at the Hard Rock Hotel in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, with the 2014 shows pushed back until March 17–20.

The band returned to regular touring in the spring of 2013 with a run of Mid-West and Southern shows beginning in April. During these shows, the band introduced new innovations in the audio broadcast of their live performance. Previously, Panic had allowed tapers to use audience recording devices to simulcast live shows to fans via the internet. The first live taper stream was at the Dodge Theatre in Phoenix, Arizona on 11/04/2009 by Coloartist and was continued by all the WP tapers through the Spring 2013 tour when the band took over streaming duties and started broadcasting live soundboard recordings of the show via Mixlr.com and the Mixlr smartphone app. On December 31, 2013, the band returned to Philips Arena in Atlanta.

2014 saw a return of Wood Tour, with the band playing six all acoustic theater shows, as well as a special Wood performance held 333 feet underground in the Volcano Room at Cumberland Caverns in McMinnville, Tennessee for a taping of an episode of PBS' Bluegrass Underground. The band played an extensive 2014 tour, with three-night stands at Red Rocks, The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, The Riverside Theater in Milwaukee, and 1stBank Center in Broomfield, Colorado, where they played their well-known Halloween shows.

The band closed out 2014 with two shows in Charlotte, North Carolina: the annual Tunes for Tots benefit performance at The Fillmore in Charlotte, North Carolina on 12/30, followed by their annual New Year's Eve show, held this particular year at the TWC Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina.

2014–present: Todd Nance departure, reduced touring and Nance's death
On October 2, 2014, the band announced that Duane Trucks would join the band for 2014 fall tour. Trucks temporarily filled in for Todd Nance, who was taking time to attend to personal matters. Nance reunited with the band for four shows in Mexico in early February 2016. However, on February 9, 2016, the band announced that Todd Nance was leaving the band and that, "Duane [Trucks] will be the drummer for Widespread Panic moving forward." Prior to joining Widespread Panic, Trucks was the drummer for Hard Working Americans, whose lineup included Widespread Panic bassist David Schools.

On September 25, 2015, Street Dogs, their 13th studio album, was released through Vanguard Records. Street Dogs was recorded by John Keane at Echo Mountain Recording Studio in Asheville, North Carolina. The album is composed of seven originals and three covers: Alan Price's "Sell Sell", Murray McLauchlan's "Honky Red" and "Tail Dragger", a Willie Dixon tune popularized by Howlin' Wolf.

In April 2016, keyboardist John Hermann announced that the band will stop touring extensively at the end of the year. However, he said that the band is not breaking up and will continue to make festival appearances and perform shows at select venues such as Red Rocks.

Nance died on August 19, 2020, in Athens, Georgia. He was 57; his death was first announced on Facebook by collaborator Cody Dickinson and was later confirmed by Relix. Details on the chronic illness that led to his death have not been disclosed.

Through June of 2024 the band has the record of 72 sold out shows at Red Rocks. They remain on tour for several weekends and festivals every year.

Setlists
Known for never playing the same show twice, the band has a show-to-show ritual of choosing the night's setlist. At the beginning of each tour, a member of the band's road crew makes a master list of all the songs the band performs and laminates it. Each night before the show he marks the last three nights' set lists in different colors. The band can see what has been played recently and then decide what songs to play during the first set. They return to the list during setbreak to pick songs for the second set, and likewise, return after the second set for any additional sets if playing more than two, or the encore. This process is explained by the late Garrie Vereen in the DVD The Earth Will Swallow You.

Tapers
Widespread Panic has the policy of allowing any of their fans to tape, trade, and to a limited extent freely distribute their shows. However, anonymous distribution such as P2P and commercial distribution is not permitted. Fans have been taping and trading shows since before they gained national prominence, allowing them to gain their strong national following.

Incidents
A fan was detained by police while experiencing the effects of LSD after leaving a concert in Southaven, Mississippi. He was then restrained and taken to a local hospital emergency room where he later died. He was still in police custody at the time. On November 18, 2015, autopsy findings stated that 'hogtying' contributed to the death of the fan.

Current members

 * John Bell – lead vocals, guitar (1986–present)
 * Dave Schools – bass, vocals (1986–present)
 * Domingo S. Ortiz – percussion (1988–present, frequent live/studio guest 1986–1988)
 * John Hermann – keyboards, vocals (1992–present)
 * Jimmy Herring – guitar (2006–present)
 * Duane Trucks – drums (2016–present, touring 2014–2016)

Former members

 * Todd Nance – drums, vocals (1986–2016; died 2020)
 * Michael Houser – guitar, vocals (1986–2002; died 2002)
 * T Lavitz – keyboards (1991–1992; died 2010)
 * George McConnell – guitar, vocals (2002–2006)

Side projects

 * In 1996 the band, under the name of brute., recorded Nine High a Pallet with guitarist Vic Chesnutt; in 2002, brute. released a second album, titled Co-Balt.
 * Todd Nance has recorded and toured as part of the band Barbara Cue, releasing three albums.
 * Dave Schools has recorded and toured as part of the band Stockholm Syndrome, as well as Mickey Hart Band in 2012. Schools and Layng Martine III have released two albums as Slang, The Bellwether Project in 2001 and More Talk About Tonight in 2004. Schools was also a touring member of Gov't Mule following the death of Allen Woody.
 * John Hermann has toured with JoJo's Mardi Gras Band when Widespread Panic took a year break. He has toured with The Smiling Assassins, and is currently playing in a duo called The Missing Cats.
 * In 2013 Schools formed Hard Working Americans with Todd Snider, Neal Casal, Chad Staehly and Duane Trucks. The supergroup's self-titled debut album was recorded at Bob Weir's TRI Studios and mixed by John Keane. It was released on January 21, 2014.

title: Widespread Panic


text:
Virginia Wade

Sarah Virginia Wade (born 10 July 1945) is a British former professional tennis player. She won three major tennis singles championships and four major doubles championships, and is the only British woman in history to have won titles at all four majors. She was ranked as high as No. 2 in the world in singles, and No. 1 in the world in doubles.

Wade was the most recent British tennis player to win a major singles tournament until Andy Murray won the 2012 US Open, and was the most recent British woman to have won a major singles title until Emma Raducanu won the 2021 US Open. After retiring from competitive tennis, she coached for four years, and has also worked as a tennis commentator and game analyst for the BBC and Eurosport, and (in the US) for CBS.

Early life
Wade was born in Bournemouth, England, UK, on 10 July 1945. Her father was the archdeacon of Durban.

At one year old, Wade moved to South Africa with her parents. There, she learned how to play tennis. When she was aged 15, the family moved back to England, and she went to Tunbridge Wells Girls' Grammar School and Talbot Heath School, Bournemouth. In 1961, she was on the tennis team of Wimbledon County Girls' Grammar School. She studied mathematics and physics at the University of Sussex, graduating in 1966.

Tennis career
Wade's tennis career spanned the end of the amateur era and the start of the Open Era. In 1968, as an amateur, she won the inaugural open tennis competition – the British Hard Court Open at Bournemouth. She turned down the £300 first prize, choosing to play for expenses only. Five months later, after turning professional, she won the women's singles championship at the first US Open (and prize-money of $6,000 - $0 today), defeating Billie Jean King in the final. Her second Major tennis singles championship came in 1972 at the Australian Open when she defeated Australian Evonne Goolagong in the final 6–4, 6–4. She was appointed a member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 1973 Birthday Honours for services to lawn tennis.

Wade won Wimbledon in 1977. It was the 16th year in which she had played at Wimbledon, and she secured her first appearance in the final by beating the defending champion Chris Evert in the semifinal 6–2, 4–6, 6–1. In the final, she beat Betty Stöve in three sets to claim the championship, nine days before her 32nd birthday. 1977 was the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Wimbledon Championships as well as the Silver Jubilee year of Elizabeth II, who attended the final for the first time since 1962.

Wade also won four Major women's doubles championships with Margaret Smith Court – two of them at the US Open tennis tournament, one at the Australian Open, and one at the French Open. In 1983, at the age of 37, she won the Italian Open women's doubles championship with Virginia Ruzici of Romania.

Over her career, Wade won 55 professional singles championships and amassed $1,542,278 in career prize money. She was ranked in the world's top 10 continuously from 1967 to 1979. Her career spanned a total of 26 years. She retired from singles competition at the end of the 1985 tennis season, and then from doubles at the end of 1986. She played at Wimbledon on 26 occasions, an all-time record; 24 of those times were in the women's singles.

After tennis
Since 1981, while she was still playing, Wade has been a reporter on tennis events for the BBC. In 1982, she became the first woman to be elected to the Wimbledon Committee.

Wade was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1986 Birthday Honours for services to lawn tennis.

In 1989, Wade was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island.

Singles titles (78)

 * Bold type indicates a Major championship

(Source: WTA )
 * 1967 – Connaught Hard Courts
 * 1968 – US Open, Bloemfontein, Bournemouth, East London, Dewar Cup London
 * 1969 – Cape Town, Hoylake, Dewar Cup Perth, Dewar Cup Stalybridge, Dewar Cup Aberavon, Dewar-Crystal Palace, East London
 * 1970 – German Indoors, West Berlin Open, Irish Open, Stalybridge, Aberavon
 * 1971 – Cape Town, Catania International Open, Rome, Newport-Wales, Cincinnati, Dewar Cup Billingham, Dewar-Aberavon, Dewar Cup Final-London, Clean Air Classic
 * 1972 – Australian Open, VS Indoors-Mass., Merion, Buenos Aires
 * 1973 – Dallas, Bournemouth, Dewar-Aberavon, Dewar Cup Edinburgh, Dewar-Billingham, Dewar Cup Final-Albert Hall
 * 1974 – VS Chicago, Bournemouth, VS Phoenix, Dewar-Edinburgh, Dewar Cup-London
 * 1975 – VS Dallas, VS Philadelphia, Paris Indoors, Eastbourne, Dewar Cup, Stockholm
 * 1976 – US Indoor Championships, Dewar Cup
 * 1977 – Wimbledon, World Invitational Hilton Head, Tokyo Sillook
 * 1978 – Mahwah, Tokyo Sillook, Florida Open

Grand Slam singles performance timeline
Note: The Australian Open was held twice in 1977, in January and December.

Personal life
Wade has no children and has never married. She has said "If I'd done better earlier, and my career had been at its peak earlier and I'd faded, I would probably have had a totally different life." She lives mostly in New York and in Chelsea, London.

She posed for sculptor David Wynne for the 17-foot-high fountain Girl with a Dolphin, installed at Tower Bridge in 1973.

title: Virginia Wade


text:
Alec Waugh

Alexander Raban Waugh (8 July 1898 – 3 September 1981) was a British novelist, the elder brother of the better-known Evelyn Waugh, uncle of Auberon Waugh and son of Arthur Waugh, author, literary critic and publisher. His first wife was Barbara Jacobs (daughter of the writer William Wymark Jacobs), his second wife was Joan Chirnside and his third wife was Virginia Sorenson, author of the Newbery Medal-winning Miracles on Maple Hill.

Biography
Waugh was born in London to Arthur Waugh and Catherine Charlotte Raban, a great-granddaughter of Lord Cockburn (1779–1854), and educated at Sherborne School, a public school in Dorset. The result of his experiences was his first, semi-autobiographical novel, The Loom of Youth (1917), in which he dramatised his schooldays. The book was inspired by Arnold Lunn's The Harrovians, published in 1913 and discussed at some length in The Loom of Youth.

The Loom of Youth was so controversial at the time (it mentioned homosexual relationships between boys, albeit in a very understated, staid fashion) that Waugh remains the only former pupil to be dismissed from the old boys' society (The Old Shirburnian Society). It was also a best seller. (The Society's website gives a different version: Alec and his father resigned and were not reinstated until 1933, while Evelyn went to a different school. In 1932, the book was again the subject of controversy when Wyndham Lewis's Doom of Youth seemed to suggest that Waugh's interest in schoolboys was because he was a homosexual. This was settled out of court. In the mid-1960s Alec donated the original manuscript, press clippings and correspondence with the publisher to the Society.)

Waugh served in the British army in France during the First World War, being commissioned in the Dorset Regiment in May 1917, and seeing action at Passchendaele. Captured by the Germans near Arras in March 1918, he spent the rest of the war in prisoner-of-war camps in Karlsruhe and in the Mainz Citadel. Waugh married his first wife, Barbara Annis Jacobs (1900–1996), in 1919.

He later had a career as a successful author, although never as successful or innovative as that of his younger brother. He lived much of his life overseas, in exotic places such as Tangier – a lifestyle made possible by his second marriage in 1932 to a rich Australian, Joan Chirnside. His work, possibly in consequence, tended to be reminiscent of W. Somerset Maugham, although without achieving Maugham's huge popular success. Nevertheless, his 1955 novel Island in the Sun was a best-seller. It was filmed in 1957 as Island in the Sun, securing from Hollywood the greatest amount ever paid for the use of a novel at that time. His 1973 novel A Fatal Gift was also a success, though his nephew Auberon Waugh said Waugh "wrote many books, each worse than the last".

He was a wine connoisseur, and published In Praise of Wine & Certain Noble Spirits (1959), a light-hearted and discursive guide to the major wine types, and Wines and Spirits, a 1968 book in the Time-Life series Foods of the World.

Waugh also merits a mention in the history of reggae music. The success of the film adaptation of Island in the Sun and the Harry Belafonte title track provided inspiration as well as the name for the successful Island Records record label.

In 1969, Waugh married the author Virginia Sorensen, and they resided together in Morocco, then moved to the United States as his health failed. He died in Florida at the age of 83.

Works

 * The Loom of Youth (1917); London; New Delhi; New York; Sydney : Bloomsbury Reader, 2012, ISBN 978-1-4482-0052-8
 * Resentment Poems (1918)
 * The Prisoners of Mainz (1919)
 * Pleasure (1921)
 * Public School Life: Boys, Parents, Masters (1922)
 * The Lonely Unicorn (1922)
 * Myself When Young: Confessions (1923)
 * Card Castle (1924)
 * Kept: A Story of Post-war London (1925)
 * Love In These Days (1926)
 * On Doing What One Likes (1926)
 * Nor Many Waters (1928)
 * The Last Chukka: Stories of East and West (1928)
 * Three Score and Ten (1929)
 * Portrait of a Celibate (1929)
 * "...'Sir,' She Said" (1930)
 * The Coloured Countries (1930)
 * Hot Countries (1930), with woodcuts by Lynd Ward
 * Most Women (1931)
 * So Lovers Dream (1931)
 * Leap Before You Look (1932)
 * No Quarter (1932)
 * Thirteen Such Years (1932)
 * Wheels Within Wheels (1933)
 * The Balliols (1934)
 * Jill Somerset (1936)
 * Eight Short Stories (1937)
 * Going Their Own Ways (1938)
 * No Truce With Time (1941)
 * His Second War (1944)
 * The Sunlit Caribbean (1948)
 * These Would I Choose (1948)
 * Unclouded Summer (1948)
 * The Sugar Islands: A Caribbean Travelogue (1949)
 * The Lipton Story (1950)
 * Where the Clocks Chime Twice (1951)
 * Guy Renton (1952)
 * Island in the Sun (1955)
 * Merchants of Wine: Being a Centenary Account of the Fortunes of the House of Gilbey (1957)
 * The Sugar Islands: A Collection of Pieces Written About the West Indies Between 1928 and 1953 (1958)
 * In Praise of Wine (1959)
 * Fuel for the Flame (1959)
 * My Place in the Bazaar (1961)
 * The Early Years of Alec Waugh (1962)
 * A Family of Islands: A History of the West Indies 1492 to 1898 (1964)
 * Mule on the Minaret (1965)
 * My Brother Evelyn and Other Portraits (1967)
 * Foods of the World: Wines and Spirits (1968)
 * A Spy in the Family (1970)
 * Bangkok: The Story of a City (1970)
 * A Fatal Gift (1973)
 * A Year to Remember: A Reminiscence of 1931 (1975)
 * Married to a Spy (1976)
 * The Best Wine Last: An Autobiography Through the Years 1932–1969 (1978)

title: Alec Waugh


text:
The Youngbloods

The Youngbloods were an American rock band consisting of Jesse Colin Young (vocals, bass, guitar), Jerry Corbitt (vocals, guitar, keyboards, harmonica), Lowell "Banana" Levinger (guitar and electric piano), and Joe Bauer (drums). Despite receiving critical acclaim, they never achieved widespread popularity. Their only U.S. Top 40 entry was Chet Powers' "Get Together".

Background and formation
Jesse Colin Young (born Perry Miller, November 22, 1941, Queens, New York City) was a moderately successful folk singer with two LPs under his belt – Soul of a City Boy (1964) and Youngblood (1965) – when he met fellow folk singer and former bluegrass musician from Cambridge, Massachusetts, Jerry Corbitt (born Jerry Byron Corbitt, January 7, 1943, Tifton, Georgia). When in town, Young would drop in on Corbitt, and the two played together exchanging harmonies.

Beginning in January 1965, the two began performing on the Canadian circuit as a duo, eventually adopting the name "The Youngbloods". Young played bass, and Corbitt sang and played piano, harmonica and lead guitar. Corbitt introduced Young to a bluegrass musician, Lowell Levinger (born Lowell Vincent Levinger III, September 9, 1944, Manhattan, New York City). Levinger, known as "Banana", could play the piano, banjo, mandolin, mandola, guitar and bass; he had played in the Proper Bostonians and the Trolls, and played mainly piano and guitar in the Youngbloods. He knew of a fellow tenant who could flesh out the band, Joe Bauer (born September 26, 1941, Memphis, Tennessee), an aspiring jazz drummer with experience playing in society dance bands.

Small gigs to recording success
Once the line-up was set, Jesse Colin Young and the Youngbloods, as the group was then known, began building a reputation from their club dates. (Early demo sides from 1965 were later issued by Mercury Records on the Two Trips album.) Their first concert had been at Gerde's Folk City in Greenwich Village; months later, they were the house band at the Cafe Au Go Go and had signed a recording contract with RCA Victor. Young, however, was not satisfied with RCA.

The arrangement produced one charting single, "Grizzly Bear" (number 52 in 1967). Several critically praised albums followed: The Youngbloods (1967, later retitled Get Together); Earth Music (1967); and Elephant Mountain (1969), with the track "Darkness, Darkness".

In 1967, when the track "Get Together", a paean to universal brotherhood, first appeared, it did not sell well, reaching only number 62 on the chart. But two years later – after Dan Ingram had recorded a brotherhood promotion for WABC-AM in which the song was used as a bed for the promotion, and after the National Council of Christians and Jews subsequently used the song in television and radio commercials – the track was re-released and cracked the Top 5. This disc sold over one million copies and received a gold record, awarded by the RIAA, on October 7, 1969.

Johnny Carson once reportedly refused to allow the band to perform on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, saying they were overly demanding during the pre-show soundcheck. In a 2009 interview, Young stated that the band refused to perform because the show reneged on a promise that they could play a song from their new album Elephant Mountain, instead demanding that they play only "Get Together".

With Corbitt's departure from the band (for a solo career) in 1969, before the band recorded the album Elephant Mountain, Levinger assumed lead guitar duties and played extensively on Wurlitzer electric piano. The band became adept at lengthy improvisations in their live performances (as captured on the albums Rock Festival and Ride the Wind, released after the band moved over to their own Raccoon label, distributed by Warner Brothers).

The group added the bassist Michael Kane to their lineup in 1971 and released two more albums: Good & Dusty (1971), which featured "Hippie from Olema" (an answer to Merle Haggard's "Okie from Muskogee"), and High on a Ridgetop (1972), before disbanding.

Later history
In 1971, Jerry Corbitt and former Youngbloods producer Charlie Daniels formed a band called Corbitt & Daniels and toured. Young, Levinger and Bauer went on to solo careers; only Young had any notable success. Levinger, Bauer and Kane were part of another group, Noggins, in 1972, which released one album, Crab Tunes. Bauer died of a brain tumor in September 1982, at the age of 40.

Banana supplied guitar, banjo, synthesizer, and back-up vocals to Mimi Fariña's 1985 solo album, Solo, and also toured with her on and off from 1973 until the 1990s. During the 1980s and 1990s, he played with the jam rock band Zero on keyboards, vocals and rhythm guitar.

In late 1984, the Youngbloods briefly reunited for a club tour. The 1984 line-up contained Young, Corbitt and Levinger, plus new members David Perper (drums, ex-Pablo Cruise) and Scott Lawrence (keyboards, woodwinds). Once the tour was completed, the group disbanded once again by mid-1985.

Jerry Corbitt died of lung cancer on March 8, 2014. He was 71.

Lowell Levinger released three self-produced bluegrass albums as "Grandpa Banana": I'll Do Anything For You (2009), Just Trying To Break Even (2011) and Even Grandpas Get The Blues (2012). He later joined Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul for their 2017 European and 2018 American tours in support of (Steven) Van Zandt's latest album, Soulfire.

In 2014, Sony Music Japan remastered the first three Youngbloods albums as The Youngbloods – 3 Albums Collection 1967–1969 (Mini LP BSCD2). The Youngbloods and Earth Music, contain both mono and stereo versions of the album plus bonus tracks. Elephant Mountain contains the full stereo version of the album, plus a few mono versions of selected tracks plus bonus tracks.

Former members

 * Jesse Colin Young – bass, guitar, vocals (1965–1972, 1984–1985)
 * Jerry Corbitt – guitar, harmonica, vocals (1965–1969, 1984–1985; died 2014)
 * Lowell Levinger – lead guitar, piano, finger cymbals, pedal steel guitar, vocals (1965–1972, 1984–1985)
 * Joe Bauer – drums (1965–1972; died 1982)
 * Michael Kane – bass (1971–1972; died 2022)
 * David Perper – drums (1984–1985)
 * Scott Lawrence – keyboards, woodwinds (1984–1985)
 * John Richard (Earthquake) Anderson – group manager, harmonica, vocals (1968–1972; died 2017)

title: The Youngbloods


text:
Chris Smith

Chris Smith may refer to:

Music

 * Chris Smith (composer) (1879–1949), American composer and performer
 * Chris "Frenchie" Smith, American record producer and musician
 * Chris "Daddy Mac" Smith, member of rap music duo Kris Kross
 * Chris Smith, lead guitarist/vocalist in the band Keelhaul
 * Chris Smith, vocalist in Mythology
 * Chris Smith, touring drums in Short Stack
 * Chris Smith, keyboardist in Jefferson Starship
 * Chris Smith, drummer and producer, member of The Internet

Other media

 * Chris Smith (broadcaster), Australian talkback radio broadcaster and radio host
 * Chris Smith (filmmaker) (born 1970), American filmmaker
 * Chris Smith (children’s author and broadcaster), British author and radio journalist
 * Chris Smith (EastEnders), fictional soap opera character

Politics

 * Chris Smith (New Jersey politician) (born 1953), U.S. Representative from New Jersey
 * Chris Smith (Florida politician) (born 1970), Florida state senator
 * Chris Smith, Baron Smith of Finsbury (born 1951), former British Member of Parliament and government minister

Association football

 * Chris Smith (footballer, born 1981), English footballer
 * Chris Smith (footballer, born 1986), Scottish footballer
 * Chris Smith (footballer, born 1988), Scottish footballer
 * Chris Smith (footballer, born 1990), English footballer
 * Chris Smith (footballer, born 1998), English footballer

Baseball

 * Chris Smith (first baseman) (born 1957), American baseball player
 * Chris Smith (pitcher, born 1981), American baseball player
 * Chris Smith (pitcher, born 1988), American baseball player

Basketball

 * Chris Smith (basketball, born 1939), American college basketball player at Virginia Tech
 * Chris Smith (basketball, born 1970), American basketball player in the 1990s
 * Chris Smith (basketball, born 1987), American basketball player, attended Manhattan and Louisville
 * Chris Smith (basketball, born 1999), American basketball player, attended UCLA

Gridiron football

 * Chris Smith (American football coach), American former college football coach
 * Chris Smith (defensive back) (born 1987), American football player
 * Chris Smith (defensive end) (1992–2023), American football player
 * Chris Smith (running back, born 1963), American football player
 * Chris Smith (running back, born 1999), American football player
 * Chris Smith (safety) (born 1985), American football safety in the Canadian Football League
 * Chris Smith (tight end) (born 1966), American football player

Rugby

 * Chris Smith (rugby league, born 1975), Welsh rugby league footballer
 * Chris Smith (rugby league, born 1994), Australian rugby league footballer
 * Chris Smith (rugby union) (born 1994), South African rugby union player

Other sports

 * Chris Billam-Smith (born 1990), British boxer
 * Chris Smith (Australian footballer) (born 1955), Australian rules footballer for Fitzroy
 * Chris Smith (Australian footballer, born 1988), Australian rules footballer from Queensland, drafted by Fremantle
 * Chris Smith (cricketer, born 1958) (born 1958), English cricketer
 * Chris Smith (cricketer, born 1973), Australian-born former Dutch cricketer
 * Chris Smith (racing driver) (born 1966), race car driver, 1992 Atlantic Series Champion
 * Chris Smith (golfer) (born 1969), American PGA Tour golfer

Others

 * Chris Smith (science communicator) (born 1975), medical doctor and radio broadcaster on the BBC
 * Chris Smith (biologist), professor of biology
 * Chris Smith (priest) (born 1963), archdeacon of Morgannwg
 * Chris Smith (American academic) (born 1958), American legal academic
 * Christopher Arthur Smith (1892–1952), known as Chris (A.), South Australian architect

title: Chris Smith