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François-René de Chateaubriand

François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand (4 September 1768 – 4 July 1848) was a French writer, politician, diplomat and historian who influenced French literature of the nineteenth century. Descended from an old aristocratic family from Brittany, Chateaubriand was a royalist by political disposition. In an age when large numbers of intellectuals turned against the Church, he authored the Génie du christianisme in defense of the Catholic faith. His works include the autobiography Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe ("Memoirs from Beyond the Grave"), published posthumously in 1849–1850.

Historian Peter Gay says that Chateaubriand saw himself as the greatest lover, the greatest writer, and the greatest philosopher of his age. Gay states that Chateaubriand "dominated the literary scene in France in the first half of the nineteenth century".

Early years and exile

Born in Saint-Malo on 4 September 1768, the last of ten children, Chateaubriand grew up at his family's castle (the château de Combourg) in Combourg, Brittany. His father, René de Chateaubriand, was a sea captain turned ship-owner and slave trader. His mother's maiden name was Apolline de Bedée. Chateaubriand's father was a morose, uncommunicative man, and the young Chateaubriand grew up in an atmosphere of gloomy solitude, only broken by long walks in the Breton countryside and an intense friendship with his sister Lucile. His youthful solitude and wild desire produced a suicide attempt with a hunting rifle, although the weapon failed to discharge.

English agriculturist and pioneering travel writer Arthur Young visited Comburg in 1788 and he described the immediate environs of the "romantic" Chateau de Combourg thusly:

"'SEPTEMBER 1st. To Combourg, the country has a savage aspect; husbandry not much further advanced, at least in skill, than among the Hurons, which appears incredible amidst inclosures; the people almost as wild as their country, and their town of Combourg one of the most brutal filthy places that can be seen; mud houses, no windows, and a pavement so broken, as to impede all passengers, but ease none - yet here is a chateau, and inhabited; who is this Mons. de Chateaubriant, the owner, that has nerves strung for a residence amidst such filth and poverty? Below this hideous heap of wretchedness is a fine lake...'"

Chateaubriand was educated in Dol, Rennes and Dinan. For a time he could not make up his mind whether he wanted to be a naval officer or a priest, but at the age of seventeen, he decided on a military career and gained a commission as a second lieutenant in the French Army based at Navarre. Within two years, he had been promoted to the rank of captain. He visited Paris in 1788 where he made the acquaintance of Jean-François de La Harpe, André Chénier, Louis-Marcelin de Fontanes and other leading writers of the time. When the French Revolution broke out, Chateaubriand was initially sympathetic, but as events in Paris - and throughout the countryside (including, presumably, "wretched" "brutal" and "filthy" Combourg) - became more violent he wisely decided to journey to North America in 1791. He was given the idea to leave Europe by Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes, who also encouraged him to do some botanical studies.

Journey to America
In Voyage en Amérique, published in 1826, Chateaubriand writes that he arrived in Philadelphia on 10 July 1791. He visited New York, Boston and Lexington, before leaving by boat on the Hudson River to reach Albany. He then followed the Mohawk Trail up the Niagara Falls where he broke his arm and spent a month in recovery in the company of a Native American tribe. Chateaubriand then describes Native American tribes' customs, as well as zoological, political and economic consideration. He then says that a raid along the Ohio River, the Mississippi River, Louisiana and Florida took him back to Philadelphia, where he embarked on the Molly in November to go back to France.

This experience provided the setting for his exotic novels Les Natchez (written between 1793 and 1799 but published only in 1826), Atala (1801) and René (1802). His vivid, captivating descriptions of nature in the sparsely settled American Deep South were written in a style that was very innovative for the time and spearheaded what later became the Romantic movement in France. As early as 1916, some scholars have cast doubt on Chateaubriand's claims that he was granted an interview with George Washington and that he actually lived for a time with the Native Americans he wrote about. Critics have questioned the veracity of entire sections of Chateaubriand's claimed travels, notably his passage through the Mississippi Valley, Louisiana and Florida.

Return to France
Chateaubriand returned to France in 1792 and subsequently joined the army of Royalist émigrés in Koblenz under the leadership of Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Prince of Condé. Under strong pressure from his family, he married a young aristocratic woman, also from Saint-Malo, whom he had never previously met, Céleste Buisson de la Vigne (in later life, Chateaubriand was notoriously unfaithful to her, having a series of love affairs). His military career came to an end when he was wounded at the Siege of Thionville, a major clash between Royalist troops (of which Chateaubriand was a member) and the French Revolutionary Army. Half-dead, he was taken to Jersey and exiled to England, leaving his wife behind.

Exile in London
Chateaubriand spent most of his exile in extreme poverty in London, scraping a living offering French lessons and doing translation work, but a stay in (Bungay) Suffolk proved to be more idyllic. He stayed at The Music House, 34 Bridge Street, a fact recorded in a plaque on the property. Here Chateaubriand fell in love with a young English woman, Charlotte Ives, the daughter of his host, but the romance ended when he was forced to reveal he was already married. During his time in Britain, Chateaubriand also became familiar with English literature. This reading, particularly of John Milton's Paradise Lost (which he later translated into French prose), had a deep influence on his own literary work.

His exile forced Chateaubriand to examine the causes of the French Revolution, which had cost the lives of many of his family and friends; these reflections inspired his first work, Essai sur les Révolutions (1797). An attempt in 18th-century style to explain the French Revolution, it predated his subsequent, romantic style of writing and was largely ignored. A major turning point in Chateaubriand's life was his conversion back to the Catholic faith of his childhood around 1798.

Consulate and Empire
Chateaubriand took advantage of the amnesty issued to émigrés to return to France in May 1800 (under the French Consulate); he edited the Mercure de France. In 1802, he won fame with Génie du christianisme ("The Genius of Christianity"), an apologia for the Catholic faith which contributed to the post-revolutionary religious revival in France. It also won him the favour of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was eager to win over the Catholic Church at the time.

James McMillan argues that a Europe-wide Catholic Revival emerged from the change in the cultural climate from intellectually-oriented classicism to emotionally-based Romanticism. He concludes that Chateaubriand's book: "did more than any other single work to restore the credibility and prestige of Christianity in intellectual circles and launched a fashionable rediscovery of the Middle Ages and their Christian civilisation. The revival was by no means confined to an intellectual elite, however, but was evident in the real, though uneven, rechristianisation of the French countryside."

Appointed secretary of the legation to the Holy See by Napoleon, he accompanied Cardinal Fesch to Rome. But the two men soon quarrelled, and Chateaubriand was appointed minister to the Republic of Valais in November 1803. He resigned his post in disgust after Napoleon ordered the execution in 1804 of Louis XVI's cousin, Louis-Antoine-Henri de Bourbon-Condé, duc d'Enghien. Chateaubriand was, after his resignation, completely dependent on his literary efforts. However, and quite unexpectedly, he received a large sum of money from the Russian Tsarina Elizabeth Alexeievna. She had seen him as a defender of Christianity and thus worthy of her royal support.

Chateaubriand used his new-found wealth in 1806 to visit Greece, Asia Minor, The Ottoman Empire, Egypt, Tunisia, and Spain. The notes he made on his travels later formed part of a prose epic, Les Martyrs, set during the Roman persecution of early Christianity. His notes also furnished a running account of the trip itself, published in 1811 as the Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem (Itinerary from Paris to Jerusalem). The Spanish stage of the journey inspired a third novella, Les aventures du dernier Abencérage (The Adventures of the Last Abencerrage), which appeared in 1826.

On his return to France at the end of 1806, he published a severe criticism of Napoleon, comparing him to Nero and predicting the emergence of a new Tacitus. Napoleon famously threatened to have Chateaubriand sabred on the steps of the Tuileries Palace for it, but settled for merely banishing him from the city. Chateaubriand therefore retired, in 1807, to a modest estate he called Vallée-aux-Loups ("Wolf Valley"), in Châtenay-Malabry, 11 km south of central Paris, where he lived until 1817. Here he finished Les Martyrs, which appeared in 1809, and began the first drafts of his Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe. He was elected to the Académie française in 1811, but, given his plan to infuse his acceptance speech with criticism of the Revolution, he could not occupy his seat until after the Bourbon Restoration. His literary friends during this period included Madame de Staël, Joseph Joubert and Pierre-Simon Ballanche.

Under the Restoration
Chateaubriand became a major figure in politics as well as literature. At first he was a strong Royalist in the period up to 1824. His liberal phase lasted from 1824 to 1830. After that he was much less active. After the fall of Napoleon, Chateaubriand rallied to the Bourbons. On 30 March 1814, he wrote a pamphlet against Napoleon, titled De Buonaparte et des Bourbons, of which thousands of copies were published. He then followed Louis XVIII into exile to Ghent during the Hundred Days (March–July 1815), and was nominated ambassador to Sweden.

After Napoleon's final defeat in the Battle of Waterloo (of which he heard the distant cannon rumblings outside Ghent), Chateaubriand became peer of France and state minister (1815). In December 1815 he voted for Marshal Ney's execution. However, his criticism of King Louis XVIII in La Monarchie selon la Charte, after the Chambre introuvable was dissolved, resulted in his disgrace. He lost his function of state minister, and joined the opposition, siding with the Ultra-royalist group supporting the future Charles X, and becoming one of the main writers of its mouthpiece, Le Conservateur.

Chateaubriand sided again with the Court after the murder of the Duc de Berry (1820), writing for the occasion the Mémoires sur la vie et la mort du duc. He then served as ambassador to Prussia (1821) and the United Kingdom (1822), and even rose to the office of Minister of Foreign Affairs (28 December 1822 – 4 August 1824). A plenipotentiary to the Congress of Verona (1822), he decided in favor of the Quintuple Alliance's intervention in Spain during the Trienio Liberal, despite opposition from the Duke of Wellington. Chateaubriand was soon relieved of his office by Prime Minister Joseph de Villèle on 5 June 1824, over his objections to a law the latter proposed that would have resulted in the widening of the electorate. Chateaubriand was subsequently appointed French ambassador to Genoa.

Consequently, he moved towards the liberal opposition, both as a Peer and as a contributor to Journal des Débats (his articles there gave the signal of the paper's similar switch, which, however, was more moderate than Le National, directed by Adolphe Thiers and Armand Carrel). Opposing Villèle, he became highly popular as a defender of press freedom and the cause of Greek independence. After Villèle's downfall, Charles X appointed Chateaubriand ambassador to the Holy See in 1828, but he resigned upon the accession of the Prince de Polignac as premier (November 1829).

In 1830, he donated a monument to the French painter Nicolas Poussin in the church of San Lorenzo in Lucina in Rome.

July Monarchy

In 1830, after the July Revolution, his refusal to swear allegiance to the new House of Orléans king Louis-Philippe put an end to his political career. He withdrew from political life to write his Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe ("Memoirs from Beyond the Grave"), published posthumously in two volumes in 1849–1850. It reflects his growing pessimism regarding the future. Although his contemporaries celebrated the present and future as an extension of the past, Chateaubriand and the new Romanticists couldn't share their nostalgic outlook. Instead he foresaw chaos, discontinuity, and disaster. His diaries and letters often focused on the upheavals he could see every day — abuses of power, excesses of daily life, and disasters yet to come. His melancholy tone suggested astonishment, surrender, betrayal, and bitterness.

His Études historiques was an introduction to a projected History of France. He became a harsh critic of the "bourgeois king" Louis-Philippe and the July Monarchy, and his planned volume on the arrest of Marie-Caroline, duchesse de Berry caused him to be (unsuccessfully) prosecuted.

Chateaubriand, along with other Catholic traditionalists such as Ballanche or, on the other side of the political divide, the socialist and republican Pierre Leroux, was one of the few men of his time who attempted to conciliate the three terms of Liberté, égalité and fraternité, going beyond the antagonism between liberals and socialists as to what interpretation to give the seemingly contradictory terms. Chateaubriand thus gave a Christian interpretation of the revolutionary motto, stating in the 1841 conclusion to his Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe:

In his final years, he lived as a recluse in an apartment at 120 rue du Bac, Paris, leaving his house only to pay visits to Juliette Récamier in Abbaye-aux-Bois. His final work, Vie de Rancé, was written at the suggestion of his confessor and published in 1844. It is a biography of Armand Jean le Bouthillier de Rancé, a worldly seventeenth-century French aristocrat who withdrew from society to become the founder of the Trappist order of monks. The parallels with Chateaubriand's own life are striking. As late as 1845–1847, he also kept revising Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe, particularly the earlier sections, as evidenced by the revision dates on the manuscript.

Chateaubriand died in Paris on 4 July 1848, aged 79, in the midst of the Revolution of 1848, in the arms of his dear friend Juliette Récamier, and was buried, as he had requested, on the tidal island Grand Bé near Saint-Malo, accessible only when the tide is out.

Influence
His descriptions of Nature and his analysis of emotion made him the model for a generation of Romantic writers, not only in France but also abroad. For example, Lord Byron was deeply impressed by René. The young Victor Hugo scribbled in a notebook, "To be Chateaubriand or nothing." Even his enemies found it hard to avoid his influence. Stendhal, who despised him for political reasons, made use of his psychological analyses in his own book De l'amour.

Chateaubriand was the first to define the vague des passions ("intimations of passion") that later became a commonplace of Romanticism: "One inhabits, with a full heart, an empty world" (Génie du Christianisme). His political thought and actions seem to offer numerous contradictions: he wanted to be the friend both of legitimist royalty and of republicans, alternately defending whichever of the two seemed more in danger: "I am a Bourbonist out of honour, a monarchist out of reason, and a republican out of taste and temperament". He was the first of a series of French men of letters (Lamartine, Victor Hugo, André Malraux, Paul Claudel) who tried to mix political and literary careers.

"We are convinced that the great writers have told their own story in their works", wrote Chateaubriand in Génie du christianisme. "One only truly describes one's own heart by attributing it to another, and the greater part of genius is composed of memories". This is certainly true of Chateaubriand himself. All his works have strong autobiographical elements, overt or disguised.

George Brandes, in 1901, compared the works of Chateaubriand to those of Rousseau and others: The year 1800 was the first to produce a book bearing the imprint of the new era, a work small in size, but great in significance and mighty in the impression it made. Atala took the French public by storm in a way which no book had done since the days of Paul and Virginia. It was a romance of the plains and mysterious forests of North America, with a strong, strange aroma of the untilled soil from which it sprang; it glowed with rich foreign colouring, and with the fiercer glow of consuming passion.

Chateaubriand was a food enthusiast; Chateaubriand steak is most likely to have been named after him.

Honors and memberships
In 1806, Chateaubriand was invested as a Knight of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

Chateaubriand was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1816.

A French school in Rome (Italy) is named after him.

The cut of meat, a Chateaubriand, is named after him.

Works

 * 1797: Essai sur les révolutions.
 * 1801: Atala, ou Les Amours de Deux Sauvages dans le Desert.
 * 1802: René.
 * 1802: Génie du christianisme.
 * 1809: Les Martyrs.
 * 1811: Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem. English translation by Frederic Shoberl, 1814. Travels in Greece, Palestine, Egypt, and Barbary, during the years 1806 and 1807.
 * 1814: "On Buonaparte and the Bourbons", in Blum, Christopher Olaf, editor and translator, 2004. Critics of the Enlightenment. Wilmington, DE: ISI Books. 3–42.
 * 1820: Mémoires sur la vie et la mort du duc de Berry.
 * 1826: Les Natchez.
 * 1826: Les Aventures du dernier Abencérage.
 * 1827: Voyage en Amérique.
 * 1831: Études historiques.
 * 1833: Mémoires sur la captivité de Madame la duchesse de Berry.
 * 1844: La Vie de Rancé.
 * 1848–50: Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe.
 * "Progress," in Menczer, Béla, 1962. Catholic Political Thought, 1789–1848, University of Notre Dame Press.

In French

 * Ghislain de Diesbach, Chateaubriand (Paris: Perrin, 1995).
 * Jean-Claude Berchet, Chateaubriand (Paris: Gallimard, 2012).

title: François-René de Chateaubriand


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Gene Vincent

Vincent Eugene Craddock (February 11, 1935 – October 12, 1971), known as Gene Vincent, was an American rock and roll musician who pioneered the style of rockabilly. His 1956 top ten hit with his backing band the Blue Caps, "Be-Bop-a-Lula", is considered a significant early example of rockabilly. His chart career was brief, especially in his home country of the US, where he notched three top 40 hits in 1956 and 1957, and never charted in the top 100 again. In the UK, he was a somewhat bigger star, racking up eight top 40 hits from 1956 to 1961.

Vincent was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. He is sometimes referred to by his somewhat unusual nickname/moniker the "Screaming End".

Early life
Craddock was born February 11, 1935, in Norfolk, Virginia, to Mary Louise and Ezekiah Jackson Craddock. His musical influences included country, rhythm and blues, and gospel. His favorite composition was Beethoven's Egmont overture. He showed his first real interest in music while his family lived in Munden Point (now Virginia Beach), in Princess Anne County, Virginia, near the North Carolina line, where they ran a country store. He received his first guitar at the age of twelve as a gift from a friend.

Craddock's father volunteered to serve in the U.S. Coast Guard and patrolled American coastal waters to protect Allied shipping against German U-boats during World War II. Craddock's mother maintained the general store in Munden Point. His parents moved the family to Norfolk, the home of a large naval base, and opened a general store and sailors' tailoring shop.

Craddock dropped out of school in 1952, at the age of seventeen, and enlisted in the United States Navy. As he was under the age of enlistment, his parents signed the forms allowing him to enter. He completed boot camp and joined the fleet as a crewman aboard the fleet oiler USS Chukawan (AO-100), with a two-week training period in the repair ship USS Amphion (AR-13), before returning to the Chukawan. He never saw combat but completed a Korean War deployment. He sailed home from Korean waters aboard the battleship USS Wisconsin (BB-64) but was not part of the ship's company.

Craddock planned a career in the Navy and, in 1955, used his $612 re-enlistment bonus to buy a new Triumph motorcycle. On July 4, 1955, while he was in Norfolk, his left leg was shattered in an auto crash. He refused to allow the leg to be amputated, and the leg was saved, but the injury left him with a limp and pain. He wore a steel sheath as a leg brace for the rest of his life. Most accounts relate the accident as the fault of a drunk driver who struck him. Years later in some of his music biographies, there is no mention of an accident, but it was claimed that his injury was due to a wound incurred in combat in Korea. He spent time in the Portsmouth Naval Hospital and was medically discharged from the navy shortly thereafter.

Early music career
Craddock became involved in the local music scene in Norfolk. He changed his name to Gene Vincent and formed a rockabilly band, Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps (a term used in reference to enlisted sailors in the U.S. Navy). The band included Willie Williams on rhythm guitar (replaced in late 1956 by Paul Peek), Jack Neal on upright bass, Dickie Harrell on drums (died May 31, 2023, at age 82), and Cliff Gallup on lead guitar. He also collaborated with another rising musician, Jay Chevalier of Rapides Parish, Louisiana. Vincent and His Blue Caps soon gained a reputation playing in various country bars in Norfolk. There they won a talent contest organized by a local radio DJ, "Sheriff Tex" Davis, who then became Vincent's manager.

Biggest hits
In 1956 he wrote "Be-Bop-a-Lula", which drew comparisons to Elvis Presley and which Rolling Stone magazine later listed as number 103 on its "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". Local radio DJ "Sheriff Tex" Davis arranged for a demo of the song to be made, and this secured Vincent a contract with Capitol Records. He signed a publishing contract with Bill Lowery of the Lowery Group of music publishers in Atlanta, Georgia. "Be-Bop-a-Lula" was not on Vincent's first album and was picked by Capitol producer Ken Nelson as the B-side of his first single, "Woman Love". Prior to the release of the single, Lowery pressed promotional copies of "Be-Bop-a-Lula" and sent them to radio stations throughout the country. By the time Capitol released the single, "Be-Bop-a-Lula" had already gained attention from the public and radio DJs. The song was picked up and played by other U.S. radio stations (obscuring the original A-side song) and became a hit, peaking at number 7 and spending 20 weeks on the Billboard pop chart and reaching number 5 and spending 17 weeks on the Cash Box chart, and launching Vincent's career as a rock-and-roll star.

After "Be-Bop-a-Lula" became a hit, Vincent and His Blue Caps were unable to follow it up with the same level of commercial success, although they released critically acclaimed songs like "Race with the Devil" (number 96 on the Billboard chart and number 50 on the Cash Box chart) and "Bluejean Bop" (number 49 on the Billboard chart and another million-selling disc).

Cliff Gallup left the band in 1956, and Russell Williford joined as the new guitarist for the Blue Caps. Williford played and toured Canada with Vincent in late 1956 but left the group in early 1957. Gallup came back to do the next album and then left again. Williford came back and exited again before Johnny Meeks joined the band. The group had another hit in 1957 with "Lotta Lovin'" (highest position number 13 and spending 19 weeks on the Billboard chart and number 17 and 17 weeks on the Cashbox chart). Vincent was awarded gold records for two million sales of "Be-Bop-a-Lula", and 1.5 million sales of "Lotta Lovin'". The same year he toured the east coast of Australia with Little Richard and Eddie Cochran, drawing audiences totaling 72,000 to their Sydney Stadium concerts. Vincent also made an appearance in the film The Girl Can't Help It, with Jayne Mansfield, performing "Be-Bop-a-Lula" with the Blue Caps in a rehearsal room. "Dance to the Bop" was released by Capitol Records on October 28, 1957. On November 17, 1957, Vincent and His Blue Caps performed the song on the nationally broadcast television program The Ed Sullivan Show. The song spent nine weeks on the Billboard chart and peaked at number 23 on January 23, 1958 and reached number 36 and spent eight weeks on the Cashbox chart. It was Vincent's last American hit single. The song was used in the movie Hot Rod Gang for a dance rehearsal scene featuring dancers doing the West Coast Swing.

Vincent and His Blue Caps also appeared several times on Town Hall Party, California's largest country music barn dance, held at the Town Hall in Compton, California. They appeared on October 25, 1958, and July 25 and November 7, 1959. However, by the end of 1959 the Blue Caps were no longer part of the billing on Gene Vincent records. The late 1959 single "Wild Cat" was credited solely to Gene Vincent, and this would be the case on all subsequent Gene Vincent releases.

Europe
A dispute with the US tax authorities and the American Musicians' Union over payments to his band and his having sold the band's equipment to pay a tax bill led Vincent to leave the United States for Europe.

On December 15, 1959, Vincent appeared on Jack Good's TV show, Boy Meets Girl, his first appearance in England. He wore black leather, gloves, and a medallion, and stood in a hunched posture. Good is credited with the transformation of Vincent's image. After the TV appearance he toured France, the Netherlands, Germany and the UK performing in his US stage clothes.

On April 16, 1960, while on tour in the UK, Vincent, Eddie Cochran and the songwriter Sharon Sheeley were involved in a high-speed traffic accident in a private-hire taxi in Chippenham, Wiltshire. Vincent broke his ribs and collarbone and further damaged his weakened leg. Sheeley suffered a broken pelvis. Cochran, who had been thrown from the vehicle, suffered serious brain injuries and died the next day. Vincent returned to the United States after the accident.

While they were preparing to board their taxi, Vincent and Cochran had rebuffed Tony Sheridan's request to ride along with them to the next venue. After escaping that fateful road accident, Sheridan soon relocated to Hamburg, where he helped influence the musical training of many British groups who would later become part of the British Invasion, including one of his backing bands, the Beatles.

Promoter Don Arden had Vincent return to the UK in 1961 to do an extensive tour in theatres and ballrooms, including the Agincourt Ballroom, Camberley with Chris Wayne and the Echoes. In 1962 Vincent was on the same bill as the Beatles in Hamburg; Paul McCartney recalled an incident with a pistol at Vincent's girlfriend's hotel. In 1963 Vincent appeared in court for pointing a gun at his then wife Margaret Russell and threatening to kill her, though his wife said in court that she had forgiven him. After the overwhelming success of the UK tour, Vincent moved to Britain in 1963. On a UK tour Vincent had pulled a gun on Jet Harris, Harris hid behind John Leyton, the situation was defused and the three would later become friends. His accompanying band, Sounds Incorporated, a six-piece outfit with three saxophones, guitar, bass and drums, went on to play with the Beatles at their Shea Stadium concert. Vincent toured the UK again in 1963 with the Outlaws, featuring future Deep Purple guitar player Ritchie Blackmore, as a backing band. Vincent's alcohol problems marred the tour, resulting in problems both on stage and with the band and management.

Later career
Vincent's attempts to re-establish his American career in folk rock and country rock proved unsuccessful; he is remembered today for recordings of the 1950s and early 1960s released by Capitol Records. In the early 1960s, he also put out tracks on EMI's Columbia label, including a cover of Arthur Alexander's "Where Have You Been All My Life?" A backing band called the Shouts joined him.

In 1966 and 1967, in the United States, he recorded for Challenge Records, backed by ex-members of the Champs and Glen Campbell. Challenge released three singles in the US, and the UK London label released two singles and collected recordings on to an LP, Gene Vincent, on the UK London label in 1967. Although well received, none sold well. In 1968 in a hotel in Germany, Vincent tried to shoot Paul Raven, later to find fame as Gary Glitter. He fired several shots but missed and a frightened Raven left the country the next day. In 1969, he recorded the album I'm Back and I'm Proud for long-time fan John Peel's Dandelion Records, produced by Kim Fowley with arrangements by Skip Battin (of the Byrds), Mars Bonfire on rhythm guitar, Johnny Meeks (of Blue Caps and Merle Haggard's The Strangers) on lead guitar, Jim Gordon on drums, and backing vocals by Linda Ronstadt and Jackie Frisco. While recording the track "Sexy Ways" for the album Vincent threatened to get a gun from his car and shoot Paul A. Rothchild and John Densmore if they did not leave the studio; the pair then left the studio quickly. He recorded two other albums for Kama Sutra Records, reissued on one CD by Rev-Ola in March 2008. On his 1969 tour of the UK he was backed by the Wild Angels, a British band that had performed at the Royal Albert Hall with Bill Haley & His Comets and Duane Eddy. Because of pressure from his ex-wife Margaret Russell, the Inland Revenue and promoter Don Arden, Vincent returned to the US.

His final US recordings were four tracks for Rockin' Ronny Weiser's Rolling Rock label, a few weeks before his death. These were released on a compilation album of tribute songs, including "Say Mama", by his daughter, Melody Jean Vincent, accompanied by Johnny Meeks on guitar. On 19 September 1971, he began his last series of gigs in Britain. He was backed by Richard Cole and Kansas Hook (Dave Bailey, Bob Moore, and bass player Charlie Harrison from Poco and Roger McGuinn's Thunderbyrd). They recorded four tracks ("Say Mama", "Be-Bop-A-Lula", "Roll Over Beethoven", "Distant Drums") at the BBC studios in Maida Vale, London, for Johnnie Walker's Radio 1 show. The fifth record ("Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On") remained unfinished. He managed one show at the Garrick Night Club in Leigh, Lancashire, and two shows at the Wookey Hollow Club in Liverpool on October 3 and 4. Vincent then returned to the US and died a few days later. In September, 1974, BBC launched pop label BEEB with a maxi single by Vincent ("Roll Over Beethoven", BEEB 001). The single comprised three of these tracks. The four tracks are now on Vincent's album White Lightning.

Death and legacy
Vincent died at the age of 36 on October 12, 1971, from a combination of a ruptured ulcer, internal hemorrhage and heart failure, while visiting his father in Saugus, California. He is interred at Eternal Valley Memorial Park, in Newhall, California.

Vincent is mentioned in one of Ian Dury's earliest songs, "Upminster Kid" (on the 1975 Kilburn and the High Roads album Handsome ), with the words "Well Gene Vincent Craddock remembered the love of an Upminster rock 'n' roll teen". Vincent had died just four years earlier. He later recorded the song "Sweet Gene Vincent".

Vincent was the first inductee into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame upon its formation in 1997. The following year he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Vincent has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1749 North Vine Street. In 2012, his band, the Blue Caps, were retroactively inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by a special committee, alongside Vincent. On Tuesday, September 23, 2003, Vincent was honored with a Norfolk's Legends of Music Walk of Fame bronze star embedded in the Granby Street sidewalk.

Writing for AllMusic, Ritchie Unterberger called Vincent "an American rockabilly legend who defined the greasy-haired, leather-jacketed, hot rods 'n' babes spark of rock and roll." Village Voice critic Robert Christgau was less impressed by the musician's career, saying "Vincent was never a titan – his few moments of rockabilly greatness were hyped-up distillations of slavering lust from a sensitive little guy who was just as comfortable with 'Over the Rainbow' in his normal frame of mind." However, he included Vincent's compilation album The Bop That Just Won't Stop (1974) in his "basic record library", published in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981).

Studio albums

 * Bluejean Bop! (Capitol T764. US & UK) (8/13/1956)
 * Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps (Capitol T811, US & UK) (1957)
 * Gene Vincent Rocks! And the Blue Caps Roll (Capitol T970, US & UK) (3/1958)
 * A Gene Vincent Record Date (Capitol T1059, US & UK) (11/1958)
 * Sounds Like Gene Vincent (Capitol T1207, US & UK) (6/1959)
 * Crazy Times (Capitol T1342, US & UK mono) (Capitol ST1342, US & UK stereo) (3/1960)
 * The Crazy Beat of Gene Vincent (Capitol T 20453, UK) (1963)
 * Shakin' Up a Storm (Columbia 33-OSX 1646, UK) (1964)
 * Gene Vincent (London HAH 8333, UK) (1967)
 * I'm Back and I'm Proud (Dandelion D9 102, US) (1969) (Dandelion 63754, UK) (1970)
 * Gene Vincent (Kama Sutra KSBS 2019, US) (1970) retitled If Only You Could See Me Today (Kama Sutra 2361009, UK) (1971)
 * The Day the World Turned Blue (Kama Sutra KSBS 2027, US) (1970) (Kama Sutra 2316005, UK) (1971)

Compilations and bootlegs

 * Rhythm in Blue (bootleg) (Bluecap Records BC2-11-35, Canada) (1979)
 * Be-Bop-a-Lula (bootleg) (Koala KOA 14617, US) (1980)
 * Forever Gene Vincent (Rolling Rock LP 022, US) (1980) (contains four rare recordings by Vincent)
 * Dressed in Black (Magnum Force MFLP 016, UK) (1982)
 * Gene Vincent with Interview by Red Robinson (bootleg) (Great Northwest Music Company GNW 4016, US) (1982)
 * From LA to Frisco (Magnum Force MFLP 1023, UK) (1982)
 * For Collectors Only (Magnum Force MFLP 020, UK) (1984)
 * Rarities Vol 2 (bootleg) (Doktor Kollector DK 005, France) (1985)
 * Rareties [sic] (bootleg) (Dr Kollector CRA 001, France) (1986)
 * Important Words (Rockstar RSR LP 1020, UK) (1990)
 * Lost Dallas Sessions (Rollercoaster RCCD 3031) (1998)
 * Hey Mama! (Rollercoaster ROLL 2021, UK) (1998)

EPs
(NB: This listing omits the many EPs of album tracks & compilations)
 * Hot Rod Gang (Capitol EAP 1–985 US & UK) (9/58)
 * Be-Bop-a-Lula '62 (Capitol EAP 1-20448 France) (62)
 * Live and Rockin' (Fan club issue UK) (69)
 * The Screamin' Kid Live! (bootleg) (no label 20240 France) (69)
 * The Screaming Kid (bootleg) (no label 20.266 France) (69)
 * Rainyday Sunshine (Rollin' Danny RD1 UK) (80)
 * On Tour with Gene Vincent & Eddie Cochran (Rockstar RSR-EP 2013 UK) (86)
 * In Concert Vol 1 (bootleg) (Savas SA 178305 France) (88)
 * The Last Session (Strange Fruit SFNT 001 UK) (88)
 * Hey Mama! (Rollercoaster RCEP 123 UK) (98)
 * Blue Gene (Norton EP-076 US) (99)

Film appearances

 * The Girl Can't Help It (1956)
 * Hot Rod Gang (1958, a.k.a. Fury Unleashed)
 * It's Trad, Dad! (1962, a.k.a. Ring a Ding Rhythm)
 * Live It Up! (1963, a.k.a. Sing and Swing)
 * The Rock And Roll Singer (1970) - documentary of Vincent's London tour of 1969

Vincent was played by Carl Barât in the 2009 film Telstar

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

title: Gene Vincent


text:
Sierra Nevada (disambiguation)

Sierra Nevada is a mountain range in the Western United States.

Sierra Nevada may also refer to:

Mountain ranges

 * Sierra Nevada (Spain), in southern Spain
 * Sierra Nevada, the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, in central-southern Mexico
 * Sierra Nevada de Lagunas Bravas, a volcanic complex in Chile and Argentina
 * Sierra Nevada de Mérida, in Venezuela
 * Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, in Colombia
 * Sierra Nevada del Cocuy, another mountain range in Colombia

Other locations

 * Sierra Nevada (stratovolcano), a volcano in Chile
 * Sierra Nevada National Park (Spain)
 * Sierra Nevada National Park (Venezuela)
 * Sierra Nevada Ski Station, a ski resort in Spain

Other uses

 * Sierra Nevada (ferry), a ferry operated on San Francisco Bay
 * macOS Sierra, version 10.12 of the macOS operating system
 * Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, a California beer brewer
 * Sierra Nevada Corporation, an aerospace contractor
 * Sierra Nevada affair, corruption scandal in Venezuela

title: Sierra Nevada (disambiguation)


text:
The Blue Caps

The Blue Caps were a pioneering American rock and roll band of the 1950s, the backing band for early rockabilly icon Gene Vincent. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, as part of a class of overlooked backing bands selected by a special committee.

Robert Burke Warren, writing for the Hall of Fame, called them "One of the first self-contained rock & roll bands", while Rolling Stone has called them "The first rock & roll band in the world".

Members inducted into the Hall of Fame were guitarists Cliff Gallup, Tommy "Bubba" Facenda, Paul Peek, Willie Williams, and Johnny Meeks; bassists Bobby Jones and Jack Neal; and drummer Dickie Harrell, who died in 2023. Drummers Juvy Gomez and Clyde Pennington, bassist Bill Mack, piano player Max Lipscomb, and guitarists Grady Owen and Jerry Merritt were also members at various times.

The Blue Caps appeared, backing Gene Vincent, in the movies The Girl Can't Help It (1956) and Hot Rod Gang (1958).

The Blue Caps wore flat light blue caps on stage.

The Blue Caps disbanded before the end of the 1950s, but reformed with original members Meeks, Peek, Harrell, Jones, and Facenda for a 1982 tour of England and a new record.

With Gene Vincent

 * Bluejean Bop! (1956, Columbia)
 * Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps (1957, Capitol T811, US & UK)
 * Gene Vincent Rocks! And the Blue Caps Roll! (1958, Capitol – T-970, US & UK)

Solo

 * Unleashed (1982, Magnum Force)
 * On The Road Again (1984, Magnum Force, MFLP – 1020)
 * The Blue Caps – Hep To The Beat With The Blue Caps & Friends (2004, Pollytone – PEPCD 119, UK)

title: The Blue Caps


text:
Queer as Folk (British TV series)

Queer as Folk is a 1999 British television series that chronicles the lives of three gay men living in Manchester's gay village around Canal Street. Initially running for eight episodes, a two-part follow up was shown in 2000. It was written by Russell T Davies and produced by Red Production Company for Channel 4.

Background
The title of the programme comes from a traditional Northern English saying, "there's nowt so queer as folk", meaning "there's nothing as strange as people", and is a word play on the modern-day English definition of "queer" as homosexual. The script had originally started life with the title Queer as Fuck but Queer as Folk was considered more suitable.

Characters and plot
The main characters are Stuart Allen Jones (Aidan Gillen), who is highly sexually active, and successfully so. His long-time friend Vince Tyler (Craig Kelly), who has a crush on Stuart, has less luck with men. 15-year-old Nathan Maloney (Charlie Hunnam) is new to the gay scene but is not lacking in self-confidence.

The producers say that Queer as Folk, although superficially a realistic depiction of gay urban life in the 1990s, is meant as a fantasy, and that Stuart, Vince, and Nathan are not so much characters as gay male archetypes.

Stuart, an advertising executive, possesses intrinsic power, able to bend anything to his will. Stuart's principal characteristic is that he does whatever he wants, whenever he wants, however he wants. He blows up a car belonging to his friend Alexander's antagonistic mother (in the second series). He invites Vince's female colleague, who has a crush on closeted Vince, to Vince's birthday party and then introduces Vince's boyfriend. When offered a test drive of a Jeep by a car salesman who makes some homophobic comments, Stuart drives the car straight through the large window of the car dealership.

Reception
At the time, the response was mixed from gay commentators in relation to the portrayal of the characters. The show was criticised by the gay press for not addressing the issue of the AIDS epidemic but the writer said he wanted to show the love and joy of gay life as this had not been shown on TV before. In the wider press and media, a commentator in the Daily Mail called for censorship and made homophobic comments. Twenty years after the show first aired, however, Queer as Folk was generally praised.

The first four episodes were sponsored by Beck's Brewery but the company withdrew their sponsorship halfway through the series. Following a backlash from the gay community, Beck's offered to sponsor the second series, a request which was refused by the producers.

In 2010, The Guardian ranked Queer as Folk at number 13 in their list of "The Top 50 TV Dramas of All Time".

Awards
Gillen was nominated for Best Actor at the 2000 British Academy Television Awards for his role, whilst the series was nominated for Best Drama Serial at the 1999 Royal Television Society Awards. Murray Gold won the Best Music - Original Score at the 1999 RTS Craft & Design Awards while Pam Tait was nominated for Best Costume Design - Drama.

Music
The theme song for the series was created by Murray Gold. A soundtrack album was released by Almighty Records for the original series and features tracks by OT Quartet, Ultra Naté, and Blondie. Selling 125,000 copies, it remained popular long after the broadcast of the first series and ended up the 50th biggest selling compilation album of 1999. An album for the second series was released by Channel 4 Music and sold 19,000 copies in its first week to debut at #5 on the UK Compilation Chart.

Cast

 * Aidan Gillen as Stuart Alan Jones, a successful advertising executive
 * Craig Kelly as Vince Tyler, a supermarket manager
 * Charlie Hunnam as Nathan Maloney, a 15-year-old rebel
 * Denise Black as Hazel Tyler; Vince's free-spirited mother
 * Andy Devine as Bernard Thomas; Hazel's lodger
 * Jason Merrells as Phil Delaney; a close friend of Vince and Stuart
 * Esther Hall as Romey Sullivan; whose baby Stuart fathered by donating his sperm
 * Saira Todd as Lisa Levene; Romey's partner
 * Carla Henry as Donna Clark; Nathan's best friend
 * Ben Maguire as Christian Hobbs; an arrogant classmate of Nathan and Donna
 * Alison Burrows as Sandra Docherty; Stuart's Assistant
 * Caroline Pegg as Rosalie Cotter; one of Vince's co-workers, who is romantically interested in him
 * Caroline O'Neill as Janice Maloney; Nathan's mother
 * Antony Cotton as Alexander Perry; a flamboyant friend of Vince and Stuart
 * Peter O'Brien as Cameron Roberts; Phil's accountant who starts a relationship with Vince
 * Jonathon Natynczyk as Dazz Collinson; a bartender who has a brief relationship with Nathan
 * Maria Doyle Kennedy as Marie Jones Threepwood; Stuart's recently divorced sister
 * John Brobbey as Lance Amponah; Romey and Lisa's lodger

Spin-offs
A spin-off series, Misfits (no relation to the later E4 series of the same name), was initially commissioned by Channel 4. The series would have followed the characters of Hazel, Alexander, Donna (who was absent from the 2nd series due to scheduling commitments) and Bernard from the original series, while introducing new characters. Although Davies developed draft scripts for four episodes and storylines for a further twenty-two, the series was cancelled before it went into pre-production.

As a result of Channel 4's decision, Davies pulled out of a deal that would have seen a series of Queer as Folk short stories published on the broadcaster's website, and vowed not to work with Channel 4 again, unless he has an idea that only works on that channel. However, fifteen years later in 2015, Davies returned to Channel 4 with drama series Cucumber, drama anthology Banana (on E4) and documentary series Tofu (on 4oD). Denise Black makes a cameo appearance as Hazel Tyler's ghost in the sixth episode of Cucumber.

American versions
Driven by the success of the series, American cable channel Showtime and Canadian cable channel Showcase co-produced an American version, Queer as Folk. This is set in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania although was filmed in Toronto, Ontario.

In late 2018, a second American adaptation was in development for Bravo. In April 2021, it received a series order from Peacock, the streaming service it shifted to within the NBCUniversal family. It reimagines this series instead of serving as a reboot of the first American series. Queer as Folk (2022 TV series) was released on June 9, 2022, on Peacock.

title: Queer as Folk (British TV series)


text:
Frank Yates

Frank Yates FRS (12 May 1902 – 17 June 1994) was one of the pioneers of 20th-century statistics.

Biography
Yates was born in Manchester, England, the eldest of five children (and only son) of seed merchant and botanist Percy Yates and his wife Edith. He attended Wadham House, a private school, before gaining a scholarship to Clifton College in 1916. In 1920, he obtained a scholarship at St John's College, Cambridge, and four years later graduated with a First Class Honours degree.

He spent two years teaching mathematics to secondary school pupils at Malvern College before heading to Africa, where he was mathematical advisor on the Gold Coast Survey. He returned to England, due to ill health, and met and married a chemist, Margaret Forsythe Marsden, the daughter of a civil servant. This marriage was dissolved in 1933, and he later married Prascovie (Pauline) Tchitchkine, previously the partner of Alexis Tchitchkine. After her death in 1976, he married Ruth Hunt, his long-time secretary.

In 1931, Yates was appointed assistant statistician at Rothamsted Experimental Station by R.A. Fisher. In 1933, he became head of statistics when Fisher went to University College London. At Rothamsted he worked on the design of experiments, including contributions to the theory of analysis of variance, as well as developing Yates's algorithm and the balanced incomplete block design.

During World War II he worked on what would later be called operations research.

After WWII, he worked on sample survey design and analysis. He became an enthusiast of electronic computers, in 1954 obtaining an Elliott 401 for Rothamsted and contributing to the initial development of statistical computing. During 1960–61, he was President of the British Computer Society, succeeding the founding president and computer pioneer, Maurice Wilkes. In 1960, he was awarded the Guy Medal in Gold of the Royal Statistical Society and, in 1966, he was awarded the Royal Medal of the Royal Society. He retired from Rothamsted to become a senior research fellow at Imperial College London. He died in 1994, aged 92, in Harpenden.

Selected publications

 * The design and analysis of factorial experiments, Technical Communication no. 35 of the Commonwealth Bureau of Soils (1937) (alternatively attributed to the Imperial Bureau of Soil Science).
 * Statistical tables for biological, agricultural and medical research (1938, coauthor R.A. Fisher): sixth edition, 1963
 * Sampling methods for censuses and surveys (1949)
 * Computer programs GENFAC, RGSP, Fitquan.

title: Frank Yates


text:
Chao Phraya River

The Chao Phraya ( or ; แม่น้ำเจ้าพระยา,, or ) is the major river in Thailand, with its low alluvial plain forming the centre of the country. It flows through Bangkok and then into the Gulf of Thailand.

Etymology
On many old European maps, the river is named the Mae Nam (Thai: แม่น้ำ), the Thai word for "river" (literally, "motherly water"). Irish surveyor and cartographer James McCarthy, F.R.G.S., who served as Director-General of the Siamese Government Surveys prior to establishment of the Royal Survey Department, wrote in his account, "Mae Nam is a generic term, mae signifying "mother" and Nam "water," and the epithet Chao P'ia signifies that it is the chief river in the kingdom of Siam."

H. Warington Smyth, who served as Director of the Department of Mines in Siam from 1891 to 1896, refers to it in his book first published in 1898 as "the Mae Nam Chao Phraya".

In the English-language media in Thailand, the name Chao Phraya River is often translated as river of kings.

History
On the basins of Chao Phraya River rose the earliest civilizations in the south east Asia, most notably the ancient Mon kingdom and the civilization of Dvaravati from the 7th century to the 11th century, the river played a crucial role in the Lavo kingdom that existed on its left bank in the Upper Chao Phraya valley, Chao Phraya maintained its role in the kingdoms that succeeded the Lavo kingdom, forming the bases of the Ayodhaya kingdom, that was later incorporated into the Ayutthaya Kingdom in the 14th century, which itself was precursor of modern Thailand (known formerly as Siam), the river became very significant after the establishment of Rattanakosin (Bangkok) in 1782 on its east bank, the location of Bangkok on the east bank of Chao Phraya River ensured protection to Siamese kingdom from the Burmese invasions coming from the West.

Geography
The Chao Phraya begins at the confluence of the Ping and Nan rivers at Nakhon Sawan (also called Pak Nam Pho) in Nakhon Sawan province. After this, it flows south for 372 km from the central plains to Bangkok and the Gulf of Thailand. In Chai Nat, the river then splits into the main course and the Tha Chin River, which then flows parallel to the main river and exits in the Gulf of Thailand about 35 km west of Bangkok in Samut Sakhon.

In the low alluvial plain which begins below the Chao Phraya Dam, there are many small canals (khlong) which split off from the main river. The khlongs are used for the irrigation of the region's rice paddies.

The rough coordinates of the river are 13 N, 100 E. This area has a wet monsoon climate, with over 1400 mm of rainfall per year. Temperatures range from 24 to 33 C in Bangkok.

River engineering
The lower Chao Phraya underwent several human-made modifications during the Ayutthaya period. Several shortcut canals were constructed to bypass large loops in the river, shortening the trip from the capital city to the sea. The course of the river has since changed to follow many of these canals.

 * In 1538, Thailand's first river engineering of a 3 km long canal was dug at the order of King Chairachathirat. It was called "Khlong Lat", and today forms a part of Khlong Bangkok Noi. It shortened the route by 13–14 km for ships from the Gulf of Siam to the then-capital city, Ayutthaya.
 * In 1542, a two kilometer-long canal, "Khlong Lat Bangkok", was completed. The Chao Phraya then diverted along the new canal, its old course becoming part of Khlong Bangkok Noi and Khlong Bangkok Yai. It is said to have shortened the river route by 14 km.
 * In 1608, a seven kilometer-long "Khlong Bang Phrao" canal was completed and has shortened the Chao Phraya's original route by 18 km.
 * In 1636, the "Khlong Lat Mueang Nonthaburi" was completed.
 * In 1722, the two kilometre long "Khlong Lat Kret Noi" shortened the Chao Phraya by 7 km. This route formed the island of Ko Kret.

River settlements
Cities along the Chao Phraya include, from north to south, Nakhon Sawan Province, Uthai Thani Province, Chai Nat Province, Sing Buri Province, Ang Thong Province, Ayutthaya Province, Pathum Thani Province, Nonthaburi Province, Bangkok, and Samut Prakan Province. These cities are among the most historically significant and densely populated settlements of Thailand due to their access to the waterway.

Transportation
Major bridges cross the Chao Phraya in Bangkok: the Rama VI railroad bridge; Phra Pin-klao near the Grand Palace; Rama VIII, a single tower asymmetrical cable-stayed bridge; Rama IX, a semi-symmetric cable-stayed bridge; and Mega Bridge, on the Industrial Ring Road.

In Bangkok, the Chao Phraya is a major transportation artery for a network of river buses, cross-river ferries, and water taxis ("longtails"). More than 15 boat lines operate on the rivers and canals of the city, including commuter lines.

Tourism
The Chao Phraya River has a significant impact on tourism in Bangkok. The various attractions along the riverbanks, such as cruises, cafes, malls, etc., are highly popular among tourists.

Tributaries
The principal tributaries of the Chao Phraya River are the Pa Sak River, the Sakae Krang River, the Nan River (along with its principal confluent the Yom River), the Ping River (with its principal confluent, the Wang River), and the Tha Chin River. Each of these tributaries (and the Chao Phraya itself) is augmented by minor tributaries referred to as khwae. All of the tributaries, including the lesser khwae, form an extensive tree-like pattern, with branches flowing through nearly every province in central and northern Thailand. None of the tributaries of the Chao Phraya extend beyond the nation's borders. The Nan and the Yom River flow nearly parallel from Phitsanulok to Chumsaeng in the north of Nakhon Sawan Province. The Wang River enters the Ping River near Sam Ngao district in Tak Province.

Length
When measured from the most commonly accepted source, which is the confluence of the Ping and Nan River in Nakhon Sawan, the river measures 372 km. However, when measured from the longest source, which is the origin point of the Nan River in the Luang Prabang Range, the river measures 1112 km.

Chao Phraya watershed

The expanse of the Chao Phraya River and its tributaries, i.e., the Chao Phraya river system, together with the land upon which falling rain drains into these bodies of water, form the Chao Phraya watershed.

The Chao Phraya watershed is the largest watershed in Thailand, covering approximately 35 percent of the nation's land, and draining an area of 157924 km2.

The watershed is divided into the following basins:
 * Pa Sak Basin
 * Sakae Krang Basin
 * Greater Nan Basin (composed of the Nan Basin and the Yom Basin, and usually divided as such in drainage analyses)
 * Greater Ping Basin (composed of the Ping Basin and the Wang Basin, and usually divided as such in drainage analyses)
 * Tha Chin Basin (the basin of the Chao Phraya's most significant distributaries)
 * Finally the Chao Phraya Basin itself is defined as the portion of the Chao Phraya watershed drained by the Chao Phraya River itself, and not by its major tributaries or distributaries. As such, the Chao Phraya Basin drains 20126 km2 of land.

To the west, the central plain of Thailand is drained by the Mae Klong and the east by the Bang Pakong River. They are not part of the Chao Praya system.

The landscape of the river basins is a very wide, flat, well-watered plain continuously refreshed with soil and sediment brought down by the rivers. The lower central plain from the delta north to Ang Thong Province is a flat, low area with an average of two metres above sea level. Further north and into the plains of the Ping and the Nan the elevation is over 20 m. Then the mountains that are the natural boundary of the Chao Praya watershed form a divide, which has, to some degree, historically isolated Thailand from other Southeast Asian civilisations. In northern Thailand the divide roughly corresponds to a long section of the political border of the country today. Southern portions of the divide's boundary correspond less to the nation's political border, because isolation in this area was prevented by the ease of transportation along the lowlands surrounding the Gulf of Thailand, allowing a unified Thai civilisation to extend beyond the watershed without issue. The slightly higher northern plains have been farmed for centuries and saw a major change from the 13th century during the Sukhothai Kingdom in the 13th and 14th centuries and the Ayutthaya Kingdom that succeeded it when rice growing intensified with the introduction of floating rice, a much faster-growing strain of rice from Bengal. The southern swamps meanwhile changed radically from the 18th century when King Buddha Yodfa Chulaloke moved the capital of Siam to Bangkok, and a process of canalisation and cultivation began, especially as Thailand began to export rice from 1855.

Delta
The Tha Chin River is the major distributary of the Chao Phraya River. The expanse of the Chao Phraya and Tha Chin Rivers and their distributaries, starting at the point at which the distributaries diverge, together with the land amid the triangle formed by the outermost and innermost distributary, form the Chao Phraya delta. The many distributaries of the Chao Phraya delta are interconnected by canals that serve both for irrigation and for transportation.

Ecology
The lowland areas of the Chao Phraya watershed in central Thailand have been designated as the Chao Phraya freshwater swamp forests, a tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests ecoregion, an area about 400 km north to south and 180 km wide.

The original swamp forests have almost entirely been removed as the plain has been converted to rice paddies, other agriculture, and urban areas like Bangkok. Much of the wildlife that once inhabited these plains has disappeared, including a large number of fish in the river systems, birds such as vultures, the Oriental darter (Anhinga melanogaster), white-eyed river martin (Pseudochelidon sirintarae), the sarus crane (Grus antigone) and animals such as tigers, Asian elephants, Javan rhinoceroses, and the much-hunted Schomburgk's deer. Today we can only guess at the original habitat and wildlife by comparing it with neighbouring countries. It is believed that the area would have consisted of freshwater swamps inland and salty mangroves on the coast and the river estuaries. The swamp would have been covered in Phragmites marsh grasses. Today there is a small area of this remaining in Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park, a relic of the original landscape.

As so much has been cleared or altered the potential for creating large protected areas to preserve original habitat no longer exists. However much wildlife does remain in the rice fields and steps may be taken to preserve these as urban and industrial development on the plains is ongoing and the Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand has very little control or planning over this. Particular threats come from the conversion of rice paddies to large-scale production of prawns by pumping in seawater, and the use of pesticides to eliminate the introduced snail,Pomacea canaliculata, which damages rice plants.

There are populations of threatened birds, including colonies of breeding water birds such as the world's largest populations of the near-threatened Asian openbill (Anastomus oscitans), and other birds such as the wintering black kite (Milvus migrans). Endemic mammals that remain are the limestone rat (Niviventer hinpoon), Neill's long-tailed giant rat (Leopoldamys neilli), and the near-endemic Thailand roundleaf bat (Hipposideros halophyllus).

The Chao Phraya basin is home to about half a dozen endemic dragonflies and damselflies. The conservation status of most of these in unclear (they are rated as data deficient by the IUCN), but Cryptophaea saukra is critically endangered and Caliphaea angka is endangered.

There are few areas of wetland protected as national parks, but these are mostly very small.

Fish

The Chao Phraya basin is home to around 280 species of fish, including about 30 endemics. By far the most diverse family is Cyprinidae with 108 species. The mainstream of the Chao Phraya River has about 190 native fish species. In general, the aquatic fauna of Chao Phraya and Mae Klong show clear similarities, and they are sometimes combined in a single ecoregion with 328 fish species. Despite their similarities, there are also differences between the aquatic fauna of Chao Phraya and Mae Klong; the latter (but not the former) is home to a few taxa otherwise only known in major Burmese rivers: the Irrawaddy, Salween, and Tenasserim. The aquatic fauna in Chao Phraya–Mae Klong also show clear similarities with that of the middle Mekong (the lower Mekong fauna more closely resembles that of the eastern Malay Peninsula). It is believed that the upper Mekong was connected to Chao Phraya (rather than present-day lower Mekong) until the Quaternary, which explains the similarities in their river faunas. This included the Nan River basin, a tributary of the Chao Phraya, which is home to a number of taxa (for example, Ambastaia nigrolineata and Sectoria) otherwise only known from Mekong. Of the fish species known from the Chao Phraya–Mae Klong, only about 50 are absent from the Mekong.

There has been extensive habitat destruction (pollution, dams, and drainage for irrigation) in the Chao Phraya basin and overfishing also presents a problem. Within mainland Southeast Asia, the only freshwater region with similar high levels of threat is the lower Mekong. It has been estimated that only around 30 native fish species still are able to reproduce in the mainstream of the Chao Phraya River.

The catfish Platytropius siamensis is endemic to Chao Phraya and Bang Pakong, but has not been recorded since the 1970s and is considered extinct. Recent records of the near-endemic cyprinid Balantiocheilos ambusticauda are also lacking and it is possibly extinct. Three of the largest freshwater fish in the world are native to the river, but these are all seriously threatened: the critically endangered giant barb (wild populations have been extirpated from Chao Phraya, but remain elsewhere), critically endangered giant pangasius, and endangered giant freshwater stingray. The critically endangered red-tailed black shark, a small colourful cyprinid that is endemic to Chao Phraya, is commonly seen in the aquarium trade where it is bred in large numbers, but the only remaining wild population is at a single location that covers less than 10 km2. The endangered dwarf loach, another species bred in large numbers for the aquarium trade, has been extirpated from most of its range in Chao Phraya. The critically endangered Siamese tigerfish has been entirely exirpated from Chao Phraya and Mae Klong, but small populations remain in the Mekong basin.

Many other species that either are prominent in the aquarium trade or important food fish are native to the Chao Phraya basin, such as the climbing perch, blue panchax, Asian bumblebee catfish, giant snakehead, striped snakehead, walking catfish, banded loach, several Yasuhikotakia loaches, tinfoil barb, Siamese algae eater, silver barb, pearl danio, rainbow shark, Hampala barb, black sharkminnow, Leptobarbus rubripinna, long pectoral-fin minnow, bonylip barb, Jullien's golden carp, blackline rasbora, scissortail rasbora, Tor tambroides, finescale tigerfish, marble goby, Chinese algae eater, giant featherback, clown featherback, giant gourami, several Trichopodus gouramis, iridescent shark, several Pangasius, Belodontichthys truncatus, several Phalacronotus sheatfish, several Wallago catfish, largescale archerfish, smallscale archerfish, and wrestling halfbeak.

Pollution
The Thai Pollution Control Department (PCD) reports that the water quality of major rivers flowing into the upper Gulf of Thailand has seriously deteriorated in the past decade. The department found the lower Chao Phraya contains bacteria and nutrient pollution from phosphates, phosphorus, and nitrogen. Nutrient pollution causes algae to grow faster than ecosystems can handle, harming water quality, food resources for aquatic animals, and marine habitats. It also decreases the oxygen that fish need to survive. PCD rated water quality at the mouth of Chao Phraya at Bangkok's Bang Khun Thian District as "very poor", worse than in 2014, and their findings indicated large amounts of wastewater were discharged into the river from households, industry, and agriculture. In addition, 4,000 metric tons of plastic flows down the river into the Gulf of Thailand every year. To counter this, Thailand's Department of Marine and Coastal Resources (DMCR) signed an agreement with The Ocean Cleanup organization to deploy an Interceptor Original, one of the organization's solar-powered, automated systems, in the river. Since 19 February 2024, an interceptor of the latest third generation has been deployed for testing purposes.

title: Chao Phraya River


text:
Gaston Eyskens

Gaston François Marie, Viscount Eyskens (1 April 1905 – 3 January 1988) was a Christian democratic politician and prime minister of Belgium. He was also an economist and member of the Belgian Christian Social Party (CVP-PSC).

He served three terms as the prime minister of Belgium, holding the position from 1949 to 1950, 1958 to 1961 and 1968 to 1973. During his periods in office, Eyskens was confronted with major ideological and linguistic conflicts within Belgium including the Royal Question in 1950, the School War in 1958, the independence of the Belgian Congo in 1960 and the split of the University of Leuven in 1970. He oversaw the first steps towards the federalization of Belgium (constitutional reform of 1970).

Family
Eyskens was born in Lier, the son of Antonius Franciscus Eyskens (1875–1948) and Maria Voeten (1872–1960). On 10 August 1931 he married Gilberte Depetter (1902–1981), with whom he had two sons: Erik Eyskens (Leuven 20 July 1935 – Antwerpen 31 August 2008) and Mark Eyskens. His son Mark also became Prime Minister, serving from 6 April 1981 to 17 December 1981.

Academic career
Eyskens studied at the Catholic University of Leuven where he gained a master and doctorate degree. In 1927 he became Master of Science at Columbia University. In 1931 Eyskens became a professor at the University of Leuven. He later became dean of the economics faculty. He also served on the board of Lovanium University in the Congo.

Eyskens was made doctor honoris causa by Columbia University, the University of Cologne and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Political career
During the early 1930s Eyskens was chief of staff of CVP ministers Edmond Rubbens and Philip Van Isacker. In 1939 Eyskens was elected to the Belgian Chamber of Representatives. He was steadily re-elected (in 1946, 1949, 1950, 1954, 1958 and 1961) and served until 1965.

In 1945 and between 1947 and 1949 he was Minister of Finance. On 11 August 1949 he became Prime Minister of Belgium in a coalition (Eyskens I) between Christian-democrats and liberals. His cabinet fell in June 1950 over the constitutional crisis caused by King Leopold III's actions during the Second World War. In the short lived government of Jean Duvieusart (June–August 1950) Eyskens was Minister of Economic Affairs.

Between 26 June 1958 and 6 November 1958, Eyskens led a minority government which was the most recent government of Belgium (Eyskens II) not to be a coalition government. On 6 November, Eyskens formed a coalition government with the liberals (Eyskens III) which remained in power until 3 September 1960. On 3 September 1960 he formed his third government (Eyskens IV), again a coalition with the liberal party. This government fell on 25 April 1961 over the Unitary Law (which raised the fiscal pressure by 7 billion Belgian francs, cut spending in education and the military, and reformed unemployment benefits and government pensions) and had caused large-scale strikes. During these years he also had to deal with the School War and the independence of the Belgian Congo.

In the general election of 1965 Eyskens was elected to the Belgian Senate (re-elected in 1968 and 1971). In the government led by Pierre Harmel (1965–1966) he again served as Minister of Finance. Student unrest and questions of discrimination against the ethnic Flemish population brought down the Belgian government in February 1968. On 17 June 1968, Gaston Eyskens formed his fifth government (Eyskens V); this time a centre-left coalition between the Christian Democrats and the Socialists. On 20 January 1973, he formed his sixth and last government (Eyskens VI), again a coalition with the Socialists.

His last two governments were plagued by linguistic troubles regarding the split of the old bilingual Catholic University of Leuven into a Dutch-language university (the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), which stayed in Leuven and a French-language university which moved to Louvain-la-Neuve and became the Université catholique de Louvain and the start of the process of changing Belgium from a unitary state into a federation with the creation of the Communities. Upon the fall of his last government Gaston Eyskens retired from politics. He died in Leuven.

Honours

 * 🇧🇪 Belgium: Minister of State by RD of 5 April 1963.
 * 🇧🇪 Belgium: Created Viscount Eyskens by RD in September 1973.
 * 🇧🇪 Belgium: Member of the Royal Academy.
 * 🇧🇪 Belgium: Commander in the Order of Leopold II, by RD of 15 February 1946.
 * 🇧🇪 Belgium: Knight Grand Cross in the Order of the Crown, by RD of 8 April 1954.
 * Knight Commander in the Order of Saint Gregory the Great.

title: Gaston Eyskens