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The Age

The Age is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and southern New South Wales. It is delivered both in print and digital formats. The newspaper shares some articles with its sister newspaper the Sydney Morning Herald.

The Age is considered a newspaper of record for Australia, and has variously been known for its investigative reporting, with its journalists having won dozens of Walkley Awards, Australia's most prestigious journalism prize. , The Age had a monthly readership of 5.321 million.

Foundation
The Age was founded by three Melbourne businessmen: brothers John and Henry Cooke (who had arrived from New Zealand in the 1840s) and Walter Powell. The first edition appeared on 17 October 1854.

Syme family
The venture was not initially a success, and in June 1856 the Cookes sold the paper to Ebenezer Syme, a Scottish-born businessman, and James McEwan, an ironmonger and founder of McEwans & Co, for £2,000 at auction. The first edition under the new owners came out on 17 June 1856. From its foundation the paper was self-consciously liberal in its politics: "aiming at a wide extension of the rights of free citizenship and a full development of representative institutions", and supporting "the removal of all restrictions upon freedom of commerce, freedom of religion and—to the utmost extent that is compatible with public morality—upon freedom of personal action".

Ebenezer Syme was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly shortly after buying The Age, and his brother David Syme soon came to dominate the paper, editorially and managerially. When Ebenezer died in 1860 David became editor-in-chief, a position he retained until his death in 1908, although a succession of editors did the day-to-day editorial work.

In 1882 The Age published an eight-part series written by journalist and future physician George E. Morrison, who had sailed, undercover, for the New Hebrides, while posing as crew of the brigantine slave ship, Lavinia, as it made cargo of Kanakas. By October the series was also being published in The Age's weekly companion magazine, the Leader. "A Cruise in a Queensland Slaver. By a Medical Student" was written in a tone of wonder, expressing "only the mildest criticism"; six months later, Morrison "revised his original assessment", describing details of the schooner's blackbirding operation, and sharply denouncing the slave trade in Queensland. His articles, letters to the editor, and newspaper's editorials, led to expanded government intervention.

In 1891, Syme bought out Ebenezer's heirs and the McEwans and became sole proprietor. He built up The Age into Victoria's leading newspaper. In circulation, it soon overtook its rivals The Herald and The Argus, and by 1890 it was selling 100,000 copies a day, making it one of the world's most successful newspapers.

Under Syme's control The Age exercised enormous political power in Victoria. It supported liberal politicians such as Graham Berry, George Higinbotham and George Turner, and other leading liberals such as Alfred Deakin and Charles Pearson furthered their careers as The Age journalists. Syme was originally a free trader, but converted to protectionism through his belief that Victoria needed to develop its manufacturing industries behind tariff barriers. During the 1890s The Age was a leading supporter of Australian federation and of the White Australia policy.

After David Syme's death, the paper remained in the hands of his three sons, and his eldest son Herbert became general manager until his death in 1939.

David Syme's will prevented the sale of any equity in the paper during his sons' lifetimes, an arrangement designed to protect family control, but which had the unintended consequence of starving the paper of investment capital for 40 years.

Under the management of Sir Geoffrey Syme (1908–42), and his editors, Gottlieb Schuler and Harold Campbell, The Age was unable to modernise, and gradually lost market share to The Argus and the tabloid The Sun News-Pictorial, with only its classified advertisement sections keeping the paper profitable. By the 1940s, the paper's circulation was lower than it had been in 1900, and its political influence had also declined. Although it remained more liberal than the extremely conservative Argus, it lost much of its distinct political identity.

The historian Sybil Nolan writes: "Accounts of The Age in these years generally suggest that the paper was second-rate, outdated in both its outlook and appearance. Walker described a newspaper which had fallen asleep in the embrace of the Liberal Party; 'querulous', 'doddery' and 'turgid' are some of the epithets applied by other journalists. It is inevitably criticised not only for its increasing conservatism, but for its failure to keep pace with innovations in layout and editorial technique so dramatically demonstrated in papers like The Sun News-Pictorial and The Herald."

In 1942, David Syme's last surviving son, Oswald, took over the paper, and began to modernise the paper's appearance and standards of news coverage, removing classified advertisements from the front page and introducing photographs long after other papers had done so.

In 1948, after realising the paper needed outside capital, Oswald persuaded the courts to overturn his father's will and floated David Syme and Co. as a public company, selling £400,000 worth of shares. This sale enabled a badly needed technical upgrade of the newspaper's antiquated production machinery, and defeated a takeover attempt by the Fairfax family, publishers of the Sydney Morning Herald.

This new lease on life allowed The Age to recover commercially, and in 1957 it received a great boost when The Argus, after twenty years of financial losses, ceased publication.

1960–present
Oswald Syme retired in 1964 and his grandson Ranald Macdonald was appointed managing director at the age of 26 and two years later he appointed Graham Perkin as editor; to ensure that the 36-year-old Perkin was free of board influence, Macdonald took on the role of editor-in-chief, a position he held until 1970. Together they radically changed the paper's format and shifted its editorial line from rather conservative liberalism to a new "left liberalism" characterised by attention to issues such as race, gender, the disabled and the environment, as well as opposition to White Australia and the death penalty.

It also became more supportive of the Australian Labor Party after years of having usually supported the Coalition. The Liberal Premier of Victoria, Henry Bolte, subsequently called The Age "that pinko rag" in a view conservatives have maintained ever since. Former editor Michael Gawenda in his book American Notebook wrote that the "default position of most journalists at The Age was on the political Left". In 1966, the Syme family shareholders joined with Fairfax to create a 50/50 voting partnership which guaranteed editorial independence and forestalled takeover moves from newspaper proprietors in Australia and overseas. This lasted for 17 years, until Fairfax bought controlling interest in 1972.

Perkin's editorship coincided with Gough Whitlam's reforms of the Labor Party, and The Age became a key supporter of the Whitlam government, which came to power in 1972. Contrary to subsequent mythology, however, The Age was not an uncritical supporter of Whitlam, and played a leading role in exposing the Loans Affair, one of the scandals which contributed to the demise of the Whitlam government. It was one of many papers to call for Whitlam's resignation on 15 October 1975. Its editorial that day, "Go now, go decently", began, "We will say it straight, and clear, and at once. The Whitlam government has run its course." It would be Perkin's last editorial; he died the next day.

After Perkin's death, The Age returned to a more moderate liberal position. While it criticised Whitlam's dismissal later that year, it supported Malcolm Fraser's Liberal government in its early years. However, after 1980 it became increasingly critical and was a leading supporter of Bob Hawke's reforming government after 1983. But from the 1970s, the political influence of The Age, as with other broadsheet newspapers, derived less from what it said in its editorial columns (which relatively few people read) than from the opinions expressed by journalists, cartoonists, feature writers and guest columnists. The Age has always kept a stable of leading editorial cartoonists, notably Les Tanner, Bruce Petty, Ron Tandberg and Michael Leunig.

In 1983, Fairfax bought out the remaining shares in David Syme & Co., which became a subsidiary of John Fairfax & Co. Macdonald was criticised by some members of the Syme family (who nevertheless accepted Fairfax's generous offer for their shares), but he argued that The Age was a natural partner for Fairfax's flagship property, The Sydney Morning Herald. He believed the greater resources of the Fairfax group would enable The Age to remain competitive. By the mid-1960s a new competitor had appeared in Rupert Murdoch's national daily The Australian, which was first published on 15 July 1964. In 1999 David Syme & Co. became The Age Company Ltd, finally ending the Syme connection.

The Age was published from offices in Collins Street until 1969, when it moved to 250 Spencer Street (hence the nickname "The Spencer Street Soviet" favoured by some critics). In 2003, The Age opened a new printing centre at Tullamarine. The headquarters moved again in 2009 to Collins Street opposite Southern Cross station. Since acquisition by Nine Entertainment, the headquarters moved to the former's 717 Bourke Street.

In 2004, editor Michael Gawenda was succeeded as editor by British journalist Andrew Jaspan, who was in turn replaced by Paul Ramadge in 2008.

The Age has been known for its tradition of investigative reporting. In 1984, the newspaper reported what became known as "The Age Tapes" affair, which revealed recordings made by police of alleged corrupt dealings between organised crime figures, politicians and public officials and which sparked the Stewart Royal Commission. The paper's extensive reporting on malpractice in Australia's banking sector led to a Royal Commission being announced by the Turnbull government into the financial services industry, and with The Age's journalist Adele Ferguson awarded the Gold Walkley. A series of stories in The Age between 2009 and 2015 about alleged corruption involving subsidiaries of Australia's central bank, the Reserve Bank, led to Australia's first ever prosecutions of companies and businessman for foreign bribery. In 2017, the paper's deputy editor Michael Bachelard was awarded the Gold Walkley for The Age's reports on the liberation of Mosul after the defeat of Islamic State. The Age's reporting of the Unaoil international bribery scandal led to investigations by anti-corruption agencies in the UK, US, across Europe and Australia and several businessmen pleading guilty for paying bribes in nine countries over 17 years.

In February 2007, The Age's editorial section argued that Australian citizen David Hicks should be released as a prisoner from Guantanamo Bay, stating that Mr Hicks was no hero and "probably downright deluded and dangerous" but the case for releasing him was just, given he was being held without charge or trial.

In 2009, The Age suspended its columnist Michael Backman after one of his columns condemned Israeli tourists as greedy and badly behaved, prompting criticism that he was antisemitic. A Press Council complaint against The Age for its handling of the complaints against Backman was dismissed.

In 2014 The Age put a photograph of an innocent man, Abu Bakar Alam, on the front page, mistakenly identifying him as the perpetrator of the 2014 Endeavour Hills stabbings. As part of the settlement the newspaper donated $20,000 towards building a mosque in nearby Doveton.

, three editions of The Age are printed nightly: the NAA edition, for interstate and country Victorian readers, the MEA edition, for metropolitan areas and a final late metropolitan edition.

In March 2013, The Age moved from its traditional broadsheet format to the smaller tabloid (or compact) format, along with its Fairfax stablemate The Sydney Morning Herald.

In December 2016, editor-in-chief Mark Forbes was stood down from his position pending the result of a sexual harassment investigation and was replaced by Alex Lavelle, who served for four years as chief editor.

In September 2020, it was announced that The Age's former Washington correspondent Gay Alcorn would be appointed editor, the first woman to hold the position in the paper's history. Alcorn left the position in December 2022 and was succeeded by Patrick Elligett in January 2023.

Headquarters
The Age's purpose-built former headquarters, named Media House, was located at 655 Collins Street. After acquisition by Nine, The Age moved to 717 Bourke Street to be co-located with its new owners.

Masthead
The Age's masthead has received a number of updates since 1854. The most recent update to the design was made in 2002. The current masthead features a stylised version of the royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom and "The Age" in Electra bold type. The coat of arms features the French motto Dieu et mon droit (lit. 'God and my right'). According to The Age's art director, Bill Farr: "No one knows why they picked the royal crest. But I guess we were a colony at the time, and to be seen to be linked with the Empire would be a positive thing." The original 1854 masthead included the Colony of Victoria crest. In 1856, that crest was removed and in 1861, the royal coat of arms was introduced. This was changed again in 1967, with the shield and decoration altered and the lion crowned. In 1971, a bold typeface was introduced and the crest shield rounded and less ornate. In 1997, the masthead was stacked and contained in a blue box (with the logo in white). In 2002, in conjunction with an overall revamp of the paper, the masthead was redesigned in its present form.

Current journalists
The below is a list of The Age's current journalists.

Photography
Though Hugh Bull was appointed the newspaper's first full-time photographer as early as 1927, it was comparatively late in the history of The Age that photographs were used on the front page as a matter of course, but they became, especially under the editorship of Graham Perkin and his successors, a vital part of its identity, with picture credits for staff photographers, and their images, often uncropped, run across several columns.

A photographer of the rival Herald Sun Jay Town distinguishes the 'house style'; "There's a big difference between the set-up, cheesy, tight and bright Herald Sun-type [photograph] and then the nice, broadsheet picture–well, back when the Age was a fantastic broadsheet that could really showcase their photographers' work." This distinction was to start to break down in 1983 with the pooling of photographers across all Fairfax publications, and the paper's change in format from broadsheet to 'compact' in 2007, preceding move to online publication and subscription; 2014 saw Fairfax Media shedding 75 per cent of its photographers.

In its heyday the newspaper was a significant step in the career of notable Australian news photographers and photojournalists, many of whom started as cadets. They include:
 * Hugh Bull
 * Bryan Charlton
 * John Lamb
 * Ron Lovitt
 * Bill McAuley
 * Fiona McDougall
 * Justin McManus
 * Simon O'Dwyer
 * Bruce Postle
 * Michael Rayner
 * Sandy Scheltema
 * Jason South
 * Penny Stephens

Ownership
In 1972, John Fairfax Holdings bought a majority of David Syme's shares, and in 1983 bought out all the remaining shares.

On 26 July 2018, Nine Entertainment Co. and Fairfax Media, the parent company of The Age, announced they agreed on terms for a merger between the two companies to become Australia's largest media company. Nine shareholders will own 51.1 per cent of the combined entity, and Fairfax shareholders will own 48.9 per cent.

Printing
The Age was published from its office in Collins Street until 1969, when the newspaper moved to 250 Spencer Street. In July 2003, the $220 million five-storey Age Print Centre was opened at Tullamarine. The Centre produced a wide range of publications for both Fairfax and commercial clients. Among its stable of daily print publications are The Age, the Australian Financial Review and the Bendigo Advertiser. The building was sold in 2014, and printing was to be transferred to "regional presses".

title: The Age


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Electric blues

Electric blues is blues music distinguished by the use of electric amplification for musical instruments. The guitar was the first instrument to be popularly amplified and used by early pioneers T-Bone Walker in the late 1930s and John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters in the 1940s. Their styles developed into West Coast blues, Detroit blues, and post-World War II Chicago blues, which differed from earlier, predominantly acoustic-style blues. By the early 1950s, Little Walter was a featured soloist on blues harmonica using a small hand-held microphone fed into a guitar amplifier. Although it took a little longer, the electric bass guitar gradually replaced the stand-up bass by the early 1960s. Electric organs and especially keyboards later became widely used in electric blues.

Early regional styles
The blues, like jazz, probably began to be amplified in the late 1930s. The first star of the electric blues is generally recognized as being T-Bone Walker; born in Texas but moving to Los Angeles in the mid-1930s, he combined blues with elements of swing music and jazz in a long and prolific career. After World War II, amplified blues music became popular in American cities that had seen widespread African American migration, such as Chicago, Memphis, Detroit, St. Louis, and the West Coast. The initial impulse was to be heard above the noise of lively rent parties. Playing in small venues, electric blues bands tended to remain modest in size compared with larger jazz bands. In its early stages electric blues typically used amplified electric guitars, double bass (which was progressively replaced by bass guitar), and harmonica played through a microphone and a power amp or a guitar amplifier.

By the late 1940s several Chicago-based blues artists had begun to use amplification, including John Lee Williamson and Johnny Shines. Early recordings in the new style were made in 1947 and 1948 by musicians such as Johnny Young, Floyd Jones, and Snooky Pryor. The format was perfected by Muddy Waters, who utilized various small groups that provided a strong rhythm section and powerful harmonica. His "I Can't Be Satisfied" (1948) was followed by a series of ground-breaking recordings. Chicago blues is influenced to a large extent by the Mississippi blues style, because many performers had migrated from the Mississippi region. Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and Jimmy Reed were all born in Mississippi and moved to Chicago during the Great Migration. In addition to electric guitar, harmonica, and a rhythm section of bass and drums, some performers such as J. T. Brown who played in Elmore James's bands or J. B. Lenoir's also used saxophones, largely as a supporting instrument. Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller) and Big Walter Horton were among the best-known harmonica (called "blues harp" by blues musicians) players of the early Chicago blues scene and the sound of electric instruments and harmonica is often seen as characteristic of electric Chicago blues. Muddy Waters and Elmore James were known for their innovative use of slide electric guitar. Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters were for their deep, "gravelly" voices. Bassist and composer Willie Dixon played a major role on the Chicago blues scene. He composed and wrote many standard blues songs of the period, such as "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Just Want to Make Love to You" (both penned for Muddy Waters) and, "Wang Dang Doodle", "Spoonful" and "Back Door Man" for Howlin' Wolf. Most artists of the Chicago blues style recorded for the Chicago-based Chess Records and Checker Records labels; there were also smaller blues labels in this era including Vee-Jay Records and J.O.B. Records.

In the late 1950s, the West Side style blues emerged in Chicago with major figures including Magic Sam, Jimmy Dawkins, Magic Slim and Otis Rush. West Side clubs were more accessible to white audiences, but performers were mainly black, or part of mixed combos. West Side blues incorporated elements of blues rock but with a greater emphasis on standards and traditional blues song forms. Albert King, Buddy Guy, and Luther Allison had a West Side style that was dominated by amplified electric lead guitar.

Memphis, with its flourishing acoustic blues scene based in Beale Street, also developed an electric blues sound during the early 1950s. Sam Phillips' Sun Records company recorded musicians such as Howlin' Wolf (before he moved to Chicago), Willie Nix, Ike Turner, and B.B. King. Other Memphis blues musicians involved with Sun Records included Joe Hill Louis, Willie Johnson and Pat Hare who introduced electric guitar techniques such as distorted and power chords, anticipating elements of heavy metal music. These players had an influence on early rock and rollers and rockabillies, many of whom also recorded for Sun Records. After Phillips discovered Elvis Presley in 1954, the Sun label turned to the rapidly expanding white audience and started recording mostly rock and roll. Booker T. & the M.G.'s carried the electric blues style into the 1960s.

Detroit-based John Lee Hooker pursued a unique brand of electric blues based on his deep rough voice accompanied by a single electric guitar. Though not directly influenced by boogie-woogie, his "groovy" style is sometimes called "guitar boogie". His first hit, "Boogie Chillen", reached #1 on the R&B charts in 1949. He continued to play and record until his death in 2001.

The New Orleans blues musician Guitar Slim recorded "The Things That I Used to Do" (1953), which featured an electric guitar solo with distorted overtones and became a major R&B hit in 1954. It is regarded as one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll, and contributed to the development of soul music.

In the 1950s, blues had a huge influence on mainstream American popular music. While popular musicians like Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry, both recording for Chess, were influenced by the Chicago blues, their enthusiastic playing styles departed from the melancholy aspects of blues and played a major role in the development of rock and roll. Chicago blues also influenced Louisiana's zydeco music, with Clifton Chenier using blues accents. Zydeco musicians used electric solo guitar and cajun arrangements of blues standards.

British electric styles
British blues emerged from the skiffle and folk club scene of the late 1950s, particularly in London, which included the playing of American acoustic blues. Critical was the visit of Muddy Waters in 1958, who initially shocked British audiences by playing amplified electric blues, but who was soon performing to ecstatic crowds and rave reviews. This inspired guitarist and blues harpist Cyril Davies and guitarist Alexis Korner to plug in and they began to play a high-powered electric blues that became the model for the subgenre, forming the band Blues Incorporated. Blues Incorporated was something of a clearing house for British blues musicians in the later 1950s and early 1960s, with many joining, or sitting in on sessions. These included future Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts and Brian Jones; Cream founders Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker; and Graham Bond and Long John Baldry. Blues Incorporated were given a residency at the Marquee Club and it was from there that in 1962 they took the name of the first British Blues album, R&B from the Marquee for Decca, but split before its release. The model of British rhythm and blues was emulated by a number of bands including the Rolling Stones, the Animals, the Small Faces, and the Yardbirds.

The other key focus for British blues was around John Mayall who moved to London in the early 1960s, eventually forming the Bluesbreakers, whose members at various times included, Jack Bruce, Aynsley Dunbar, Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Mick Taylor. The Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton (Beano) album (1966) is considered one of the seminal British blues recordings. It was notable for its driving rhythms and Clapton's rapid blues licks with a full distorted sound derived from a Gibson Les Paul and a Marshall amp, which became something of a classic combination for British blues (and later rock) guitarists. It also made clear the primacy of the guitar, seen as a distinctive characteristic of the subgenre. Clapton left to form Cream with Baker and Bruce and his replacement was Peter Green, who in turn (with the then Bluesbreaker's rhythm section Mick Fleetwood and John McVie) left in 1967 to form Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac. Incorporating elements of rock led these bands to a hybrid form known as blues rock.

Blues rock
Blues rock combines blues with rock. With some notable exceptions, blues rock has largely been played by white musicians, bringing a rock sensitivity to blues standards and forms and it played a major role in widening the appeal of the blues to white American audiences. In 1963, American guitarist Lonnie Mack had developed a blues rock guitar style, releasing several guitar instrumentals, the best-known of which are the hit singles "Memphis" (Billboard #5) and "Wham!" (Billboard #24). The Paul Butterfield Blues Band and Canned Heat were among the earliest exponents and "attempted to play long, involved improvisations which were commonplace on jazz records". In the UK, blues rock was popularized by bands as Fleetwood Mac, Free, Savoy Brown and the groups formed around the three major guitarists that emerged from the Yardbirds, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page.

After leaving the Yardbirds and his work with John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, Eric Clapton formed supergroups Cream, Blind Faith and Derek and the Dominos, followed by a solo career. In the late 1960s Jeff Beck added elements heavy rock with his band, the Jeff Beck Group. Jimmy Page formed the New Yardbirds, which became Led Zeppelin. Many of the songs on their first two albums and occasionally later in their careers, were expansions on traditional blues songs. Janis Joplin, Johnny Winter, and The J. Geils Band later popularized the style in the US. The revolutionary electric guitar playing of Jimi Hendrix with the Experience and Band of Gypsys, influenced blues rock guitarists. Blues rock bands like Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and eventually ZZ Top from the American South, incorporated country elements into their style to produce Southern rock.

By the 1970s, blues rock had become heavier and more riff-based, exemplified by the work of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, and the lines between blues rock and hard rock "were barely visible", as bands began recording rock-style albums. The genre was continued in the 1970s by figures such as George Thorogood and Pat Travers. Except perhaps for groups such as Status Quo and Foghat in the UK, who moved towards a form of high energy and repetitive boogie rock, bands moved towards heavy metal and blues rock began to slip out of the mainstream. More recently, the White Stripes, the Black Crowes, the Black Keys, Clutch, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and Joe Bonamassa have explored a more roots oriented, but edgier style.

Electric Texas blues
Texas had had a long history of major acoustic blues performers like Blind Lemon Jefferson and Lightnin' Hopkins, but by the 1940s many Texas blues artists had moved elsewhere to further their careers, including T-Bone Walker who relocated to Los Angeles to record his most influential records in the 1940s. His R&B influenced backing and saxophone imitating lead guitar sound would become an influential part of the electric blues sound. Goree Carter's "Rock Awhile" (1949) featured an over-driven electric guitar style and has been cited as a strong contender for the "first rock and roll record" title.

The state R&B recording industry was based in Houston with labels like Duke/Peacock, which in the 1950s provided a base for artists who would later pursue the electric Texas blues sound, including Johnny Copeland and Albert Collins. Freddie King, a major influence on electric blues, was born in Texas, but moved to Chicago as a teenager. His instrumental number "Hide Away" (1961), was emulated by British blues artists including Eric Clapton.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s the Texas electric blues scene began to flourish, influenced by country music and blues rock, particularly in the clubs of Austin. The diverse style often featured instruments like keyboards and horns, but placed particular emphasis on powerful lead guitar breaks. The most prominent artists to emerge in this era were the brothers Johnny and Edgar Winter, who combined traditional and southern styles. In the 1970s Jimmie formed the Fabulous Thunderbirds and in the 1980s his brother Stevie Ray Vaughan broke through to mainstream success with his virtuoso guitar playing, as did ZZ Top with their brand of Southern rock.

Contemporary electric blues
Since the end of the 1960s, electric blues has declined in mainstream popularity, but retained a strong following in the US, Britain and elsewhere, with many musicians that began their careers as early as the 1950s continuing to record and perform, occasionally producing breakthrough stars. In the 1970s and 1980s, it absorbed a number of different influences, including particularly rock and soul music. Stevie Ray Vaughan was the biggest star influenced by blues rock and opened the way for guitarists including Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Jonny Lang. Practitioners of soul-influenced electric blues in the 1970s and 1980s included Joe Louis Walker and most successfully Robert Cray, whose Strong Persuader album (1986), with its fluid guitar sound and an intimate vocal style, produced a major crossover hit. Veteran Linsey Alexander is known for his original Chicago blues influenced by soul, R&B, and funk.

Since her breakthrough commercial success Nick of Time (1989), Bonnie Raitt has been one of the leading artists in acoustic and electric blues, doing much to promote the profile of older blues artists. After the renewed success of John Lee Hooker with his collaborative album The Healer (1989), several artists began to return to electric blues, including Gary Moore, beginning with Still Got the Blues (1990) and Eric Clapton with From the Cradle (1994).

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

title: Electric blues


text:
Democrats 66

Democrats 66 (Democraten 66, D66) is a social liberal and progressive  political party in the Netherlands, which positions itself in the centre of the political spectrum. It is a member of the Liberal International (LI) and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE).

The name of the party refers to its year of foundation, 1966. Initially, its main objective had been to democratise the Dutch political system, but it developed a broader social liberal ideology over time. In the 1967 general election, the party won 7 out of 150 seats in the House of Representatives. No new party had ever gained that many seats before. The party was in government from 1973 to 1977, 1981 to 1982, 1994 to 2002, 2003 to 2006 and 2017 to 2024. It currently holds nine seats in the House of Representatives, five seats in the Senate and two seats in the European Parliament.

D66 is especially popular among people who hold a university degree, and its voters are mostly concentrated in larger cities and in municipalities with an above-average number of wealthy residents. The party supplies a relatively large proportion of mayors, who are appointed rather than elected.

Currently, the party is led by Rob Jetten, who was elected party leader on 12 August 2023. Paul van Meenen, Rob Jetten and Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy are serving as the party's parliamentary leaders in the Senate, the House of Representatives and the European Parliament respectively.

Name and logo
At its foundation, the party was called Democrats '66 (Democraten '66, abbreviated D'66). The name referred to the party's goal of radical democratisation and to the year of foundation, which was supposed to convey a modern image. In 1981, the apostrophe was dropped: the name had become a successful political brand, but the year no longer conveyed a modern image.

1966–1986: early years
Democrats 66 was founded on 14 October 1966 by a group of 44 people. Its founders were described as homines novi, although 25 of the 44 had previously been members of another political party. The initiators were Hans van Mierlo, a journalist for the Algemeen Handelsblad, and Hans Gruijters, a municipal councillor in Amsterdam for the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD). Van Mierlo became the party's political leader. The foundation of the party was preceded by the "Appeal 1966" on October 10, in which the founders appealed to the people of the Netherlands to re-take their democratic institutions. The party renounced the 19th-century political ideologies, which dominated the political system and sought to end pillarisation. It called for radical democratisation of the Dutch political system, and for pragmatic and scientific policy-making.

The party participated in the 1967 general election, with Hans van Mierlo as its lead candidate. The party won an unprecedented seven seats in the House of Representatives. In the 1971 general election, the party won an additional four seats and it formed a shadow cabinet with the Labour Party (PvdA) and the Political Party of Radicals (PPR). In the 1972 general election, the three parties formed a political alliance called the "Progressive Agreement" (Progressief Akkoord; PAK) and presented the common electoral program "Turning Point '72" (Keerpunt '72).

In the election, D66 lost nearly half its seats, leaving only six. The alliance became the largest political force in the country, but it did not gain a majority. After long cabinet formation talks, the three PAK-parties formed an extra-parliamentary cabinet joined by progressive members of the Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP) and the Catholic People's Party (KVP). The cabinet was led by Labour politician Joop den Uyl. Co-founder Hans Gruijters became Minister of Housing and Spatial Planning. After the formation talks, Van Mierlo left politics, feeling that his political position within the parliamentary party was untenable. Van Mierlo was replaced by Jan Terlouw, who became the new parliamentary leader.

In the period 1972–1974, the party lost a dramatic number of members (from 6,000 to 300) and polled very poorly in the 1974 provincial elections. The party also lost half of its senators in the 1974 Senate election. At one of the party congresses, a motion was put forth to abolish the party. A majority of the members voted in favour, but the two-thirds majority was not reached. In reaction, Terlouw started a campaign to revitalise the party, involving a membership drive and a petition to the electorate. He emphasised issues other than democratic reform and gave the party a more liberal orientation. The party doubled its membership in 1975 and won two additional seats in the 1977 general election, despite losing all its seats in the Senate in the same year.

In the 1981 general election, D66 gained 17 seats. The party formed a government with the Labour Party and the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), with Terlouw as Minister of Economic Affairs. The cabinet was characterised by the personal and ideological conflicts between Prime Minister Dries van Agt (CDA) and Minister of Social Affairs Joop den Uyl (PvdA). The cabinet fell nine months after it was formed, when the Labour Party left the cabinet. D66 and the CDA continued to govern in a caretaker government. In the subsequent 1982 general election, D66 lost two-thirds of its support, and was left with only 6 seats. After the election, Terlouw left politics and was replaced by Maarten Engwirda. The party was confined to opposition.

1986–2006: purple cabinets and demise
In 1986, Van Mierlo returned to politics. He emphasised democratic reform as the core issue of the party and wanted to end the polarisation between the Labour Party and VVD, so that it would be possible to form a government without the CDA. He led the party in the 1986 general election and won nine seats. In the 1989 election, the party won 12 seats and was asked to join the formation talks of a CDA–PvdA–D66 coalition. While the PvdA preferred to form a government with D66, the CDA did not. Ultimately, D66 was excluded from the coalition, because it was not necessary to include them to reach a majority in parliament.

Despite being in opposition, D66 adopted a constructive approach towards the government. They were rewarded for this in the 1994 general election, in which the party doubled its number of seats to 24. D66 was able to form its preferred coalition: the "purple government", which included both the social democratic PvdA and the conservative liberal VVD. Van Mierlo was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. As advocated by D66, the first Kok cabinet initiated progressive legislation, such as the introduction of same-sex marriage and the legalisation of euthanasia. The moderately liberal economic policies of the cabinet were also seen as a great success.

Shortly before the 1998 general election, Van Mierlo stepped back and Minister of Health Els Borst became the new top candidate. D66 lost ten seats in the election, while its coalition partners gained ground at the cost of D66. The second Kok cabinet continued. Although D66 was technically not needed for a majority in parliament, it was seen as the glue that kept the PvdA and the VVD together. Borst stepped down as party leader and became Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Health. Thom de Graaf led the party in the House of Representatives. From within the party, there were calls for a more explicit progressive liberal course. In 1999, a constitutional reform that would allow for referendums to be held was rejected by the Senate, because a group of VVD dissidents had voted against it. In response, D66 left the cabinet. After the subsequent formation talks, D66 returned to the cabinet in return for a temporary referendum law and directly elected mayors.

In the 2002 general election, the tide had turned against the purple government, and the right-wing populist Pim Fortuyn List (LPF) gained considerable ground. The three purple parties lost an unprecedented 43 seats. D66 was left with only seven seats. The first Balkenende cabinet, consisting of CDA, LPF and VVD, lasted only three months. In the 2003 general election, D66 lost another seat, leaving only 6. De Graaf stepped down and was succeeded by Boris Dittrich. After long formation talks between the CDA and the PvdA failed, a second Balkenende cabinet was formed, which included the CDA, the VVD and D66.

In return for investments in environment and education, and a special Minister for Governmental Reform, D66 supported the centre-right reform cabinet and some of its more controversial legislation. In May 2005, the Senate rejected a constitutional reform that would allow a directly elected mayor. The legislation had been introduced by the second Kok cabinet, but it was unable to get a two-thirds majority because the Labour Party was opposed the electoral system proposed by Minister for Governmental Reform Thom de Graaf. De Graaf resigned, but the rest of the ministers retained their positions as D66 was promised more investment in public education and the environment. A special party congress was called to ratify this so-called "Easter Agreement" (Paasakkoord). 2,600 members (20 per cent of total membership) were present and the congress was broadcast live on television. The congress agreed to remain in cabinet by a large majority. Alexander Pechtold replaced De Graaf as Minister for Governmental Reform. Laurens Jan Brinkhorst, the Minister of Economic Affairs, became Deputy Prime Minister.

2006–2016: Pechtold leadership
In February 2006, Dittrich stepped down as parliamentary leader, because he did not agree with the government's decision to send the Dutch armed forces to the southern province of Uruzgan in Afghanistan. D66 voted against the government's proposal together with the Socialist Party and GroenLinks. Dittrich stated that the mission to send troops was not a reconstruction mission (as the government and the majority of the Dutch parliament claimed), but a military operation. Lousewies van der Laan replaced Dittrich. In May 2006, D66 polled particularly badly in the 2006 municipal elections. D66 began to lose a considerable number of members, some of whom founded deZES, another radical democratic, progressive liberal party. During a special party congress on 13 May 2006, a motion was put forth demanding the withdrawal of D66 from the cabinet, but it was rejected. In June 2006, an internal election was held in order to choose the new party leader. The election was won by Alexander Pechtold.

During the special parliamentary debate on the naturalisation process of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, D66 supported a motion of no confidence against Minister for Integration Rita Verdonk. As D66 was a junior coalition partner, this caused a crisis in the second Balkenende cabinet. The cabinet refused to remove Verdonk from her position. Lousewies van der Laan, parliamentary leader of D66, felt that the D66 faction could no longer support the cabinet and stated that the cabinet had to resign. On 3 July 2006, the two D66 ministers Alexander Pechtold and Laurens Jan Brinkhorst resigned, causing the second Balkenende cabinet to fall.

In October 2006, just before the D66 party congress and its 40th anniversary as a party, D66 founder Hans van Mierlo asked the question whether D66 still had political legitimacy. He believed that many errors were made in recent history and that only the acceptance of these errors could provide for any credibility for D66. Van Mierlo declared his support for party leader Pechtold, who in his view could provide for such credibility.

Since 2008, the party has performed quite well in the opinion polls, ranging from 10 to 26 seats, compared to only 3 seats in the House of Representatives. In the 2009 European Parliament election, the party won 11% of the votes and 3 seats, two more than in the previous election. The news programme Nova attributed this increase to the leadership of Alexander Pechtold, who was considered "the leader of the opposition" at the time. Under the leadership of Pechtold, the party has taken strong stances against the Party for Freedom (PVV) of Geert Wilders. In the 2010 general election, D66 increased its representation to 10 seats. In the 2012 general election, the party further increased its number of seats to 12. Since 2008, the party has experienced a significant increase in party membership, from 10,000 to 25,000 in 2015.

In the 2017 general election, D66 won 19 seats in the House of Representatives and formed a centre-right coalition government with the VVD, CDA and Christian Union (CU). Kajsa Ollongren was appointed second Deputy Prime Minister in the third Rutte cabinet.

2018–present: Kaag and Jetten leadership
In October 2018, Alexander Pechtold announced his retirement from politics. He was replaced by Rob Jetten as parliamentary leader, but the position of party leader remained vacant. In September 2020, Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation Sigrid Kaag was elected the new party leader and top candidate for the 2021 general election. Despite the fact that the opinion polls had predicted D66 to lose seats, the party won 24 seats in the 2021 election, becoming the second largest party in the House of Representatives. On 12 August 2023 Rob Jetten became the leader of the party. Following the 2023 Dutch general election D66 lost more seats than any party, being reduced from 24 to 9, their worst result in 17 years.

Ideology

The ideology of D66 is a highly contested subject within the party and the question is tied to the reason for its existence. There are two currents within the party, namely the radical democrats and the progressive liberals. Although sometimes antagonistic, these two currents currently complement each other as both emphasise the self-realisation of the individual. The Radical League and the Free-thinking Democratic League, two early 20th century parties are historic exponents of these two traditions.

Radical democrats
The first party congress emphasised radical democratisation of Dutch society and the political system. Its ideal was a two-party system. To obtain this, it wanted to reform the electoral system after the American first past the post model. The electoral reform was gradually moderated as the party now favours German-style mixed member proportional representation. In this system, a national party-list election is used to make a first-past-the-post election representative to the nationwide vote. This radical democratisation was combined with a pragmatic and anti-dogmatic attitude towards politics. Hans van Mierlo, the party's leader between 1966 and 1972 and between 1986 and 1998 and the party's figurehead, was an important exponent of this tendency within the party.

Progressive liberals
D66's progressive liberal section has historically been much weaker than its radical democratic wing. Under Jan Terlouw between 1972 and 1982, D66 began to emphasise new issues like the environment, public education and innovation. He called D66 a fourth current, next to social democracy, Christian democracy and the conservative liberalism of the VVD. In 1998, the group Opschudding called for a progressive liberal course for the party. In the party's manifesto adopted in 2000, the party explicitly adopted a progressive liberal image. National political reasons explain the usage of the label "social-liberal" since the more right-leaning VVD describes itself as the liberal party.

Positions
Some of the party's most important positions include:
 * D66 is in favour of a mixed economy combining market economics and government intervention. D66 is also a proponent of increased flexibility in the labour market and tax cuts for the lower and middle classes.
 * D66 proposes to increase government spending on education and innovation, for instance increases in teachers' salaries. D66 wants the education sector to be deregulated and introduce more competition in the sector.
 * The environment is an important issue for the party. D66 favours a carbon price and more investment in sustainable energy to combat global warming. It opposes the right to hunt and sees hunting only as last resort for wildlife damage control.
 * D66 is a socially liberal party. The first Kok cabinet in which it participated introduced several liberal reforms in the past, such as the legalisation of euthanasia, same-sex marriage and prostitution.
 * D66 is a proponent of democratic reform. It favours electoral reforms such as a binding referendum, abolition of the Senate and direct election of prime ministers and mayors.
 * D66 favours a Federal Europe and more European cooperation on issues such as the environment, immigration policy and foreign policy.

Electorate
Although supporters of political parties are no longer fixed and election results fluctuate, D66 is overall strong and concentrated in the Randstad conurbation, while also getting its votes in and around university towns. In the 2014 municipal elections, D66 became the largest party in many major cities including Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht, Tilburg, Groningen, Enschede, Apeldoorn, Haarlem, Amersfoort and Arnhem.

Members of the European Parliament
The D66 delegation is part of the Renew Europe group in the European Parliament. Prior to the first European elections in 1979, D66's appointed MEPs were part of the Socialist Group, before switching to Non-Inscrits from 1979 to 1984, and the LDR/ELDR/ALDE group since 1989.

Current members of the European Parliament since the 2024 European Parliament election:

 * Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy, delegation leader
 * Raquel Garcia Hermida-van der Walle
 * Brigitte van den Berg

Members of the Committee of the Regions
In the European Committee of the Regions, the Democrats 66 party sits in the Renew Europe CoR group, with one full and one alternate member for the 2020–2025 mandate:

 * Robert van Asten (alternate)
 * Ellen van Selm (member)

Provincial councillors
Since the 2019 provincial elections, D66 has 41 representatives in the provincial councils:

Organisation
The highest organ of the D66 is the General Assembly, in which every member can participate. It convenes multiple times per year. It appoints the party board and has the last say over the party program. The party list, including the party's parliamentary leader, for the Senate, House of Representatives, European Parliament candidates are elected directly by the members. The party has between 250 and 300 branches all over the Netherlands.

Party leaders

 * Hans van Mierlo (14 September 1966 – 1 September 1973)
 * Jan Terlouw (1 September 1973 – 8 September 1982)
 * Laurens Jan Brinkhorst (8 September 1982 – 10 November 1982)
 * Maarten Engwirda (10 November 1982 – 25 January 1986)
 * Hans van Mierlo (25 January 1986 – 15 February 1998)

 * Els Borst (15 February 1998 – 30 May 1998)
 * Thom de Graaf (30 May 1998 – 22 January 2003)
 * Boris Dittrich (22 January 2003 – 3 February 2006)
 * Alexander Pechtold (24 June 2006 – 6 October 2018)
 * Sigrid Kaag (4 September 2020 – 12 August 2023)
 * Rob Jetten (12 August 2023 – present)

Chairpersons

 * Hans van Mierlo (14 September 1966 – 16 February 1967)
 * Gerben Ringnalda (16 February 1967 – 18 November 1967)
 * Hans van Lookeren Campagne (18 November 1967 – 14 December 1968)
 * Jan Beekmans (14 December 1968 – 7 November 1971)
 * Ruby van der Scheer (7 November 1971 – 11 March 1973)
 * Jan ten Brink (11 March 1973 – 6 November 1976)
 * Jan Glastra van Loon (6 November 1976 – 27 October 1979)
 * Henk Zeevalking (27 October 1979 – 11 September 1981)
 * Cees Spigt (Ad interim) (11 September 1981 – 14 November 1981)
 * Jan van Berkom (14 November 1981 – 30 October 1982)
 * Jacob Kohnstamm (30 October 1982 – 20 May 1986)
 * Olga Scheltema (Ad interim) (20 May 1986 – 1 November 1986)
 * Saskia van der Loo (1 November 1986 – 29 October 1988)
 * Michel Jager (29 October 1988 – 3 November 1990)

 * Ries Jansen (3 November 1990 – 28 November 1992)
 * Wim Vrijhoef (28 November 1992 – 23 November 1996)
 * Tom Kok (23 November 1996 – 20 November 1999)
 * Gerard Schouw (20 November 1999 – 16 November 2002)
 * Alexander Pechtold (16 November 2002 – 31 March 2005)
 * Jan Hoekema (Ad interim) (31 March 2005 – 21 May 2005)
 * Frank Dales (21 May 2005 – 2 March 2007)
 * Gerard Schouw (Ad interim) (2 March 2007 – 12 May 2007)
 * Ingrid van Engelshoven (12 May 2007 – 9 March 2013)
 * Fleur Gräper (9 March 2013 – 13 September 2015)
 * Letty Demmers (13 September 2015 – 6 October 2018)
 * Anne-Marie Spierings (6 October 2018 – 13 November 2021)
 * Victor Everhardt (13 November 2021 – present)

Parliamentary leaders

 * Parliamentary leaders in the House of Representatives
 * Hans van Mierlo (23 February 1967 – 1 September 1973)
 * Jan Terlouw (1 September 1973 – 11 September 1981)
 * Laurens Jan Brinkhorst (11 September 1981 – 10 November 1982)
 * Maarten Engwirda (10 November 1982 – 3 June 1986)
 * Hans van Mierlo (3 June 1986 – 22 August 1994)
 * Gerrit Jan Wolffensperger (22 August 1994 – 21 November 1997)
 * Thom de Graaf (21 November 1997 – 19 May 1998)
 * Els Borst (19 May 1998 – 30 May 1998)
 * Thom de Graaf (30 May 1998 – 22 January 2003)
 * Boris Dittrich (22 January 2003 – 3 February 2006)
 * Lousewies van der Laan (3 February 2006 – 30 November 2006)
 * Alexander Pechtold (30 November 2006 – 9 October 2018)
 * Rob Jetten (9 October 2018 – 18 March 2021)
 * Sigrid Kaag (18 March 2021 – 25 May 2021)
 * Rob Jetten (25 May 2021 – 28 September 2021)
 * Sigrid Kaag (28 September 2021 – 10 January 2022)
 * Jan Paternotte (11 January 2022 – present)

 * Parliamentary leaders in the Senate
 * Bert Schwarz (11 May 1971 – 17 September 1973)
 * Paula Wassen-van Schaveren (17 September 1973 – 17 September 1974)
 * Doeke Eisma (17 September 1974 – 20 September 1977)
 * No representation (20 September 1977 – 16 September 1980)
 * Jan Glastra van Loon (16 September 1980 – 3 December 1985)
 * Jan Vis (3 December 1985 – 1 March 1995)
 * Eddy Schuyer (1 March 1995 – 12 June 2007)
 * Gerard Schouw (12 June 2007 – 17 June 2010)
 * Hans Engels (22 June 2010 – 7 June 2011)
 * Roger van Boxtel (7 June 2011 – 9 June 2015)
 * Thom de Graaf (9 June 2015 – 26 June 2018)
 * Hans Engels (26 June 2018 – 11 June 2019)
 * Annelien Bredenoord (11 June 2019 – present)

Lead candidates

 * Lead candidate – General election
 * Hans van Mierlo – 1967, 1971, 1972
 * Jan Terlouw – 1977, 1981, 1982
 * Hans van Mierlo – 1986, 1989, 1994
 * Els Borst – 1998
 * Thom de Graaf – 2002, 2003
 * Alexander Pechtold – 2006, 2010, 2012, 2017
 * Sigrid Kaag – 2021

 * Lead candidate – Senate election
 * Jan Glastra van Loon – 1980, 1981, 1983
 * Jan Vis – 1986, 1987, 1991
 * Eddy Schuyer – 1995, 1999, 2003
 * Gerard Schouw – 2007
 * Roger van Boxtel – 2011
 * Thom de Graaf – 2015
 * Annelien Bredenoord – 2019
 * Paul van Meenen – 2023

 * Lead candidate – European Parliament election
 * Aar de Goede – 1979
 * Doeke Eisma – 1984
 * Jan-Willem Bertens – 1989, 1994
 * Lousewies van der Laan – 1999
 * Sophie in 't Veld – 2004, 2009, 2014, 2019

Party board

 * Victor Everhardt, chair
 * Nadia Arsieni, secretary
 * Rob Meijer, treasurer
 * Maartje Jansen, board member (international relations)
 * Hester Duursema, board member (communications and recruitment)
 * Wietske Veltman, board member (association and education)

Linked organisations
The youth wing of D66 is called the Young Democrats (Jonge Democraten, abbreviated JD). It has produced several prominent active members of D66, such as former MP Boris van der Ham. The JD is a member of European Liberal Youth and the International Federation of Liberal Youth.

D66 is a co-founder of the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy, a democracy assistance organisation of seven Dutch political parties. The Hans van Mierlo Foundation is the party's policy institute.

International affiliation
D66 is a member of the Liberal International and of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE). D66 joined the Liberal and Democratic Reformists (LDR) group in 1989. It became a full member of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party (ELDR) in 1994 and a full member of the Liberal International in 1986.

Relationships to other parties
In recent elections, political commentators have positioned D66 at the centre of the political spectrum. This offers the party a lot of possibilities for co-operation with other parties in the Dutch political landscape. Historically, D66 has often co-operated in cabinets with the Labour Party (PvdA). They were in four cabinets together (Den Uyl, Van Agt II, Kok I and Kok II), and formed a shadow cabinet in the early seventies. However, there have been heavy tensions between D66 and the PvdA on three occasions: in 1981, when D66 decided to continue to govern with the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) after the PvdA had left the first Van Agt cabinet; in 1989, when the PvdA formed the third Lubbers cabinet without D66; and in 2003, when D66 joined the second Balkenende cabinet.

Ideologically, the social liberal D66 is linked to People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), although VVD is considered a party of conservative liberalism. This resulted in five coalition governments (Kok I, Kok II, Balkenende II, Rutte III and Rutte IV). Both D66 and the VVD are members of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) and their respective members in the European Parliament are part of the Renew Europe group.

title: Democrats 66


text:
D66

D66 may refer to:

 * Delta Junction Airport, a public airport in Alaska with FAA code D66
 * d66 (die), a dice roll used in some role-playing games and old wargames
 * D66 road (Croatia), a state road in Croatia
 * Democrats 66, commonly known as D66, a political party in the Netherlands
 * HMS Emerald (D66), an Emerald-class light cruiser
 * D66 strain of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii
 * Queen's Gambit Declined, Encyclopedia of Chess Openings code

title: D66


text:
British blues

British blues is a form of music derived from American blues that originated in the late 1950s, and reached its height of mainstream popularity in the 1960s. In Britain, blues developed a distinctive and influential style dominated by electric guitar, and made international stars of several proponents of the genre, including the Rolling Stones, the Animals, the Yardbirds, Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac and Led Zeppelin.

Origins
American blues became known in Britain from the 1930s onwards through a number of routes, including records brought to Britain, particularly by African-American GIs stationed there in the Second World War and Cold War, merchant seamen visiting ports such as London, Liverpool, Newcastle upon Tyne and Belfast, and through a trickle of (illegal) imports. Blues music was relatively well known to British jazz musicians and fans, particularly in the works of figures like female singers Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith and the blues-influenced boogie-woogie of Jelly Roll Morton and Fats Waller. From 1955 major British record labels HMV and EMI, the latter, particularly through their subsidiary Decca Records, began to distribute American jazz and increasingly blues records to what was an emerging market. Many encountered blues for the first time through the skiffle craze of the second half of the 1950s, particularly the songs of Lead Belly covered by acts like Lonnie Donegan. As skiffle began to decline in the late 1950s, and British rock and roll began to dominate the charts, a number of skiffle musicians moved towards playing purely blues music.

Among these were guitarist and blues harpist Cyril Davies, who ran the London Skiffle Club at the Roundhouse public house in London's Soho, and guitarist Alexis Korner, both of whom worked for jazz band leader Chris Barber, playing in the R&B segment he introduced to his show. The club served as a focal point for British skiffle acts and Barber was responsible for bringing over American folk and blues performers, who found they were much better known and paid in Europe than America. The first major artist was Big Bill Broonzy, who visited England in the mid-1950s, but who, rather than his electric Chicago blues, played a folk blues set to fit in with British expectations of American blues as a form of folk music. In 1957 Davies and Korner decided that their central interest was the blues and closed the skiffle club, reopening a month later in the Roundhouse pub, Wardour Street, Soho as the London Blues and Barrelhouse Club. To this point British blues was acoustically played emulating Delta blues and Country blues styles and often part of the emerging second British folk revival. Critical in changing this was the visit of Muddy Waters in 1958, who initially shocked British audiences by playing amplified electric blues, but who was soon playing to ecstatic crowds and rave reviews.

Davies and Korner, having already split with Barber, now plugged in and began to play high-powered electric blues that became the model for the subgenre, forming the band Blues Incorporated. In early 1962, having been ejected from the Roundhouse for being too loud, Korner and Davies moved their club to the venue used by Ealing Jazz Club and on 17 March opened the UK's first regular UK blues night.

Blues Incorporated became something of a clearing house for British blues musicians in the later 1950s and early 1960s, with many joining, or sitting in on sessions. These included future Rolling Stones, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts and Brian Jones; as well as Cream founders Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker; beside Graham Bond and Long John Baldry. After their success at the Ealing Club, Blues Incorporated were given a residency at the Marquee Club and it was from there that in 1962 they took the name of the first British Blues album, R&B from the Marquee for Decca, but split before its release. The culmination of this first movement of blues came with John Mayall, who moved to London in the early 1960s, eventually forming the Bluesbreakers, whose members at various times included, Jack Bruce, Aynsley Dunbar, Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Mick Taylor.

British rhythm and blues
While some bands focused on blues artists, particularly those of Chicago electric blues, others adopted a wider interest in rhythm and blues, including the work of Chess Records' blues artists like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, but also rock and roll pioneers Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. Most successful were the Rolling Stones, who abandoned blues purism before their line-up solidified and they produced their first eponymously titled album in 1964, which largely consisted of rhythm and blues standards. Following in the wake of the Beatles' national and then international success, the Rolling Stones soon established themselves as the second most popular UK band and joined the British Invasion of the American record charts as leaders of a second wave of R&B orientated bands. In addition to Chicago blues numbers, the Rolling Stones covered songs by Chuck Berry and the Valentinos, with the latter's "It's All Over Now" giving them their first UK number one in 1964. Blues songs and influences continued to surface in the Rolling Stones' music, as in their version of "Little Red Rooster", which went to number 1 on the UK singles chart in December 1964.

Other London-based bands included the Yardbirds (whose ranks included three key guitarists in Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page), The Kinks (with pioneer songwriter Ray Davies and rock-guitarist Dave Davies), and Manfred Mann (considered to have one of the most authentic sounding vocalists in the scene in Paul Jones) and the Pretty Things, beside the more jazz-influenced acts like the Graham Bond Organisation, Georgie Fame and Zoot Money. Bands to emerge from other major British cities included the Animals from Newcastle (with the keyboards of Alan Price and vocals of Eric Burdon), the Moody Blues and Spencer Davis Group from Birmingham (the latter largely a vehicle for the young Steve Winwood), and Them from Belfast (with their vocalist Van Morrison). None of these bands played exclusively rhythm and blues, often relying on a variety of sources, including Brill Building and girl group songs for their hit singles, but it remained at the core of their early albums.

The British Mod subculture was musically centred on rhythm and blues and later soul music, performed by artists that were not available in small London clubs around which the scene was based. As a result, a number of mod bands emerged to fill this gap. These included the Small Faces, The Creation, the Action and, most successfully, the Who. The Who's early promotional material tagged them as producing "maximum rhythm and blues", but by about 1966 they moved from attempting to emulate American R&B to producing songs that reflected the Mod lifestyle. Many of these bands were able to enjoy cult and then national success in the UK, but found it difficult to break into the American market. Only the Who managed, after some difficulty, to produce a significant US following, particularly after their appearances at the Monterey Pop Festival (1967) and Woodstock (1969).

Because of the very different circumstances from which they came, and in which they played, the rhythm and blues these bands produced was very different in tone from that of African American artists, often with more emphasis on guitars and sometimes with greater energy. They have been criticised for exploiting the massive catalogue of African American music, but it has also been noted that they both popularised that music, bringing it to British, world and in some cases American audiences, and helping to build the reputation of existing and past rhythm and blues artists. Most of these bands rapidly moved on from recording and performing American standards to writing and recording their own music, often leaving their R&B roots behind, but enabling several to enjoy sustained careers that were not open to most of the more pop-oriented beat groups of the first wave of the invasion, who (with the major exception of the Beatles) were unable to write their own material or adapt to changes in the musical climate.

British blues boom
The blues boom overlapped, both chronologically and in terms of personnel, with the earlier, wider rhythm and blues phase, which had begun to peter out in the mid-1960s leaving a nucleus of instrumentalists with a wide knowledge of blues forms and techniques, which they would carry into the pursuit of more purist blues interests. Blues Incorporated and Mayall's Bluesbreakers were well known in the London jazz and emerging R&B circuits, but the Bluesbreakers began to gain some national and international attention, particularly after the release of Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton album (1966), considered one of the seminal British blues recordings. Produced by Mike Vernon, who later set up the Blue Horizon record label, it was notable for its driving rhythms and Clapton's rapid blues licks with a full distorted sound derived from a Gibson Les Paul and a Marshall amp. This sound became something of a classic combination for British blues (and later rock) guitarists, and also made clear the primacy of the guitar, seen as a distinctive characteristic of the subgenre. Clapton stated, "I spent most of my teens and early twenties studying the blues—the geography of it and the chronology of it, as well as how to play it". Peter Green started what is called "second great epoch of British blues", as he replaced Clapton in the Bluesbreakers after his departure to form Cream. In 1967, after one record with the Bluesbreakers, Green, with the Bluesbreaker's rhythm section Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, formed Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, produced by Mike Vernon on the Blue Horizon label. One key factor in developing the popularity of the music in the UK and across Europe in the early 1960s was the success of the American Folk Blues Festival tours, organised by German promoters Horst Lippmann and Fritz Rau.

The rise of electric blues, and its eventual mainstream success, meant that British acoustic blues was completely overshadowed. In the early 1960s, folk guitar pioneers Bert Jansch, John Renbourn and particularly Davy Graham (who played and recorded with Korner), played blues, folk and jazz, developing a distinctive guitar style known as folk baroque. British acoustic blues continued to develop as part of the folk scene, with figures like Ian A. Anderson and his Country Blues Band, and Al Jones. Most British acoustic blues players could achieve little commercial success and, with a few exceptions, found it difficult to gain any recognition for their "imitations" of the blues in the US.

In contrast, the next wave of bands, formed from about 1967, like Cream, Fleetwood Mac, Ten Years After, Savoy Brown, and Free, pursued a different route, retaining blues standards in their repertoire and producing original material that often shied away from obvious pop influences, placing an emphasis on individual virtuosity. The result has been characterised as blues rock and arguably marked the beginnings of a separation of pop and rock music that was to be a feature of the record industry for several decades. Cream is often seen as the first supergroup, combining the talents of Clapton, Bruce and Baker; they have also been seen as one of the first groups to exploit the power trio. Although only together for a little over two years in 1966–1969, they were highly influential and it was in this period that Clapton became an international superstar. Fleetwood Mac are often considered to have produced some of the finest work in the subgenre, with inventive interpretations of Chicago blues. They were also the most commercially successful group, with their eponymous début album reaching the UK top five in early 1968 and as the instrumental "Albatross" reached number one in the single charts in early 1969. This was, as Scott Schinder and Andy Schwartz put it, "The commercial apex of the British blues Boom". Free, with the guitar talents of Paul Kossoff, particularly from their self titled second album (1969), produced a stripped down form of blues that would be highly influential on hard rock and later heavy metal. Ten Years After, with guitarist Alvin Lee, formed in 1967, but achieved their breakthrough in 1968 with their live album Undead and in the US with their appearance at Woodstock the next year. Among the last British blues bands to gain mainstream success were Jethro Tull, formed from the amalgamation of two blues bands, the John Evan Band and the Mcgregor's Engine in 1967. Their second album, Stand Up, reached number one in the UK in 1969.

Decline
British blues entered a rapid decline at the end of 1960s. Surviving bands and musicians tended to move into other expanding areas of rock music. Some, like Jethro Tull, followed bands like the Moody Blues away from 12-bar structures and harmonicas into complex, classical-influenced progressive rock. Some played a loud version of blues rock that became the foundation for hard rock and heavy metal. Led Zeppelin, formed by Yardbirds guitarist Jimmy Page, on their first two albums, both released in 1969, fused heavy blues and amplified rock to create what has been seen as a watershed in the development of hard rock and nascent heavy metal. Later recordings would mix in elements of folk and mysticism, which would also be a major influence on heavy metal music. Deep Purple developed a sound based on "squeezing and stretching" the blues, and achieved their commercial breakthrough with their fourth and distinctively heavier album, Deep Purple in Rock (1970), which has been seen as one of heavy metal's defining albums. Black Sabbath was the third incarnation of a group that started as the Polka Tulk Blues Band in 1968. Their early work included blues standards, but by the time of their second album Paranoid (1970), they had added elements of modality and the occult that would largely define modern heavy metal. Some, like Korner and Mayall, continued to play a "pure" form of the blues, but largely outside of mainstream notice. The structure of clubs, venues and festivals that had grown up in the early 1950s in Britain virtually disappeared in the 1970s.

Survival and resurgence
Although overshadowed by the growth of rock music the blues did not disappear in Britain, with American bluesmen such as John Lee Hooker, Eddie Taylor, and Freddie King continuing to be well received in the UK and an active home scene led by figures including Dave Kelly and his sister Jo Ann Kelly, who helped keep the acoustic blues alive on the British folk circuit. Dave Kelly was also a founder of The Blues Band with former Manfred Mann members Paul Jones and Tom McGuinness, Hughie Flint and Gary Fletcher. The Blues Band was credited with kicking off a second blues boom in Britain, which by the 1990s led to festivals all around the country, including The Swanage Blues Festival, The Burnley National Blues Festival, The Gloucester Blues and Heritage Festival and The Great British Rhythm and Blues Festival at Colne. The twenty-first century has seen an upsurge in interest in the blues in Britain that can be seen in the success of previously unknown acts including Seasick Steve, in the return to the blues by major figures who began in the first boom, including Peter Green, Mick Fleetwood, Chris Rea and Eric Clapton, as well as the arrival of new artists such as Dani Wilde,  Matt Schofield, Aynsley Lister and most recently in 2017 the Starlite Campbell Band. The British blues tradition lives on, as a style, outside of Britain as well. American guitarist Joe Bonamassa describes his main influences as the 1960s era British blues players, and considers himself a part of that tradition rather than the earlier American blues styles.

Significance
Beside giving a start to many important blues, pop and rock musicians, in spawning blues rock British blues also ultimately gave rise to a host of subgenres of rock, including particularly psychedelic rock, progressive rock, hard rock and ultimately heavy metal. Perhaps the most important contribution of British blues was the surprising re-exportation of American blues back to America, where, in the wake of the success of bands like the Rolling Stones and Fleetwood Mac, white audiences began to look again at black blues musicians like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and John Lee Hooker, who suddenly began to appeal to middle class white Americans. The result was a re-evaluation of the blues in America which enabled white Americans much more easily to become blues musicians, opening the door to Southern rock and the development of Texas blues musicians like Stevie Ray Vaughan.

title: British blues


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Dream pop

Dream pop (also typeset as dreampop) is a subgenre of alternative rock and neo-psychedelia that emphasizes atmosphere and sonic texture as much as pop melody. Common characteristics include breathy vocals, dense productions, and effects such as reverb, echo, tremolo, and chorus. It often overlaps with the related genre of shoegaze, and the two genre terms have at times been used interchangeably.

The genre came into prominence in the 1980s through the work of groups such as Cocteau Twins and A.R. Kane. Subsequently, acts such as My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Galaxie 500, Julee Cruise, Lush, and Mazzy Star released significant albums in the style. It saw renewed popularity among millennial listeners following the late-2000s success of acts such as Beach House.

Characteristics
The term dream pop is thought to relate to the "immersion" in the music experienced by the listener. The AllMusic Guide to Electronica (2003) defined dream pop as "an atmospheric subgenre of alternative rock that relies on sonic textures as much as melody". According to Paste, the genre emphasizes mood and sonics over lyrics, so that "chords and tracks blur seamlessly into one another so frequently that it can be difficult to even decipher when one song ended and another has begun." Common characteristics are breathy vocals, the use of guitar effects, and a densely produced sound, with "nebulous, distorted guitars" paired with "murmured vocals sometimes completely smudged into a wall of noise." The music tends to focus on textures rather than propulsive rock riffs. Effects such as reverb and echo are ubiquitous, with tremolo and chorus also heard on recordings.

Lyrics are often introspective or existential in nature, but may be difficult to hear or incomprehensible in the mix. In the view of critic Simon Reynolds, dream pop "celebrates rapturous and transcendent experiences, often using druggy and mystical imagery". In 1991, he suggested this escapist tendency might be a response to the cultural landscape of the UK during the 1980s: "After 12 years of Conservative government in Britain, any idealism or constructive political involvement seems futile to these alienated middle-class dropouts." Similarly, according to Rachel Felder, dream pop artists often resist representations of social reality in favour of ambiguous or hallucinogenic experiences.

1960s–1970s: Origins
Author Nathan Wiseman-Trowse writes that the "approach to the sheer physicality of sound" integral to dream pop was "arguably pioneered in popular music by figures such as Phil Spector and [ Beach Boys founder] Brian Wilson." The music of the Velvet Underground in the 1960s and 1970s, which experimented with repetition, tone and texture over conventional song structure, was also an important touchstone in the genre's development. Their 1967 debut The Velvet Underground & Nico incorporated what music critic Marc Beamount terms "psychedelic dream pop" in addition to a variety of other styles. 1960s band the Byrds would influence the "swoony harmonies" of later British dream pop groups.

The Beach Boys recorded an early dream pop song, "All I Wanna Do", for their 1970 album Sunflower. Critic Jim Allen, who cites the Beach Boys as the "godfathers" of dream pop on 2021, says that the song's unprecedented "cinematic dream sequence" production style marks the point "where the dream pop family tree starts to come into focus." However, the Beach Boys' impact on the genre was not widely acknowledged until after the 2000s.

Music journalist John Bergstrom recognises George Harrison's 1970 track "Let It Down" as a progenitor of the genre, while stating that its Spector-produced parent album All Things Must Pass influenced "many guitar-driven, echo-drenched bands have come around since, mixing powerful rave-ups with moody, reflective down-tempo numbers and a spiritual bent.

Early–mid 1980s: Development
A.J. Ramirez of PopMatters recognises an evolutionary line from gothic rock to dream pop. The early 1980s gothic-derived "ethereal wave" subgenre, with its effects-laden guitar sounds and female vocals, led to the dream pop and shoegaze scenes; it was represented by Cocteau Twins and labels such as 4AD and Projekt Records. Rolling Stone describes "modern dream pop" as originating with the early 1980s work of Cocteau Twins and their contemporaries. AllMusic's Jason Ankeny credits the Cocteau Twins' "distinctly ethereal" sound and singer Elizabeth Fraser's operatic, indecipherable vocals with defining their label, the UK-based 4AD. According to Pitchfork, Vini Reilly of the Durutti Column "embodied the cliché of the suicidal dream-pop guitarist in the mid-1980s" with his "narcotic performances" presaging later acts such as My Bloody Valentine and Galaxie 500.

The 1984 album It'll End in Tears by 4AD's "dream-pop supergroup" This Mortal Coil was conceived by label head Ivo Watts-Russell and featured members of Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance. The album helped "set the template for dream pop" and associated the formerly gothic-affiliated UK label with the style. The album's 1983 single, the Tim Buckley cover "Song to the Siren", became an influential work in the genre, and saw success in the UK Indie Chart, remaining there consistently for two years. Film director David Lynch, unable to obtain the rights to This Mortal Coil's version of "Song to the Siren" for his 1986 film Blue Velvet, enlisted composer Angelo Badalamenti and singer Julee Cruise to record a replacement track. The result was "Mysteries of Love", described by Rolling Stone as a significant development of the dream pop sound which "gave the genre its synthy sheen". The trio of Cruise, Lynch and Badalamenti later recorded the 1989 album Floating into the Night, which further elaborated on the style and featured the Twin Peaks theme and UK top 10 single "Falling".

Late 1980s–1990s: Shoegaze scene
The term "dreampop" was coined in the late 1980s by Alex Ayuli of A.R. Kane to describe his band's eclectic sound, which blended ethereal dub production, effects-laden guitar, and drum machine backing, among other influences. The group signed to 4AD to release their 1987 EP Lollita, produced by Cocteau Twins guitarist Robin Guthrie. Pitchfork describes their debut album Sixty Nine (1988) as a "crucial document" of the dream pop movement, commenting that the group "aimed to emulate an ethereality that could just as easily become nightmarish", resulting in music that feels "just out of reach, like your memory struggling to grasp the last wisp of a dream before it slips away." Their "dreampop" label was subsequently adopted by music critic Simon Reynolds to describe that group and later extended to the nascent shoegazing scene in the UK. Reynolds describes the movement as "a wave of hazy neo-psychedelic groups" characterised by a "blurry, blissful sound", and credits the influence of the "ethereal soundscapes" of Cocteau Twins as well as more distorted styles of American alternative rock.

In the 1990s, "dream pop" and "shoegazing" were interchangeable and regionally dependent terms, with "dream pop" being the name by which "shoegazing" was typically known in America. AllMusic describes the dream pop label as covering both the "loud, shimmering feedback" of My Bloody Valentine and the "post-Velvet Underground guitar rock" of Galaxie 500. My Bloody Valentine showcased a unique dream pop sound on their 1988 debut album Isn't Anything, with guitarist Kevin Shields employing a tremolo-arm technique in order to produce "an amorphous drone, at once visceral and disembodied". Galaxie 500 provided a "cornerstone" of the genre in their 1989 album On Fire, with their downtempo, reverb-laden sound becoming influential. UK bands acts as A.R. Kane, My Bloody Valentine and Ride played an influential role in the development of the movement. Other prominent acts to emerge from the movement include Slowdive and Chapterhouse.

The 1990 Cocteau Twins album Heaven or Las Vegas proved an iconic release in the genre. The UK band Lush became an influential act in the genre during the 1990s, with Robin Guthrie producing their 1992 debut album Spooky. The 1993 album So Tonight That I Might See by American band Mazzy Star reflected a dream pop sound specific to "the glitzy decay that is L.A.", according to Pitchfork; that publication called the album a "dream pop classic". The late 1980s dream pop of A.R. Kane and My Bloody Valentine influenced 1990s acts such as Seefeel and Insides, who began incorporating elements such as samples and sequenced rhythms. Ambient pop music is described by AllMusic as "essentially an extension of the dream pop that emerged in the wake of the shoegazer movement", distinct for its incorporation of electronic textures and techniques such as sampling.

2000s: Contemporary developments
The 2007 album Person Pitch by Panda Bear combined Beach Boys-influenced dream pop with modern sampledelic techniques, winning acclaim and exerting a wide influence. Much of the music associated with the 2009-coined term "chillwave" could be considered dream pop; In the opinion of Grantland's David Schilling, the critical discussion surrounding "chillwave" revealed that labels such as "shoegaze" and "dream pop" were ultimately "arbitrary and meaningless". The 2010 album Teen Dream by Baltimore duo Beach House established the group as purveyors of modern dream pop that drew on the "languid reveries" of Cocteau Twins, Mazzy Star and Galaxie 500. The group's success in the late 2000s solidified the popularity of dream pop with millennial listeners.

title: Dream pop


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Twee pop

Twee pop is a subgenre of indie pop that originates from the 1986 NME compilation C86. Twee pop gets its name from the aesthetic of twee, which is known for its simplicity and childlike innocence. Some of its defining features are boy-girl harmonies, catchy melodies, and lyrics about love. For many years, prominent independent record labels associated with twee pop were Sarah Records (in the UK) and K Records (in the US).

Twee pop gained popularity in the 1990s, and has seen a recent revival in the 2020s.

Characteristics
The definition of twee is something "excessively or affectedly quaint, pretty, or sentimental," supposedly born from a childish mispronunciation of the word sweet. With the twee movement's embrace of innocence and femininity, the genre has strong associations with feminism and queer activism.

Artists such as Heavenly, Talulah Gosh, and Marine Girls were primarily women who wrote about love, relationships, and personal empowerment. While the music sounded lighthearted and naive, the subject matter was often gritty and dark. Twee pop has been seen as a feminist response to tough, invulnerable, masculine punk and post-punk music scenes of the time.

Many twee artists, such as Blueboy, were openly queer. In the 1990s, Indiepop and twee scenes rejected the sexist, homophobic, and racist attitudes of mainstream music.

A retrospective fascination with the genre in the US saw Americans eagerly defining themselves as twee. According to The A.V. Club's Paula Mejia:

"The difference between 'twee' and 'indie pop' is slight but polarizing. Both styles of music transcended genre, became a tape-trading lifestyle, and have similar influences, drawing from the Ramones' minimalist three-chord structures as much as The Jesus And Mary Chain's salty pop harmonies. Everyone varies slightly on origins ... Twee itself began as a vast collection of sounds, gathering the threads where luminaries left off, and carving out divergent avenues in their wake."

AllMusic says that twee pop is "perhaps best likened to bubblegum indie rock—it's music with a spirit of D.I.Y. defiance in the grand tradition of punk, but with a simplicity and innocence not seen or heard since the earliest days of rock & roll". The author Marc Spitz suggests that the roots of twee stem from post-war 1950s music. While the culture categorized itself under the moniker of "indie" (short for independent), many major twee powerhouses gained mainstream critical acclaim for their contributions to the twee movement.

title: Twee pop


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Homestead

Homestead may refer to:

 * Homestead (buildings), a farmhouse and its adjacent outbuildings; by extension, it can mean any small cluster of houses
 * Homestead (unit), a unit of measurement equal to 160 acres
 * Homestead principle, a legal concept that one can establish ownership of unowned property through living on it
 * Homestead Acts, several United States federal laws that gave millions of acres to farmers known as homesteaders
 * Homestead exemption (U.S. law), a legal program to protect the value of a residence from expenses and/or forced sale arising from the death of a spouse
 * Homesteading, a lifestyle of agrarian self-sufficiency as practiced by a modern homesteader or urban homesteader

Australia

 * Homestead, Queensland, a town and locality in the Charters Towers Region
 * The Homestead (Georges Hall, NSW), historical house
 * "The Homestead" resort at El Questro Wilderness Park

United Kingdom

 * The Homestead, Sandiway, a house in Cheshire, England, now called Redwalls

United States

 * The Homestead (Flagstaff, Arizona), on the National Register of Historic Places listings in Coconino County, Arizona
 * Homestead, Kern County, California
 * Homestead, Florida
 * Homestead Air Reserve Base, a U.S. Air Force base near Miami, Florida
 * Homestead-Miami Speedway, an auto racing track in Homestead, Florida

 * The Homestead (Evanston, Illinois), on the National Register of Historic Places listings in Evanston, Illinois
 * Homestead, Iowa
 * Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children, in Florida
 * Homestead Township, Otter Tail County, Minnesota
 * Homestead, Michigan, an unincorporated community
 * Homestead, Missouri
 * Homestead, New Mexico
 * The Homestead (Haverstraw, New York), listed on the NRHP in Rockland County, New York
 * The Homestead (Geneseo, New York), NRHP-listed, a historic house in Livingston County, New York
 * The Homestead (Saranac Lake, New York), listed on the NRHP in Franklin County, New York
 * The Homestead (Waccabuc, New York), listed on the NRHP in Westchester County, New York
 * The Homestead at Denison University, a student-run intentional community in Granville, Ohio
 * Homestead, Oklahoma
 * Homestead, Oregon
 * Homestead, Portland, Oregon
 * Homestead, Pennsylvania
 * Homestead, Wisconsin
 * Homestead Township, Michigan
 * The Homestead (Hot Springs, Virginia), a luxury resort and a National Historic Landmark listed on the NRHP in Bath County, Virginia
 * Homestead High School (disambiguation), the name of several high schools in the United States
 * Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children, a migrant children's detention shelter in Florida

Arts and media

 * "Homestead" (Star Trek: Voyager), a 2001 episode of Star Trek: Voyager
 * Homestead, a 1998 novel by American writer Rosina Lippi
 * The Homestead, an artwork by John Steuart Curry
 * Homestead Records, a record label founded in 1983 and based in New York City
 * Homestead Records (1920s), an American record company of the 1920s
 * Homestead, fictional planetary migration company, Passengers
 * Homestead, an upcoming American post-apocalyptic drama film

Other uses

 * Homestead (meteorite), a meteorite that fell in Homestead, Iowa in 1875
 * Homestead Strike, an 1892 labor confrontation at the Carnegie Steel Company in Homestead, Pennsylvania
 * Homestead Technologies, a web-hosting service based in Burlington, Massachusetts

title: Homestead