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True (Spandau Ballet album)

True is the third studio album by English pop band Spandau Ballet, released on 4 March 1983 by Chrysalis Records. The band's songwriter/guitarist Gary Kemp realised after the release of their second album that the nightclub audience they initially wanted to attract had lost interest in them in part because of the band's transition from dance music to pop. He no longer felt obligated to keep writing music for them and shifted his focus to soul and R&B influences such as Marvin Gaye and Al Green for this album. Kemp thought that bandmate Steve Norman's newfound interest in the saxophone would be well-suited to the sound he was going for, as would the decision to record most of the album at Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas.

After an unsuccessful attempt to begin work on the album with producer Trevor Horn, the band tested out their working relationship with Tony Swain and Steve Jolley while recording its first single, "Lifeline", and chose to produce the album alongside them. "Lifeline" was a top ten hit on the UK Singles Chart, and its follow-up, "Communication", also did well. The album became available as the second single climbed the charts, and the overwhelming response to the title track dictated its release as the third single from the album, leading it to four weeks as the most popular song in the UK. It also became their first song to appear on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US, where it peaked at number four. A fourth single, "Gold", reached number two in the UK but only got as high as 29 in the US, which Kemp attributed to internal conflicts at their record label that took time away from promoting the band.

On the album charts, True reached number one in the UK and number 19 in the US while also having success in numerous other countries. It achieved platinum certification for sales of 300,000 units in the UK less than three months after its release. Most critics thought the album was enjoyable, but there were those who found something or much to dislike. The choice of suits for the album photos and "True" music video was thought to have misled US audiences by presenting them as too clean cut to have much else to offer other than soul ballads like the title song.

Background, development and recording
When Spandau Ballet first formed, their guitarist/songwriter Gary Kemp had been aware of how previous generations of Britain's youth culture had bands representing them, such as the Mods having the Who and the Small Faces. He wanted people to associate Spandau with the fashion-wise clientele of a popular Tuesday night London gathering called the Blitz, and had written songs that sounded like what was played there,  what he described as "white European dance music".

Their first album, Journeys to Glory, was a successful culmination of this style of material that Kemp had written at his own pace and that had been tested in front of the Blitz crowd over an extended period of time, but coming up with songs for their second effort, Diamond, was more challenging. Although following a renewed interest in funk gave them a number 3 UK hit with its first single, "Chant No. 1 (I Don't Need This Pressure On)", the writer's block Kemp suffered as it climbed the UK Singles Chart resulted in his mimicking its use of horns and group vocals for the next single, "Paint Me Down", which had a number 30 showing in the UK, the lowest peak position there of any of their singles to date. An experiment with the eastern European sound from American film scores for the third single, "She Loved Like Diamond", fared even worse just as Diamond was about to be released; that inspired the idea to take another song from the album, "Instinction", and hire a new producer to remix it in the hope that it would perform better. Kemp described that track as being the closest thing to a pop song that Spandau Ballet had yet recorded. The band hired Buggles founder Trevor Horn to do the new arrangement of the song, which reached number ten in the UK and made Kemp realise that the clubgoers they had initially catered to were no longer interested in their music. He was now able to write songs without concern for their danceability or adherence to current tastes. In his autobiography I Know This Much: From Soho to Spandau, he explained, "The freedom of not having to write just for Soho meant I could dive into that great big reservoir of pop, deep with melody and soul, and hopefully surface with the pearls I wanted."

Because of the rebound the band experienced with Horn's reworking of "Instinction", the plan was to have him produce the next album. He was especially impressed with one of Kemp's recent compositions, "Pleasure", and wanted to start working with the band on it immediately. The rehearsal went well, and they began recording it at AIR Studios with the mindset that it would be the first single from the new album, which was initially called The Pleasure Project. On the first day of recording, however, Horn had drummer John Keeble redo the track repeatedly over the course of the ten-hour day to try to get it perfect and called Kemp that evening to offer to programme the drums and suggest that they get a new drummer. Kemp was stunned by the suggestion: "I heard myself saying that programming the drums would not just be psychologically wrong for our team spirit, but it would also undermine John as a player." He refused Horn, who decided not to continue working with them. Later in 1982 Kemp told Smash Hits magazine, "We couldn't have worked with Trevor because he was too overpowering, too dogmatic."

The band's manager, Steve Dagger, suggested producers Tony Swain and Steve Jolley, who recently had success with Bananarama, and Kemp performed some of the songs he had just written for the duo with the plan of having them produce the first single from the new album to see if they had a good working relationship with the band. While Swain was leaning toward "Communication" as the best choice for their next hit song, Jolley insisted that they work on the "up-tempo, more obvious pop sing-along" "Lifeline". The band was credited alongside Jolley and Swain as producers of "Lifeline" and would be on the album as well.

"Lifeline" was recorded at Red Bus Studios in Paddington as Spandau Ballet got a feel for their new producers, but they worked on the rest of the album at Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas because of the soul music that had been recorded there and because Kemp felt that the tropical surroundings would help give the music the feeling he was trying to achieve. The band rehearsed before they travelled there, and lead singer Tony Hadley recorded his vocals at Red Bus upon their return.

Songs
In a Mastertapes interview with John Wilson in 2013, Kemp contrasted the anti-establishment, anticommercial stance of the punk scene with the plan that Spandau Ballet initially had of having similar attitudes in their dress and style of music but selling enough records to make the pop charts at the same time. He felt that their appearances on the British music chart television programme Top of the Pops contributed to their assimilation into a more mainstream sound and explained that, because of his realisation that their music no longer interested the nightclub crowd after the release of "Instinction", "There was a sense of, 'We have to move on from here.'"  He told Wilson how their desire to expand to a broader audience inspired the "True" lyric "I bought a ticket to the world". In 2012 he told The Guardian, "We were leaving the London club scene and starting to sell records around the world, so the next album really needed to be pop."

In 1981 the band recorded "Chant No. 1" with the British jazz-funk group Beggar and Co acting as their horn section, and Steve Norman, who had been the band's guitarist and percussionist on its first two albums, subsequently felt inspired to take up the saxophone. Kemp recalled he and Norman enjoying hearing the instrument as teenagers on songs by Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder as well as the hit "Shame" by Evelyn "Champagne" King. Kemp decided that their foray into pop on the new album would use the saxophone in the same vein as the soul music they enjoyed growing up. Once he found this new direction for their music, he suddenly had the urge to write several songs. In an early 1983 interview with Record Mirror magazine, he confessed feeling that the songs for this album were the best that he had ever written and explained that he went back to writing what sounded good with just an acoustic guitar. He discussed the difficulty of trying to focus on more personal subjects without sounding derivative and how he had overcome his fear of being honest in his music. He said, "I honestly wanted to make an album that would cross all ages and become timeless. I said to Tony Swain, 'I like Daryl Hall and John Oates, and I want the album to sound as smooth as that but with a British edge to it.' I think it's got that."

"True"
In 1981, Kemp met Altered Images lead singer Clare Grogan and, despite already having a girlfriend, found himself infatuated with her because of their common interests. By the time he started writing songs for the album, he was primarily listening to music by Marvin Gaye and Al Green and wanted to write a blue-eyed soul version of their style of music that was based on his own experience. Grogan had given him a copy of the novel Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov as a gift, so he incorporated a couple of phrases he had underlined while reading it into the lyrics – "pill on my tongue" and "seaside limbs", which became "seaside arms" – in order to convey his feelings in a way that she would recognise. He told Wilson he was still getting questioned about the meaning of "seaside arms" or criticised for his paraphrasing of the expression.

"Gold"
Once Kemp decided to start writing pop songs, the first idea he chose to explore was paying homage to film scores as he had attempted on "She Loved Like Diamond", only this time focusing specifically on John Barry and his work on the James Bond series. The title of the song, "Gold", was inspired by Shirley Bassey's 1964 hit Bond theme "Goldfinger". Because he and his brother, Martin, who was the bassist for the band, were still living with their parents as he began writing songs for the album, it was convenient to have his brother listen to what he had just written and play it with him on his bass to see if it sounded like what he intended, and this song was one Martin loved.

Cover art
Kemp was competing for Grogan's attention with Altered Images cover artist David Band and asked him to work with Spandau Ballet on the design for the new album. Because they were both seeing their careers take off during their attempts to court Grogan, they went camping together a few times in the English Lake District as a way of escaping their success. Kemp recalled, "We first started to devise a cover together for the True album when we were up in the mountains, in one of the pubs one evening. He was drawing in his sketchbook and a dove appeared, this little dove." Band later added alongside it the outline of a man's head with a brimmed hat, which the band loved; a variation was used for the sleeve of the "True" single. His work was described as "a marker for the look of the time, a jazz-influenced style that could also be seen in an exaggerated fashion in the New Romantic look." Kemp credits him with having "the skill of coming up with simple, figurative graphics that would set a visual tone for the decade." In 2012 he told The Herald: "I felt David was tuning into something visually and graphically that was in the air anyway. But he was the first to do that. David set the tone for a certain look. A lot of people picked up on it. He was creating something new that was inspiring everyone."

Release and commercial performance
True was released on 4 March 1983 and received silver certification from the British Phonographic Industry on 9 March for reaching the 60,000 units of shipment threshold. It entered the UK Albums Chart on 12 March to begin a chart run of 90 weeks, one of which was at number 1. Gold certification for reaching 100,000 units was issued on 11 April, and platinum (300,000 units) came the following month on 23 May. It also reached the top spot in the Netherlands and New Zealand and performed well in other countries. In the US, the album debuted on Billboard magazine's Top LPs & Tapes chart in the issue dated 14 May 1983 and peaked at number 19 during a 37-week run.

To commemorate its 20th anniversary, a remastered version of "True" was released on 29 April 2003 as a single CD with the original eight tracks along with the music video for "Gold" and some home video footage of the band. The original 8-track album was also issued in 2003 on the high-resolution super audio CD format as a Hybrid SACD (in stereo only). In 2008, the album was given away free with copies of the Daily Mail newspaper. In June 2010, a special edition was released on 2 CDs with a DVD as part of the 2010 Spandau Ballet reissues series, featuring remastered 12″ remixes and B-sides, plus a live concert.

Critical reception
Billboard magazine gave the album a positive review upon its release in the US, noting that "Pleasure" and "Code of Love" "linger with the fresh feel of new music while owing to swing era rhythms, even MOR." Most reviewers at the time, however, qualified their praise. Parke Puterbaugh of Rolling Stone magazine wrote, "You can shut your eyes while listening to True and almost imagine that Spandau Ballet has had nothing to do with clothes, makeup or any fashion-show pseudoevents" and concluded that the album was "a sleekly executed, surprisingly affecting record, and welcome proof that bunch of clotheshorses can place high in the musical stakes, too." Don Mackay of Rip It Up also summed up his comments with a reference to their vestiary history: "While still some distance short of profundity, the result is generally pleasant enough with tracks like 'Communication', 'Lifeline' and 'Foundation' at least proving that the Ballet really can dance. Perhaps there's life in the old clotheshorses yet." Trouser Press magazine's Ira Robbins also counted "Communication" and "Lifeline" as album highlights, adding, "The remaining six cuts aren't as noteworthy, but at least aren't objectionable or off-putting." Dave Rimmer of Smash Hits conceded that "there's nothing here as awful as, say, '[She Loved Like] Diamond', but on the other hand nothing as brilliant as 'Chant No. 1'. True is less interesting than previous Spandau LPs, but much more enjoyable." Record Mirror's Betty Page warned, "Enter into True with a mind truly free of preconceptions, and you'll wallow in a chunk of creamy, dreamy funk with satisfyingly rounded edges. Turn a cynical eye to who you're dealing with and where they've come from and you'll find plenty of cannon fodder."

Gavin Martin of the New Musical Express wrote a long, scathing review of the album, which he opened by describing the band as "slimy" and "ingratiating" with "opportunist, vaguely plagiaristic whims and indulgences". He called the album "milksop funk pap", "bland feckless goo" and "doleful emasculation". Regarding Kemp's songwriting, he wrote, Despite all the talk of inner strength and celebrations of the highlife elsewhere, the music is stale and rigid with a backline that fairly grinds along where it should be bright and alert. As a pop band Spandau are too pedestrian, too tied up in their own self-important world to provide a sharp/indignant/imaginative insight to the times; and as a "soul" band, well, they're fooling no one.

Retrospective reviews were mixed. Paul Evans wrote a brief summary review of most of their album discography in The Rolling Stone Album Guide and gave True three stars out of five without much to recommend. At his most complimentary, he opined, "Tony Hadley developed a way of vocalizing that joined the heavy dramatics of Bryan Ferry to the lounge act 'feeling' of a Gary Puckett or a bad Bobby Darin." Of all their albums, he concluded, "True remains creepily fascinating." Dan LeRoy of AllMusic complimented "the growing skill of guitarist Gary Kemp, the band's primary songwriter, who crafted a set of tunes aimed squarely at the charts." Like Rimmer, however, he did not find anything as interesting as their previous UK hits: "Some listeners at the time called the album an MOR sellout, but its slick surfaces remain tough to resist, and while none of the cuts generate the excitement of past singles like 'To Cut a Long Story Short' or 'Chant No. 1,' True remains Spandau Ballet's most consistent and best all-around album."

Singles and videos
Swain and Jolley's selection for their tryout as producers, "Lifeline", became the first single released from the album and debuted on the UK Singles Chart dated 2 October 1982. It peaked at number 7 during its 9 weeks there and reached the pop charts in other countries. In the US it "bubbled under" Billboard magazine's Hot 100 to number 108, and it was paired with "Communication" when it appeared on their Dance/Disco Top 80 chart. The US chart appearances coincided with the airing of the music video on MTV in the spring of 1983. Critics were divided, with some finding it bland and others appreciating the R&B-style vocals.

The album was completed in December 1982, but Kemp explained that when the next single needed to be chosen, the band's manager, Steve Dagger, "didn't want to go with a ballad next and recommended another up-tempo first. 'Communication' got the band vote. Why we didn't go straight for 'True' or 'Gold' as the next single, I'm not sure. Maybe we felt their success would be automatic and wanted to save them for later, during the album's release." "Communication" debuted on the UK Singles Chart on 12 February 1983 and reached number 12 over the course of 10 weeks. It also charted in other countries, and, in addition to its dance chart pairing with "Lifeline" in the US in the spring of 1983, it made the Billboard Hot 100 in the spring of 1984, after "True" and "Gold", the third and fourth singles from the album, completed their chart runs there. Reviews were mostly good; some critics complimented Hadley's vocals and appreciated what they felt was a scaled-back approach, but others still found it overdone. The music video for the song was made to look like a theatrical film, and, in order to increase his visibility, Hadley was the only band member to appear in it.

The title song began 15 weeks on the UK Singles Chart in April 1983 and spent four weeks at number one. It also went to the top spot in Canada and Ireland and made the top ten in several other countries, including the US, where it got as high as number four on the Hot 100 and spent a week at number one on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart. It received a variety of responses from critics, with some finding it flawless and others disliking it. Hadley felt that their choice to wear suits for the music video had given their US audience a misleading first impression since "True" was very different from the hits they had elsewhere.

"Gold" was the fourth UK single from the album and spent nine weeks on the pop chart there, two of which were at number two. Although it made the top ten in several other countries, it only got as high as number 29 in the US. The music video alternated shots of the band performing the song with a storyline in which Hadley played a character who wandered the sun-baked streets and outskirts of Carmona, Spain, searching for pieces that made up a gold puzzle. Critics were again in disagreement as some showed appreciation, others contempt.

Chrysalis wanted to release "Heaven Is a Secret" as a fifth single in the UK; however the band refused this. In limited European release at the end of 1983, "Pleasure" reached number 27 in the Netherlands, number 32 in Belgium, and number 61 in West Germany. In reviews of the album, "Pleasure" elicited the same divided response as some of the previous singles. Page described it as "smoothly mournful", but Martin used the song's lyrics as an example of Kemp "attempting to present characters that are strong and noble with dignity and high moral purpose", concluding, "Even [Spandau Ballet's] leisure time becomes a virtual religious experience."

Aftermath
The number 29 showing by "Gold" in the US was the first signal to Kemp that Chrysalis America was not promoting them. "Communication" only reached number 59 in the US in 1984, and "Only When You Leave", the first single from their next album, Parade, became their last Hot 100 entry when it peaked at number 34 later that year. Kemp was unhappy with those performances as well and blamed the low numbers on a perceived conflict between Chrysalis founders Chris Wright and Terry Ellis distracting them from promotional efforts. Wright refused to license the band to a bigger label in the US, so they sought legal advice to get out of their contract. The disappointing chart performance in the US led Spandau Ballet to leave Chrysalis for CBS Records, which released their Parade follow-up, Through the Barricades, in 1986.

Hadley felt that the band's inability to sustain the interest of the American public resulted from a few other factors working against them, primarily that their big US hit was very different to what they had already succeeded with elsewhere. Kemp had said in an interview before "Gold"'s US release that he hoped it would give Americans a more balanced view of Spandau Ballet. Although some American concert attendees knew their old songs, he hoped their upcoming US tour would show the rest who came that "True" was not the sort of song they normally did.

In retrospect, however, Hadley felt they needed to spend several months touring the US so that more audiences could hear that back catalogue and not doing so also hurt their record sales there. They played "True" at the 1985 Live Aid concert, but instead of using their brief time on stage to showcase one of their earlier hits, Dagger wanted them to play "Virgin" from their upcoming Through the Barricades album, which even Kemp admitted was not a good idea. Hadley felt Dagger was inexperienced, but whenever he suggested getting a manager with more knowledge about the business, the rest of the band balked.

Kemp told Creem in 1984 that he would continue to write for the larger audience Spandau Ballet had acquired with "True" but it would not be making albums that sounded like the last just because it did well. But, just as he had developed writer's block in 1981 after "Chant No. 1" became their highest-charting single, having a UK number one put pressure on Kemp to churn out more chart-topping hits and left him feeling that the band would always judge his future output against "True". When the Through the Barricades album and its singles failed to chart in the US, Kemp chided himself for exploring so many genres and not simply trying to write more hit songs that were imitations of "True".

Spandau Ballet

 * Tony Hadley – lead and backing vocals
 * Gary Kemp – guitars, backing vocals
 * Martin Kemp – bass
 * John Keeble – drums
 * Steve Norman – percussion, saxophone

Additional musician

 * Jess Bailey – keyboards

Technical

 * Spandau Ballet – production
 * Steve Jolley – production
 * Tony Swain – production, engineering
 * Richard Lengyel – engineering assistance
 * Tim Young – mastering
 * David Band – art direction, illustration
 * Lynn Goldsmith – photography
 * Stephen Horsfall – typography
 * Mixed at Red Bus Studios (London)
 * Mastered at CBS Studios (London)

title: True (Spandau Ballet album)


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Talk:E-commerce

The prosperity of e-commerce during Covid-19 lockdown
As humans have embraced social distancing as a manner to gradual the unfold of the pandemic, there has certainly been a drop-off in brick-and-mortar shopping.

The COVID-19 crisis is accelerating an expansion of e-commerce towards new firms, customers and types of products. The profit of e-commerce businesses has increased dramatically during pandemic lockdown, what seems that now may be the perfect time for businesses to shift their business online.

Immediately, whilst information of COVID-19 unfold and it changed into formally declared a virus via way of means of the World Health Organization, human beings answered via way of means of stocking up. The reaction to COVID-19 hasn’t been universally felt throughout generations, information indicates that buying behaviors are converting primarily based totally on generational differences.

Despite persistent cross-country differences, the COVID-19 crisis has enhanced dynamism within the e-commerce landscape across countries and has dilated the scope of e-commerce, as well as through new firms, client segments (e.g. elderly) and product (e.g. groceries). Meanwhile, e-commerce transactions in several countries have partially shifted from luxury product and services towards everyday necessities, relevant to an oversized range of individuals. .

E-commerce had been steady gaining momentum. By and huge the onset of the pandemic and therefore the succeeding imprisonment has thrown the progression of on-line buying off balance owing to restrictions on eligible things to necessities and due to the restrictions placed on physical movement directly impacting deliveries.

COVID-19 has place e-commerce at the forefront of retail. “Before the pandemic, online shopping was growing at a steady pace of 4.5 percent a year globally. But the retail landscape has deeply changed this year”. Businesses that were able to adapt to digital platforms thrived, in general, whereas ancient retailers with weak on-line methods dwindled, with many distinguished ones filing for bankruptcy.

“Ecommerce has surpassed levels not expected until 2025 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, expected to bring in over $843 billion in sales this year”.

With analysis showing that a lot of individuals are looking on-line for the primary-time throughout imprisonment and this new demand set to continue, many businesses that will traditionally have distributed via shops, restaurants or distributors have started marketing direct to customers for the first time. .

Semi-protected edit request on 5 January 2023
Please add the following item to the "External links" section: Siteimpulse (talk) 20:49, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
 * 100+ Resources for E-commerce
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: see WP:ELNO Cannolis (talk) 21:22, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 June 2023
Shopify is missing on the timeline of the stores. Shopify, the pioneering e-commerce platform, was officially launched on September 26, 2006. Adeel Nasir 875 (talk) 04:43, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
 * We would need a reliable source for this, not a link to your SEO blog. Sam Kuru (talk) 11:03, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 June 2023 - Update and improve information on chatbots and their impact in the e-commerce industry
Change:

 * 2020: Government of India launched BHIM UPI digital payment interface in 2016. In the year 2020 it had 2 billion digital payment transactions.

To:

 * 2020: Government of India launched BHIM UPI digital payment interface in 2016. In the year 2020 it had 2 billion digital payment transactions.

 * 2022: E-commerce chatbots on WhatsApp have established themselves as an integral part of omnichannel e-commerce. Prominent examples of conversational commerce, like The Coca-Cola Company's Pemberbot, outperform their equivalent web solutions and mobile applications in terms of revenue in LATAM. Cesarcas1994 (talk) 23:39, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: No. If you have a conflict of interest, which is strongly indicated by your edit history, you must declare it, and you should refrain from editing articles directly. If you are being paid to edit, you must indicate that together with your employer and the client in question. See WP:COI and WP:PAID. Actualcpscm (talk) 19:25, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

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

title: Talk:E-commerce


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Cliff Edwards

Clifton Avon "Cliff" Edwards (June 14, 1895 – July 17, 1971), nicknamed "Ukulele Ike", was an American musician and actor. He enjoyed considerable popularity in the 1920s and early 1930s, specializing in jazzy renditions of pop standards and novelty tunes. He had a number one hit with "Singin' in the Rain" in 1929. He also did voices for animated cartoons later in his career, and he is best known as the voice of Jiminy Cricket in Walt Disney's Pinocchio (1940) and Fun and Fancy Free (1947), and Dandy (Jim) Crow in Walt Disney's Dumbo (1941).

Early life and musical career
Edwards was born in Hannibal, Missouri. He left school at age 14 and soon moved to St. Louis, Missouri, and Saint Charles, Missouri, where he entertained as a singer in saloons. As many places had pianos in bad shape or none at all, Edwards taught himself to play ukulele to serve as his own accompanist (choosing it because it was the cheapest instrument in the music shop). He was nicknamed "Ukulele Ike" by a club owner who could never remember his name. He got his first break in 1918 at the Arsonia Cafe in Chicago, Illinois, where he performed a song called "Ja-Da", written by the club's pianist, Bob Carleton. Edwards and Carleton made it a hit on the vaudeville circuit. Vaudeville headliner Joe Frisco hired Edwards as part of his act, which was featured at the Palace in New York City—the most prestigious vaudeville theater—and later in the Ziegfeld Follies.

Edwards made his first phonograph records in 1919. He recorded early examples of jazz scat singing in 1922. The following year he signed a contract with Pathé Records. He became one of the most popular singers of the 1920s, appearing in several Broadway shows. He recorded many of the pop and novelty hits of the day, including "California, Here I Come", "Hard Hearted Hannah", "Yes Sir, That's My Baby", and "I'll See You in My Dreams".

In 1924, Edwards performed as the headliner at the Palace, the pinnacle of his vaudeville success. That year he also featured in George and Ira Gershwin's first Broadway musical Lady Be Good, alongside Fred and Adele Astaire. As a recording artist, his hits included "Paddlin’ Madeleine Home" (1925), "I Can't Give You Anything but Love" (1928), and the classic "Singin' in the Rain" (1929), which he introduced. Edwards's own compositions included "(I'm Cryin' 'Cause I Know I'm) Losing You", "You're So Cute (Mama o' Mine)", "Little Somebody of Mine", and "I Want to Call You 'Sweet Mama'". He also recorded a few "off-color" novelty songs for under-the-counter sales, including "I'm a Bear in a Lady's Boudoir", "Take Out That Thing", and "Give It to Mary with Love".

Edwards, more than any other performer, was responsible for the soaring popularity of the ukulele. Millions of ukuleles were sold during the decade, and Tin Pan Alley publishers added ukulele chords to standard sheet music. Edwards always played American Martin ukuleles, favoring the small soprano model in his early career. In his later years, he moved to the larger tenor ukulele, which was becoming popular in the 1930s.

Edwards continued to record until shortly before his death in 1971. His last record album, Ukulele Ike, was released posthumously on the independent Glendale label. He reprised many of his 1920s hits; his failing health was however evident in the recordings.

Film, radio, and television
In 1929, Cliff Edwards was playing at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles where he caught the attention of movie producer-director Irving Thalberg. His film company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer hired Edwards to appear in early sound movies. After performing in some short films, Edwards was one of the stars in the feature Hollywood Revue of 1929, doing some comic bits and singing some numbers, including the film debut of his hit "Singin' in the Rain". He appeared in a total of 33 films for MGM through 1933. He had a small role as Mike, playing a ukulele very briefly at the beginning of the 1931 movie Laughing Sinners (1931), starring Joan Crawford.

Edwards had a friendly working relationship with MGM's comedy star Buster Keaton, who featured Edwards in three of his films. Keaton, himself a former vaudevillian, enjoyed singing and harmonized with Edwards between takes. One of these casual jam sessions was captured on film, in Doughboys (1930), in which Keaton and Edwards scat-sing their way through "You Never Did That Before".

Edwards was also an occasional supporting player in feature films and short subjects at Warner Bros. and RKO Radio Pictures. He played a wisecracking sidekick to Western star George O'Brien, and he filled in for Allen Jenkins as "Goldie" opposite Tom Conway in The Falcon Strikes Back. In a 1940 short, he led a cowboy chorus in Cliff Edwards and His Buckaroos. Throughout the 1940s he appeared in a number of "B" Westerns playing the comic, singing sidekick to the hero, seven times with Charles Starrett and six with Tim Holt.

Edwards appeared in the darkly sardonic Western comedy The Bad Man of Brimstone (1937), and he played the character "Endicott" in the screwball comedy film His Girl Friday (1940). In 1939, he voiced the off-screen wounded Confederate soldier in Gone with the Wind in a hospital scene with Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland.

His most famous voice role was as Jiminy Cricket in Walt Disney's Pinocchio (1940). Edwards's rendition of "When You Wish Upon a Star" is probably his most familiar recorded legacy. He voiced the head crow in Disney's Dumbo (1941) and sang "When I See an Elephant Fly".

In 1932, Edwards had his first national radio show on CBS Radio. He continued hosting network radio shows through 1946. In the early 1930s, however, Edwards' popularity faded as public taste shifted to crooners such as Russ Columbo, Rudy Vallee, and Bing Crosby.

Arthur Godfrey's use of the ukulele spurred a surge in its popularity and those that played it, including Edwards. Like many vaudeville stars, Edwards was an early arrival on television. In the 1949 season, he starred in The Cliff Edwards Show, a three-days-a-week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings) TV variety show on CBS. In the 1950s and early 1960s, he made appearances on The Mickey Mouse Club, in addition to performing his Jiminy Cricket voice for various Disney shorts and the Disney Christmas spectacular, From All of Us to All of You.

Personal life
Edwards was careless with the money he made in the 1920s, always trying to sustain his expensive habits and lifestyle. He continued working during the Great Depression, but never again enjoyed his former prosperity. Most of his income went to alimony for his three former wives, and paying debts, and he declared bankruptcy four times during the 1930s and early 1940s. Edwards married his first wife Gertrude (Benson) Ryrholm in 1917, but they divorced four years later. He married Irene Wylie in 1923; they divorced in 1931. In 1932, he married his third and final wife, actress Judith Barrett. They divorced in 1936.

As well as being a lifelong heavy tobacco smoker, Edwards also was an alcoholic, a drug addict and a gambler for much of his career.

Later years and death
In his final years, Edwards lived in a home for indigent actors and often spent his time at the Walt Disney Studios to be available any time he could get voice work. He was sometimes taken to lunch by animators whom he befriended and told stories of his days in vaudeville.

Edwards died on July 17, 1971, at the age of 76 from a cardiac arrest brought on by arteriosclerosis. At the time of his death, Edwards was a penniless charity patient at the Virgil Convalescent Hospital in Hollywood, California. His body was unclaimed and was donated to the University of California, Los Angeles medical school. When Walt Disney Productions, which had been quietly paying many of his medical expenses, discovered this, they offered to purchase his remains and pay for the burial. Instead, it was done by the Actors' Fund of America (which had also aided Edwards) and the Motion Picture and Television Relief Fund. Disney paid for his grave marker.

Honors
In 2000, Edwards was awarded as a Disney Legend for voice-acting. In 2002, Edwards' 1940 recording on Victor, Victor 26477, "When You Wish Upon a Star", was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Discography

 * Ukulele Ike Sings Again (Disneyland, 1956)
 * A Day at Disneyland with Walt Disney and Jiminy Cricket (Disneyland, 1957)
 * The Story of Walt Disney's Cinderella (Disneyland, 1957)
 * Songs, Games & Fun (RCA Victor, 1958)
 * Ukulele Ike (Glendale, 1978)
 * Cliff Edwards and His Hot Combination 1925–1926 (Retrieval, 1978)
 * The Vintage Recordings of Cliff Edwards (Ukulele Ike) (Take Two, 1979)
 * The Musical Score of The Wizard of Oz/The Song Hits from Walt Disney's Pinocchio (MCA, 1980)
 * Ukulele Ike 1930's Radio Transcriptions: Live June 1947 (Collectors' Choice, 1996)

Partial filmography

 * Marianne (1929) as Soapy
 * So This Is College (1929) as Windy
 * The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929) as Himself
 * They Learned About Women (1930) as Singer in Harlem Madness number (uncredited)
 * Lord Byron of Broadway (1930) as Joe
 * Crazy House (1930, Short) as Writer
 * Doughboys (1930) as Nescopeck
 * Montana Moon (1930) as Froggy
 * Children of Pleasure (1930) as Cliff - Radio Performer (uncredited)
 * Way Out West (1930) as Trilby
 * Good News (1930) as Kearney
 * Those Three French Girls (1930) as Owly
 * Remote Control (1930) as Hog Caller (uncredited)
 * Dance, Fools, Dance (1931) as Bert Scranton
 * The Prodigal (1931) as Snipe, a Tramp
 * Parlor, Bedroom and Bath (1931) as Bell Hop
 * Stepping Out (1931) as Paul Perkins
 * Shipmates (1931) as Bilge
 * Laughing Sinners (1931) as Mike
 * The Great Lover (1931) as Finny
 * Sidewalks of New York (1931) as Poggle
 * The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931) as Victor Lebeau
 * Hell Divers (1931) as "Baldy"
 * Young Bride (1932) as Pete
 * Fast Life (1932) as Bumpy
 * Flying Devils (1933) as 'Screwy' Edwards
 * Take a Chance (1933) as Louie Webb
 * George White's Scandals (1934) as Stew Hart
 * George White's 1935 Scandals (1935) as Dude
 * Red Salute (1935) as P.J. Rooney
 * The Man I Marry (1936) as Jerry Ridgeway
 * They Gave Him a Gun (1937) as Laro
 * Between Two Women (1937) as Snoopy
 * Saratoga (1937) as Tip
 * Bad Guy (1937) as 'Hi-Line'
 * The Women Men Marry (1937) as Jerry Little
 * The Bad Man of Brimstone (1937) as 'Buzz' McCreedy
 * Big City (1937)
 * The Girl of the Golden West (1938) as Minstrel Joe
 * The Little Adventuress (1938) as Handy
 * Maisie (1939) as 'Shorty' Miller
 * Smuggled Cargo (1939) as Professor
 * Gone with the Wind (1939) as Reminiscent Soldier
 * His Girl Friday (1940) as Reporter Endicott
 * High School (1940) as Jeff Jefferson
 * Pinocchio (1940) as Jiminy Cricket (voice, uncredited)
 * Millionaires in Prison (1940) as Happy
 * Flowing Gold (1940) as 'Hot Rocks' Harris
 * Cliff Edwards and His Buckaroos (1940) as "Mr. Cliff" (Western short)
 * Friendly Neighbors (1940) as Notes
 * She Couldn't Say No (1940) as Banjo Page
 * The Monster and the Girl (1941) as Leon Beecher 'Tips' Stokes
 * Knockout (1941) as Pinky (credits) / Sleepy
 * Power Dive (1941) as Squid Watkins
 * International Squadron (1941) as Omaha McGrath
 * Dumbo (1941) as Dandy Crow (voice, uncredited)
 * Sundown Jim (1942) as Stable proprietor
 * Bandit Ranger (1942) as Ike
 * Red River Robin Hood (1942) as Ike
 * Seven Miles from Alcatraz (1942) as Stormy
 * Pirates of the Prairie (1942) as Ike
 * American Empire (1942) as Runty
 * Der Fuehrer's Face (1943) as Nazi lead singer
 * Fighting Frontier (1943) as Ike
 * Salute for Three (1943) as Foggy
 * The Falcon Strikes Back (1943) as Goldie Locke
 * Sagebrush Law (1943) as Ike
 * The Avenging Rider (1943) as Ike
 * Fun and Fancy Free (1947) as Jiminy Cricket (voice)
 * Bat Masterson (1959) as AJ Mulvaney - Town Undertaker
 * Platinum High School (1960) as Frank (uncredited)
 * The Man from Button Willow (1965) as Doc / The Whip (voice, uncredited)
 * Once Upon a Studio (2023) as Jiminy Cricket (voice, archive audio)

title: Cliff Edwards


text:
Jerusalem (disambiguation)

Jerusalem is a city in the Middle East.

Jerusalem or Jeruzalem may also refer to:

Middle East

 * Jerusalem District, State of Israel
 * Jerusalem Governorate, Palestinian National Authority
 * Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem, an Ottoman District from 1872 to 1917
 * Kingdom of Jerusalem, a Christian kingdom from 1099 to 1291

United States

 * Jerusalem, Arkansas, unincorporated community in Conway County
 * Jerusalem, Baltimore County, Maryland, unincorporated community
 * Jerusalem Mill Village, living history museum in Maryland
 * Jerusalem, Michigan, an unincorporated community
 * Jerusalem, New York, town in Yates County
 * Jerusalem, Ohio, village in Monroe County
 * Jerusalem, Rhode Island, an unincorporated village in the incorporated town of Narragansett in Washington County
 * Jerusalem, Virginia, former name of Courtland, a town in Southampton County
 * Jerusalem and Figtree Hill, U.S. Virgin Islands
 * Jerusalem Township, Lucas County, Ohio

New Zealand

 * Jerusalem, New Zealand, also known as Hiruharama, a village in the Manawatu-Whanganui Region
 * Hiruharama, a transliteration of "Jerusalem", a village in the Gisborne District

Other places

 * Colebrook, Tasmania was also known as Jerusalem in the 19th century.
 * Jerusalem of Lithuania, a medieval nickname for Vilnius, Lithuania for it being a cultural center of Litvak Jews
 * Jerusalem (Vilnius), Vilnius city part
 * Jerusalem, Lincolnshire, a village in England
 * Jeruzalem, Ljutomer, a village in Slovenia
 * Jeruzalem, Pomeranian Voivodeship, a village in Poland
 * Jerusalem (Königsberg), a former quarter of Königsberg, Prussia
 * Jerusalem, a village and administrative part of Příbram, Czech Republic
 * Yerusalimka or Ierusalimka, a Jewish quarter of the town of Vinnytsia
 * Jeruzalem, a restaurant in Delft, Netherlands

Literature

 * Jerusalem Delivered, a 1581 epic poem by Torquato Tasso
 * "Jerusalem" (poem), common name for the 1804 poem "And did those feet in ancient time" by William Blake
 * Jerusalem The Emanation of the Giant Albion, an illuminated book created from 1804 to 1820 by William Blake
 * Jerusalem (Mendelssohn), philosophical book published in 1783
 * Jerusalem (Lagerlöf novel), 1901 novel by Selma Lagerlöf
 * Jerusalem, 1996 novel by Cecelia Holland
 * Jerusalem, 2009 novel by Patrick Neate
 * Jerusalem: The Biography, 2011 historical book by Simon Sebag Montefiore
 * Jerusalem (Moore novel), a 2016 novel by Alan Moore
 * O Jerusalem!, an epic history of the city.

Music

 * Jerusalem-Yerushalayim, 2008 oratorio-musical by Antony Pitts
 * Jerusalem (British band), early 1970s
 * Jerusalem (Swedish band), founded in 1975
 * Jérusalem, 1847 opera by Giuseppe Verdi

Albums

 * Jerusalem (Jerusalem album), by the Swedish band Jerusalem, 1978
 * Jerusalem (Sleep album), title of an unauthorized 1999 release of Sleep's third album, also released as Dopesmoker
 * Jerusalem (Steve Earle album), 2002
 * Jerusalem, by Alpha Blondy featuring The Wailers, 1986
 * Jerusalem (EP), by Mark Stewart

Songs

 * "Jerusalem" (hymn), a setting to music of Blake's poem And did those feet in ancient time, written by Sir Hubert Parry in 1916 and used as a hymn
 * "Jerusalem", 1973 song from the album Brain Salad Surgery by Emerson, Lake & Palmer
 * "Jerusalem", 1981 track on Chariots of Fire by Ambrosian Singers and Vangelis
 * "Jerusalem", 1988 track on I Am Kurious Oranj by The Fall
 * "Blake's Jerusalem", 1990 song on the album The Internationale by Billy Bragg
 * "Jerusalem", a song from The Chemical Wedding by Bruce Dickinson
 * "Jerusalem of Gold", Israeli patriotic song written in 1967
 * "Jerusalem", 1970 instrumental by Herb Alpert from Summertime
 * "Jerusalem", 1971 song on Long Player by The Faces
 * "The Holy City" (song), a religious Victorian ballad dating from 1892, sometimes known as "Jerusalem" because of the prominence of that word in the refrain
 * "Jerusalem" (Belouis Some song), from his 1985 album Some People
 * "Jerusalem" (Alphaville song), from their 1986 album Afternoons in Utopia
 * "Jerusalem", title song from the 1986 album by Alpha Blondy featuring The Wailers
 * "Jerusalem", 1987 song by Sinéad O'Connor from The Lion and the Cobra
 * "Jerusalem", 1990 song by Black Sabbath from the album Tyr
 * "Jerusalem" (Dan Bern song), 1996 work from Dog Boy Van by Dan Bern
 * "Jerusalem", 2004 song by Dutch singer Anouk on Hotel New York
 * "Jerusalem (Out of Darkness Comes Light)", 2006 work by Hasidic reggae musician Matisyahu
 * "Jerusalem", 2007 song by Stanley Clarke from The Toys of Men
 * "Jerusalem", 2010 song by Rosamund Pike, Tom Wilkinson, Stephen Merchant, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Pam Ferris and cast from Jackboots on Whitehall
 * "With a Shout (Jerusalem)", 1981 song by U2 from October
 * "Jerusalem on the Jukebox", 1988 song by Richard Thompson from Amnesia

Other arts

 * Jerusalem (1996 film), 1996 Swedish film, directed by Bille August, based on Selma Lagerlöf's 1901 novel
 * Jerusalem (2013 film), a National Geographic documentary narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch
 * Jerusalem (painting), an 1867 painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme
 * Jerusalem (play), 2009 work created by Jez Butterworth
 * JeruZalem, 2015 Israeli film directed by Doron Paz and Yoav Paz

Other uses

 * Jerusalem (surname), a surname (and a list of people with the name)
 * Jerusalem artichoke, a vegetable
 * Jerusalem (computer virus)
 * Jerusalem College of Engineering, Chennai, an engineering college in Tamil Nadu, India
 * Jerusalem! Tactical Game of the 1948 War, a 1975 board wargame that simulates the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
 * Jerusalem: The Three Roads to the Holy Land, 2002 historical adventure video game
 * Spider Jerusalem, fictional character in the comic Transmetropolitan
 * Council of Jerusalem, early Christian council held around the year 50
 * A metonym for the Israeli Government

title: Jerusalem (disambiguation)


text:
LunarStorm

LunarStorm, in Swedish often shortened to Lunar, was a Swedish commercial advertisement-financed social networking website for teenagers, which was also available in the United Kingdom before 2007. "LunarStorm" was operated by a company called LunarWorks. According to the company's official statistics, the website had 1.2 million members in 2007, of whom some 70% were 12–17 years old. The website drastically dropped in popularity since then and in June 2010, Wyatt Media Groups (the owner of LunarStorm at that time) announced that LunarStorm would be shut down on 18 August 2010 due to lack of activity.

History
The predecessor to Lunarstorm was called "StajlPlejs" (i.e. "Style Place" transcribed to Swedish spelling), which started around 1996. It was created by Rickard Eriksson as Europe's first digital online community. Lunarstorm officially opened on 1 January 2000, after Lunarworks had taken over StajlPlejs and decided to rename it after the username used at the website by Rickard Erikssons girlfriend.

In 2001, LunarStorm had grown to over 600,000 members but still experienced economic hardships. After the beginning, LunarStorm was financed by banners and other advertising on the website, but this soon evolved to include more of pay-by-SMS services. An early example was LunarStorm's own pre-paid card "Vrål" ("Roar"). In 2002, "Kolla" ("Look" or "Check this out") was introduced which allowed users to visit LunarStorm from their mobile phones. In the same year, members were able to upgrade their membership to "pro" status and get unlimited access to a range of services for a fee. LunarStorm Pro was extremely popular among the member base and it improved the website's economic situation greatly.

Another great source of revenue was LunarStorm's cooperation with other companies. An early business partner was OLW who sponsored "RajRaj", a party-oriented photo album ("RajRaj" being Swedish slang for party). But LunarStorm has through the years also cooperated with numerous other companies including Arla, EA Games, Loka, McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Aftonbladet, Sveriges Radio and Logitech.

In September 2006, the website style was changed. The change had already been introduced at the British sister site a few months earlier (May - June).

In February 2007, LunarWorks bought 40 percent of the shares in Bilddagboken, an increasingly big competitor to LunarStorm. At the same time, LunarStorm replaced the "Kollage" service which allowed you to upload images for a fee with the free "Gallery", to compete with Bilddagbokens free picture upload functions. Eight months later, on 4 October 2007, the owners of LunarStorm announced that they had bought the remaining shares of Bilddagboken, as well as 57 percent of the online Swedish-English dictionary Tyda.se. LunarStorm, Bilddagboken and Tyda.se are now parts of Wyatt Media Group, owned by Sten Mörtstedt.

Both the Danish and British branches of the website were closed down on 13 July 2007.

On 13 December 2007, LunarStorm removed "Pro" from the website and made all the content free. Focus was instead put on a new function called "Club Lunar" where members got access to "exclusive offers" and "cool competitions". Lately, the popularity of LunarStorm has dramatically decreased which the owners explain with an increased competition from other social networking sites for young people in Sweden such as Bilddagboken. For example, the daily question that used to be answered by about 150 000 members per day and was used by polling institutes to study opinions of Swedish youth has now shrunk to about 10,000 - 12,000 daily answers, as of summer 2009. The number of users concurrently online went from about 100,000 to only 1,500 as of 2009.

title: LunarStorm


text:
Joseph E. Johnston

Joseph Eggleston Johnston (February 3, 1807 – March 21, 1891) was an American career army officer, who served in the United States Army during the Mexican–American War (1846–1848) and the Seminole Wars. After Virginia declared secession from the United States, he entered the Confederate States Army as one of its most senior general officers. From 1888 to 1889 he was a vice president, from 1889 to 1890 president, of the Aztec Club of 1847.

Johnston was trained as a civil engineer at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, graduating in the same class as Robert E. Lee. He served in Florida, Texas, and Kansas. By 1860 he achieved the rank of brigadier general as Quartermaster General of the U.S. Army.

Johnston's effectiveness in the American Civil War was undercut by tensions with Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Victory eluded him in most campaigns he personally commanded. He was the senior Confederate commander at the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861, but the victory is usually credited to his subordinate, P. G. T. Beauregard. Johnston defended the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, during the 1862 Peninsula Campaign, withdrawing under the pressure of U.S. Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's superior force. He suffered a severe wound at the Battle of Seven Pines and was replaced by Robert E. Lee.

In 1863, Johnston was placed in command of the Department of the West. In 1864, he commanded the Army of Tennessee against U.S. Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman in the Atlanta Campaign. In the war's final days, Johnston was returned to command of the few remaining forces in the Carolinas Campaign. U.S. Army generals Ulysses S. Grant and Sherman praised his actions in the war and became friends with Johnston afterward.

After the war, Johnston served as an executive in the railroad and insurance businesses. He was elected as a Democrat in the United States House of Representatives, serving a single term. He was appointed as commissioner of railroads under Grover Cleveland. Johnston died of pneumonia 10 days after attending Sherman's funeral.

Early years
Johnston was born at Longwood House in "Cherry Grove", near Farmville, Virginia, on February 3, 1807. (Longwood House later burned down. The rebuilt house was the birthplace in 1827 of Charles S. Venable, an officer on the staff of Robert E. Lee. It is now used as the residence of the president of Longwood University.) His grandfather, Peter Johnston, emigrated to Virginia from Scotland in 1726. Joseph was the seventh son of Judge Peter Johnston Jr. (1763–1831) and Mary Valentine Wood (1769–1825), a daughter of Patrick Henry's sister, Lucy Wood. He was named for Major Joseph Eggleston, under whom his father served in the American Revolutionary War, in the command of Henry Lee III. His brother Charles Clement Johnston served as a U.S. congressman, and his nephew John Warfield Johnston was a U.S. senator; both represented Virginia. In 1811, the Johnston family moved to Abingdon, Virginia, a town near the Tennessee border, where his father Peter built a home he named Panecillo.

Johnston attended the United States Military Academy, nominated by John C. Calhoun in 1825 while he was Secretary of War. He was moderately successful in academics and received only a small number of disciplinary demerits. He graduated in 1829, ranking 13th of 46 cadets, and was appointed a second lieutenant in the 4th U.S. Artillery. He would become the first West Point graduate to be promoted to a general officer in the regular army, reaching a higher rank in the U.S. Army than did his 1829 classmate, Robert E. Lee (2nd of 46).

U.S. Army service
Johnston resigned from the Army in March 1837 and studied civil engineering. During the Second Seminole War, he was a civilian topographic engineer aboard a ship led by William Pope McArthur. On January 12, 1838, at Jupiter, Florida, the sailors who had gone ashore were attacked. Johnston said there were "no less than 30 bullet holes" in his clothing, and one bullet creased his scalp, leaving a scar he had for the rest of his life. Having encountered more combat activities in Florida as a civilian than he had previously as an artillery officer, Johnston decided to rejoin the Army. He departed for Washington, D.C., in April 1838 and was appointed a first lieutenant of topographic engineers on July 7; on that same day, he received a brevet promotion to captain for the actions at Jupiter Inlet and his explorations of the Florida Everglades.

On July 10, 1845, in Baltimore, Johnston married Lydia Mulligan Sims McLane (1822–1887), the daughter of Louis McLane and his wife. Her father was the president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, a prominent politician (congressman and senator from Delaware, minister to London, and a member of President Andrew Jackson's cabinet). They had no children.

Johnston was enthusiastic about the outbreak of the Mexican–American War. He served on the staff of Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott in the Siege of Veracruz, having been chosen by Scott to be the officer carrying the demand for surrender beforehand to the provincial governor. He was in the vanguard of the movement inland under Brig. Gen. David E. Twiggs and was severely wounded by grapeshot performing reconnaissance before the Battle of Cerro Gordo. He was appointed a brevet lieutenant colonel for his actions at Cerro Gordo. After recovering in a field hospital, he rejoined the army at Puebla. During the advance toward Mexico City, he was second in command of the "U.S. Regiment of Voltigeurs", a unit composed of light infantry or skirmishers. He distinguished himself at Contreras and Churubusco, was wounded again at Chapultepec, and received two brevet promotions for the latter two engagements, ending the war as a brevet colonel of volunteers. (After the end of hostilities, he reverted to his peacetime rank of captain in the topographical engineers.) Winfield Scott humorously remarked, "Johnston is a great soldier, but he had an unfortunate knack of getting himself shot in nearly every engagement." Johnston's greatest anguish during the war was the death of his nephew, Preston Johnston. When Robert E. Lee informed Johnston that a Mexican artillery shell had killed Preston at Contreras, both officers wept, and Johnston grieved for the remainder of his life. Johnston was an engineer on the Texas-United States boundary survey in 1841; he returned to the area, was appointed chief topographical engineer of the Department of Texas and served from 1848 to 1853.

During the 1850s, he sought his previous rank, sending letters to the War Department suggesting that he should be returned to a combat regiment with his wartime rank of colonel. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, an acquaintance of Johnston's from West Point, rebuffed these suggestions, as he did later during the Civil War, much to Johnston's irritation. Despite this disagreement, Davis thought enough of Johnston to appoint him lieutenant colonel in one of the newly formed regiments, the 1st U.S. Cavalry at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, under Col. Edwin V. "Bull" Sumner, on March 1, 1855. (At this same time, Robert E. Lee was appointed lieutenant colonel of the 2nd U.S. Cavalry under Col. Albert Sidney Johnston (no relation). In this role, Johnston participated in actions against the Sioux in the Wyoming Territory and in the violence over slavery in the future state, known as Bleeding Kansas. He developed a mentor relationship and close friendship with one of his junior officers, Capt. George B. McClellan, who would later command the U.S. Army against Johnston.

In the fall of 1856, Johnston was transferred to a depot for recruits at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. In 1857 he led surveying expeditions to determine the Kansas border. Later that year, Davis was replaced as Secretary of War by John B. Floyd, a native of Abingdon and a cousin of Johnston's by marriage. He had been a former guardian of Preston Johnston. Floyd made Johnston a brevet colonel for his actions at Cerro Gordo, a promotion that caused grumbling within the Army about favoritism. In 1859, President James Buchanan named Johnston's brother-in-law, Robert Milligan McLane, as minister to Mexico, and Johnston accompanied him on a journey to visit Benito Juárez's government in Veracruz. He was also ordered to inspect possible military routes across the country in case of further hostilities.

Brig. Gen. Thomas Jesup, the Quartermaster General of the U.S. Army, died on June 10, 1860. Winfield Scott was responsible for naming a replacement, but instead of one name, he offered four possibilities: Joseph E. Johnston, Albert Sidney Johnston (no relation), Robert E. Lee, and Charles F. Smith. Although Jefferson Davis, now a member of the Senate Military Affairs Committee, favored Albert Sidney Johnston, Secretary of War Floyd chose Joseph E. Johnston for the position.

Johnston was promoted to brigadier general on June 28, 1860. Johnston did not enjoy the position, preferring field command to administration in Washington. In addition, he suffered from the pressures of the imminent sectional crisis and the ethical dilemma of administering war matériel that might prove useful to his native South. He did not yield to temptation, however, as Secretary of War Floyd was accused of doing.

Manassas and first friction with President Davis
When his native state, Virginia, declared secession from the United States in 1861, Johnston resigned his commission as a brigadier general in the regular army, the highest-ranking U.S. Army officer to do so. He would go on to state, "I believed like most others, that the division of the country would be permanent; and that ... the revolution begun was justified by the maxims so often repeated by Americans, that Free government is founded on the consent of the governed, and that every community strong enough to establish and maintain its independence, has a right to assert it. Having been educated in such opinions, I naturally determined to return to the State of which I was a native, join the people among whom I was born, and live with my kindred, and if necessary, fight in their defense."

He was initially commissioned as a major general in the Virginia militia on May 4, but the Virginia Convention decided two weeks later that only one major general was required in the state army and Robert E. Lee was their choice. Johnston was then offered a state commission as a brigadier general, which he declined, accepting instead a commission as a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army on May 14. Johnston relieved Colonel Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson of command at Harpers Ferry in May and organized the Army of the Shenandoah in July.

In the First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas), July 21, 1861, Johnston rapidly moved his small army from the Shenandoah Valley to reinforce that of Brig. Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard, but he lacked familiarity with the terrain and ceded tactical planning of the battle to the more junior Beauregard as a professional courtesy. At midday, while Beauregard was still unclear about his U.S. opponent's direction in the battle, Johnston decided that the critical point was to the north of his headquarters (the Lewis house, "Portici"), at Henry House Hill. He abruptly announced, "The battle is there. I am going." Beauregard and the staffs of both generals followed his lead and rode off. Johnston encountered a scattered unit, the 4th Alabama, whose field-grade officers had all been killed, and personally rallied the men to reinforce the Confederate line. He consoled the despairing Brig. Gen. Barnard Bee and urged him to lead his men back into the fight. (General Bee's exhortation to his men inspired Stonewall Jackson's nickname.) Beauregard then convinced Johnston that he would be more valuable in organizing the arrival of reinforcements for the remainder of the battle than in providing at-the-front tactical leadership. Although Beauregard claimed the majority of public credit, Johnston's behind-the-scenes role was critical to the Confederate victory. After Bull Run, Johnston assisted Beauregard and William Porcher Miles in the design and production of the Confederate Battle Flag. It was Johnston's idea to make the flag square.

In August, Johnston was promoted to full general—what is called a four-star general in the modern U.S. Army—but was not pleased that three other men he had outranked in the "old Army" now outranked him, even though Davis backdated his promotion to July 4. Johnston felt that, since he was the senior officer to leave the U.S. Army and join the Confederacy, he should not be ranked behind Samuel Cooper, Albert Sidney Johnston, and Robert E. Lee. Only Beauregard was placed behind Johnston on the list of five new generals. This led to much bad blood between Johnston and Jefferson Davis, lasting throughout the war. The crux of Davis's counterargument was that Johnston's U.S. commission as a brigadier general was as a staff officer and that his highest line commission was as a lieutenant colonel; both Sidney Johnston and Lee had been full colonels. Johnston sent an intemperately worded letter to Davis, who was offended enough to discuss its tone with his cabinet.

Johnston was placed in command of the Department of the Potomac and the Confederate Army of the Potomac on July 21, 1861, and the Department of Northern Virginia on October 22. From July to November 1861, he was headquartered at the Conner House in Manassas. The winter of 1861–62 was relatively quiet for Johnston in his Centreville headquarters, concerned primarily with organization and equipment issues, as the principal Northern army, also named Army of the Potomac, was being organized by George B. McClellan. McClellan perceived Johnston's army as overwhelmingly strong in its fortifications, prompting him to plan an amphibious movement around Johnston's flank. In early March, learning of U.S. offensive preparations, Johnston withdrew his army to Culpeper Court House. This movement had repercussions on both sides. President Davis was surprised and disappointed by the unannounced move, which he considered a "precipitate retreat." At about this time, Davis moved to restrict Johnston's authority by bringing Robert E. Lee to Richmond as his military adviser. He began issuing direct orders to some of the forces under Johnston's ostensible command. On the Northern side, McClellan was publicly embarrassed when it was revealed that the Confederate position had not been nearly as strong as he had portrayed. But more importantly, it required him to replan his spring offensive, and instead of an amphibious landing at his preferred target of Urbanna, he chose the Virginia Peninsula, between the James and York Rivers, as his avenue of approach toward Richmond.

Peninsula Campaign
In early April 1862, McClellan, having landed his troops at Fort Monroe at the tip of the Virginia Peninsula, began to move slowly toward Yorktown. Johnston's plan for the defense of the Confederate capital was controversial. Knowing that his army was half the size of McClellan's and that the U.S. Navy could directly support McClellan from either river, Johnston attempted to convince Davis and Lee that the best course would be to concentrate on fortifications around Richmond. He was unsuccessful in persuading them and deployed most of his force on the Peninsula. Following lengthy siege preparations by McClellan at Yorktown, Johnston withdrew and fought a sharp defensive fight at Williamsburg (May 5) and turned back an attempt at an amphibious turning movement at Eltham's Landing (May 7). By late May, the U.S. Army was within six miles of Richmond.

Realizing that he could not defend Richmond forever from the U.S. Army's overwhelming numbers and heavy siege artillery and that McClellan's army was divided by the rain-swollen Chickahominy River, Johnston attacked south of the river on May 31 in the Battle of Seven Pines or Fair Oaks. His plan was aggressive but too complicated for his subordinates to execute correctly, and he failed to ensure they understood his orders in detail or to supervise them closely. The battle was tactically inconclusive, but it stopped McClellan's advance on the city and would be the high-water mark of his invasion. More significant, however, was that Johnston was wounded in his shoulder and chest by an artillery shell fragment near the end of the first day of the battle. G.W. Smith commanded the army during the second day of the battle before Davis quickly turned over command to the more aggressive Robert E. Lee, who would lead the Army of Northern Virginia for the rest of the war. Lee began by driving McClellan from the Peninsula during the Seven Days Battles of late June and beating a U.S. army a second time near Bull Run in August.

Appointment to the Western Theater and Vicksburg
Johnston was prematurely discharged from the hospital on November 24, 1862, and appointed to command the Department of the West, the principal command of the Western Theater, which gave him titular control of Gen. Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee and Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton's Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana. (The other major force in this area was the Trans-Mississippi Department, commanded by Lt. Gen. Theophilus H. Holmes, stationed principally in Arkansas. Johnston argued throughout his tenure that Holmes's command should be combined with Pemberton's under Johnston's control, or at least to reinforce Pemberton with troops from Holmes's command, but he was unable to convince the government to take either of these steps.)

The first issue facing Johnston in the west was the fate of Braxton Bragg. The Confederate government was displeased with Bragg's performance at the Battle of Stones River, as were many of Bragg's senior subordinates. Jefferson Davis ordered Johnston to visit Bragg and determine whether he should be replaced. Johnston realized that if he recommended Bragg's replacement, he would be the logical choice to succeed him. He considered a field army command more desirable than his current, mostly administrative post. Still, his sense of honor prevented him from achieving this personal gain at Bragg's expense. After interviewing Bragg and several of his subordinates, he produced a generally positive report and refused to relieve the army commander. Davis ordered Bragg to a meeting in Richmond and designated Johnston to take command in the field, but Bragg's wife was ill, and he was unable to travel. Furthermore, in early April, Johnston was forced to bed with lingering problems from his Peninsula wound, and the attention of the Confederates shifted from Tennessee to Mississippi, leaving Bragg in place.

The major crisis facing Johnston was defending Confederate control of Vicksburg, Mississippi, which was threatened by U.S. Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, first in a series of unsuccessful maneuvers during the winter of 1862–63 to the north of the fortress city, but followed in April 1863 with an ambitious campaign that began with Grant's army crossing the Mississippi River southwest of Vicksburg. Catching Lt. Gen. Pemberton by surprise, the U.S. army waged a series of successful battles as it moved northeast toward the state capital of Jackson. On May 9, the Confederate Secretary of War directed Johnston to "proceed at once to Mississippi and take chief command of the forces in the field." Johnston informed Richmond that he was still medically unfit but would obey the order. When he arrived in Jackson on May 13 from Middle Tennessee, he learned that two U.S. Army corps were advancing on the city and that only 6,000 Confederate troops were available to hold it. Johnston ordered a fighting evacuation (the Battle of Jackson, May 14) and retreated with his force north. Grant captured the city and then faced to the west to approach Vicksburg.

Johnston began to move his force west to join Pemberton when he heard of that general's defeat at Champion Hill (May 16) and Big Black River Bridge (May 17). The survivors retreated to the fortifications of Vicksburg. Johnston urged Pemberton to avoid being surrounded by abandoning the city and to join forces with Johnston's troops, outnumbering Grant. Still, Davis had ordered Pemberton to defend the city as his highest priority. Grant launched two unsuccessful assaults against the fortifications and settled in for a siege. The soldiers and civilians in the surrounded city waited in vain for Johnston's small force to rescue them. By late May, Johnston had accumulated about 24,000 men but wanted additional reinforcements before moving forward. He considered ordering Bragg to send these reinforcements but was concerned that this could result in the loss of Tennessee. He also bickered with President Davis about whether the order sending him to Mississippi could be construed as removing him from theater command; historian Steven E. Woodworth judges that Johnston "willfully misconstrued" his orders out of resentment of Davis's interference. Pemberton's army surrendered on July 4, 1863. Along with the capture of Port Hudson a week later, the loss of Vicksburg gave the United States complete control of the Mississippi River and cut the Confederacy in two. President Davis wryly ascribed the strategic defeat to a "want of provisions inside and a general outside [Johnston] who would not fight."

The relationship between Johnston and Davis, difficult since the early days of the war, became bitter as recriminations were traded publicly about who was to blame for Vicksburg. That Johnston never wanted this theater command in the first place, difficulty in effectively moving troops due to lack of direct rail lines and the vast distances involved, lack of assistance from subordinate commanders, Pemberton's refusal to abandon Vicksburg as suggested, and President Davis' habit of communicating directly to Johnston's subordinates (which meant Johnston was often not aware of what was going on) all contributed to this defeat. Davis considered firing Johnston, but he remained a popular officer and had many political allies in Richmond, most notably Sen. Louis Wigfall. Instead, Bragg's army was removed from Johnston's command, leaving him in control of only Alabama and Mississippi.

While Vicksburg was falling, U.S. Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans was advancing against Bragg in Tennessee, forcing him to evacuate Chattanooga. Bragg achieved a significant victory against Rosecrans in the Battle of Chickamauga (September 19–20), but Ulysses S. Grant defeated him in the Battles for Chattanooga in November. Bragg resigned from his command of the Army of Tennessee and returned to Richmond as military adviser to the president. Davis offered the position to William J. Hardee, the senior corps commander, who refused. He considered P.G.T. Beauregard, another general with whom he had poor personal relations, and Robert E. Lee. Lee, reluctant to leave Virginia, first recommended Beauregard, but sensing Davis's discomfort, he changed his recommendation to Johnston. After much agonizing, Davis appointed Johnston to command the Army of Tennessee in Dalton, Georgia, on December 27, 1863.

Atlanta Campaign
Faced with Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman's advance from Chattanooga to Atlanta in the spring of 1864, Johnston conducted a series of withdrawals that appeared similar to his Peninsula Campaign strategy. He repeatedly prepared strong defensive positions, only to see Sherman maneuver around them in expert turning movements, causing him to fall back in the general direction of Atlanta. Johnston saw the preservation of his army as the most crucial consideration and conducted a very cautious campaign. He handled his army well, slowing the U.S. advance and inflicting heavier losses than he sustained.

Sherman began his Atlanta Campaign on May 4. Johnston's Army of Tennessee fought defensive battles against the Federals at the approaches to Dalton, which was evacuated on May 13, then retreated 12 miles south to Resaca and constructed defensive positions. However, after a brief battle, Johnston again yielded to Sherman and retreated from Resaca on May 15. Johnston assembled the Confederate forces for an attack at Cassville. As his troops advanced, an enemy force of unknown strength appeared unexpectedly on his right flank. A skirmish ensued, forcing the corps commander, Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood, to halt his advance and reposition his troops to face the threat. Faced with this unexpected threat, Johnston abandoned his attack and renewed his retreat. On May 20, they again retreated 8 miles further south to Cartersville. The month of May 1864 ended with Sherman's forces attempting to move away from their railroad supply line with another turning movement, but became bogged down by the Confederates' fierce defenses at the Battle of New Hope Church on May 25, the Battle of Pickett's Mill on May 27, and the Battle of Dallas on May 28.

In June, Sherman's forces continued maneuvers around the northern approaches to Atlanta. The Battle of Kolb's Farm ensued on June 22, followed by Sherman's first (and only) attempt at a massive frontal assault in the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain on June 27, which Johnston vigorously repulsed. However, U.S. forces were within 17 miles of Atlanta by this time, threatening the city from the west and north. Johnston had yielded over 110 miles of mountainous, and thus more easily defensible, territory in just two months, while the Confederate government became increasingly frustrated and alarmed. When Johnston retreated across the Chattahoochee River, the final significant barrier before Atlanta, President Davis lost his patience.

In early July, Davis sent Gen. Braxton Bragg to Atlanta to assess the situation. After several meetings with local civilian leaders and Johnston's subordinates, Bragg returned to Richmond and urged President Davis to replace Johnston. Davis removed Johnston from command on July 17, 1864, just outside Atlanta. "The fate of Atlanta, from the Confederate standpoint, was all but decided by Johnston." His replacement, Lt. Gen. Hood, was left with the "virtually impossible situation" of defending Atlanta, which he was forced to abandon in September. Davis's decision to remove Johnston was one of the most controversial of the war.

North Carolina and surrender at Bennett Place

Johnston traveled to Columbia, South Carolina, to begin a virtual retirement. However, as the Confederacy became increasingly concerned about Sherman's March to the Sea across Georgia and then north through the Carolinas, the public clamored for Johnston's return. The general in charge of the Western Theater, P.G.T. Beauregard, was making little progress against the advancing U.S. force. Political opponents of Jefferson Davis, such as Sen. Louis Wigfall, added to the pressure in Congress. Diarist Mary Chesnut wrote, "We thought this was a struggle for independence. Now it seems it is only a fight between Joe Johnston and Jeff Davis." In January 1865, the Congress passed a law authorizing Robert E. Lee the powers of general in chief, and recommending that Johnston be reinstated as the commander of the Army of Tennessee. Davis immediately appointed Lee to the position, but refused to restore Johnston. In a lengthy unpublished memo, Davis wrote, "My opinion of General Johnston's unfitness for command has ripened slowly and against my inclinations into a conviction so settled that it would be impossible for me again to feel confidence in him as the commander of an army in the field." Vice President Alexander H. Stephens and 17 senators petitioned Lee to use his new authority to appoint Johnston, bypassing Davis, but the general in chief declined. Instead, he recommended the appointment to Davis.

Despite his serious misgivings, Davis restored Johnston to active duty on February 25, 1865. His new command comprised two military departments: the Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, and the Department of North Carolina and Southern Virginia; he assumed command of the latter department on March 6. These commands included three Confederate field armies, including the remnants of the once formidable Army of Tennessee, but they were armies in name only. The Tennessee army had been severely depleted at Franklin and Nashville, lacked sufficient supplies and ammunition, and the men had not been paid for months; only about 6,600 traveled to South Carolina. Johnston also had available 12,000 men under William J. Hardee, who had been unsuccessfully attempting to resist Sherman's advance, Braxton Bragg's force in Wilmington, North Carolina, and 6,000 cavalrymen under Wade Hampton.

Johnston, severely outnumbered, hoped to combine his force with a detachment of Robert E. Lee's army from Virginia, jointly defeat Sherman, and then return to Virginia for an attack on Ulysses S. Grant. Lee initially refused to cooperate with this plan. (Following the fall of Richmond in April, Lee attempted to escape to North Carolina to join Johnston, but it was too late.) Recognizing that Sherman was moving quickly, Johnston planned to consolidate his small armies to land a blow against an isolated portion of Sherman's army, advancing in two separate columns. On March 19, 1865, Johnston was able to catch the left wing of Sherman's army by surprise at the Battle of Bentonville and briefly gained some tactical successes before superior numbers forced him to retreat to Raleigh, North Carolina. Unable to secure the capital, Johnston's army withdrew to Greensboro.

After learning of Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9, Johnston agreed to meet with General Sherman between the lines at a small farm known as Bennett Place near present-day Durham, North Carolina. After three separate days (April 17, 18, and 26, 1865) of negotiations, Johnston surrendered the Army of Tennessee and all remaining Confederate forces still active in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. It was the largest surrender of the war, totaling 89,270 soldiers. President Davis considered that Johnston, surrendering so many troops that had not been explicitly defeated in battle, had committed an act of treason. Johnston was paroled on May 2 at Greensboro.

After the surrender, Sherman issued ten days' rations to the hungry Confederate soldiers as well as horses and mules to "insure a crop." He also ordered the distribution of corn meal and flour to civilians throughout the South. This was an act of generosity that Johnston would never forget; he wrote to Sherman that his attitude "reconciles me to what I have previously regarded as the misfortune of my life, that of having you to encounter in the field."

Post-war years
Johnston began to make a living for himself and his ailing wife. He became president of a small railroad, the Alabama and Tennessee River Railroad Company, which during his tenure of May 1866 to November 1867, was renamed the Selma, Rome and Dalton Railroad. Johnston was bored with the position, and the company failed for a lack of capital. He established Joseph E. Johnston & Company, an insurance agency for New York Life Insurance Co. and a British insurance company, which Johnston operated out of Savannah (Ga.) from 1868 to 1877. The British company was Liverpool and London and Globe Insurance Company, and within four years had a network of more than 120 agents across the deep South.

The income from this venture allowed him to devote time to his great post-war activity, writing his memoirs, as did several fellow officers. His Narrative of Military Operations (1874) was highly critical of Davis and many of his fellow generals. He repeated his grievance about his ranking as a general in the Confederate Army and attempted to justify his career as a cautious campaigner. The book sold poorly, and its publisher failed to make a profit.

Although many Confederate generals criticized Johnston, Sherman and Grant portrayed him favorably in their memoirs. Sherman described him as a "dangerous and wily opponent" and criticized Johnston's nemeses, Hood and Davis. Grant supported his decisions in the Vicksburg Campaign: "Johnston evidently took in the situation, and wisely, I think, abstained from making an assault on us because it would simply have inflicted losses on both sides without accomplishing any result." Commenting on the Atlanta Campaign, Grant wrote, "For my own part, I think that Johnston's tactics were right. Anything that could have prolonged the war a year beyond the time that it finally did close, would probably have exhausted the North to such an extent that they might then have abandoned the contest and agreed to a settlement."

Johnston was a part owner of the Atlantic and Mexican Gulf Canal Company, a canal project approved in 1876. It was intended to construct a canal westward from the St. Marys River in Georgia to connect with the Gulf of Mexico on the coast of Florida.

Johnston moved from Savannah to Richmond in the winter of 1876–77. The former Confederate general was considered for service in President Rutherford B. Hayes's Cabinet, particularly for the post of Secretary of War, but was ultimately not chosen. He served in the 46th Congress from 1879 to 1881 as a Democratic congressman, having been elected with 58.11% of the vote over Greenback candidate William W. Newman. He did not run for reelection in 1880. He was appointed as a commissioner of railroads in the administration of President Grover Cleveland. After his wife died in 1887, Johnston frequently traveled to veterans' gatherings, where he was universally cheered. In September 1890, a few months before he died, he was elected as an honorary member of the District of Columbia Society of the Sons of the American Revolution and was assigned national membership number 1963.

Johnston, like Lee, never forgot the magnanimity of the man to whom he surrendered. He would not allow criticism of Sherman in his presence. Sherman and Johnston corresponded frequently, and they met for friendly dinners in Washington, D.C. whenever Johnston traveled there. When Sherman died, Johnston served as an honorary pallbearer at his funeral. During the procession in New York City on February 19, 1891, he kept his hat off as a sign of respect, although the weather was cold and rainy. Someone concerned for his health asked him to put on his hat, to which Johnston replied, "If I were in his place, and he were standing here in mine, he would not put on his hat." He did catch a cold that day, which developed into pneumonia, and Johnston died ten days later in Washington, D.C. He was buried next to his wife in Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland.

Legacy
Johnston's papers are held by the Special Collections Research Center at the College of William & Mary.

Honors

 * A public monument to Johnston was erected in Dalton, Georgia, in 1912.
 * On March 20, 2010, a bronze statue of Johnston was dedicated at the site of the Battle of Bentonville in North Carolina.
 * During World War II, the United States Navy named a Liberty Ship (#113) in honor of Johnston.

title: Joseph E. Johnston