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Poco (band)

Poco was an American country rock band originally formed in 1968 after the demise of Buffalo Springfield. Guitarists Richie Furay and Jim Messina, former members of Buffalo Springfield, were joined by multi-instrumentalist Rusty Young, bassist Randy Meisner and drummer George Grantham. Meisner quit the band while they were recording their first album, Pickin' Up the Pieces, though his bass and backing vocal parts were kept in the final mix. He was replaced by Timothy B. Schmit in 1969, and Messina left in 1970 to be replaced by Paul Cotton. The line-up would change numerous times over the next several decades, with Rusty Young being the only constant member. A reunion of the founding members occurred in the late 1980s-early 1990s, and the band continued in some form through 2021, though they retired from active touring in 2013, with Young citing health concerns as the primary cause of his retirement. Young died from a heart attack in April 2021.

To date, the band has released 19 studio albums, the most successful of which was 1978's Legend, which featured the Billboard Hot 100 #17 and Adult Contemporary #1 hit "Crazy Love". The band's last album was All Fired Up in 2013.

Poco are considered one of the founders of the Southern California country rock sound, and three of the members of the band have been inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as members of other bands (Furay with Buffalo Springfield, Meisner and Schmit with the Eagles). However, the band has yet to receive a nomination since entering eligibility in 1995.

Inception
During recording of Buffalo Springfield's third and final album, Last Time Around, lead singers Stephen Stills, Neil Young and Richie Furay each recorded songs without the other members present. One of Furay's solo efforts was the country-influenced ballad "Kind Woman", which he recorded with the help of producer/engineer/bassist Jim Messina and pedal steel guitarist Rusty Young.

When Buffalo Springfield split up, Furay, Messina and Rusty Young decided to start their own group oriented toward such songs. Its original line-up was Furay (vocals and rhythm guitar), Messina (lead guitar, vocals, producer), Rusty Young (pedal steel guitar, banjo, dobro, guitar, mandolin and vocals), George Grantham (drums and vocals) and Randy Meisner (bass and vocals). The group was signed to a recording contract with Epic Records, which acquired the rights to Furay from the Springfield's Atlantic Records subsidiary Atco label in return for those to Graham Nash of The Hollies (who was moving to Atlantic as part of forming Crosby, Stills & Nash). Originally, the new group was named "Pogo", after the Pogo comic strip character, but was changed when its creator, Walt Kelly, objected and threatened to sue.

Furay era (1969–1973)
Their debut, Pickin' Up the Pieces (1969), is considered a pioneering album of the country rock genre. The first edition of the Rolling Stone Record Guide edited by Dave Marsh and John Swenson, gave the release 5 stars, its highest rating, as an essential album. However, the album performed weakly, peaking at No. 63 on Billboard album chart.

The band's line-up proved to be a problem throughout its career. During the recording of the debut album, Meisner left the group as a result of a conflict with Furay (reportedly, Meisner had objected after Furay barred all but himself and Messina from the first album's final mix playback sessions). After a stint playing with Ricky Nelson's Stone Canyon Band, Meisner later became a founding member of the Eagles. Messina briefly took over on bass until Timothy B. Schmit joined the band in September 1969.

Their second studio album Poco (1970) again resulted in low sales, peaking at No. 58. However, the band's next album, the live set Deliverin (or DeLIVErin as it is sometimes represented), picked up moderate airplay, Furay's "C'mon" hitting No. 69. Deliverin’ became Poco's first album to reach the Top 40 on the Billboard 200, peaking at No. 26.

Messina chose to leave the band in October 1970, feeling Furay exerted too much control over the group's sound. He also was anxious to get off the road and return to his career in studio production. This would lead him ultimately on to Loggins & Messina. At the recommendation of Peter Cetera of Chicago, Messina selected guitarist/singer Paul Cotton, a one-time member of the Illinois Speed Press, to replace him.

The realigned Poco, now on its third line-up on just its fourth album, hired Steve Cropper as producer and released From the Inside (1971). Again, poor sales were the result as the release landed at No. 52.

The band and its management were dissatisfied with Cropper's production and hired Canadian Jack Richardson, who'd had big success with The Guess Who and oversaw the next three albums, beginning with A Good Feelin' to Know (1972). The band built the LP around the title track, a popular concert tune, but the single failed to chart. The album itself peaked at No. 69. As a result, Furay became increasingly discouraged with Poco's prospects, especially since ex-bandmates Stills, Young, Meisner and Messina were so successful with their respective groups. In an April 26, 1973 Rolling Stone magazine interview with Cameron Crowe, he vented that Poco was still a second-billed act and had not increased its audience.

The next album, Crazy Eyes (1973), reached No. 38 but Furay departed at its release and joined with J. D. Souther and Chris Hillman to create the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band on Asylum Records. Poco decided not to replace Furay and continued as a quartet.

Post-Furay era (1973–1977)
After Furay's departure, the band released their last two albums with Epic; Seven (1974) and Cantamos (1974). The albums charted at No. 68 and No. 76 respectively. Poco left Epic after Cantamos and signed with ABC-Dunhill Records.

Head Over Heels was their first ABC release, featuring Schmit's acoustic "Keep On Tryin" which became the group's most successful single to date, charting at No. 50 on the Billboard Hot 100. Around the time of the release of Head Over Heels, The Very Best of Poco was released as a compilation album that documented the group's years with Epic. Epic's release fought with Head Over Heels for attention though neither charted very well, hitting No. 43 and No. 90, respectively.

The group's next ABC album was Rose Of Cimarron which also failed to generate much enthusiasm and peaked at No. 89. Another Epic release also came out in 1976, the live album Live.

Al Garth (ex-Loggins and Messina), who guested on Head Over Heels and Rose of Cimarron, was added to the group's 1976 touring line up on sax and violin, but was gone by the end of that year.

In the summer of 1976, the group was on the bill with the Stills-Young Band teaming but was left high and dry when Neil Young pulled out of the tour, which was then canceled.

Indian Summer was released the following spring, peaking at No. 57, while the title track reached No. 50. The appearance of Steely Dan's Donald Fagen playing synthesizer on two of the album's tracks marked a move away from the country rock sound the band had primarily been known for.

Success (1977–1980)
In August 1977 Schmit quit to join the Eagles, coincidentally replacing former Poco member Meisner yet again. As a result, a fully produced live album recorded at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Los Angeles in July 1977 was shelved by ABC. After languishing in storage for many years, the album was eventually released by John Thaler and Futuredge Music in partnership with Universal Special Projects as The Last Roundup in 2004.

After Schmit's departure, Poco decided to take a break. Grantham took some time off, while Young and Cotton decided to continue as the Cotton-Young Band and redoubled their efforts to succeed. They selected the Britons Steve Chapman (drums) and Charlie Harrison (bass, backing vocals; formerly of Judas Jump), both of whom had played together with Leo Sayer and Al Stewart, to round out their new quartet. However, ABC decided to pick up the Cotton-Young album — as long as they continued under the Poco name. Thus, although Grantham had never quit Poco, he found himself bought out of the group after he was not happy with the changes in its business setup, including the group's publishing no longer being divided evenly. After a stint with McGuinn, Clark & Hillman, he subsequently landed a job as drummer for Ricky Skaggs.

Legend (1978), the Cotton-Young album with cover art by graphic artist (and later comedy actor) Phil Hartman, subsequently became the group's most commercially successful LP, containing two Top 20 hits, "Crazy Love" written and sung by Rusty Young (which also had a seven-week run at Number 1 on the Adult Contemporary chart in early 1979, the biggest hit on the AC chart that year) and Cotton's "Heart of the Night". The album was certified gold, Poco's first album to achieve this distinction in original distribution.

Kim Bullard (keyboards, backing vocals) joined the band in December 1978 just after Legend was released. While "Crazy Love" was riding up the charts in early 1979, ABC Records was sold to MCA Records. Poco was retained by MCA and the Legend album was reissued on the MCA label.

With the momentum built up from Legend's success, Poco were invited by the Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE) collective to play during their concerts at Madison Square Garden in September 1979. And their new hit "Heart of the Night" appeared on the resulting live album No Nukes, the concerts and album all being in support of nuclear-free energy. Both the concerts and the album also featured several other big artists such as Bruce Springsteen and Jackson Browne.

1980–1999
During the first half of the 1980s, the group released five more albums: Under the Gun (1980), Blue And Gray (1981), Cowboys & Englishmen (1982) on MCA and, moving over to Atlantic Records, Ghost Town (1982) and Inamorata (1984). Poco failed to duplicate the success achieved by Legend, with each album performing more poorly than its predecessor.

Poco also contributed the song "I'll Leave it Up to You" to Fast Times at Ridgemont High's soundtrack in 1982.

On Inamorata the band mostly played down their "Country rock" sound to adopt more of an "80s style" with more keyboards and glossy synth sounds as well as electronic drums. The album also featured guest spots by former members Timothy B. Schmit, Richie Furay and George Grantham.

The group lost its recording contract with Atlantic due to the slow sales of Inamorata but continued to tour, mostly in small clubs. Bullard left to rejoin Crosby, Stills & Nash in 1983 (but still appeared on the sessions for Inamorata)  and Harrison (who had not played on Inamorata) departed in mid-1984. New members Jeff Steele (bass) and Rick Seratte (keyboards, backing vocals) came in for Poco's 1984 tour dates, but they departed, along with drummer Chapman, to be replaced in 1985 by future Great Plains front man Jack Sundrud (vocals, bass, guitar) and the returning Grantham. Grantham's reunion with Poco was brief, though; In late 1985, Steve Wariner asked him to join his band. Chapman came back to take over drums again. During this period, the band relocated to Nashville and recorded some demos, though no record deal resulted. And after a few scattered live dates for the group in 1986 and 1987, Paul Cotton pursued a solo career and did not perform with Poco again until 1992, while Young played in Vince Gill's band.

After a lengthy recording hiatus, at the urging of Richard Marx and his manager Allen Kovac who took on Poco, the band re-emerged on the RCA label with the successful Legacy (1989), reuniting original members Young, Furay, Messina, Grantham and Meisner twenty years after Poco's debut. Though Timothy B. Schmit and Paul Cotton were also approached to appear on the project, Schmit declined and Cotton, who was busy with his solo career, was bought out of the group and it ended up being only the five originals. The album produced a Top 20 hit, "Call It Love," in the fall of 1989 and another Top 40 hit, "Nothing to Hide," in early 1990, earning Poco its second gold album (in its 19th release).

The group (having added a keyboardist, Dave Vanacore) toured in early 1990 opening for Marx and appeared at Farm Aid IV on April 7, 1990, at the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis, Indiana. But Furay, now a church minister in Colorado, then had to bow out due to his commitments and Poco toured as a headliner in the summer of 1990 with Sundrud returning to take over rhythm guitar from Furay.

Despite Legacy's gold status and the two hit singles, the band did not make much money on their 1990 tour, one of the problems being their booking into military bases that turned out to be mostly empty, as the troops were all deployed for the Desert Shield operation in the Persian Gulf. RCA ended up dropping them from their roster and recordings for a proposed follow up to Legacy were abandoned.

In 1991 Poco toured as an acoustic trio with Young, Messina and Meisner (drummer Gary Mallaber joined them for dates in Japan that July), mostly to make up dates that were missed the previous year. But by the end of 1991, Messina and Meisner had returned to their individual careers.

After Messina and Meisner left, Young formed a side project, Four Wheel Drive, with John Cowan (from New Grass Revival), Bill Lloyd (from Foster & Lloyd) and Patrick Simmons (of Doobie Brothers). They were signed to a recording deal with RCA Nashville and completed an album which was never released. Warner Bros. Records then picked up the group in 1993, but when they were threatened with lawsuits from bands who had already copyrighted the name Four Wheel Drive, they changed the band's name to The Sky Kings. But their one and only album (minus Simmons who left when the Doobies schedule got too busy), completed in 1997, was not released until 2000, three years after the group disbanded.

In the meantime, Rusty Young was the sole owner of the Poco name by early 1992 and, though they had not officially disbanded, the band seemed to be quietly fading away. Despite this, Young once again teamed with Cotton, brought in new members Richard Neville (vocals, bass) and Tim Smith (drums) and toured through the end of the decade, although on a very limited schedule. Young and Cotton also occasionally appeared as Poco as an acoustic duo.

On September 16, 1995, Poco appeared at Deadwood Jam in Deadwood, South Dakota, where former Loggins & Messina drummer Merel Bregante filled in for Tim Smith.

2000–2013
Poco again became more active as a touring unit after they signed with Nashville manager Rick Alter and brought back Grantham and Sundrud in June 2000, reuniting the group's 1985 line-up.

Running Horse (2002) found the band in the studio for the first time in thirteen years. The CD was released through the band's website. Furay, who had continued to make guest appearances at their shows over the years when they played in his adopted home-state of Colorado, reunited with the band again for a sold-out show in Nashville in May 2004, resulting in the CD–DVD release Keeping the Legend Alive (2004).

On July 29 of that same year, during a show at Stearns Square in Springfield, Massachusetts, Grantham suffered a stroke during the performance. For their gig the following night at Barnstable County Fair in East Falmouth, MA, Poco brought in local drummer Chuck Woodhams, then called Young's Nashville neighbor, Muscle Shoals Sound Studio drummer George Lawrence (who had earlier stood in for Tim Smith at some Poco concerts in June 1999) to sub on drums for Grantham for the rest of 2004. He became a permanent member in 2005. Grantham's recovery was slow and expensive and the group created a donor fund on its official website, Poconut.org, to offset some of his considerable medical expenses.

Poco continued to write and record while performing at festivals, performing arts centers, theaters and clubs. In 2005 they played a short tour in Europe, but Cotton was hospitalized in Norway with health issues and missed the last two shows of the tour. Guitarist and singer Bill Lloyd, of duo Foster & Lloyd, substituted for Cotton for several subsequent shows in the US.

Cotton returned in 2006, stabilizing the line-up of Young, Cotton, Sundrud and drummer George Lawrence. Cotton and Sundrud released solo albums and Young started writing an autobiographical history of the band. Poco alumni continued to periodically reunite in concert with this line-up.

Beginning in 2009, Grantham occasionally appeared with the band again but limited his contributions to vocals only. Richie Furay and Jim Messina returned for several 2008 Poco performances at the Wildwood Lodge in Steelville, Missouri, a tour of California in 2009 ending at the Stagecoach Festival in Indio (where they were joined by Grantham and Timothy B. Schmit) and several dates opening for Loggins and Messina featuring Furay, Messina and Grantham.

Bareback at Big Sky (2005) and The Wildwood Sessions (2006) captured live acoustic versions of songs both new and familiar from their 40-plus year career. Live at Columbia Studios, Hollywood 9/30/71 (2010) unearthed an unreleased 1971 live performance by Furay, Young, Schmit, Grantham and the then recently recruited Cotton in front of a private audience of family and friends.

In early 2010, Paul Cotton left Poco abruptly, publicly citing a financial dispute with Young. On his official website he announced he would not be appearing with Poco at the Wildwood concerts, stating "It was not all that shocking when Rusty told me on February 27 that he would not honor the contract that I had been requesting for over 15 years and that this was goodbye..." On March 12, 2010, Young responded on Poco's official website: "It was a sad day when I read on Paul's website that he wasn't coming to Wildwood and I guess that means he's leaving the band." Poco immediately reformed with Young, Sundrud, Lawrence and new keyboardist and multi-instrumentalist/singer Michael Webb of Nashville, Tennessee.

The band's new incarnation continued to tour and record. In early 2012, a live video of a new song, "Neil Young", was released on YouTube as a teaser for a new studio album, All Fired Up, that was recorded in Nashville and released in March 2013. Selling on iTunes, the band's website and through a distributor in Europe, Young, Sundrud and Webb penned all the songs on the self-produced album.

In its 45th year, Rusty Young was the only original member in the band and remained the leader and front man on stage. He has been the only member of Poco to have performed at every gig and played on every recording since the band's inception in 1968.

Retirement
At the end of 2013, Rusty Young announced his retirement. At the age of 68, he said he had spent 45 years on the road in the same band and needed a break. A few shows were booked into 2014, including three farewell shows in Florida. One of those shows was a performance in a recording studio in front of a live audience for a DVD documentary of the band's live show. Young said there could be some one-offs in the future after that, but the band would not be actively touring as before. Young was finishing his memoirs for a book to be published. He and Sundrud wrote and recorded music for children's story videos as the "Session Cats". Lawrence, Sundrud and Webb continued to write, record and play in their own projects, and to do freelance work with other artists in Nashville, where they live. Young continued to do guest performances with former members of Poco and other country rock artists.

Poco was inducted into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame (CMHOF) with the CMHOF induction ceremony which took place at the Paramount Theatre (Denver, Colorado) on January 9, 2015, and included a performance by the following line-up of band members: Paul Cotton, Richie Furay, Timothy B. Schmit, and Rusty Young. Also inducted into the CMHOF along with Poco were Firefall, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Stephen Stills and Manassas.

From 2015 through 2021, though not touring full-time, Poco continued to play isolated dates around the US. In 2016 drummer Lawrence was replaced by Rick Lonow (formerly of The Flying Burrito Brothers). Lex Browning, Jack Sundrud's former bandmate in Great Plains, replaced Michael Webb on guitar in the fall of 2018.

In early 2020, Poco friend and fan Tom Hampton was brought in by Sundrud to replace Browning for tour dates, but touring was suddenly halted in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rusty Young died on April 14, 2021, at his home in Davisville, Missouri, from a heart attack. He was 75. His death marked the end for Poco.

Three and a half months after Rusty Young's April 2021 death, his former partner in the band, Paul Cotton, died at his summer home in Eugene, Oregon, at age 78 on August 1, 2021.

Fans and surviving band members have released the tribute album My Friend: A Tribute To Rusty Young, in March 2022 and there was a reunion/tribute "Poconut" concert on October 8, 2022, in Steelville, Missouri, near Young's home, where the surviving members of the band's final lineup, Jack Sundrud, Tom Hampton and Rick Lonow, were joined by original drummer George Grantham, who guested on harmony vocals, and Michael Kelsh. It is unclear if this performance can be considered the final performance by Poco or if that technically occurred prior to Rusty Young's death in 2021.

Selected studio reissues
In 1997 From the Inside and A Good Feelin' to Know were reissued on CD by BGO, a British label. However, the reissue had some problems, as it appeared the tape used to remaster From the Inside had significant damage to it. Pickin' Up the Pieces and Poco, the band's first and second albums, were also reissued during this time, with no noticeable damage to the master tapes. The notes give a brief history of the band and the recording of each album.

In 2006 BGO reissued four more albums, with two albums on each CD: Seven with Cantamos, the band's seventh and eighth albums, and Deliverin', the band's first live album, with Crazy Eyes. Neither set had any bonus tracks as part of the reissue, although there are extensive sleeve notes about Poco's history and the making of the album. The reissues were remastered by Jack Thompson, although it does not note whether or not these were remastered from the original master tapes or the safety masters as previous CDs were.

In 2011 BGO licensed and reissued remastered editions of four of Poco's ABC/MCA titles, again remastered by Thompson, putting two albums on each CD, with extensive liner notes written by John Tobler. The pairings were Head over Heels with Rose of Cimarron, and Under the Gun with Blue and Gray. No bonus tracks or outtakes were included.

Discography
Studio albums

 * Pickin' Up the Pieces (1969)
 * Poco (1970)
 * From the Inside (1971)
 * A Good Feelin' to Know (1972)
 * Crazy Eyes (1973)
 * Seven (1974)
 * Cantamos (1974)
 * Head over Heels (1975)
 * Rose of Cimarron (1976)
 * Indian Summer (1977)
 * Legend (1978)
 * Under the Gun (1980)
 * Blue and Gray (1981)
 * Cowboys & Englishmen (1982)
 * Ghost Town (1982)
 * Inamorata (1984)
 * Legacy (1989)
 * Running Horse (2002)
 * All Fired Up (2013)

Members
Final members
 * Rusty Young – steel and rhythm guitars, dobro, banjo, mandolin, percussion, vocals (1968–2021; his death)
 * Jack Sundrud – bass, rhythm guitar, vocals (1985–1987, 1990–1991, 2000–2021)
 * Rick Lonow – drums, percussion, backing vocals (2016–2021)
 * Tom Hampton – lead guitar, vocals (2020–2021)

title: Poco (band)


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Genetic diversity

Genetic diversity is the total number of genetic characteristics in the genetic makeup of a species. It ranges widely, from the number of species to differences within species, and can be correlated to the span of survival for a species. It is distinguished from genetic variability, which describes the tendency of genetic characteristics to vary.

Genetic diversity serves as a way for populations to adapt to changing environments. With more variation, it is more likely that some individuals in a population will possess variations of alleles that are suited for the environment. Those individuals are more likely to survive to produce offspring bearing that allele. The population will continue for more generations because of the success of these individuals.

The academic field of population genetics includes several hypotheses and theories regarding genetic diversity. The neutral theory of evolution proposes that diversity is the result of the accumulation of neutral substitutions. Diversifying selection is the hypothesis that two subpopulations of a species live in different environments that select for different alleles at a particular locus. This may occur, for instance, if a species has a large range relative to the mobility of individuals within it. Frequency-dependent selection is the hypothesis that as alleles become more common, they become more vulnerable. This occurs in host–pathogen interactions, where a high frequency of a defensive allele among the host means that it is more likely that a pathogen will spread if it is able to overcome that allele.

Within-species diversity

A study conducted by the National Science Foundation in 2007 found that genetic diversity (within-species diversity) and biodiversity are dependent upon each other — i.e. that diversity within a species is necessary to maintain diversity among species, and vice versa. According to the lead researcher in the study, Dr. Richard Lankau, "If any one type is removed from the system, the cycle can break down, and the community becomes dominated by a single species." Genotypic and phenotypic diversity have been found in all species at the protein, DNA, and organismal levels; in nature, this diversity is nonrandom, heavily structured, and correlated with environmental variation and stress.

The interdependence between genetic and species diversity is delicate. Changes in species diversity lead to changes in the environment, leading to adaptation of the remaining species. Changes in genetic diversity, such as in loss of species, leads to a loss of biological diversity. Loss of genetic diversity in domestic animal populations has also been studied and attributed to the extension of markets and economic globalization.

Neutral and adaptive genetic diversity
Neutral genetic diversity consists of genes that do not increase fitness and are not responsible for adaptability. Natural selection does not act on these neutral genes. Adaptive genetic diversity consists of genes that increase fitness and are responsible for adaptability to changes in the environment. Adaptive genes are responsible for ecological, morphological, and behavioral traits. Natural selection acts on adaptive genes which allows the organisms to evolve. The rate of evolution on adaptive genes is greater than on neutral genes due to the influence of selection. However, it has been difficult to identify alleles for adaptive genes and thus adaptive genetic diversity is most often measured indirectly. For example, heritability can be measured as $$h^2=V_A/V_P $$ or adaptive population differentiation can be measured as $$Q_{ST}=V_G/(V_G+2V_A)$$. It may be possible to identify adaptive genes through genome-wide association studies by analyzing genomic data at the population level.

Identifying adaptive genetic diversity is important for conservation because the adaptive potential of a species may dictate whether it survives or becomes extinct, especially as the climate changes. This is magnified by a lack of understanding whether low neutral genetic diversity is correlated with high genetic drift and high mutation load. In a review of current research, Teixeira and Huber (2021), discovered some species, such as those in the genus Arabidopsis, appear to have high adaptive potential despite suffering from low genetic diversity overall due to severe bottlenecks. Therefore species with low neutral genetic diversity may possess high adaptive genetic diversity, but since it is difficult to identify adaptive genes, a measurement of overall genetic diversity is important for planning conservation efforts and a species that has experienced a rapid decline in genetic diversity may be highly susceptible to extinction.

Adaptation
Variation in the populations gene pool allows natural selection to act upon traits that allow the population to adapt to changing environments. Selection for or against a trait can occur with changing environment – resulting in an increase in genetic diversity (if a new mutation is selected for and maintained) or a decrease in genetic diversity (if a disadvantageous allele is selected against). Hence, genetic diversity plays an important role in the survival and adaptability of a species. The capability of the population to adapt to the changing environment will depend on the presence of the necessary genetic diversity. The more genetic diversity a population has, the more likelihood the population will be able to adapt and survive. Conversely, the vulnerability of a population to changes, such as climate change or novel diseases will increase with reduction in genetic diversity. For example, the inability of koalas to adapt to fight Chlamydia and the koala retrovirus (KoRV) has been linked to the koala's low genetic diversity. This low genetic diversity also has geneticists concerned for the koalas' ability to adapt to climate change and human-induced environmental changes in the future.

Small populations
Large populations are more likely to maintain genetic material and thus generally have higher genetic diversity. Small populations are more likely to experience the loss of diversity over time by random chance, which is an example of genetic drift. When an allele (variant of a gene) drifts to fixation, the other allele at the same locus is lost, resulting in a loss in genetic diversity. In small population sizes, inbreeding, or mating between individuals with similar genetic makeup, is more likely to occur, thus perpetuating more common alleles to the point of fixation, thus decreasing genetic diversity. Concerns about genetic diversity are therefore especially important with large mammals due to their small population size and high levels of human-caused population effects.[16]

A genetic bottleneck can occur when a population goes through a period of low number of individuals, resulting in a rapid decrease in genetic diversity. Even with an increase in population size, the genetic diversity often continues to be low if the entire species began with a small population, since beneficial mutations (see below) are rare, and the gene pool is limited by the small starting population. This is an important consideration in the area of conservation genetics, when working toward a rescued population or species that is genetically healthy.

Mutation
Random mutations consistently generate genetic variation. A mutation will increase genetic diversity in the short term, as a new gene is introduced to the gene pool. However, the persistence of this gene is dependent of drift and selection (see above). Most new mutations either have a neutral or negative effect on fitness, while some have a positive effect. A beneficial mutation is more likely to persist and thus have a long-term positive effect on genetic diversity. Mutation rates differ across the genome, and larger populations have greater mutation rates. In smaller populations a mutation is less likely to persist because it is more likely to be eliminated by drift.

Gene flow
Gene flow, often by migration, is the movement of genetic material (for example by pollen in the wind, or the migration of a bird). Gene flow can introduce novel alleles to a population. These alleles can be integrated into the population, thus increasing genetic diversity.

For example, an insecticide-resistant mutation arose in Anopheles gambiae African mosquitoes. Migration of some A. gambiae mosquitoes to a population of Anopheles coluzziin mosquitoes resulted in a transfer of the beneficial resistance gene from one species to the other. The genetic diversity was increased in A. gambiae by mutation and in A. coluzziin by gene flow.

In crops
When humans initially started farming, they used selective breeding to pass on desirable traits of the crops while omitting the undesirable ones. Selective breeding leads to monocultures: entire farms of nearly genetically identical plants. Little to no genetic diversity makes crops extremely susceptible to widespread disease; bacteria morph and change constantly and when a disease-causing bacterium changes to attack a specific genetic variation, it can easily wipe out vast quantities of the species. If the genetic variation that the bacterium is best at attacking happens to be that which humans have selectively bred to use for harvest, the entire crop will be wiped out.

The nineteenth-century Great Famine in Ireland was caused in part by a lack of biodiversity. Since new potato plants do not come as a result of reproduction, but rather from pieces of the parent plant, no genetic diversity is developed, and the entire crop is essentially a clone of one potato, it is especially susceptible to an epidemic. In the 1840s, much of Ireland's population depended on potatoes for food. They planted namely the "lumper" variety of potato, which was susceptible to a rot-causing oomycete called Phytophthora infestans. The fungus destroyed the vast majority of the potato crop, and left one million people to starve to death.

Genetic diversity in agriculture does not only relate to disease, but also herbivores. Similarly, to the above example, monoculture agriculture selects for traits that are uniform throughout the plot. If this genotype is susceptible to certain herbivores, this could result in the loss of a large portion of the crop. One way farmers get around this is through inter-cropping. By planting rows of unrelated, or genetically distinct crops as barriers between herbivores and their preferred host plant, the farmer effectively reduces the ability of the herbivore to spread throughout the entire plot.

In livestock
The genetic diversity of livestock species permits animal husbandry in a range of environments and with a range of different objectives. It provides the raw material for selective breeding programmes and allows livestock populations to adapt as environmental conditions change.

Livestock biodiversity can be lost as a result of breed extinctions and other forms of genetic erosion. As of June 2014, among the 8,774 breeds recorded in the Domestic Animal Diversity Information System (DAD-IS), operated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 17 percent were classified as being at risk of extinction and 7 percent already extinct. There is now a Global Plan of Action for Animal Genetic Resources that was developed under the auspices of the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture in 2007, that provides a framework and guidelines for the management of animal genetic resources.

Awareness of the importance of maintaining animal genetic resources has increased over time. FAO has published two reports on the state of the world's animal genetic resources for food and agriculture, which cover detailed analyses of our global livestock diversity and ability to manage and conserve them.

Viral implications
High genetic diversity in viruses must be considered when designing vaccinations. High genetic diversity results in difficulty in designing targeted vaccines, and allows for viruses to quickly evolve to resist vaccination lethality. For example, malaria vaccinations are impacted by high levels of genetic diversity in the protein antigens. In addition, HIV-1 genetic diversity limits the use of currently available viral load and resistance tests.

Coronavirus populations have considerable evolutionary diversity due to mutation and homologous recombination. For example, the sequencing of 86 SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus samples obtained from infected patients revealed 93 mutations indicating the presence of considerable genetic diversity. Replication of the coronavirus RNA genome is catalyzed by an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase. During replication this polymerase may undergo template switching, a form of homologous recombination. This process which also generates genetic diversity appears to be an adaptation for coping with RNA genome damage.

Natural
The natural world has several ways of preserving or increasing genetic diversity. Among oceanic plankton, viruses aid in the genetic shifting process. Ocean viruses, which infect the plankton, carry genes of other organisms in addition to their own. When a virus containing the genes of one cell infects another, the genetic makeup of the latter changes. This constant shift of genetic makeup helps to maintain a healthy population of plankton despite complex and unpredictable environmental changes.

Cheetahs are a threatened species. Low genetic diversity and resulting poor sperm quality has made breeding and survivorship difficult for cheetahs. Moreover, only about 5% of cheetahs survive to adulthood. However, it has been recently discovered that female cheetahs can mate with more than one male per litter of cubs. They undergo induced ovulation, which means that a new egg is produced every time a female mates. By mating with multiple males, the mother increases the genetic diversity within a single litter of cubs.

Human intervention
Attempts to increase the viability of a species by increasing genetic diversity is called genetic rescue. For example, eight panthers from Texas were introduced to the Florida panther population, which was declining and suffering from inbreeding depression. Genetic variation was thus increased and resulted in a significant increase in population growth of the Florida Panther. Creating or maintaining high genetic diversity is an important consideration in species rescue efforts, in order to ensure the longevity of a population.

Measures
Genetic diversity of a population can be assessed by some simple measures.
 * Gene diversity is the proportion of polymorphic loci across the genome.
 * Heterozygosity is the fraction of individuals in a population that are heterozygous for a particular locus.
 * Alleles per locus is also used to demonstrate variability.
 * Nucleotide diversity is the extent of nucleotide polymorphisms within a population, and is commonly measured through molecular markers such as micro- and minisatellite sequences, mitochondrial DNA, and single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs).

Furthermore, stochastic simulation software is commonly used to predict the future of a population given measures such as allele frequency and population size.

Genetic diversity can also be measured. The various recorded ways of measuring genetic diversity include:

 * Species richness is a measure of the number of species
 * Species abundance a relative measure of the abundance of species
 * Species density an evaluation of the total number of species per unit area

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

title: Genetic diversity


text:
Parable of the Prodigal Son

The Parable of the Prodigal Son (also known as the parable of the Two Brothers, Lost Son, Loving Father, or of the Forgiving Father) is one of the parables of Jesus in the Bible, appearing in Luke 15:11–32. In Luke 15, Jesus is said to tell this story, along with those of a man with 100 sheep and a woman with ten coins, to a group of Pharisees and religious leaders who kept on criticizing him for welcoming and eating with marginalized Jews including tax collectors and other sinners.

The Prodigal Son is the third and final parable of a cycle on redemption, following the parables of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin. In Revised Common Lectionary and Roman Rite Catholic Lectionary, this parable is read on the fourth Sunday of Lent (in Year C); in the latter it is also included in the long form of the Gospel on the 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time in Year C, along with the preceding two parables of the cycle. In the Eastern Orthodox Church it is read on the Sunday of the Prodigal Son.

Narrative

The parable begins with a man who had two sons, and the younger of them asks his father to give him his share of the estate. The implication is the son did not want to wait for his father's death for his inheritance, and instead wanted it immediately. The father agrees and divides his estate between the two sons.

Upon receiving his portion of the inheritance, the younger son travels to a distant country, where he squanders his wealth through reckless living. However, it is not long before he exhausted all his money. Soon thereafter, a severe famine strikes the land, leaving him desperately poor and forcing him to take work as a swineherd. He reaches the point of envying the food of the pigs he is feeding. At this time, he finally comes to his senses:

"And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.

And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him."

This implies that the father was watching hopefully for the son's return. The son starts his rehearsed speech, admitting his sins, and declaring himself unworthy of being his father's son but does not even finish before his father accepts him back without hesitation. The father calls for his servants to dress the son in the finest robe and put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet and to slaughter the "fatted calf" for a celebratory meal.

The older son, who was at work in the fields, hears the sound of celebration and is told by a slave about the return of his younger brother. He is not impressed and becomes angry. He also has a speech for his father:

"And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: but as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf."

The parable stops with the father explaining that while the older son has always been present and that everything the father owns also belongs to the older son. Because the younger son had returned, in a sense, from the dead, celebration was necessary:

"It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found."

Interpretation

The opening, "A man had two sons" is a storyteller's trope and would immediately bring to mind Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, and Jacob and Esau. Jesus then confounds the listeners' expectations when the younger son is shown to be foolish.

While a number of commentators see the request of the younger son for his share of the inheritance as "brash, even insolent" and "tantamount to wishing that the father was dead," Jewish legal scholar Bernard Jackson says "Jewish sources give no support to [the idea] that the prodigal, in seeking the advance, wishes his father dead."

The young man's actions do not lead to success; he squanders his inheritance and he eventually becomes an indentured servant, with the degrading job of looking after pigs, and even envying them for the carob pods they eat. This recalls Proverbs 29:3: "Whoever loves wisdom gives joy to his father, but whoever consorts with harlots squanders his wealth."

Upon his return, his father treats the young man with a generosity far more than he has a right to expect. He is given the best robe, a ring for his finger, and sandals for his feet. Jewish philosopher Philo observes:

"Parents often do not lose thought for their wastrel (asoton) children[...] In the same way, God too[...] takes thought also for those who live a misspent life, thereby giving them time for reformation, and also keeping within the bounds His own merciful nature."

The Pesikta Rabbati has a similar story:

"A king had a son who had gone astray from his father on a journey of a hundred days. His friends said to him, 'Return to your father.' He said, 'I cannot.' Then his father sent word, 'Return as far as you can, and I will come the rest of the way to you.' So God says, 'Return to me, and I will return to you.'"

The older son, in contrast, seems to think in terms of "law, merit, and reward," rather than "love and graciousness." He may represent the Pharisees who were criticizing Jesus.

Leviticus Rabbah 13:4 also contains a short saying that matches the character of the parable:

"R. Aha has said: When a Jew has to resort to carobs, he repents."

The last few verses of the parable summarize the tale in accordance with the Jewish teaching of the two ways of acting: the way of life (obedience) and the way of death (sin). God, according to Judaism, rejoices over and grants more graces to repentant sinners than righteous souls who do not need repentance.

Following the Parable of the Lost Sheep and the Parable of the Lost Coin, this is the last of three parables about loss and redemption that Jesus tells after the Pharisees and religious leaders accuse him of welcoming and eating with "sinners." The father's joy described in the parable reflects divine love: the "boundless mercy of God," and "God's refusal to limit the measure of his grace."

Catholic
Justus Knecht, like others, breaks this parable into three parts noting that, "The father in the parable signifies God; the elder son, the just; and the younger son, the sinner." In the first part:

"Man begins to fall away from God by allowing unlawful desires to take possession of his heart. In consequence, he will soon come to regard God's commandments as so many fetters, and to long for greater licence. He loses all taste for prayer and the word of God, and imagines that he would be a happier man if he could live according to his passions. Having thus separated himself inwardly from God, an outward separation speedily follows. He renounces the friendship of good men, neglects the services of the Church and the frequenting of the Sacraments, follows his own way, and shamelessly transgresses God's commandments. He then goes into a strange and distant land, namely further and further from God: The 'far country', says St. Augustine, 'signifies the forgetfulness of God'. Almighty God lets the sinner go his own way, for He has given to man free-will, and does not want a forced obedience, but an obedience springing from love."

Roger Baxter in his Meditations describes the second part:

"As soon as this young prodigal had left his father's house he fell into misfortunes. 'He began to be in want.' Thus sinners who estrange themselves from the sacraments, from exhortation, and the company of the virtuous, soon begin to be in want of spiritual subsistence. 'He joined himself to one of the citizens of that country,' as a servant. Every sinner is a slave to the Devil; and as the citizen employed the prodigal youth in feeding swine, so the Devil employs his followers in gratifying their own sensual appetites, which brutalize human nature. The prodigal attempted to satisfy his hunger, by feeding on the husks of swine, but he did not succeed: neither can the sinner succeed in filling the capacity of his immortal soul by earthly gratifications."

Orthodox
The Eastern Orthodox Church traditionally reads this story on the Sunday of the Prodigal Son, which in their liturgical year is the Sunday before Meatfare Sunday and about two weeks before the beginning of Great Lent. One common hymn of the occasion reads:

Roman Catholic
In his 1984 apostolic exhortation titled, in Latin, Reconciliatio et paenitentia ('Reconciliation and Penance'), Pope John Paul II used this parable to explain the process of conversion and reconciliation. Emphasizing that God the Father is "rich in mercy" and always ready to forgive, he stated that reconciliation is a "gift on his part". He stated that for the Church her "mission of reconciliation is the initiative, full of compassionate love and mercy, of that God who is love." He also explored the issues raised by this parable in his second encyclical, Dives in misericordia ('Rich in Mercy'), issued in 1980.

Visual art
Of the roughly 30 parables in the canonical Gospels, the Parable of the Prodigal Son was one of four that were shown in medieval art—along with that of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, the Dives and Lazarus, and the Good Samaritan—almost to the exclusion of the others, though not mixed in with the narrative scenes of the Life of Christ. (The Laborers in the Vineyard also appears in Early Medieval works.)

Scenes of the prodigal son were a popular subject in Northern Renaissance art. Albrecht Dürer's 1496 engraving is a famous example. In the seventeenth-century, Rembrandt depicted several scenes from the parable, especially the final episode, which he etched, drew, or painted on several occasions during his career. At least one of Rembrandt's works—The Prodigal Son in the Tavern, is a portrait of himself as the son reveling with his wife.

The Prodigal Son is a sculpture in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, by George Grey Barnard that depicts the loving reunion of the father and son from the "Parable of the Prodigal Son."

Theater
In the 15th and 16th centuries, the theme was such a sufficiently popular subject that the 'Prodigal Son play' can be seen as a subgenre of the English morality play. Examples include The Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune, The Disobedient Child, and Acolastus.

Notable adaptations for performance

 * Many of these adaptations added to the original Biblical material to lengthen the story. For example, The Prodigal (1955) film took considerable liberties, such as adding a temptress priestess of Astarte to the tale.

Music

 * An 1680 Filius prodigus, H.399 & H.399 a, oratorio by Marc-Antoine Charpentier
 * An 1869 oratorio by Arthur Sullivan;
 * An 1880 opera by Amilcare Ponchielli;
 * A 1884 cantata by Claude Debussy;
 * A 1929 ballet choreographed by George Balanchine to music by Sergei Prokofiev;
 * A 1957 ballet by Hugo Alfvén; and
 * A 1968 opera by Benjamin Britten.

Popular music
The parable is referenced in the last verse of the traditional Irish folk tune "The Wild Rover":

"Jump Around" by the Los Angeles rap group House of Pain (1992) includes a verse by member Everlast, who references the parable as well as the Bible itself:

Other references and semi-adaptations include

 * "Prodigal Son" by Reverend Robert Wilkins, which tells the story of the parable, is probably better known by the Rolling Stones cover version, which is featured on Beggars Banquet (1968).
 * "Prodigal Man", written by Ted Nugent, was performed by The Amboy Dukes as the second track of their third album Migration (1969)
 * "Let Me In" by The Osmonds presents a version of the parable as part of their Mormon concept album The Plan (1973), and was a hit song in its time.
 * "Prodigal Son" by Steel Pulse, featured on the British Reggae band's debut album Handsworth Revolution (1979), recreates the Biblical story as a Rastafarian parable.
 * "Prodigal Son" by British heavy-metal band Iron Maiden appears on their second album Killers (1981).
 * "The First Time" by U2, featured on Zooropa (1993), is based on the parable but suggests an alternate ending to the story.
 * "Make Me A Servant" by Kelly Willard (1982) could be argued as being based on what the son says to his father when he returns home.
 * "The Prodigal Son Suite" by Keith Green is featured on his The Prodigal Son (1983) album and is one of the first posthumous releases by the late piano player and gospel singer.
 * "When God Ran" by Benny Hester (1985), which is based on the parable, is another such song from the 1980s Christian music scene.
 * "Who Cares?" by Extreme was influenced by the parable and appears on the album III Sides to Every Story (1992).
 * "Prodigal Son" by Kid Rock appears on his second album The Polyfuze Method (1993). The Detroit musician later re-recorded the track for his History of Rock (2000) compilation album.
 * "She Walked Away" by BarlowGirl was influenced by the parable and is featured on the Christian rock trio's 2004 self-titled album.
 * "One" a progressive rock concept album released by Neal Morse in 2004 is based on the prodigal son story.
 * "The Prodigal Son" by the "Indie" rock band, Two Gallants, as part of their What the Toll Tells (2006) album.
 * "The Prodigal Son's Prayer" by country artist Dierks Bentley, featured on the album Long Trip Alone (2006), is based on the son's perspective of coming home after he's ruined himself in the world.
 * "Please Come Home" by Dustin Kensrue is the titular song of the album of the same name released in 2007.
 * "Prodigal Son" by Bad Religion is featured on New Maps of Hell (2007).
 * "Prodigal Son" by rock band Sevendust is featured on Chapter VII: Hope and Sorrow (2008).
 * "Modern Day Prodigal Son" by Brantley Gilbert is featured on the album of the same name from 2009.
 * "Prodigal Son" by Gideon appears on the post-hardcore band's second album Milestone (2012).
 * The parable is used as inspiration for several songs in The Oh Hellos' album 'Through the Deep Dark Valley'.
 * "Prodigal Son" by Jamie's Elsewhere, a post-hardcore band.
 * "Left Hand Free" by English indie rock band alt-J (2014) references the parable in the first verse.
 * "Prodigal" by Sidewalk Prophets is included in the Christian band's Something Different (2015) album. The song is uplifting, with lyrics that are directed towards the titular Son from the parable, or any person who is or has felt like they are in a similar situation.
 * "When the Prodigal Comes Home" by gospel artists Tribute Quartet (2016).
 * "Fire in Bone" is a retelling of the parable by the rock band the Killers, featured on their album Imploding the Mirage (2020).
 * "Prodigal" by Texas southern rock band Blacktop Mojo on their album 'Burn The Ships' (2017).

Literature
Another literary tribute to this parable is Dutch theologian Henri Nouwen's 1992 book, The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming, in which he describes his own spiritual journey infused with understanding, based on an encounter with Rembrandt's painting that depicts the son's return. The book deals with three personages: the younger, prodigal son; the self-righteous, resentful older son; and the compassionate father—all of whom the author identifies with personally. An earlier work with similarities to the parable is "Le retour de l'enfant prodigue" ('The Return of the Prodigal Son'), a short story by André Gide.

Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem giving an interpretation of the younger brother's perspective. The poem appears as the heading to the fifth chapter, titled "The Prodigal Son", of his 1901 novel Kim.

The Parable is a recurring theme in the works of Rainer Maria Rilke, who interpreted it in a different way to the conventional reading. Rilke's version is not so concerned with redemption and the forgiveness of family: the love of the family, and human love in general, was seen as less worthy than unreciprocated love, which is the purest form of love. In loving the family less, the Son can love God more, even if this love is not returned.

The theme of the Prodigal Son plays a major role in Anne Tyler's novel A Spool of Blue Thread.

The parable is also referred to in two comedies by William Shakespeare, specifically The Merchant of Venice and As You Like It, as well as in Shakespeare's romance, The Winter's Tale.

In one of his clemency petitions to the Bombay Presidency in 1913, the Indian independence activist Vinayak Damodar Savarkar described himself as a "prodigal son" longing to return to the "parental doors of the government".

Similar parable in Mahayana Buddhism
A parable of a lost son can also be found in the Mahayana Buddhist Lotus Sutra. The two parables share the premise of a father and son being reunited after a time apart, and several scholars have assumed that one version has influenced the other or that both texts share a common origin. However, an influence of the biblical story on the Lotus sutra is very unlikely given the early dating of the stratum of the sutra containing the Buddhist parable.

Both parables document a son who leaves a father. In the Lotus sutra, there is a lapse of decades after which the poor son no longer recognises his wealthy father and is terrified of his father's accumulated power and wealth. When the father sends out some attendants to welcome the son, the son panics. The father then lets the son leave without telling him of their kinship, providing him with a heap of straw to sleep on and employment clearing a pile of dirt.

As the decades pass, the father gradually conditions the son to his company and gets him accustomed to special honors. Close to death, the wealthy man reveals his kinship with a public announcement to the whole community. The sutra applies the story to the human quest for omniscience which is unexpectedly received. In the Buddhist parable, the father symbolises the Buddha, and the son symbolises any human being. Their kinship symbolises that any being has Buddha nature. The concealment of the kinship of the father to his son is regarded as a skillful means (Sanskrit: upāya).

title: Parable of the Prodigal Son


text:
Lisa Gerrard

Lisa Germaine Gerrard (born 12 April 1961) is an Australian musician, singer and composer and member of the group Dead Can Dance with music partner Brendan Perry. She is known for her unique singing style technique (glossolalia). She has a dramatic contralto voice and has a vocal range of three octaves.

Born and raised in Melbourne, Gerrard played a pivotal role in the city's Little Band scene and fronted post-punk group Microfilm before co-founding Dead Can Dance in 1981. With Perry, she explored numerous traditional and modern styles, laying the foundations for what became known as neoclassical dark wave. She sings sometimes in English and often in a unique language that she invented. In addition to singing, she is an instrumentalist for much of her work, most prolifically using the yangqin (a Chinese hammered dulcimer). Gerrard's first solo album, The Mirror Pool, was released in 1995. She has been involved in a wide range of projects, starting her first collaborative album in 1998 with Pieter Bourke, and then with various artists throughout her career, who comprised Patrick Cassidy, Klaus Schulze, Hans Zimmer, Ennio Morricone, Zbigniew Preisner among others. She has scored numerous award-winning motion picture soundtracks.

As of 2020, Gerrard has released four solo albums and collaborated on sixteen albums. She composed and contributed the scores to more than 48 movies. She received a Golden Globe Award for the music score to the 2000 film Gladiator, on which she collaborated with Hans Zimmer. She wrote the score of Balibo which went on to win an ARIA award for Best Original Soundtrack and an APRA Screen music award for Best feature film score. Overall she has won 11 awards receiving 23 nominations. Gerrard has been nominated for a Grammy Award twice. Gerrard is often affiliated with the "wailing woman" music phenomenon, popularized in Gladiator.

Early life
Lisa Gerrard was born in Melbourne to Irish immigrant parents, and grew up in Prahran, an inner suburb with a substantial Greek population. She recalled growing up with "Mediterranean music blaring out of the houses" and said that this influenced her music, particularly on later Dead Can Dance albums and in her solo and collaborative works.

Gerrard first began forming bands and creating original music as a member of Melbourne's Little Band scene, an experimental post-punk scene which flourished from 1978 until 1981. It was in this scene that she first met Dead Can Dance co-founder Brendan Perry. Perry recalls, "It never occurred to me that we would one day collaborate musically together because at the time I thought her music was too avant-garde. I particularly remember one song that she sang about finding a man in the park and asking her mother if she could bring him home to keep in her wardrobe as she attacked this chinese dulcimer with two bamboo sticks". Around this time, Gerrard became the lead vocalist of Microfilm, which released "Window", and one single, "Centrefold", in 1980, via Unforgettable Music label. The group issued a third song, "Summer House", on Ron Rude's From Belgrave With Love compilation, which was released by Cleopatra Records in 1981.

Dead Can Dance

Dead Can Dance originally formed as a quartet in 1981 in Melbourne, with members Gerrard, Perry, bassist Paul Erikson, and drummer Simon Monroe. By 1982, Gerrard, Perry and Erikson decided to relocate to London, but Monroe decided to stay in Australia, leaving the band as a trio.

The band split in 1998, but reunited in 2005 for a world tour.

In 2012, the band announced a new world tour to coincide with the release of their new album, Anastasis. Dead Can Dance's albums Spiritchaser (1996) and Anastasis (2012) both reached No. 1 on the Billboard Top World Music Albums Chart.

Dead Can Dance recorded seven studio albums on the 4AD Records recording label—beginning with the self-titled Dead Can Dance LP in 1984, and two studio albums released by PIAS Recordings.

Solo and collaborative career
In 1995, Gerrard recorded and released her first solo album, The Mirror Pool, accompanied by the Victorian Philharmonic Orchestra. The album peaked at No. 38 on the Billboard Heatseekers Albums Chart on 9 September 1995, and was on that chart for one week.

In 1998 she recorded Duality in collaboration with composer Pieter Bourke. The album went to No. 23 on the Billboard Heatseekers Albums Chart on 2 May 1998; it was present on the chart for two weeks. Duality would mark the beginning of an extensive collaboration for a number of film scores, including The Insider and Ali.

Gerrard began a new collaboration with composer Patrick Cassidy in 2004 with the release of Immortal Memory. Again, this collaboration was furthered in film work, including Salem's Lot.

The following year in 2005, Gerrard contributed to the Ashes and Snow Soundtrack. For the songs "Womb" and "Wisdom", she and Patrick Cassidy wrote and performed together. Her collaboration with Cassidy extended to include work with conductor Julie Rogers on the songs "Devota" and "Vespers".

In 2006, Sanctuary, a documentary about the life and work of Gerrard, was recorded and released in September. It is the work of producer and director Clive Collier and features extensive interviews with Gerrard and various people who have collaborated with her in the past, including Michael Mann, Russell Crowe, Hans Zimmer and Niki Caro. The documentary was released on DVD by Milan Entertainment on 24 April 2007. Sanctuary debuted at the Raindance Film Festival in London, on 27 September 2006. On 20 November 2006, Gerrard released her second solo album, The Silver Tree. The album climbed to No. 4 on the Billboard New Age Albums Chart on 26 May 2007, spending nine weeks on the chart. This album was markedly different from her previous work and was also her first album released outside 4AD Records. The Silver Tree was first released on iTunes, with a wider physical release planned at a future date. The album was nominated for the Australian Music Prize for 2006.

In 2007 a retrospective album, The Best of Lisa Gerrard, a compilation of fifteen songs, was released covering her career in Dead Can Dance, solo work and film work. It was released on 12 February 2007 in the UK and 7 November 2007 in the US. The album peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard New Age albums chart on 16 February 2008 and stayed in the chart for ten weeks. A world tour was undertaken in 2007 beginning in April in Melbourne, Australia. The tour marked the first time that Gerrard toured in Australia, with a performance in three cities. The tour was followed by performances in Europe and North America. More performances took place in Europe and Russia from 30 October to 22 November 2007. In November 2007, Gerrard collaborated with German electronic musician Klaus Schulze on the double-album Farscape. The album was released on 4 July 2008, followed by a European tour, and the release of a DVD, Klaus Schulze featuring Lisa Gerrard: Rheingold, Live at Loreley, recorded during the Night Of The Prog Festival III in Loreley, Germany on the 18 July 2008.

In 2009, Gerrard completed work on the documentary by Australian adventurer Tim Cope called On the Trail of Genghis Khan and contributed her voice to the soundtrack, which began airing in 2010, of the Japanese NHK taiga drama Ryōmaden, a story based on the life of Sakamoto Ryōma. Furthermore, in 2009, Gerrard created her own record label, Gerrard Records, which, aside from being a conduit for the release of Gerrard's future works, will also act to promote and support unrecognised artists of all genres. This tour coincided with the release of Come Quietly, a joint project between Gerrard and Schulze that was released exclusively during the tour. In September 2009, Gerrard and Schulze performed another tour in six European cities – Warsaw, Berlin, Amsterdam, Essen, Paris, and Brussels. In October 2009, Gerrard released her third solo album, The Black Opal. The album included collaborations with Patrick Cassidy, Michael Edwards, Pieter Bourke and James Orr and was the first release to come from Gerrard Records.

In 2010, Gerrard released a new album entitled Departum from Gerrard Records, with composer Marcello De Francisci, which was followed by the singles "Coming Home" (as featured in Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole), "Come This Way" and "Entry". Gerrard also collaborated with multi-instrumentalist Prash Mistry, from UK based live dubstep collective Engine Earz Experiment, on a track titled "Spirit Guide", which appeared on his 2011 album. On 1 December 2010, Gerrard released the soundtrack album with Cye Wood titled The Trail of Genghis Khan which contains music from the Gerrard and Wood score to the documentary TV series by Tim Cope.

In July 2014, Gerrard released a new solo album entitled Twilight Kingdom through her own record label, Gerrard Records. The album was recorded in collaboration with Daniel Johns, Astrid Williamson, Patrick Cassidy, and words by Russell Crowe. The album was on the Billboard New Age Albums Chart for one week, peaking at No. 5 on 6 September 2014. In 2014, Gerrard collaborated with British composer, songwriter and producer, Chicane, on the album The Sum of Its Parts, released on 25 January 2015 by Modena Records.

Gerrard's vocals are featured in the video game Armello launched on 1 September 2015, titled "Wyld's Call"; her vocals feature towards a Celtic theme of the soundtracks, released on 2 September 2015, on the music composed by Michael Allen and Gerrard.

On 14 March 2018, Gerrard performed a concert at the National Palace of Culture in Sofia with Genesis Orchestra, conducted by Yordan Kamdzhalov, entitled Symphony of Sorrowful Songs by Henryk Górecki. During the concert, she also sang her own songs from both her solo career and those of Dead Can Dance. Kamdzhalov said of the event, "for me personally, this is more than a dream come true. I cannot think of a better combination than Gerrard-Gorecki-Kamdzhalov in Gorecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs". In 2018, she appeared on BooCheeMish, a collaborative album with the Mystery of Bulgarian Voices, with whom she co-wrote some of the songs. Gerrard emphasized that she—and her collaborators—had strived not to impair the women's essential sound, she said "we're walking toward them, not the other way around"—adding, "if anybody is changed by this, it's me'. The album, that combines the choir's folkloric harmonies and a multitude of instruments, was arranged and produced by Petar Dundakov. Also in 2018, Gerrard teamed with solo percussionist David Kuckhermann to compose and record an album, Hiraeth, released on 6 August 2018.

Hiraeth was nominated in the Best New Age Album category during the 61st Annual Grammy Awards at Staples Center, held on 10 February 2019. Gerrard toured as a special guest with the eighteen choir members of the Mystery of Bulgarian Voices, performing fifteen select dates across Europe from 12 March to 20 October 2019. In 2019, she collaborated again with Yordan Kamdzhalov and Genesis Orchestra, for a reworked and rearranged recording of Henryk Górecki's Symphony No. 3: Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, captured in Sofia at the Bulgarian National Radio Studio, which was released on 17 January 2020.

Film career
Gerrard's first experience in composing music for a film came with the 1989 Spanish film El Niño de la Luna, directed by Agustí Villaronga. The film score was composed by Dead Can Dance and the film featured Lisa Gerrard in her first acting role. El Niño de la Luna describes the story of David, a young orphan with special powers, escaping an institution with the help of a fellow institute inmate, Georgina, played by Lisa Gerrard.

Gerrard participated in a number of musical scores but came to fame as a film composer after recording The Insider in 1999, with Pieter Bourke, and Gladiator in 2000, with Hans Zimmer, which received an Academy Award nomination for best music score, although only Zimmer was nominated. It did, however, win a Golden Globe Award for both composers. Gerrard's score for the New Zealand independent film Whale Rider consisted entirely of solo material; a soundtrack album was released by 4AD.

In 2005, Gerrard collaborated with Ennio Morricone for Fateless, followed by a collaboration with Jeff Rona on the score for the feature film A Thousand Roads and the song '"On an Ocean" for the Henry Poole Is Here score. With Dead Can Dance, she provided several contributions to the soundtrack of Baraka, a visual journey showcasing mankind's impact on the planet. She was invited by Denez Prigent to collaborate with him on his piece "Gortoz a ran – J'attends" (meaning "I await"), a piece that was later used in the soundtrack of Ridley Scott's film Black Hawk Down.

In 2009, Gerrard wrote the score for Balibo, for which she won a Best Feature Film Score award at the 2009 APRA Screen Music Awards and an Aria Award for Best Original Soundtrack/Cast/Show Album at the 2009 Aria Awards. She finished 2009 by contributing her voice to the theme song for the Japanese NHK taiga drama Ryōmaden, which began airing in 2010.

In 2010, Gerrard completed the score for Tears of Gaza with Marcello De Francisci which was well received despite its controversial theme. She scored the Jim Loach-directed Oranges and Sunshine, starring Emily Watson and Hugo Weaving, released in April 2011, which gained her another nomination at the 2011 IF Awards for Best Music Score.

In November 2010, Gerrard provided vocals and additional music for the post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller Priest, scored by Christopher Young, which was released in 2011.

On 28 May 2011, the song "Now We Are Free", part of the Gladiator original soundtrack, composed by Hans Zimmer and Gerrard, peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and remained in the chart for 460 weeks. In November 2011 Gerrard completed the score for Burning Man, which won her Best Music Score at the 2012 Film Critics Circle of Australia awards, beating scores for Snowtown, The Hunter and Red Dog.

Vocal ability
Gerrard possesses the vocal range of a contralto but can also reach upward into the dramatic mezzo-soprano range. She has a vocal range from A2 to F♯5. Her vocal timbre has been described as "rich, deep" which creates a "mournful sound", and her voice is regarded by critics as "simply not of this world". More predominantly, Gerrard's vocal range spans from contralto to dramatic contralto, displayed for examples in "Sanvean", "Sacrifice", "Largo", and "Not Yet"; — to the dramatic mezzo-soprano voice in her other songs, such as "The Host of Seraphim", "Elegy", "Space Weaver", and "Come this Way".

Jon Pareles of The New York Times said that she uses "distinct voices that drew on far-flung traditions: an opalescent tone from Baroque opera, a reedy hint of Celtic folk style, the sharp and quavering approach of Balkan women's music, blue notes bent like Billie Holiday's...".

Gerrard sings many of her songs, such as "Now We Are Free", "Come Tenderness", "Serenity", "The Valley of the Moon", "Tempest", "Pilgrimage of Lost Children", "Coming Home" and "Sanvean" in idioglossia — although she also sings in English. With respect to such work she has said, "I sing in the language of the Heart. [...] It's an invented language that I've had for a very long time. I believe I started singing in it when I was about 12. Roughly that time. And I believed that I was speaking to God when I sang in that language."

Gerrard's early and formative singing experience was influenced by the Bulgarian choir's technique. Gerrard's influences on the language she sings since her youth has been exerted mainly by the conversations and the music she heard in the Melbourne area where she had grown up, where a large Greco-Turkish community lived. Gerrard's first musical influences came from her father, as she grew up listening to sean-nós songs in an Irish family, and also the "abstract forms" with which Antonin Artaud worked that she heard on radio documentaries.

Gerrard commented in a 2012 interview:

"I was very young at the time, but it empowered me to know that there was something really worthwhile about what I was doing. Because I had an artistic soul, this was not something that I could stop or control. You're born with that. It's in your blood. So these influences are coming to the work. It's not traditional Seanos singing, but it's my response to the Seanos singing in my abstract languages."

Discography

 * The Mirror Pool (1995)
 * Duality (1998) (with Pieter Bourke)
 * The Silver Tree (2006)
 * The Black Opal (2009)
 * Twilight Kingdom (2014)
 * BooCheeMish, collaboration with the Mystery of Bulgarian Voices (2018)
 * Hiraeth, Lisa Gerrard & David Kuckhermann (2018)
 * Górecki Symphony No. 3: Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, with Genesis Orchestra & Yordan Kamdzhalov (2020)

Filmography

 * 1989 – Moon Child
 * 1994 – Toward the Within
 * 1999 – The Insider
 * 2000 – Gladiator
 * 2000 – Mission: Impossible 2
 * 2001 – Ali
 * 2002 – Whale Rider
 * 2004 – Layer Cake
 * 2004 – Man on Fire
 * 2006 – Sanctuary
 * 2011 – InSight
 * 2015 – Tanna
 * 2017 – 2:22
 * 2021 – Man of God
 * 2021 – Dune
 * 2024 – Dune: Part Two

title: Lisa Gerrard


text:
Sibylla of Cyprus

Sibylla of Lusignan (or Sibylle de Lusignan) (October/November 1198 – c. 1230 or 1252) was a queen consort of Armenia. She was the daughter of King Aimery of Cyprus and Queen Isabella I of Jerusalem. She was a member of the House of Lusignan.

She was the second wife of King Leo I of Armenia, married in 1210, by whom she had one daughter, Isabella.

title: Sibylla of Cyprus


text:
User talk:Dizzythecat

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UtherSRG 01:20, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

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title: User talk:Dizzythecat


text:
Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine

Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine (IJLP) was a Lebanese Shia group that claimed credit for the January 24, 1987 abduction of three American and one Indian professors – Alann Steen, Jesse Turner, Robert Polhill, Mithaleshwar Singh – from Beirut University College in West Beirut. They were eventually released.

Kidnapping of american catedratics
On January 24, 1987, the Alann Steen, Jesse Turner, Robert Polhill, Mithal Eshwar Singh was kidnapped by unknown militants dressed as lebanese police, later identified as Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine The abducted were staff of the university, who stopped living in the campus apartments for security reasons, but were stalked by their captors. The JILP militiamen demanded the release of 100 Arab prisoners in Israel in exchange for the release of the professors, to which Israeli authorities refused to accept the exchange.

During the first weeks of the kidnapping, Professor Alann Steen began to have complications in his health, with some of the kidnapped people reporting that his state of health was deplorable. After a few weeks, the professor began to improve his health, thanking his captors for their care in the tapes published by the terrorists.

Release of the hostages
It wasn't until October 4, 1988, when Mithileshwar Singh is released after ten months of captivity, handed over to Syrian authorities who handed over members of the US forces. US authorities stressed that Singh's release occurred without the need for agreements or negotiations with the kidnappers.

It was not until April 23, 1990, when Robert Polhill was finally released after 39 months of captivity. Polhill would end up passing away at the age of 65 at Georgetown University Teaching Hospital on July 3, 1999 due to complications with cancer.

Months later, on October 21, 1991, the YILP released Jesse Turner after holding him for nearly four years. Six days later, Turner return to the United States. Weeks later, on December 3, the last American hostage Alann Steen was released, officially the penultimate American hostage on Lebanese soil.


text:
User talk:Orphegarus

Hello, welcome to Wikipedia.

You might find these links helpful in creating new pages or helping with the above tasks: How to edit a page, How to write a great article, Naming conventions, Manual of Style. You should read our policies at some point too.

If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

UtherSRG 01:21, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

you can sign your name using three tildes, like. If you use four, you can add a datestamp too.

title: User talk:Orphegarus