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Tracy Lawrence

Tracy Lee Lawrence (born January 27, 1968) is an American country music singer, songwriter, and record producer. Born in Atlanta, Texas, and raised in Foreman, Arkansas, Lawrence began performing at age 15 and moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1990 to begin his country music career. He signed to Atlantic Records Nashville in 1991 and made his debut late that year with the album Sticks and Stones. Five more studio albums, as well as a live album and a compilation album, followed throughout the 1990s and into 2000 on Atlantic before the label's country division was closed in 2001. Afterward, he recorded for Warner Bros. Records, DreamWorks Records, Mercury Records Nashville, and his own labels, Rocky Comfort Records and Lawrence Music Group.

Lawrence has released a total of 14 studio albums. His most commercially successful albums are Alibis (1993) and Time Marches On (1996), both certified double-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). He has charted more than forty singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, including eight songs that reached the number one position: "Sticks and Stones", "Alibis", "Can't Break It to My Heart", "My Second Home", "If the Good Die Young", "Texas Tornado", "Time Marches On", and "Find Out Who Your Friends Are". Of these, "Time Marches On" is his longest-lasting at three weeks, while "Find Out Who Your Friends Are" set a record at the time for the slowest ascent to the top of that chart. His musical style is defined mainly by neotraditional country and honky-tonk influences, although he has also recorded country pop, Christmas music, and Christian country music. He has won Top New Male Vocalist from Billboard in 1992 and from Academy of Country Music in 1993, and Vocal Event of the Year from the Country Music Association in 2007.

Biography
Tracy Lee Lawrence was born in Atlanta, Texas, on January 27, 1968. He was raised by his stay-at-home mother JoAnn Dickens and stepfather Duane Dickens. He has two brothers and three sisters. When Lawrence was four years old, his family moved to Foreman, Arkansas. Growing up there, Lawrence sang in the local Methodist church choir and learned to play guitar. His mother had wanted him to grow up to be a minister, but he wanted to pursue a musical career instead. Regarding his upbringing, Lawrence told Country Weekly magazine in 1996, "I was hell-bent on doing things my way. I bucked my stepfather. He thought I was risking too much chasing this crazy music dream." Lawrence began performing publicly in local clubs at age 15. By age 17, he had joined a local honky-tonk band. He attended Southern Arkansas University in 1986 to study mass communications, where he also became a brother of Sigma Pi, but dropped out two years later to sing for a band based out of Louisiana. When the band broke up, Lawrence moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1990, supporting himself through odd jobs. He also became a regular performer at several different Nashville nightclubs and bars, and further supported himself through winning local talent competitions. After performing at an artist showcase at Nashville's Bluebird Café in January 1991, Lawrence was discovered by talent manager Wayne Edwards, who helped him sign to Atlantic Records' Nashville division. This signing took place only seven months after his move to Nashville.

1991–1993: Sticks and Stones
After signing to Atlantic Nashville, Lawrence began recording his debut album Sticks and Stones. On May 31, 1991, after he had completed the album's vocal tracks, Lawrence was injured when walking a high school friend named Sonja Wilkerson to the door of her hotel room at a Quality Inn in downtown Nashville. He was confronted by three men who intended to rape Wilkerson and rob both of them. Lawrence resisted and was shot four times, allowing his friend to escape. Two of the wounds were major and necessitated surgery at Nashville's Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and one bullet remained embedded in his hip. The shooting and subsequent surgery also delayed the release of the album so that he would have time to recover before promoting it.

Sticks and Stones, upon its late-1991 release, accounted for four singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts. First was the album's title track, which reached the number-one position on that chart in January 1992. Following it were three additional top-ten hits: "Today's Lonely Fool", "Runnin' Behind", and "Somebody Paints the Wall." The last of these was originally released by Josh Logan, whose version had made the lower regions of the same chart in 1989. Contributing songwriters to the album included John Scott Sherrill, Mark D. Sanders, Tim Menzies, Bob DiPiero, Lawrence himself, and Kenny Beard, who would go on to write many of Lawrence's other singles as well. Another cut from the album, "Paris, Tennessee", was also recorded by co-writer Dennis Robbins on his 1992 album Man with a Plan, and by Kenny Chesney on his 1995 album All I Need to Know. Musicians on the album included Bruce Bouton, Mark Casstevens, and Milton Sledge of Garth Brooks' studio band The G-Men, along with session musicians Brent Rowan and Glenn Worf. James Stroud produced the album, and played drums on the track "Between Us". Sticks and Stones was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipments of one million copies. The album received an "A−" from Entertainment Weekly, whose writer Alanna Nash said that he "pairs a poised and confident baritone with witty and well-crafted songs that shed soft light in the dark corners of the human condition." In 1992, Billboard magazine named him Top New Male Vocalist.

1993–1994: Alibis
In 1993, Lawrence released his second album, Alibis, which earned a double-platinum RIAA certification for shipments of two million copies. All four of its singles reached the number-one position on the Hot Country Songs charts between early 1993 and early 1994: the title track, "Can't Break It to My Heart", "My Second Home", and "If the Good Die Young". The title track also accounted for his first entry on the Billboard Hot 100, reaching number 72 there. Also produced by Stroud, the album contained songs co-written by Don Schlitz, Randy Boudreaux, and Craig Wiseman. Lawrence himself co-wrote "Can't Break It to My Heart" with "Sticks and Stones" co-writer Elbert West, and "My Second Home" with Beard. Lawrence told the blog Taste of Country in 2018 that he "fought" with Atlantic executives over recording "Can't Break It to My Heart", because the label wanted him to record more ballads akin to those of then-labelmate John Michael Montgomery instead. A review of Alibis in Cash Box magazine praised the title track, "I Threw the Rest Away", and "It Only Takes One Bar (To Make a Prison)" as the strongest cuts, while noting the "conviction and authenticity" in Lawrence's voice. Nash was less positive, writing in Entertainment Weekly that Lawrence "settles for clichéd themes and mawkish delivery". Lawrence promoted the album through a tour with George Jones, and signed a deal with the Stetson hat company to advertise a new line of hats. Also in 1993, he was awarded as Top New Male Vocalist by the Academy of Country Music.

1994–1995: I See It Now and Tracy Lawrence Live
Lawrence's 1994 album I See It Now had its title track serve as the lead single. Co-written by Larry Boone, Paul Nelson, and Woody Lee (who also recorded for Atlantic Nashville at the time), it peaked at number two on the country charts and 84 on the Hot 100. Followup "As Any Fool Can See" also went to number two on the former, while the Bobby Braddock-penned "Texas Tornado" became his sixth number-one hit on Hot Country Songs in mid-1995 and its B-side "If the World Had a Front Porch" also reached number two afterward. Also included on the album were the John Anderson duet "Hillbilly with a Heartache", previously found on Anderson's 1994 album Country 'til I Die, and the song "I Got a Feelin'", co-written by Joe Diffie and later recorded by him on his 1997 album Twice Upon a Time. I See It Now had seven of its tracks produced by Stroud, while three others accounted for Lawrence's first co-production credits: he produced "Texas Tornado" by himself, "As Any Fool Can See" with Flip Anderson of his touring band, and "Hillbilly with a Heartache" with both Flip Anderson and Stroud. Lawrence promoted I See It Now throughout 1995 with a tour consisting of over 200 shows. Nash found I See It Now superior to its predecessor, stating that Lawrence "returns to the honky-tonk sound of his debut, balancing melodic ballads of regret with kick-butt rhythms and lively wordplay." Allmusic rated the album 4 out of 5 stars, with an uncredited review praising the album's honky-tonk sound, along with the "cute lyrical twists for which country music is famous". An also uncredited review in People praised the title track and closing track "I’d Give Anything to Be Your Everything Again" as "lovely, bittersweet accounts of romance lost", but criticized the lyrics of "If the World Had a Front Porch". I See It Now received RIAA platinum certification.

Also in 1995, he released a live acoustic album, Tracy Lawrence Live. The album included live recordings of nine previous singles, plus the album track "I Threw the Rest Away" from Alibis. Lawrence compiled the album from 40 different live shows from the six months prior to the disc's release, and once again produced with Flip Anderson. The album was originally to have been titled Tracy Lawrence Live and Unplugged, but it was retitled due to MTV claiming a copyright on the term "unplugged".

1995–1997: Time Marches On
Time Marches On, his fourth album, was released in January 1996. It became his second double-platinum album in 2000. The lead single was "If You Loved Me", a number four entry on the Hot Country Songs charts. Lawrence said of the song that "it’s a typical Tracy Lawrence ballad about love gone wrong", and that he felt that it was one of his strongest singles. Following this song was the album's title track; also written by Braddock, it became Lawrence's longest-lasting number-one single on Hot Country Songs, holding that position for three weeks. It was also nominated by the Country Music Association as Single of the Year. After this song came "Stars over Texas" (which Lawrence co-wrote with Boone) and "Is That a Tear", both peaking at number two. The album's production duties were split, with Don Cook (best known for his work with Brooks & Dunn) handling five tracks, and Lawrence and Anderson on the other five. Brian Wahlert of Country Standard Time noted that the tracks produced by Lawrence and Anderson were more traditional country in their sound than the tracks Cook produced, highlighting "Is That a Tear" and "Somewhere Between the Moon and You" as the strongest and most country-sounding cuts. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic wrote that the album was "another crowd-pleasing set of contemporary country. Like his previous albums, the song selection is a hit-or-miss affair, with about half of the songs failing to make much of an impression. The remainder, however, proves why Lawrence is one of the most popular singers in Nashville." In 1996, Billboard ranked Lawrence as the tenth most-played radio artist in any genre that year.

1997–1998: The Coast Is Clear
Lawrence's fifth studio album, The Coast Is Clear, was issued in March 1997 and achieved an RIAA gold certification two months later. Like its predecessor, it featured some songs produced by Cook, and others by Lawrence and Anderson. This album's first two singles "Better Man, Better Off" and "How a Cowgirl Says Goodbye" both made top five on Hot Country Songs, but the followups were less successful: the title track became his first single to miss the top 10 when it peaked at number 26, and "While You Sleep" fell outside the top 40. Tom Roland of The Tennessean noted that the album had a theme of "attempts to undo what's done", but criticized the sound as "restrained" and "middle-of-the-road". Sarah Rodman of Country Standard Time shared a similar opinion of the production, calling "While You Sleep" the "most emotive and touching song" while also referring to "How a Cowgirl Says Goodbye" as "lively". Atlantic issued a greatest-hits package, The Best of Tracy Lawrence, in 1998. This disc included thirteen previous singles and the new song "Her Old Stompin' Ground". Three years after its release, this compilation received RIAA gold certification.

1999–2002: Lessons Learned and Tracy Lawrence
In late 1999, Lawrence returned to the charts with "Lessons Learned". This was the lead single to his 2000 album of the same name, which he and Anderson produced with audio engineer Butch Carr. The song reached number three on the country charts in 2000, and accounted for his highest Hot 100 peak of number 40. The album charted two more singles in "Lonely" and "Unforgiven". Tom Roland gave Lessons Learned three out of five stars in a review for The Tennessean, noting that Lawrence "repeatedly sings of flaws and errors and the challenges in overcoming them." Erlewine wrote of the album in Allmusic that it is "certainly pleasant, yet it tends to fade into the background". Jeffrey B. Remz of Country Standard Time thought that the album maintained a constantly country sound, and had well-written songs.

In late 2000, Atlantic Records closed its Nashville division and moved all artists, including Lawrence, to the Nashville branch of parent company Warner Bros. Records. His only release for that label, Tracy Lawrence, accounted for two low-charting singles in "Life Don't Have to Be So Hard" and "What a Memory". Lawrence and Anderson produced the album and wrote several songs on it, with other contributing writers including Michael White, Casey Beathard, Billy Yates, and frequent collaborator Larry Boone. Both Country Standard Time and Allmusic praised the album for having a more consistent and traditional sound than its predecessors, with the former's Scott Homewood calling it "quite possibly his best album", and the latter's Liana Jonas complimenting the lyrics of both singles along with the "scaled down" production. Allmusic biographer Steve Huey wrote of the album that "Despite some good reviews, it failed to halt his downward commercial momentum." Lawrence also said that he felt that the label did not invest in promotion of the album due to a lack of interest in his musical style and direction. As a result, he began seeking out new producers in an attempt to "reinvent [him]self". He considered Buddy Cannon, Byron Gallimore, and Billy Joe Walker Jr. before choosing to reunite with Stroud. The two began recording for what would have been a second album for Warner Bros. in 2002, but Lawrence was dropped from the label's roster.

2003–2004: Strong
After being dropped from Warner Bros., Lawrence began seeking a new record deal. He had considered RCA Records Nashville, but instead chose DreamWorks Records Nashville, of which Stroud was then the president, and signed a deal with them in October 2003. His first release for the label was "Paint Me a Birmingham", which had been concurrently released by Ken Mellons on an independent label. Lawrence's version overtook Mellons's in terms of airplay, reaching number four on Hot Country Songs and number 42 on the Hot 100 in early 2004. The corresponding album, Strong, came out in 2004, and it consisted largely of material from the unreleased second project for Warner Bros. Nashville. The album's follow-up singles, "It's All How You Look at It" and "Sawdust on Her Halo", were less successful at country radio. Lawrence noted that he had writer's block when attempting to come up with material for the album, and thus sought outside writers instead of his usual collaborators. He described the title track, about a divorced woman moving on with her life, a "different than anything I've done in the past", while calling "Stones" the "most traditional" song, and noting the presence of "story songs" throughout. He also noted that the album was almost titled Stones, but was renamed to avoid confusion with his debut album Sticks and Stones.

Erlewine wrote in Allmusic that Strong "ranks among his smoothest albums, a record dominated by ballads and where up-tempo songs are as polished as the slow ones." Peter Cooper of The Tennessean thought that the album had better-written songs than its predecessors, highlighting "Paint Me a Birmingham" and "Sawdust on Her Halo" in particular, but criticizing the application of Auto-Tune to Lawrence's singing voice. Robert Woolridge of Country Standard Time thought that Lawrence's singing was stronger on the ballads such as "Paint Me a Birmingham" as opposed to the more upbeat material, but criticized the "mainstream production".

2005–2006: Then and Now: The Hits Collection
Following the closure of DreamWorks Nashville in 2005, Lawrence transferred to Mercury Nashville that same year. There, he released the compilation Then & Now: The Hits Collection, which included fifteen of his previous hits, all of which (except "Paint Me a Birmingham") had to be newly recorded as the label did not own the rights to the original recordings made while he was on Atlantic. Two new tracks were included as well, both of which were released as singles: a cover of Mark Nesler's 1998 single "Used to the Pain", and "If I Don't Make It Back", which was co-witten by Bobby Pinson. Of this compilation, Erlewine wrote, "These new versions are a little more laid-back than the originals, and they're a little slicker too. And while that doesn't necessarily suit Lawrence's voice, which has grown a little thinner over the years, that doesn't make Then and Now a bad listen."

2006–2008: For the Love and All Wrapped Up in Christmas
In 2006, Lawrence started his own record label, Rocky Comfort Records, in partnership with his brother Laney. The first act signed to the label besides Lawrence himself was Chad Brock. Lawrence's first single for the label was "Find Out Who Your Friends Are", which was released in August 2006 from the studio album For the Love. The song initially lingered below the Top 40 of the Hot Country Songs charts, but following the album's release, it gained in radio interest due to the album containing as a bonus track an alternate version with Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney on guest vocals. Thanks to the success of the alternate version, "Find Out Who Your Friends Are" became a number-one single on that chart in 2007. The song reached that position in its 41st week on the chart, setting a new record at the time for the slowest ascent to the top of the country charts, and the second-slowest on any Billboard chart. The re-recorded version received Musical Event of the Year honors at the 2007 Country Music Association (CMA) Awards, Lawrence's first award from that association, along with the Academy of Country Music (ACM) Vocal Event of the Year award. Following this song were "Til I Was a Daddy Too" and "You Can't Hide Redneck". The album's title track was a duet with Brad Arnold of the rock band 3 Doors Down, while the track "Speed of Flight" was the first song in his career that Lawrence wrote entirely by himself. Michael Sudhalter wrote in Country Standard Time that "the music on the 11-track debut matches the label's traditional-sounding name."

Later in 2007, Lawrence issued a Christmas album entitled All Wrapped Up in Christmas, the title track of which peaked at number 57 based on Christmas season airplay. In 2008, both Zona Jones and Michael Scott signed deals with Rocky Comfort. Jones released the album Prove Me Right through the label in 2009.

2009–2011: The Rock and The Singer
Lawrence made his last Hot Country Songs chart appearance with the single "Up to Him" in early 2009. It is the first single for a studio album entitled The Rock, a Christian country album which was released in June 2009. It received 3.5 out of 5 from Country Weekly magazine, whose review noted that it "emphasizes at all turns the shared imperfections that we all strive to overcome in order to be good people". Allmusic reviewer Todd Sterling thought that Lawrence "sounds as comfortable singing songs about the Lord as he does singing straight country", calling it "a positive collection that will appeal to people of all faiths." Country Standard Time reviewer Jessica Phillips also thought that the lyrics of the album were "positive" and "uplifting", comparing the disc favorably to Randy Travis's gospel albums. The album got a 2009 Grammy Award nomination for Grammy Award for Best Southern, Country or Bluegrass Gospel Album.

Due to financial difficulties, Lawrence closed the Rocky Comfort label after The Rock and established a second personal label, Lawrence Music Group, in 2011. His first release for this label was The Singer that same year. It was initially available solely from his website and digital music distributors, a decision that Lawrence made to test the viability of online distribution instead of physical sales. The album features only acoustic instruments, and includes acoustic re-recordings of "Paint Me a Birmingham" and "Find Out Who Your Friends Are". Of the album, Lawrence said that he included more songs that he had written himself, because he felt that he had become more confident in his own songwriting skills. He also said that the album was "different" due to the increased presence of songs that he had written and the acoustic sound.

2013–: Further releases on Lawrence Music Group
Lawrence released the single "Stop, Drop & Roll" to country radio in October 2012. It was the first single from the album Headlights, Taillights and Radios, released on August 20, 2013. Lawrence funded the album through Kickstarter. Contributing songwriters included Kurt Allison (of Jason Aldean's road band and the production team New Voice Entertainment) and Kip Moore. Erlewine noted that the album was more country pop than Lawrence's existing body of work, but stated that "he sounds comfortable, assured, and quite charming on this enjoyable record." Michael Rampa of Country Standard Time also thought that the album was more country-pop, but praised the lyrics and Lawrence's singing, saying of the content that "Lawrence is both looking back at his two decades-plus career in country music while also taking a significant step toward the future." Lawrence promoted the album through a tour of the same name, which consisted of 28 shows throughout the year 2014, beginning with a concert at the Holmes Theater in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.

In 2017, Lawrence released Good Ole Days, a compilation album which features nine of his hit singles re-recorded as duets with other country singers, including Tim McGraw, Luke Bryan, Justin Moore, Jason Aldean, and Luke Combs. It also features two original songs: the title track, which features both Brad Arnold and Big & Rich, and the Craig Morgan duet "Finally Home", whose proceeds were donated to Operation Finally Home, an organization that assists in housing for injured soldiers. A second Christmas album, Frozen in Time, was released in October 2018. The album includes a mix of original compositions and covers of Christmas standards. In May 2019, he announced the August 2019 release of a new studio album titled Made in America, whose title track is also the lead single. He called the album "possibly the most personal album I have ever released." Lawrence co-wrote most of the album, with other songwriters including Chris Stapleton, Mark Nesler, and Carson Chamberlain.

Lawrence's next project is a three-disc album called Hindsight 2020. In February 2021, he confirmed that each of the three discs would be released throughout 2021, starting with Volume 1: Stairway to Heaven Highway to Hell on April 23. Its first single is the title track, which Lawrence co-wrote with Craig Wiseman. When completed, the three albums will include a mix of original songs and re-recordings of existing songs. The second disc in this project, Volume 2: Price of Fame, was released in August. Included on it were re-recordings of "I See It Now", "Somebody Paints the Wall", and "If the World Had a Front Porch", and duets with Montgomery Gentry member Eddie Montgomery and Tracy Byrd. The third installment, Volume 3: Angelina, was released in January 2022. The title track of the project was released as a single that same month; in addition, Lawrence stated that he would be touring in 2022 with Clay Walker, Randall King, and Alexandra Kay.

Additional work
Lawrence has contributed to multiple collaborative works in his career. The first was George Jones' 1992 single "I Don't Need Your Rockin' Chair", which featured him as one of several artists performing on the song's final chorus, and received the Country Music Association Vocal Event of the Year for all artists involved. In 1994, Lawrence recorded "Renegades, Rebels, and Rogues" for the soundtrack of the film Maverick. This song was released to country radio as a single in mid-1994 after "If the Good Die Young" had peaked, and it went on to reach top 10 on Hot Country Songs. The soundtrack also featured him in a multi-artist rendition of "Amazing Grace". Later in the same year, he covered Keith Whitley's late-1989 single "I'm Over You" on Keith Whitley: A Tribute Album. In May 1996, Lawrence was one of many artists featured on the charity single "Hope: Country Music's Quest for a Cure", whose proceeds were donated to the T.J. Martell foundation for cancer research. The song made an appearance on Hot Country Songs, and received a Grammy Award nomination that year for all artists involved in the category of Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. In 1997, he recorded a cover of The Rolling Stones's "Paint It Black" on the multi-artist tribute album Stone Country: Country Artists Perform the Songs of the Rolling Stones. Lawrence also began working as a producer for other artists in 1997, including Rich McCready's 1997 album That Just About Covers It and the soundtrack to the musical The Civil War. The latter also featured him singing "I'll Never Pass This Way Again", which was issued as a single in October 1998.

Music videos
Many of Lawrence's singles featured music videos that received rotation on CMT and the defunct TNN (The Nashville Network). In 1996, his videos were aired on CMT more than those of any other artist. Among his videos were several directed by Marc Ball which linked to each other through a time travel storyline, where Lawrence is transported to a different time period and scenario at the beginning of each video, and appears in clothing appropriate to the time period. The concept started with the video for "If the Good Die Young", and continued for those of "Renegades, Rebels, and Rogues", "I See It Now", "As Any Fool Can See", "Texas Tornado", "If the World Had a Front Porch", "Is That a Tear", "One Step Ahead of the Storm" (an album cut from The Coast Is Clear), and "Life Don't Have to Be So Hard".

Musical style
Steve Huey wrote of Lawrence's musical style that he was "[o]ne of a number of rock-tinged honky-tonk singers who rose to fame in the early '90s" and "gained a loyal audience for his mix of modern and traditional country sounds". Erlewine described Lawrence's musical style as "polished, modern-day honky-tonk", and said that he "has never been among the most adventurous country singers and of all the post-Garth Brooks new traditionalists; he often avoids honky-tonk grit, even though he has a nice twang in his voice that would work well on rowdier material." In a review of Sticks and Stones, Alanna Nash noted that Lawrence had a physical and musical resemblance to Alan Jackson. His singing voice has also been described as a "smooth baritone" and a "warm baritone" with "effortless, emotional delivery". Lawrence cites Merle Haggard, Keith Whitley, and George Strait as his primary musical influences.

Personal life
In April 1994, Lawrence was charged with reckless endangerment and possession of an unlicensed firearm after confronting and following home two teenagers on a highway in Wilson County, Tennessee. Although he was put on probation for a year, the charges were later cleared.

Lawrence has been married three times. His first wife was former rodeo star Frances Weatherford, whom he married in 1993. Weatherford was injured by broken glass and suffered a miscarriage after a gas fireplace explosion, and the two divorced in 1996. In March 1997 he married his second wife, Stephenie "Stacie" Drew, a former member of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. Their wedding included over 500 guests, along with performances by Toby Keith, Tracy Byrd, and Kenny Chesney. In October 1997, Lawrence underwent investigation after allegations that he had abused Drew following a concert at Buffalo Bill's hotel and casino in Primm, Nevada. This incident occurred one month after the couple had filed for divorce. Lawrence was convicted of a misdemeanor for battery, and was ordered by Las Vegas courts to donate $500 to a Nevada-based women's shelter. Billboard also reported that Atlantic Nashville's president had suspended Lawrence from recording any new material until he agreed to undergo counseling, but he later denied these claims. He married his third wife, Becca, in a secret wedding ceremony just after Christmas 2000. The couple had a child named Skylar the following June. Two years later, they had a second daughter, Mary Keagan.

Discography

 * Studio albums
 * Sticks and Stones (1991)
 * Alibis (1993)
 * I See It Now (1994)
 * Time Marches On (1996)
 * The Coast Is Clear (1997)
 * Lessons Learned (2000)
 * Tracy Lawrence (2001)
 * Strong (2004)
 * For the Love (2007)
 * The Rock (2009)
 * The Singer (2011)
 * Headlights, Taillights and Radios (2013)
 * Good Ole Days (2017)
 * Frozen in Time (2018)
 * Made in America (2019)
 * Hindsight 2020 Volume 1: Stairway to Heaven Highway to Hell (2021)
 * Hindsight 2020 Volume 2: Price of Fame (2021)
 * Hindsight 2020 Volume 3: Angelina (2022)

 * Christmas albums
 * All Wrapped Up in Christmas (2007)
 * Frozen in Time (2018)

 * Compilations
 * Tracy Lawrence Live (1995)
 * The Best of Tracy Lawrence (1998)
 * Then & Now: The Hits Collection (2005)
 * The Very Best of Tracy Lawrence (2007)

Billboard number-one hits

 * "Sticks and Stones" (1 week, 1992)
 * "Alibis" (2 weeks, 1993)
 * "Can't Break It to My Heart" (1 week, 1993)
 * "My Second Home" (1 week, 1993)
 * "If the Good Die Young" (2 weeks, 1994)
 * "Texas Tornado" (1 week, 1995)
 * "Time Marches On" (3 weeks, 1996)
 * "Find Out Who Your Friends Are" (1 week, 2007)

Grammy Awards

 * 1997
 * "Hope: Country Music's Quest for a Cure"
 * Best Country Collaboration with Vocals
 * Nominated
 * }
 * }

Academy of Country Music Awards

 * 1993
 * Tracy Lawrence
 * Top New Male Vocalist
 * Won
 * 1995
 * John Anderson and Tracy Lawrence
 * Top Vocal Duo of the Year
 * Nominated
 * rowspan=3| 1997
 * rowspan=2| "Time Marches On"
 * Single Record of the Year
 * Nominated
 * Song of the Year
 * Nominated
 * Time Marches On
 * Album of the Year
 * Nominated
 * 2008
 * "Find Out Who Your Friends Are"
 * Vocal Event of the Year
 * Won
 * }
 * 2008
 * "Find Out Who Your Friends Are"
 * Vocal Event of the Year
 * Won
 * }
 * }

Country Music Association Awards

 * 1993
 * Tracy Lawrence
 * Horizon Award
 * Nominated
 * 1996
 * "Time Marches On"
 * Single of the Year
 * Nominated
 * 2007
 * "Find Out Who Your Friends Are"
 * Vocal Event of the Year
 * Won
 * }
 * Vocal Event of the Year
 * Won
 * }

title: Tracy Lawrence


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User talk:53karentsang

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Harry Thomason

Harry Zell Thomason (born November 30, 1940) is an American film and television producer and director, best known for the television series Designing Women. Thomason and his wife, Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, are close friends of President Bill Clinton and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and played a major role in President Clinton's election campaigns.

Biography
Harry Z. Thomason was born in Hampton, Arkansas, the son of a Southern Baptist deacon. He was a Little Rock, Arkansas, high school science teacher and football coach. He married and divorced Judy Crump, with whom he has a daughter, Stacy.

In 1983, Thomason and his second wife, Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, were married and formed Mozark Productions, the vehicle for several successful television series, including Designing Women, Hearts Afire, and Evening Shade. In 2007, they began production on the HBO series 12 Miles of Bad Road, starring Lily Tomlin.

Thomason was a close friend of Bill Clinton and produced the glowing biographical film, The Man from Hope, the centerpiece of the 1992 Democratic National Convention. Thomason and his partner, Darnell Martens, provided charter air service for the Clinton campaign and served as an image consultant. After Clinton was elected, Thomason became embroiled in the Travelgate scandal. His partner, Martens, reported that he had heard rumors that the White House Travel Office was corrupt and disloyal to the Clintons. This view of the Travel Office was compounded by a series of leaks at the White House that were unfavorable to the Clintons. Thomason began pressing Hillary Clinton to investigate the travel office. When the financial irregularities were discovered, the White House called in the FBI. The resulting firings generated a great deal of negative press coverage and an investigation of the events surrounding it, including Thomason and Martens' air service. Thomason served as co-chairman of the 1992 Presidential Inauguration Committee and once again worked as an image consultant at the beginning of the Lewinsky scandal. Thomason ended up testifying before the Lewinsky Grand Jury.

In 2004, Thomason produced the film documentary version of The Hunting of the President from the book by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons, about political efforts to discredit and defeat Bill and Hillary Clinton. With Nickolas Perry, Thomason was nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Documentary Screenplay for the film.

Television credits

 * Designing Women – director and executive producer
 * Emeril – director and executive producer
 * Evening Shade – director
 * Hearts Afire – Writer, director, executive producer
 * Lime Street – executive producer
 * The Blue and the Gray – producer
 * The Fall Guy – Writer
 * Women of the House – director, producer, executive producer

Motion picture credits

 * A Shining Season – producer
 * Encounter with the Unknown – writer, director
 * Revenge of Bigfoot – director, producer
 * So Sad About Gloria – director, producer
 * The Day it Came to Earth – director, executive producer
 * The Designing Women Reunion – director
 * The Great Lester Boggs – director
 * The Man from Hope – director
 * To Find My Son – producer
 * The Hunting of the President – producer
 * The Last Ride – director, producer

Quotes

 * "When you're in the political realm, you become a public figure, and anything is fair."

Adapted from the article Harry Thomason, from Wikinfo, licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

title: Harry Thomason


text:
Talk:Hedsor

Untitled
The parish church is NOT dedicated to St. Giles. It is St. Nicholas. Why have you got it so wrong?

 * The dedication of the parish church is as stated at the GenUKI website. If they are wrong take it up with them, not me.  -- Graham  :) 16:17, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * Have just checked other references and you are correct, I've altered the page. You could have done that in the first place of course... -- Graham  :) 21:35, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * From memory, the parish is exceptionally small with a population of less than 200. Anybody know the number? This could be worthy of inclusion. Also odd about this church is that you can only get to it via a private road.. --Commking 19:41, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

This article has become messy, particularly with the factually incorrect and irrelevant details on postcodes. I'm not sure why it matters that Royal Mail doesn't consider Hedsor to exist - as far as they're concerned counties don't exist either. And according to Graham, a Buckinghamshire stalwart, is not a village the constituent (perhaps with hamlets) of a parish - hence there need not be a debate whether it's one or the other?

Perhaps the real issue is what dwellings could be considered in Hedsor, as while it is signposted it isn't ever marked with a placename on the roadside. Oh, the joy of scattered and sparse settlements. --Maramotus 22:10, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

 * Mail to some residents is addressed as being in Berkshire, while they in fact live in Bucks! For those people living in Hedsor, this is very, very relevant. --Commking 13:30, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

 * You seem to be unaware of the postal system in this country, as I would expect. Counties do not come into consideration on post, the Royal Mail does not use it to sort letters. The "wrong county" issue merely comes from their usage of Post Towns, and for Hedsor this would be Maidenhead, in Berkshire. The same will apply for many small settlements around county borders all over the country. It is not a big deal at all. It would not make any difference whether somebody wrote Buckinghamshire or Berkshire on a letter to somebody living in Hedsor. --Maramotus 16:27, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

 * As a former Hedsor resident, I beg to differ. We still got our mail, but we were forever explaining to people where we lived, and how to find us. --Commking 20:51, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

 * For all of two years. Having lived in the area for twenty, I've never heard anyone make an issue of the post town of Hedsor. You don't have to tell people it's in Berkshire. "Explaining to people where we live and how to find us" is something everybody has to do. It's a non-issue. --Maramotus 19:39, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

 * Not for two years - not that length of residency changes the facts?

 * "Explaining to people where we live and how to find us" is not something everyone has to do actually. Usually you can just give people your address, and they can find you, instead of a set of directions to boot. Don't need to do it in Bourne End, but you do in Hedsor.

 * "You don't have to tell people it's in Berkshire"? I'm afraid you do - if you want to get your mail. Hedsor House has to have two addresses - one for mail (Taplow, Maidenhead, Berks.) and one for their physical location. Check it out on their web site.

 * You original assertion that the article is "factually incorrect" could do with some further info from you please. It's not a big deal, not a big issue, but worthy of a footnote in the article rather than deletion as you seem to suggest. --Commking 03:17, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

 * Your user page says you lived in the UK for two years, hence why it was written. If not then in Hedsor for that time, you must've lived there for less than that. In any case, you can't have been "forever explaining to people where we lived...".

 * Most people will be polite and give directions to their house. Besides, the roads that reside in the parish are named - Hedsor Road, Heavens Lea, Harvest Hill, Widmoor, Bourne End Road, etc. - looking for the names of houses along there would be the same as any other road with named houses. It is no different from other settlements in that regard.

 * I repeat again, you don't need to tell people it is in Berkshire. Obviously this is one thing that has for sure changed since your time away. Counties are non-essential to our postal address - it is optional. You are able to use a traditional or administrative county, whichever you choose, if it is possible, as it has no bearing on the delivery of the post. Inclusion of the post town is essential if you wish all your mail to be delivered without delay. It is not necessary to put Maidenhead and Berkshire on the address, only Maidenhead. If you wish to check this look at the page on the Postcode Address File. Hedsor is in Buckinghamshire, end of story.

 * Regarding the factually incorrect material, Hedsor is not (debatably) either a village or a parish as the section title suggests, but both. Hedsor parish is both an ecclesiastical and civil parish, and the only settlement in it is the groups of houses considered to be Hedsor. Thus, it is both. The boundaries defined by Royal Mail, I quote, "rarely correspond to political boundaries and often group places that for all other purposes are quite separate" (see Post town). Thus they should not be taken into account when defining a village. In addition, besides that Wikipedia article demolishing the argument anyway, Hedsor is not split by postcode as you might suggest (although the two sides of Hedsor Road split between Wooburn & Bourne End and Hedsor parishes would both be in the same postcode area), as the postcode for the church is for The Rectory, which is in Bourne End.

 * I hope the use of links clarifies the issue and you will take it into account. I still wholly believe that the section is not relevant to Hedsor, and probably would be void once errors and suppositions are removed.

 * By the way, do you like the infobox? --Maramotus 19:29, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

 * I guess my point is that your postal address in Hedsor bears no relation to where you actually live. Hedsor House is a good example: Hedsor Park, Taplow, Maidenhead? Hedsor Park is the estate, and it's definitely not in the village of Taplow mate. Nobody would locate Hedsor House at all with just this information. Actual physical address is in fact: Healthfield Road, Hedsor. Neither Heathfield Road nor Hedsor are a part of the mailing address. While some long term Hedsor residents may be fine and happy with that, it was not so simple to convey to other British citizens enough information to find where I actually lived, without extra information. In addition, readers of this article could be from anywhere in the world, and not be familiar with this arrangement for places like Hedsor, places very close to county boundries. As such I feel it is worthy as a footnote to the article, while I agree with you it's not a big deal.

 * The infobox is excellent - well done. Is the population really so small? Can I ask where that came from? I recall a conversation I had with the vicar - he told me the parish had a population of 145. So maybe the parish is bigger than the village or something? It would also be nice to know what the definition of a village is. --Commking 09:18, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

 * Probably the reason why Hedsor is split between postcodes is because it 'doesn't exist as a village'. Both this statement and the population number comes from a document, the Hedsor parish fact file prepared by Wycombe District Council. It's a bizarre set of circumstances. But such speculation in my opinion looks unencyclopædic, so I will look up some other sources in an attempt to include this in the article. --Maramotus 16:31, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

 * Well, it's got a pub. Doesn't that make Hedsor a village? Also the infobox might need to be ammended - it shows Hedsor only as SL6 Maidenhead, when it also has SL8 Bourne End in some places.. --Commking 21:13, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

 * Which pub is that? From the map on that document quoted before, it doesn't show one. The Chequers Inn advertises itself in Wooburn Common (although even that is wrong - I certainly wouldn't call it that - it's known as Widmoor?). The Garibaldi is on the Bourne End side of Hedsor Road, and The Feathers would be in Taplow. Besides, having a church ought to make it a village also.--Maramotus 20:14, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

 * I have just realised also after changing the post town and postcode, that some of Hedsor parish will also be in HP10, High Wycombe area. But it looks a bit strange with two items, so I'm a bit reluctant to leave it like that. What do you think?--Maramotus 20:18, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

 * I'd combine the postal town and postal district sections of the infobox. Each entry could read something like, SL6 Maidenhead, SL8 Bourne End.. rather than two (or now three) distinct sections.

 * The pub I thought was Hedsor was the Chequers Inn, but apparently they claim otherwise. I am trying to figure out where they are located on map in the "Hedsor Parish fact file" docuement, my memory is a little hazy, it must be pretty damn close to the border if it really isn't in Hedsor. As you are still local, can you take a look at that map and give your opinion? If there is indeed only a church in Hedsor, maybe that then does make Hedsor only a Parish, and not a village.. --Commking 20:43, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

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title: Talk:Hedsor


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James G. Boswell Foundation

The James G. Boswell Foundation is the charitable foundation established in 1947 by James Griffin Boswell (May 13, 1882–1952), founder of the J. G. Boswell Company, a successful farm and agricultural supplies enterprise established in Corcoran, California in 1921. The Foundation supports agricultural, general education, health concerns, pre-college private schools, public broadcasting, rural affairs groups and youth organizations. The Foundation has also provided support for the Institute for Agricultural Genomics at the University of California, Riverside.

Until his death in 2009, the Foundation was headed by J. G. Boswell, II, nephew of the company founder. J.W. Boswell, son of J.G. Boswell, II, now heads company operations, centered in California's Central Valley. A primary asset of the Boswell Foundation is its shareholding in the Boswell Corporation. Measured by farmed acreage, Boswell Corporation is the largest farming operation in California and one of the largest worldwide. Shares of the Boswell Corporation are traded on the "pink sheets," but very little information on this business is publicly available, even for non-management shareholders.

title: James G. Boswell Foundation


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Michael Woroniecki

Michael Peter Woroniecki (also Michael Warnecki, Warneki, Worneki, Mike War, and Mike Wazowski; born February 4, 1954) is an independent, non-denominational Christian missionary. Woroniecki is well known for his ministry on college campuses and at various public events across the US over the span of the last 30 years.

Early life and family
Woroniecki was the youngest of a large Polish Catholic family who was raised in the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan. His mother became involved in the Catholic Charismatic Movement in the early 1970s and sought to introduce her children to the born again experience. In 1972, seeking a way out of Grand Rapids, he "made a deal with God" that he would attend prayer meetings with his mother if he could make All-City tailback in football and thus receive a scholarship for college. He got the title and the scholarship.

Woroniecki attended Central Michigan University (CMU) where he studied psychology and played varsity football from 1972 to 1976. He boasted of being able to bench press 400 lbs and run a 4.5 second 40-yard dash. Woroniecki explains in his Christian testimony that he forgot his deal with God and had a "wild streak", involving himself in alcohol and partying. Woroniecki states that he was known to his teammates as the "Crazy War" and says he was arrested the summer of his freshman year for fighting in a bar, just to prove to his peers how tough he was.

During spring football practice in 1974, Woroniecki suffered a disabling football injury that threatened his athletic aspirations. About the same time, Woroniecki's mother gave him a Bible, which he began to read. Woroniecki says God used this time of suffering and depression to break him of his pride, preparing him to receive the Gospel. Woroniecki attended the annual Catholic Charismatic Conference at University of Notre Dame the weekend of June 14, 1974 with his family. He was in the stadium when he says he told God that he didn't know what the saying "born again" meant, but that he wanted everything that the Lord had for him. While sitting alone in the stadium, Woroniecki says that he gave his life to Jesus. At that moment, Woroniecki believes that he "met the living Jesus". "The grass and goalposts were the same but I was changed" says Woroniecki, adding that he found significance in the recently painted Touchdown Jesus on the library mural right in front of him.

Woroniecki returned to college football practice in July that same summer. One day after practice, while in a bar with his teammates, Woroniecki says he ordered water in the place of his usual beer. His friends becoming curious, Woroniecki explained that he had met Jesus. Used to his outrageous life-of-the-party humor, they all mistakenly thought he was joking, and Woroniecki became the focus of ridicule and rejection by his teammates. He writes that he could not understand why people like Roger Staubach, a famous Christian athlete, were respected, yet he was rejected, until he read John 12:24 and 25. He reasoned that if the world hated Jesus without cause, they would also hate and reject him if he followed Him.

The same year, Woroniecki and his teammates went on to win the NCAA Division II Football Championship for the only time in Central Michigan's history. Woroniecki graduated from Central Michigan with a B.S. in Behavioral Sciences in 1976. While at CMU, Woroniecki met a cheerleader from Detroit, Michigan, Leslie Jean Ochalek (later renamed "Rachel Rebekah"). Woroniecki and Ochalek married in 1979.

Education
Charles and Rose Woroniecki, Michael Woroniecki's parents, were members of the Basilica of Saint Adalbert, a Roman Catholic church in the Polish west side of Grand Rapids. Michael Woroniecki attended a Catholic grade school adjoining his family's parish and then advanced to West Catholic High School, another parochial school in Grand Rapids. During his senior year of high school in 1972, Woroniecki began attending Catholic Charismatic prayer meetings, part of his "deal with God."

After graduating from Central Michigan, Woroniecki attended Melodyland School of Theology at Anaheim, California starting in 1976. A month after returning home from seminary that summer, his mother died from colon cancer.

Woroniecki applied to the Dominican and Franciscan Orders of the Catholic Church with the intention of helping to bring reform from within the Church. In his final round of interviews with the Dominican seminary near Chicago, Illinois, Woroniecki was refused immediate admission and decided on a different course of action. He then applied to the Franciscan seminary in his own hometown of Grand Rapids. After a semester of study at Aquinas College, Woroniecki was again offered an extended preparatory period. He chose to pursue other means of study.

In 1978, Woroniecki was accepted at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, a non-denominational institution. Woroniecki says he was "deeply grieved" by the professionalism and business-like attitude towards the things of God at Fuller. This atmosphere, Woroniecki claims, ultimately compelled him to stand on the campus lawn and preach "the living Jesus" to fellow students and professors when they came out of the chapel. He confronted classmates over the attitudes of scholastic pride and hypocrisy that he thought to contradict the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Woroniecki obtained his Master of Divinity degree from Fuller in 1980.

Upon returning to Grand Rapids, Woroniecki briefly attended and occasionally preached at Maranatha Church. Shortly thereafter, Woroniecki left to start his own home church and street preaching ministry.

Preaching
Woroniecki returned to Grand Rapids after graduating from Fuller Seminary in the summer of 1980, where he preached on the streets and at various events while carrying a sign or cross, starting his own ministry called Cornerstone Christian Fellowship. As a result of, according to Woroniecki, "youthful zeal" and a city unsure of how to handle his unconventional evangelistic approach, Woroniecki was arrested numerous times over the next year and a half. In October 1981, he offered to leave town if the pending charges against him would be dropped. The offer was accepted and Woroniecki began to travel the US, stopping first in Atlanta, Georgia where street preaching is permitted.

To deliver his message, Woroniecki chooses college campuses, large sporting and political events as well as city centers. His wife and six adult children are often seen ministering alongside him. In the early 1990s, he shipped a Ford van to England and then ferried it to France. The family traveled together across Europe and then to Tangier, Morocco. In May 1995, they preached in Casablanca, where Muslim law makes it a crime to declare Jesus as the Son of God. A riot resulted and the family was arrested. They were interrogated for eight hours by state officials, then ordered to leave the country.

Since leaving Grand Rapids 30 years ago, Woroniecki and his family have preached in all 50 U.S. states, Latin America, Europe, Russia and Morocco.

Music
Michael Woroniecki began creating music with an electronic keyboard in 1986. In the early 1990s he began using this music as another form of ministry on the streets of Europe. During the summers of 1992 to 1996 he performed in downtown city plazas and centers in places like London, Paris, Barcelona, Lisbon, Rome, Berlin, Budapest, Athens, and Moscow. Woroniecki says he used the music along with dances and Biblical skits as a means of communicating the gospel in countries where they did not speak the language. Michael does not consider himself professional but believes "that music is a powerful tool to touch people of all walks of life".

During the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympic Games, Woroniecki was reported to have performed with his family outside the various venues using the event to reach the international crowds with his message. Beginning in 1997, Woroniecki traveled throughout Mexico and Latin America, playing on the streets.

Woroniecki claims that, from 2006 to 2009, he has self-produced eight music CDs which he and his family have distributed in their travels.

Christian view
Woroniecki preaches that one must "get alone, study the New Testament and seek the Living Jesus to be Born Again". He says that today's "churches" are not the true Church as seen in the Scriptures and cannot save anyone.

Woroniecki has used large banner signs and often a wooden cross to convey his message for the past 35 years. In his ministry Woroniecki addresses the Biblical themes of hypocrisy in the institutional system, grace, salvation, forgiveness, hell, judgment, deception and the consequences of sin. Because of this, Woroniecki has taken his share of verbal and physical opposition. He claims that these are the "last days" and that Jesus will soon return to judge the world. Woroniecki cites various Scripture verses in his pamphlets to substantiate his message that only by faith can a man be saved from hell and reconciled to God, a doctrine accepted by most mainstream Christians and defined by Martin Luther as sola fide.

The Bible figures strongly in Woroniecki's beliefs and is a focal point of his preaching. Despite not holding a conventional position in an established religion, Woroniecki's knowledge of Scripture and theology is extensive. His years of personal and scholastic study at three seminaries are reflected in his writings. Woroniecki believes in Biblical inerrancy and considers the Scriptures authoritative on all matters of life.

Woroniecki's message is met on the streets with a variety of responses.

Andrea Yates
Woroniecki first met Rusty Yates in the mid-1980s while preaching on the campus of Auburn University. Rusty took some literature, and they corresponded by mail for the next several years. In 1989 Rusty introduced the Woronieckis to Andrea Kennedy, whom he had recently begun dating. Woroniecki said of this meeting that Andrea seemed slightly intimidated, and that he advised them not to marry quickly, the same advice he gave to other young couples.

The Yates and Woroniecki families stayed in touch by letter and telephone, and in 1998, the Yates family traveled to Miami after hearing that the Woronieckis were selling their motor home. Rusty bought the bus, a 1978 GMC that Woroniecki had used for his family's travels. During the week that the Yates stayed, Woroniecki confronted Rusty, saying that he was "willing to sacrifice his wife and children for the sake of his job". After this confrontation, Rusty and Woroniecki "grew apart". In the months leading up to the drownings, Rusty described the relationship with the Woronieckis as not being very close.

Andrea Yates had suffered mental health difficulties for several years leading up to 2001. In June 1999 Yates took an overdose of sedatives and was hospitalized several times over the next two years. She was prescribed a variety of antidepressant and antipsychotic medications. On June 20, 2001, a few weeks after being discharged from Devereaux Texas Treatment Center, Andrea killed all five of her children.

In early 2002 Michael Woroniecki came to the attention of the national media when Yates's trial started. Yates's defense attorney, George Parnham, placed a copy of Woroniecki's newsletter The Perilous Times into evidence, suggesting that the material was dangerous for someone like Yates, and defense team psychiatrist Lucy Puryear said on Good Morning America that "Yates's fate may have been different if she never met Woroniecki". Certain media outlets alleged that Woroniecki bore some responsibility for influencing Andrea.

However, both Michael Woroniecki and Rusty Yates dismissed the allegations. According to the Houston Chronicle, "[Russell] Yates said his relationship with Woroniecki was more like learning from a book. He was free to accept what he wanted and reject that which he didn't". Yates said "That's just crazy" when asked whether or not his wife was influenced by Woroniecki. He stated that Andrea had suffered schizophrenia, depression and delusions for years. Both Yates and Woroniecki characterized the connection between Woroniecki's teachings and Andrea Yates's state of mind as nothing more than sensationalist reporting. Woroniecki "... certainly didn't cause the delusion," says Yates.

Woroniecki called the defense's claims "ridiculous". He stated that he had only met Andrea personally four or five times over 20 years and that his relationship with her was "one of nothing but love and compassion". Woroniecki said that he had warned Russell Yates that Andrea and their children needed his love. Peter Jennings of World News Tonight reported that Rachel Woroniecki wrote to Rusty and Andrea that they needed to reconcile their marriage. In an interview with Dateline NBC in March 2002, Mrs. Woroniecki said: "A major problem is that people think that by emulating our lifestyle they can have the joy and the love that we have without building a foundation in Jesus Christ." Woroniecki was quoted by the Grand Rapids Press as saying, "'I will gladly sacrifice my reputation if it can spare Andrea from the death penalty and give her a second chance at life. However ... it is deceitful and irresponsible to blame doctors, hospitals, clinics or 'postpartum depression.' They (Rusty and Andrea Yates) both know that the issues which culminated in this tragedy are much, much deeper.'"

Currently
Woroniecki and family members carried signs and preached outside both the Democratic National Convention in Denver and the Republican National Convention in Saint Paul in 2008.

In November 2010, Woroniecki and his family were seen ministering in Times Square in New York City, promoting their website www.ifanyoneisthirsty.com. The author writes that the primary point of their message was "that Jesus is alive and that we need to actively seek him out", adding that despite any controversy, the family seemed to him to be genuine in their efforts to "go all over the world and celebrate life and the living Jesus."

Jack Wellman, Christian evangelist, author and regular contributor to OVI Magazine and Yahoo! Voices, confirms that Woroniecki continues to take his message "to the world and the streets of the nations". Woroniecki's current message, according to Wellman, taken from Woroniecki's website and literature, is:

"'Are you willing to look deeper, beyond it all? Please give us a chance to help you. It will be well worth your time. What we offer you is not a new group, 'church', formulas, self exaltation or doctrines. What we offer you is the love of the living Jesus who has the answers that you are looking for'."

Woroniecki remains active in his ministry and has recently visited various universities during the fall semesters.

title: Michael Woroniecki


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Chester Lauck

Chester "Chet" Lauck (February 9, 1902 – February 21, 1980) was a comic actor who played the character of Lum Edwards on the classic American radio comedy Lum and Abner.

Early life and career
Chester Lauck was born in Alleene, Arkansas and raised in Mena, Arkansas. He graduated from Mena High School in 1920. In Mena, Chet met his future comedy partner Norris Goff. Though both began as blackface comics, they soon found success on Hot Springs, Arkansas radio station KTHS with a weekly rural comedy skit, basing their characters on acquaintances from Waters, Arkansas. This led to an NBC network radio series, broadcast first from Chicago, Illinois, in 1931. The radio series aired on Mutual, CBS, and ABC at various times during its 1931–54 run. It was sponsored by Quaker Oats, the Ford Dealers of America, Horlick's Malted Milk, Postum, Alka-Seltzer, and Frigidaire.

In addition to starring as storekeeper Lum (full name Columbus Edwards, with surname usually pronounced "Eddards"), Lauck also played several other recurring characters, including Cedric Weehunt, Grandpappy Spears, and Snake Hogan. He reprised his radio role, opposite Goff, in seven motion pictures between 1940 and 1956. Lauck adopted grey hair and a moustache on-camera, to better match the picture most audiences would have of his radio character.

For a brief time during the 1950s he bought and upgraded a ranch fifteen miles west of Las Vegas, later bought by Howard Hughes. It was turned into Spring Mountain Ranch State Park.

In 1956, Lauck began working as an executive with Continental Oil in Houston, Texas, specializing in public relations and advertising. He appeared as himself as well as Lum in a series of television commercials for Conoco on the programs Whirlybirds (1957–60) and The Blue Angels (1960–61). On August 27, 1957, he appeared as a guest challenger on To Tell the Truth.

Upon retirement from Continental Oil, Lauck moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas and co-founded an advertising agency with longtime associate Harlan Hobbs and son Chester Lauck Jr. Lauck Sr. was highly regarded as an after-dinner speaker and maintained a hectic schedule of appearances across the nation. During his California years, Lauck owned race horses which competed in Santa Anita. This expertise led to a 1970 appointment by Arkansas Governor Dale Bumpers in which Lauck became Commissioner of the Arkansas State Racing Commission.

In his later years, Lauck recorded new introductions for commercial cassette releases of the series and for syndication.

Death
Lauck died in a hospital in Hot Springs, Arkansas, on February 21, 1980, aged 78.

Honors
Lauck was inducted into the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame in the radio division.

title: Chester Lauck


text:
Lum and Abner

Lum and Abner was an American network radio comedy program created by Chester Lauck and Norris Goff that was produced from 1931 to 1954. Modeled on life in the small town of Waters, Arkansas, near where Lauck and Goff grew up, the show proved immensely popular. In 1936, Waters changed its name to "Pine Ridge" after the show's fictional town.

Synopsis
The series was created by co-stars Chester Lauck (who played Columbus "Lum" Edwards) and Norris Goff (Abner Peabody). Lum always pronounced his own name as Ed'erds and was very annoyed if Abner or anyone brought up his full first name. The two characters performed as a double act, with Lum generally playing the straight man to Abner's attempts to break free from Lum's influence. As co-owners of the Jot 'em Down Store in the fictional town of Pine Ridge, Arkansas, the pair are constantly stumbling upon moneymaking ideas only to find themselves fleeced by nemesis Squire Skimp, before finally finding a way to redeem themselves. Lum and Abner played the hillbilly theme with deceptive cleverness.

In addition to the title characters, Lauck also played Grandpappy Spears and Cedric Weehunt while Goff played Abner, Squire Skimp, Llewelyn "Mousey" Grey, Dick Huddleston, and most of the other characters.

Lum and Abner, like most sitcoms of the era, had a live house band, in this case a string band in keeping with the show's hillbilly humor. Marshall Jones, before his adoption of the "Grandpa" persona that made him famous years later, was among the band's first members.

Show history
Lauck and Goff had known each other since childhood and attended the University of Arkansas together where they both joined the Sigma Chi fraternity. They performed locally and established a blackface act which led to an audition at radio station KTHS in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Prior to the audition, the two men decided to change their act and portray two hillbillies, due to the large number of blackface acts already in existence. After only a few shows in Hot Springs, they were picked up nationally by NBC, and Lum and Abner, sponsored by Quaker Oats, ran until 1932. Lauck and Goff performed several different characters, modeling many of them on the real-life residents of Waters, Arkansas.

When the Quaker contract expired, Lauck and Goff continued to broadcast on two Texas stations, WBAP (Fort Worth) and WFAA (Dallas). In 1933, The Ford Dealers of America became their sponsor for approximately a year. Horlicks Malted Milk, the 1934–37 sponsor, offered a number of promotional items, including almanacs and fictional Pine Ridge newspapers. During this period, the show was broadcast on Chicago's WGN (AM), one of the founding members of the Mutual Broadcasting System. Effective July 1, 1935, the program was also carried on WLW (Cincinnati, Ohio), KNX (Los Angeles, California), and KFRC (San Francisco, California). Along with The Lone Ranger, Lum and Abner was one of Mutual's most popular programs. In 1936, Dick Huddleston of Waters petitioned the United States Post Office to change the town's name to Pine Ridge. Postum cereal sponsored Lum and Abner in 1938–40, before Alka-Seltzer picked up the duo. Miles Laboratories, manufacturers of Alka-Seltzer and One-A-Day Vitamins, became the longest-running sponsor, backing the program from 1941 until 1948. Over the course of its life, Lum and Abner appeared on all four major radio networks: NBC, Mutual, CBS and ABC (formerly NBC Blue).

In 1948, the show changed from a 15-minute "comedic soap opera" to a 30-minute self-contained show. New writers were added, including Flying Tiger ace Robert T. Smith, along with an orchestra and a live audience. The new format was unpopular and the series came off the air in 1950. Lauck and Goff experimented with other formats during the hiatus, finally changing back to a 15-minute, Monday-Friday show on ABC in 1953, but the revived show was discontinued the following year due to competition from television and Goff's failing health (Goff would eventually recover and continue making media appearances well into the 1960s). The duo twice made attempts to transition to television, but neither effort was picked up by a television network.

Episode status
The team broadcast more than 5,000 shows, of which over 1,630 episodes exist today. The archive is extensive between 1935 and 1948, a rarity for 15-minute shows that were typically never recorded (most of its contemporary daytime programs have fewer than 100 episodes remaining). As with most old-time radio shows, very little pre-1935 content (in this case, two episodes) survive. Only a handful of post-1948 programs, and some of the 1953–54 revival, have survived; most recordings of those shows are believed to have been destroyed.

Films
Like several of their contemporaries, Lauck and Goff had the opportunity to bring their characters to life in movies. The Lum & Abner radio show of March 29, 1940, "The Store Closes to Shoot a Movie," announced a break in the radio series in order to make the first film of the series, Dreaming Out Loud, which was released the same year. At a rate of roughly one per year, another five films would be produced in the series.

 * Dreaming Out Loud (1940)
 * The Bashful Bachelor (1942)
 * Two Weeks to Live (1943)
 * So This Is Washington (1943)
 * Goin' to Town (1944)
 * Partners in Time (1946)

Ten years after the film series ended, by which point Lum and Abner had long left radio, a seventh film was released. 1956's Lum and Abner Abroad was originally made for television, with the film divided into three episodes. Conceived as a three-part pilot for a TV series and filmed on location in Yugoslavia, it featured none of the staff from previous films or the radio series other than Lauck and Goff themselves. The series was never picked up, with the three episodes airing as a film in theaters.

 * Lum and Abner Abroad (1956)

Legacy
As well as inspiring the program and its characters, Pine Ridge, Arkansas is also home to the Lum and Abner Museum, which opened in the 1970s and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A replica of the Jot 'em Down Store stands adjacent to the Museum. Other rural locations named after the show include Jot Em Down, Texas, Jot-Um-Down, North Carolina, and Pine Ridge, Oklahoma.

The National Lum and Abner Society
The National Lum and Abner Society, formed in 1984, published a bimonthly newsletter, The Jot 'Em Down Journal, until 2007. Between 1985 and 2005 the organization held 20 annual conventions (skipping 2004) in Pine Ridge and Mena, Arkansas, playing host to numerous veterans of the Lum and Abner radio programs and motion pictures. Since 2007, the NLAS has existed as an organization with free membership with its Jot 'Em Down Journal transferred to the NLAS website. Founding officers Sam Brown, Tim Hollis, and Donnie Pitchford have remained connected to the organization since the beginning.

NLAS Convention guest stars included radio–television–cinema veterans Roswell Rogers, Clarence Hartzell, Jerry Hausner, Elmore Vincent, Wendell Niles, Bobs Watson, Les Tremayne, Louise Currie, Willard Waterman, Parley Baer, Cathy Lee Crosby, Forrest Owen, Mary Lee Robb, Kay Linaker, Frank Bresee, Fred Foy, Barbar Fuller, Sam Edwards, Dick Beals, Rhoda Williams, Robie Lester, Ginny Tyler, Nancy Wible, and Dallas McKennon. Additionally, various family members and personal friends of Chester Lauck and Norris Goff were present.

The first NLAS "Reunion" took place in June 2011 as part of the annual Lum and Abner Festival in Mena, Arkansas to celebrate the 80th Anniversary of the Lum and Abner show as well as the 75th anniversary of the changing of the name of Waters, Arkansas to Pine Ridge. All 23 years of the NLAS publication The Jot 'Em Down Journal are now available free of charge (see External Links below for the National Lum and Abner Society) in PDF format as well as audio for the blind (or anyone who chooses to listen).

A final NLAS Convention was held in 2015 featuring guest stars John Rose (cartoonist of Barney Google and Snuffy Smith) and Mike Curtis (writer of Dick Tracy).

Plans are underway for a series of radio programs containing the audio contents of all 1985-2025 NLAS Conventions.

Lum and Abner comic strip
Early in 2011, negotiations between Ethan C. Nobles of firstarkansasnews.net, the Chester Lauck family and cartoonist Donnie Pitchford resulted in a new comic strip series based on the classic radio programs and its characters. Beginning June 5, 2011, Lum and Abner officially began appearing in a "Sunday strip" format with a new installment each Sunday. The comic strip made its newspaper debut in The Mena Star of Mena, Arkansas on Thursday, July 28, 2011. It has since been signed by The Standard of Amity, Arkansas, and the nationally distributed Today's Grocer.

Each strip is accompanied by an audio dramatization with voices, sound effects and music, a feature designed with blind fans of "old time radio" in mind, but one that any reader may access.

In April 2013, radio producer Joe Bevilacqua entered into an agreement with Donnie Pitchford to broadcast the Lum and Abner comics as part of his weekly radio show The Comedy-O-Rama Hour. The first two Lum and Abner radio comics premiered April 13, 2013.

The success of these broadcasts prompted the release of 100 All New “Lum & Abner” Comic Strips, an audiobook written and directed by Donnie Pitchford featuring a full cast. The three-hour-long audio theater is available from Waterlogg Productions and Blackstone Audio.

On Sunday, July 20, 2014, the characters of Lum and Abner were awarded a cameo appearance in the Harvey Award-winning Dick Tracy comic strip, written by Mike Curtis and illustrated by Joe Staton. Lum and Abner were introduced during the crossover in which Tracy rescues Annie, whose own comic strip ended in 2010.

In 2021, the comic strip celebrated the 90th anniversary of the first Lum and Abner radio broadcast as well as the 85th anniversary of the naming of Pine Ridge, Arkansas, along with the 10th anniversary of the strip.

title: Lum and Abner


text:
List of U.S. communities with Native-American majority populations

The following is a partial list of United States of America (U.S.) communities with Native-American majority populations. It includes United States cities and towns in which a majority (over half) of the population is Native American (American Indian or Alaska Native), according to data from the 2020 Census.

This list does not include locations in which the 2020 Census shows a plurality of the residents are Native American.

The list is organized by state and, within each state, by population size. It includes 23 states and 656 communities.

This is one of the lists of U.S. cities with non-white majority populations.


text:
René Boylesve

René Boylesve (14 April 1867 in La Haye-Descartes – 14 January 1926 in Paris), born René Marie Auguste Tardiveau, was a French writer and a literary critic.

Biography
Boylesve was orphaned early and went to school in Poitiers and Tours. In 1895 he began to publish articles in various journals. He is considered the heir of Honoré de Balzac and precursor of Marcel Proust. In 1919 he was inducted into the Académie française.

Works

 * Le Médecin des Dames de Néans (1896),
 * Le Parfum des Îles Borromées (1898)
 * Mademoiselle Cloque (1899),
 * La Becquée (1901),
 * La Leçon d’amour dans un parc (1902),
 * L’Enfant à la balustrade (1903),
 * Le Meilleur ami (1909),
 * La Jeune Fille Bien élevée (1909),
 * Madeleine jeune femme (1912),
 * Élise (1921),
 * Nouvelles leçons d’amour dans un parc (1924),
 * Souvenirs du jardin détruit (1924),
 * Je vous ai désirée un soir (1925),
 * Feuilles tombées (1927).

title: René Boylesve


text:
Talk:JPMorgan Chase

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 4 external links on JPMorgan Chase. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090122224028/http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103 to https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a9FHelZ13yFM&refer=news
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100613163056/http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087 to https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aExgpC1XyF7g
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100321165747/http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102 to https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&sid=a.938AxCO1mU&refer=uk
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100131100131/http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aKdo.y7rr1ys&pos=3 to https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aKdo.y7rr1ys&pos=3

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 02:03, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Pay ratio -- add to info box
I would like to see the pay ratio, and possibly associated data like median pay and CEO pay added to the infobox. I have mentioned this article where I requested a "pay ratio" parameter be added to the infobox for that purpose: Template_talk:Infobox_company. --David Tornheim (talk) 13:38, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Proposed merge of The Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A. London into JPMorgan Chase
Unsourced; no evidence of notability; could easily be mentioned at JPMorgan Chase -- Another Believer ( Talk ) 04:18, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
 * You know, you don't have to discuss trivial merges like this. You could have done it yourself. - dcljr (talk) 05:42, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

 * Support ~ ~mitch~ (talk) 14:59, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment. Perhaps not as trivial a merge as I first suspected, since the information itself might be considered too trivial (if correct) to survive anywhere else. Even if simply redirected (without a merge), I'm not sure what the best target would be. The one suggested by Another Believer? Chase Bank? J.P. Morgan in the United Kingdom? - dcljr (talk) 03:15, 28 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Support Alan Islas (talk) 22:49, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment. Page has been redirected by without merging. - dcljr (talk) 03:20, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment. J.P. Morgan Asset Management met a similar fate in October 2017. – wbm1058 (talk) 04:10, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

nonsense (at least 2 edits since 11:02, 25 Sept 2022)
While trying to find the edit (which I did eventually find; it was perpetrated at [the time and date] "03:21, 26 September 2022", and here is [a link to]: the DIFF listing!) whereby some blatant nonsense such as "'restored everything back in name of Dr Luis Enrique Valdez Rico Berkshire Hathaway Winsdor Winston Churchill king of England Brithies Conolies '"was introduced,
 * ... I happened to notice that this edit -- the edit that created the "Revision as of 01:29, 26 September 2022" version -- "also" introduced some similarly crazy (but perhaps unrelated?) blatant nonsense. Oh wait! ('never mind'!); That edit -- the edit "of 01:29, 26 September 2022" -- has [apparently] since been reverted!

So ... shouldn't the 'other' culprit -- the one that I was searching for, and that I finally found -- also be reverted? (See [the link to] "the DIFF listing" above.)

And: shouldn't some steps be taken, to try to detect and revert such [instances of] blatant nonsense in the future? I think it is worth giving some thought to the question of what should / could be done.

'''Thanks for listening! '''

Oh, wait a minute;   Update!:    It now seems that ALL of the edits to this article since "Revision as of 11:02, 25 September 2022" -- (by "AnomieBOT") <--[QUOTE: "(Dating maintenance tags: Cn)"]"except for one -- which was also by AnomieBOT -- where the edit comment began with '(Reverting possible vandalism [...]'"were ALL blatant nonsense and should be reverted. I do not do such "wholesale" reverting very often; but I intend to do some now. I will go to the "Revision as of 11:02, 25 September 2022" version -- ("by AnomieBOT") and just ... "edit" that, (and maybe add a blank, somewhere in a place where it will not hurt) and ... in the edit comment, I will reference (that is, mention, and link to) this section of this "Talk:" page.

I fully expect a warning, ... to the effect that I will be wiping out several edits, "since" 11:02, 25 September 2022. Duly noted! I guess I will read that warning, but ... (IMHO) in this case it ["wiping out several edits"] is exactly what is needed.

Thanks for your patience!

PS:  Should we ^H^H someone be "considering" making this article "semi- protected"? or something like that?

THANK YOU! Mike Schwartz (talk) 07:45, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

slight update
It turns out that ... it seems that, all of the "possible vandalism" between the "Revision as of 11:02, 25 September 2022" and the Revision as of 01:53, 26 September 2022 has already been reverted ... by a bot called "ClueBot NG", during the edit -- (here is [a link to] the DIFF) -- that created the "Revision as of 01:53, 26 September 2022".

So, hence, to avoid confusion, and to simplify things, ... when I fire up the WABAC machine, or the magical "Revision history" machine, there is no need to go any further back than ... the version by "ClueBot NG" that reverted some "possible vandalism" at 01:53 on 26 September 2022.

So ... I apologize if the mention [above] about going all the way back to "11:02, 25 September 2022" (and wiping out several edits since then) caused anyone to have a heart attack (figuratively). The "reverting" need not go any further back, than ... the "Revision as of 01:53, 26 September 2022" version.

I hope this helps. --Mike Schwartz (talk) 08:15, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Undue Weight (Jan 2023 additions)
In January 2023, an anonymous user applied Undue Weight tags to several sections. No discussion has occurred, but 16 months of editing has. Should we remove the tags, since anon provided no guidance then, and no discussion has occurred since? 17:37, 19 April 2024 (UTC) Ishu (talk) 17:37, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

RFC: Who the founders are of merged banks
See discussion here.  Imcdc  Contact  02:00, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

 * ,, , , At the link provided above, Imcdc has opened a debate regarding which figures (if any) should qualify as JPMorgan Chase's founders. If you have an opinion on the matter, please take a moment to share your opinions there.Emiya1980 (talk) 03:24, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Emiya1980 (talk) 06:44, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:JPMorgan Chase


text:
Sarah Caldwell

Sarah Caldwell (March 6, 1924 – March 23, 2006) was an American opera conductor, impresario, and stage director.

Early life
Caldwell was born in Maryville, Missouri, and grew up in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She was a child prodigy and gave public performances on the violin by the time she was ten years old. She graduated from Fayetteville High School at the age of 14.

Caldwell graduated from Hendrix College in 1944 and attended the University of Arkansas as well as the New England Conservatory of Music. She won a scholarship as a viola player at the Berkshire Music Center in 1946. In 1947, she staged Vaughan Williams's Riders to the Sea. For 11 years she served as the chief assistant to Boris Goldovsky.

Career
Caldwell moved to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1952 and became head of the Boston University opera workshop. In 1957 she started the Boston Opera Group with $5,000. This became the Opera Company of Boston, where she staged a wide range of operas and established a reputation for producing difficult works under pressure. She was also known for putting together interesting variations on standard operas.

Productions with Opera Company Boston and related companies
Highlights in Boston that she conducted and/or stage directed included Le voyage de la lune, Otello (with Tito Gobbi as Iago), Command Performance (world premiere), Manon and Faust (both with Beverly Sills and Norman Treigle), Lulu (U.S. East Coast premiere), I puritani (with Dame Joan Sutherland), Intolleranza (U.S. premiere), Boris Godunov (original version), Hippolyte et Aricie (U.S. stage premiere, with Plácido Domingo), La bohème (with Renata Tebaldi and Domingo), Moses und Aron (U.S. premiere), The Rake's Progress, Bluebeard's Castle, Carmen (with Marilyn Horne), Macbeth (original version), The Good Soldier Schweik, The Fisherman and His Wife (world premiere, with Muriel Costa-Greenspon), La finta giardiniera, Norma (with Sills), Les Troyens, Don Carlos (U.S. premiere of original French version), Don Quichotte, War and Peace (U.S. stage premiere, with Arlene Saunders), Benvenuto Cellini (U.S. premiere, with Jon Vickers), I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Montezuma (U.S. premiere), Ruslan and Ludmila (U.S. premiere), Rigoletto (with Sills, Richard Fredricks, and Susanne Marsee), Stiffelio (U.S. stage premiere), La damnation de Faust, Tosca (with Magda Olivero), La vide breve, El retablo de maese Pedro, The Ice Break (U.S. premiere), Aïda (with Shirley Verrett in the title role and Markella Hatziano as Amneris), Die Soldaten (U.S. premiere), The Invisible City of Kitezh, Taverner (U.S. premiere), The Makropoulos Case (with Anja Silja, William Cochran, and Chester Ludgin), Médée (in French and Greek with Josephine Barstow in the title role and Markella Hatziano as Neris), Dead Souls (U.S. premiere), Der Rosenkavalier (with Dame Gwyneth Jones) and, finally, The Balcony (world premiere, 1990).

In the 1980s, Opera New England, a branch of Ms. Caldwell's Opera Company of Boston, was the touring ambassador of opera to the New England states. She employed young professional singers in productions that were fully staged and with orchestra. She organized financing through local, state and federal funding which included the National Endowment for the Arts, Massachusetts Council of the Arts & Humanities, Connecticut Commission on the Arts, New Hampshire Commission of the Arts and the Maine Commission on the Arts & Humanities.

Productions in New York, Pennsylvania and Minnesota
At the New York City Opera, Caldwell staged Der junge Lord and Ariadne auf Naxos (with Carol Neblett), both in 1973.

She became the second woman to conduct the New York Philharmonic in 1974 with an all-female programme of composers including Ruth Crawford Seeger, Lili Boulanger and Thea Musgrave.

On 13 January 1976, Caldwell became the first female conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, with La traviata (with Sills).

In 1976, she both conducted and directed Il barbiere di Siviglia (with Sills and Alan Titus), which was televised over PBS. She also directed John La Montaine's U.S. Bicentennial opera Be Glad Then, America with Odetta (Muse for America), Donald Gramm (various patriots), Richard Lewis (King George III), David Lloyd (Town Crier), and the Penn State University Choirs and the Pittsburgh Symphony.

In 1978, she led L'elisir d'amore at the Metropolitan, with José Carreras and Judith Blegen. She appeared with the New York Philharmonic, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

In 1979 she conducted and directed a televised production of Falstaff (with Donald Gramm).

Caldwell also directed one non-musical production, the 1981 Lincoln Center staging of Shakespeare's Macbeth, presented on cable TV in 1982. It starred Philip Anglim and Maureen Anderman, with a then-unknown Kelsey Grammer in the supporting role of Ross.

Awards
In 1975 Caldwell received a D.F.A. from Bates College. In 1997 she received the National Medal of Arts. She has been inducted into the Arkansas Entertainers Hall of Fame.

Personal life, death and legacy
Sarah Caldwell lived for a time at the architecturally significant Lincoln House in Lincoln, Massachusetts.

Caldwell retired in 2004. She died in 2006 from heart failure at Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine. She is remembered on the Boston Women's Heritage Trail.

Studio discography

 * Donizetti: Don Pasquale (Sills, Kraus, Titus, Gramm; Caldwell, 1978) EMI

Videography

 * Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia (Sills, H.Price, Titus, Gramm, Ramey; Caldwell, Caldwell, 1976) [live]

Quotes

 * Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can - there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did.
 * If you approach an opera as though it were something that always went a certain way, that's what you get. I approach an opera as though I didn't know it.
 * If you can sell green toothpaste in this country, you can sell opera.
 * Success is important only to the extent that it puts one in a position to do more things one likes to do.

Adapted from the article Sarah Caldwell, from Wikinfo, licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

title: Sarah Caldwell


text:
John Newcombe

John David Newcombe AO OBE (born 23 May 1944) is an Australian former professional tennis player. He is one of the few men to have attained a world No. 1 ranking in both singles and doubles. At the majors, he won seven singles titles, a former record 17 men's doubles titles, and two mixed doubles titles. He also contributed to five Davis Cup titles for Australia during an age when the Davis Cup was deemed as significant as the majors. Tennis magazine rated him the 10th best male player of the period 1965–2005.

Biography
Newcombe played several sports as a boy before devoting himself to tennis. Newcombe's powerful serve and volley was the backbone of his attacking game. He frequently came up with a second-serve ace. He was the Australian junior champion from 1961 to 1963 and was a member of Australia's Davis Cup winning team in 1964. He won his first Grand Slam title in 1965 by taking the Australian Championships doubles title with fellow Australian Tony Roche. That same year, the duo won the Wimbledon doubles title. They teamed to win the Australian doubles championship three more times, Wimbledon another four times and the US Championships in 1967, the French Championships in 1967, and the French Open in 1969. They won 12 Grand Slam titles, which remained the all-time record for a men's doubles team until 2013, when it was surpassed by Bob and Mike Bryan.

Newcombe was the top ranked amateur in the world in 1967 according to Lance Tingay, World Tennis and an Ulrich Kaiser panel of 13 experts and was the first recipient of the Martini and Rossi award after finishing top of their points system in 1967. As a professional, Newcombe was ranked world number one in 1970 by Tingay, World Tennis, Bud Collins, Mike Gibson and Tennis magazine (Germany). He was also ranked world number one in 1971 by Tingay, Rex Bellamy, Collins, Frank Rostron and World Tennis and he and Stan Smith were joint recipients of The 'Martini and Rossi' Award, voted for by 11 journalists. In 1973 Newcombe was ranked world No. 1 by Tingay and Judith Elian. In singles play, he was a two-time winner of the Australian Open, a three-time winner of Wimbledon, and a two-time winner of the US Open.

In January 1968, Newcombe signed a three-year professional contract with Lamar Hunt's World Championship Tennis (WCT) and became part of the "Handsome Eight", the original eight WCT players. Newcome was guaranteed $135,000 annually, which was higher than the best paid baseball player received that year. As a member of the WCT professional tour group and the Players' Union, Newcombe was banned by the International Tennis Federation from competing in the 1972 Wimbledon Championships and he joined the ATP boycott of the event in 1973.

Newcombe was the WCT champion for 1974, defeating Okker, Smith, and Borg in the final.

Newcombe's final major win was the 1975 Australian Open, where he won a series of five set matches against Masters, Roche in the semifinal (saving match points), and Connors in a classic final. The final against Connors may have been his finest performance in tennis.

Newcombe was the last of the Australians who dominated tennis in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.

In his 1979 autobiography, Jack Kramer, the long-time tennis promoter and great player himself, included Newcombe in his list of the 21 greatest players of all time.

Newcombe was captain of the Australian Davis Cup team from 1995 until 2000.

He was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1985 and in 1986 his achievements were recognised with his induction into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

Singles
Source: ITF

Distinctions

 * Newcombe served as chairman of the International Tennis Players Association which formed in 1969.
 * He served as president of the Association of Tennis Professionals in 1977 and 1978.
 * Overall, he won 26 Grand Slam titles in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles (27 if his 1965 mixed doubles shared win is added).
 * Newcombe was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1978 for services to sport, and Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 1989, "for service to the community, particularly to youth and to those with physical disabilities".
 * Newcombe and Rod Laver are the only players to ever win both the US Open and Wimbledon men's singles titles as an amateur and as a professional. The grass surfaces favoured his game, and the French Open's clay surface was the only major singles championship he never won. However, he did take the French doubles title on three occasions.
 * He is an Australian Living Treasure.
 * The Newcombe Medal, awarded yearly to the most outstanding Australian tennis player, is named in honour of his tennis achievements.
 * He runs the John Newcombe Tennis Ranch & Tennis Academy in New Braunfels, Texas.
 * In 2001, he was revealed to be President George W. Bush's drinking companion on the night of 4 September 1976, when Bush was charged with driving under the influence. This controversy surfaced during the 2000 US Presidential Election.
 * He partners with Cliff Drysdale to develop the John Newcombe Estate & Country Club in New Braunfels, Texas.

title: John Newcombe


text:
Wayland Holyfield

Wayland D. Holyfield (March 15, 1942 – May 6, 2024) was an American songwriter and leader in the songwriting community.

Personal life
Wayland Holyfield was born in Mallettown, Conway County, Arkansas. He was educated in Arkansas public schools and attended Hendrix College at Conway, Arkansas before graduating from the University of Arkansas with a degree in marketing in 1965. Prior to his musical career Holyfield was a wholesale appliance salesman and advertising account manager. He and his wife, Nancy, had three grown children, Greg, Mark and Lee.

Holyfield died at his home in Nashville on May 6, 2024, at the age of 82.

Early career
In 1972, Holyfield left Arkansas and moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a songwriting career and his first song was recorded in 1973. He received his first number one hit with "Rednecks, White Socks and Blue Ribbon Beer". In 1975, Holyfield achieved his first solo number one hit "You're My Best Friend" recorded by Don Williams.

In addition to his collaborations with Williams, Holyfield's songs have been recorded by numerous Nashville singers including George Strait, Reba McEntire, Barbara Mandrell, Kathy Mattea, Tammy Wynette, Conway Twitty, Charley Pride, Randy Travis, The Judds, Mark Chesnutt, John Anderson, Mel Street, Gary Allan, Johnny Rodriguez, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, The Oak Ridge Boys, Ernest Tubb, Anne Murray and Charly McClain. During his career Holyfield was writer of over 40 Top Ten hits and 14 #1 hits. Some of his best-known songs are "Could I Have This Dance", "Some Broken Hearts Never Mend", "'Til the Rivers All Run Dry", "You're the Best Break This Old Heart Ever Had", "Only Here for a Little While", "Meanwhile", and "Nobody Likes Sad Songs".

In his home state of Arkansas, Holyfield is most famous for his song "Arkansas, You Run Deep In Me" which was written for the 1986 Arkansas Sesquicentennial celebration. It was named one of Arkansas' official state songs in 1987. Holyfield played the song at the inauguration of President Bill Clinton in 1993.

Leadership and awards
Holyfield was the chairman of the Nashville Songwriters Foundation. He has been a member of the board of directors of the Nashville Songwriters Association International, (NSAI) for almost 25 years. Since 1990 he has been serving on the ASCAP board of directors, the first Nashville songwriter to do so, and as of 2007 will have served for almost 17 years.

Holyfield received a Grammy Award nomination in 1972 for "Could I Have This Dance" and in 1979, he received the NSAI Presidential Award. Holyfield has won 14 BMI Performance Awards and 16 ASCAP Performance Awards.

Holyfield was the 1983 ASCAP Country Writer of the Year co-winner and in 1992 he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and to the Arkansas Entertainers Hall of Fame.

title: Wayland Holyfield