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Northern Catalonia

Northern Catalonia, North Catalonia or French Catalonia is the formerly Catalan-speaking and cultural territory ceded to France by Spain through the signing of the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659 in exchange of France's effective renunciation on the formal protection that it had given to the recently founded Catalan Republic. The area corresponds roughly to the modern French département of the Pyrénées-Orientales which were historically part of Catalonia since the old County of Barcelona, and lasted during the times of the Crown of Aragon and the Principality of Catalonia until they were given to France by Spain.

The equivalent term in French, Catalogne du Nord, is used nowadays, although less often than the more politically neutral Roussillon (Catalan: Rosselló); Roussillon, though, historically did not comprise Vallespir, Conflent and Cerdagne (Cerdanya). The term Pays Catalan (País Català), "Catalan Country" is sometimes used.

Geography
Northern Catalonia forms a triangle between the Pyrenees to the south, the Corbières Massif to the north-west and the Mediterranean Sea to the east. The Roussillon plain in the east, by far the most populated area, is formed by the flood plains of the rivers Tech, Têt, and Agly (Tec, Tet, Aglí). The districts of Vallespir and Conflent cover the upper valleys of the Tech and the Têt respectively. The massif of the Canigou (Canigó), 2785 m, dominates much of the territory.

The climate is of the Mediterranean type, with hot, dry summers and winters which are relatively mild, at least on the Roussillon plain where snow is rare.

The city of Perpignan (Perpinyà) accounts for over a quarter of the population, over one-third of its urban area is taken into account, and is the only major administrative and service center. Major road and rail links run north–south through Northern Catalonia between France and Spain, while a railway line also links Perpignan to Latour-de-Carol (Catalan: La Tor de Querol) via Prades (Catalan: Prada de Conflent or Prada).

Cerdagne
Haute-Cerdagne (Alta Cerdanya) is geographically distinct from the rest of Northern Catalonia, lying to the south of the Pyrenean watershed in the upper valley of the Segre. It is a mountainous and sparsely-populated district, and includes the town of Llívia (pop. 1252 (2005) ) which is an exclave of Spain.

The district lies on the most direct route between Toulouse (Tolosa de Lengadoc) and Barcelona (via Foix and Ripoll), and a railway line still links the two cities via Latour-de-Carol (La Tor de Querol).

Carolingian counties and the County of Barcelona
Northern Catalonia formed part of the southern counties of the Frankinsh Empire (historiographycally known as the Marca Hispanica), established by Charlemagne as a buffer territory against Al-Andalus forces. As such, it was divided into feudal counties, Rosselló, Vallespir, Conflent north of the Pyrenees and Cerdanya to the south. By the end of the ninth century, these counties had gained de facto independence from the Carolingian kings and operated as princely states (whose rulers nevertheless retained the title of count).

As the seigneury of the counties became hereditary, the total number of Catalan counts fell steadily. One individual often had the charge of several counties, but these were not always transmitted based on primogeniture. Hence Count Miró II the Young, third son of Wilfred I the Hairy, inherited the counties of Cerdanya and Conflent from his father in 897, and the counties of Besalú and Vallespir from his elder brother Sunyer I when the latter became Count of Barcelona in 911.

The Counts of Rosselló, in alliance with their cousins the Counts of Empuriés, tried to resist this dilution of their power. However, the Counts of Barcelona steadily gained suzerainty over the other Catalan counts, a process that was virtually complete by the twelfth century. The last Count of Rosselló, Girard II, left his title to the Crown of Aragon on his death in 1172 to prevent the territory passing to his illegitimate half-brothers.

Principality of Catalonia and the Monarchy of Spain
Royal administration in the Principality of Catalonia within the Crown of Aragon was organized based on vegueries, under the charge of a veguer appointed by the King of Aragon as Count of Barcelona. In Northern Catalonia, the vegueries followed closely the boundaries of the old counties. The district of Capcir was a sotsvegueria, based around the castle of Puigbalador (French: Puyvalador) but subordinate to the vegueria of Conflent.

The Treaty of Corbeil (1258) confirmed the frontier between the lands of the Kingdom of France and the Crown of Aragon as the Cerbères, leaving the Occitan district of Fenolheda to France.

On the death of King James I the Conqueror in 1276, Northern Catalonia was combined with the Balearic Isles to form a new Kingdom of Majorca, which passed to James II while the rest of the territory of the Crown of Aragon passed to his brother Peter III. This division satisfied neither branch of the family, and the Kingdom of Majorca was retaken militarily by the Crown of Aragon in 1344, reintegrating the counties of Roussillon and Cerdanya into the Principality of Catalonia.

After the Treaty of the Pyrenees and cession to France
The Treaty of the Pyrenees of 1659 ceded Northern Catalonia to France, where it became the province of Roussillon. The French provinces were abolished at the Revolution (Law of 1789-12-22), and Roussillon was joined with the district of Fenouillèdes (Occitan: Fenolheda) to form the département of the Pyrénées-Orientales, with Perpignan (Perpinyà) as its administrative centre.

Present day
The département of the Pyrénées-Orientales is divided into the arrondissements of Céret (Catalan: Ceret), Perpignan (Perpinyà) and Prades (Prada de Conflent), which are further divided into cantons and communes. Perpignan and sixteen surrounding communes are also associated in the Communauté d'agglomération Têt Méditerranée, created in 2001. Enclaved in the southwest of the département there is the Spanish (Catalonia) exclave of Llívia.

As is common, the present-day arrondissements do not correspond to pre-Revolutionary boundaries. The arrondissement of Prades (Prada) covers the whole of Haute-Cerdagne (Alta Cerdanya) and Conflent (including Capcir), as well as about a third of Fenolheda (not part of the province of Roussillon). The arrondissement of Céret covers the whole of Vallespir but also the Côte Vermeille (Costa Vermella), which was historically under the control of the counts and veguers of Rosselló at Perpinyà (Perpignan).

Catalan writers sometimes speak of the "comarques of Northern Catalonia". Unlike the autonomous community of Catalonia, these comarques have no administrative significance, although they usually correspond to a certain historical and geographical unity. A commonly used division is that of Joan Becat in his 1977 work Atles de Catalunya Nord, which follows closely the boundaries of the former vegueries except insofar as it promotes the former sotsvegueria of Capcir (177 km2, pop. 1532 (1990) ) to a full comarca.

Politics
The region is divided among those who support a union with France and those who support reuniting with Catalonia. A large majority of Northern Catalans oppose reuniting with Catalonia, but the Catalan Unity political party promotes the idea. The party has had some success since 1993, winning seats in municipal elections. It is now the most popular Catalan nationalist party in the region.

Northern Catalans are proud of their Catalan heritage and have developed a "Northern Catalan" identity. However, unlike their Southern neighbors in Spanish Catalonia, the Catalan identity is not a nationalist movement in French Catalonia. According to a 2020 study, French Catalans experienced mass education in the second half of the 19th century, leading them to adopt French patriotism. Catalans in Spain were mass educated in the early 20th century locally by Catalans and not by a strong Spanish state, which led to the formation of a salient Catalan national identity.

In 2016, Northern Catalonia was merged with other areas of Occitania to form a new French region. This has led to fears that the Occitan language and culture will be given precedence over the Catalan language and culture.

In December 2017, Express.co.uk reported that 2000 people took part in a protest in Perpignan, in order to get the French government to hold a referendum on Northern Catalonia reuniting with Southern Catalonia. Northern Catalans helped print ballot slips for the 2017 Catalan independence referendum.

Language
Catalan is spoken in all regions of Northern Catalonia except for Fenolleda which speaks the related (and mutually intelligible) Occitan language.

In Perpignan, where a quarter of the population lives, 44% know the Catalan language.

Culture
The Catalan folk dance Sardana is a dance in the region. Northern Catalans support the USAP rugby union team and the Catalans Dragons rugby league team. There are four castells (Catalan human towers) teams in Northern Catalonia.

Recognition
French is the only official language in France as a whole, and therefore of these municipalities. Catalan, in its Northern Catalan variety, is however recognized as a regional language by the region of Languedoc-Roussillon which contains Northern Catalunya; this recognition provides cultural support in education and public media, with some more regional power since the laws of regionalization of France during the 1980s. The language is estimated to be spoken by 34% of the population of Northern Catalonia, but understood by 65%.

On 10 December 2007, the General Council of the Pyrénées-Orientales proclaimed Catalan as one of the languages of the department, alongside French and Occitan (in Fenouillèdes), The 'Charter in Support of Catalan' was adopted which called for the inclusion of the Catalan language on signs and its use in material produced by the administrative department.

Suppression
In 1700, the government of Louis XIV prohibited the use of the Catalan language in official documents, although the government only irregularly enforced the edict throughout the eighteenth century.

In Perpignan Catalan was also prohibited from being used by priests during Mass.

From 1700 all public acts had to be written in French, from 1738 this was extended to include registers of births, marriages and deaths.

In the 1950s, after centuries of being forbidden in education, the Catalan language was permitted to be studied for one hour per week in secondary school. In the 1970s, the Arrels Association and la Bressola network of private schools started to offer complete bilingual French/Catalan classes from nursery up to secondary education.

Leisure
North Catalonia is one of just two regions in France where Spanish-suited playing cards are used. The region has its own French Catalan pattern cards which are used to play local games like a variant of Spanish Truc.

Media

 * Flaix FM radio station
 * Ràdio Arrels radio station
 * Catalunya Info radio station
 * La Clau magazine in Catalan & French
 * Dimonis magazine
 * Editorial del Trabucaire publishing house
 * Llibreria Catalana Catalan bookstore in Perpinyà (Perpignan)
 * Mirmanda Cultural Journal in Catalan & French

Associations

 * La Bressola – organises primary education in Catalan
 * La Porta dels Països Catalans
 * Aire Nou de Bao

Essays

 * Qui som els catalans del nord? (Who are we Northern Catalans?)
 * Catalan, Occitan and French toponomy in Northern Catalonia

Miscellaneous sites

 * Catalunya-Nord.com
 * VilaWeb Catalunya Nord

title: Northern Catalonia


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Paul Fleischman

Paul Fleischman (born 1952) is an American writer of children's books. He and his father Sid Fleischman have both won the Newbery Medal from the American Library Association recognizing the year's "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children". For the body of his work he was the United States author nominee for the international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2012.

Early life
Paul Fleischman was born in Monterey, California and raised in Santa Monica, California, the son of children's book author Sid Fleischman. At 19, he took a cross-country bicycle and train trip which ended with him living in a 200-year-old house in New Hampshire. The experience led to his historical fiction dealing with the Puritans' Indian wars, colonial peddlers, Philadelphia's yellow fever epidemic, and the Civil War. He attended college at University of California Berkeley and the University of New Mexico. Before writing full-time, he worked as a bagel baker, library shelver, bookstore clerk, and proofreader, the last leading to his grammar watchdog groups Colonwatch and The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to English.

Career
Fleischman's first books were written while he was still in college, inspired by his reading of folklore. His musical interests are reflected in his collections of poems for two and four speakers, so-called chamber music for speaking voices. Multiple points of view have been a hallmark of his fiction, beginning with Bull Run (1993), one of the first multiple-viewpoint novels published for children. This format was further explored in Seedfolks, the 50-voice aural collage Seek, the seven-plays-in-one Zap, and the joined Cinderella variants in Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal. The importance of history, community, art, and imagination have been frequent themes in his work.

Awards
Fleischman won the 1989 Newbery Medal for Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices, only two years after his father won it for The Whipping Boy. Graven Images received a Newbery Honor award in 1983. He won a National Book Award nomination for Breakout in 2003, the 1994 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction for Bull Run, the 2002 California Young Reader Medal for Weslandia, Boston Globe–Horn Book Award honors for Joyful Noise and Saturnalia, the PEN Center USA Literary Award for The Dunderheads (2010), and the Christopher Medal for The Matchbox Diary (2013). Eyes Wide Open: Going Behind the Environmental Headlines (2014) was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, received the Green Earth Book Award from The Nature Generation, and won the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award. Paul Fleischman has also won awards from the Commonwealth Club of California and the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.

For the body of his work, he was the United States' nominee for the 2012 international Hans Christian Andersen Award. He also received the Leo Politi Golden Author Award given by California Readers in 2005 and the Horace Mann Upstanders Lifetime Achievement Award given by Antioch University in 2014.

For adults

 * "Swat Radio", The New Yorker (November 24, 1997)
 * A Book: Literary & Visual Musings on the Letter A [contributor], The Scribes 8 (1997)
 * Logomaniacs (2010), play
 * He Walked Among Us (New York: Argo Navis, 2012), novel

 * Articles
 * "Sound and Sense", The Horn Book Magazine (September/October 1986)
 * "Sid Fleischman", Horn Book (July/August 1987)
 * "Paul Fleischman", Something About the Author Autobiography Series, Vol. 20, pp. 219–31
 * "The Accidental Artist", School Library Journal (April 20 1969)

For children

 * Picture books
 * The Birthday Tree (1979, 2008)
 * The Animal Hedge (1983, 2003)
 * Rondo in C (1988)
 * Shadow Play (1990)
 * Time Train (1991)
 * Weslandia (1999)
 * Lost: A Story in String (2000)
 * Sidewalk Circus (2004)
 * Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal: A Worldwide Cinderella (2007)
 * The Dunderheads (2009)
 * The Dunderheads Behind Bars (2012)
 * The Matchbox Diary (2013)
 * First Light, First Life: A Worldwide Creation Story (2016)
 * Fearsome Giant, Fearless Child: A Worldwide Jack and the Beanstalk Story (2019)

 * Younger fiction
 * Half-A-Moon Inn (1980)
 * Finzel The Farsighted (1983), illustrated by Marcia Sewall
 * Phoebe Danger, Detective (1983)

 * Short stories
 * Graven Images (1982, 2006), collection
 * Coming-and-Going Men (1985), collection

 * Plays
 * Mind's Eye (1999)
 * Zap (2005)

 * Poetry
 * I Am Phoenix: Poems for Two Voices (1985)
 * Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices (1988)
 * Big Talk: Poems for Four Voices (2000)

 * Novels
 * Path of the Pale Horse (1983)
 * Rear-View Mirrors (1986)
 * Saturnalia (1990)
 * The Borning Room (1991)
 * Bull Run (1993)
 * A Fate Totally Worse than Death (1995)
 * Seedfolks (1997)
 * Whirligig (1998)
 * Seek (2001)
 * Breakout (2003)

 * Nonfiction
 * Townsend's Warbler (1992)
 * Copier Creations (1993)
 * Dateline: Troy (1996, 2006)
 * "Interview with a Shrimp", When I Was Your Age, Vol. Two (1999)
 * Cannibal in the Mirror (2000)
 * Eyes Wide Open: Going Behind the Environmental Headlines (2014)
 * No Map, Great Trip: A Young Writer's Road to Page One (2019)
 * Alphamaniacs: Builders of 26 Wonders of the Word (2020)

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

title: Paul Fleischman


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David Ackles

David Thomas Ackles (February 20, 1937 – March 2, 1999) was an American singer-songwriter, pianist, and child actor. He recorded four albums between 1968 and 1973.

Describing Ackles' style in 2003, critic Colin McElligatt wrote, "An unlikely clash of anachronistic show business and modern-day lyricism...deeply informs his recorded output. Alternately calling to mind Hoagy Carmichael, Irving Berlin, Robbie Robertson, Tim Hardin, and Scott Walker, Ackles forged an utterly unique sound out of stray parts that comprise a whole that is as uncompromising as it is unrivaled."

Although he never gained wide commercial success, he influenced other artists, especially British singer-songwriters such as Elvis Costello, Elton John, and Phil Collins, all of whom declared themselves fans of Ackles. After Ackles' death Costello said, "It's a mystery to me why his wonderful songs are not better known."

Early life
Ackles said of his birthplace, Rock Island, Illinois: "Not a bad place for an incipient songwriter to get a start." His mother came from a family of English music hall performers and his father was a musician. His family moved to Southern California, and Los Angeles became his lifelong home.

For a few years Ackles was a child actor, appearing in six of the eight films in Columbia Pictures' Rusty children's film series made from 1945 to 1949. He played the character "Peanuts" in the second film in the series (1946's The Return Of Rusty, directed by William Castle) and the uncredited role of Roger "Tuck" Worden in the last five.

His song "Family Band," on the American Gothic album, "has often been mistaken for a parody, but the story of singing hymns in church on a Sunday evening, 'when my dad played bass, my mom played the drums, and I played piano, and Jesus sang the song,'" was autobiographical. "I come from a very strong, almost doctrinaire Christian background, having been raised—God help me—a Presbyterian." he said. "He was a deeply religious and spiritual man," his wife said of him, "a privately spiritual man who did in fact take part in a community of the church, had a daily ritual of prayer." "[G]oing to church, thinking of things spiritually and having a close relationship with God was very important to him." She thought this may have added to his estrangement from the pop music business of the 1970s.

As children he and his sister performed vaudeville-style duets; they later "mutated" into a folk duo. "We sang the most obscure folk songs we could find. The more obscure they were, the more people liked them." He had known from childhood that he wanted to write songs and produce music, "But a recording artist? Not on your life!"

He studied English literature at the University of Southern California, spending his junior year at the University of Edinburgh, where he studied "West Saxon, the origins of the English language". He earned a master's degree in Film Studies at USC. In 1997, when asked why he chose to major in English rather than music, he said, "I wanted to learn to do it all, which meant learning the construction of poetry, so I could write my own lyrics and play construction so that I could write the book to whatever musical I was creating. In the end, it in no way limited my horizons, being an English major. In fact it opened up the possibility to do so many things." His wife said, "His ultimate goal when he was younger was to write, produce, direct, design the sets, do the music, and star in his work. And he could have done it. That's where his heart was."

While working a string of rent-paying jobs after college—"private detective, security guard, and circus roustabout"—he was simultaneously composing "musicals, ballet scores, and choral pieces. These early experiences and enthusiasms were to leave a mark on his songwriting, and helped form a distinctively theatrical singing style."

Starting music career
Ackles began his recording career as a staff songwriter for Jac Holzman at Elektra Records. None of the songs he wrote were right for any of Elektra's artists, and Holzman suggested that Ackles record his own work. His first album, the eponymous David Ackles (1968), did not achieve commercial success, even when reissued in 1971 as The Road to Cairo, but it was influential among singer-songwriters. It featured future members of the group Rhinoceros. This and his follow-up 1969 release, Subway to the Country, contained songs that melded strong theatrical influences with piano-based rock. His songs reflected the views of their character-narrators, many of whom were societal outcasts. In this way he presaged many of the songs of Bruce Springsteen and Steve Earle.

Subway to the Country was given a larger budget. At first he and Al Kooper tried recording the tracks in a "stripped-back country-rock style," then classically trained composer Fred Myrow was brought in to arrange and conduct. Twenty-two musicians are credited on the album. Now that Ackles could employ strings, winds, brass, and choruses, his elaborate musical style began to develop.

He toured with his songs when he had to, but in spite of his stage experience he was not a showman. His wife recalled that performing live "was very difficult for him....I just don't think he was comfortable being up there as David Ackles. If he was asked to go on and sing and play as Oscar Levant, it might have been easier for him. Any theater piece would have been fine. But to be out there just kind of exposing your soul, I think, was extremely difficult."

American Gothic (1972)
American Gothic, released in 1972, was produced by Elton John's lyricist Bernie Taupin. Taupin and Ackles became acquainted when Ackles was selected to be the opening act for Elton John's 1970 American debut at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. Taupin said of Ackles' style, "There was nothing quite like it. It's been said so many times, but his stuff was sort of [like] Brecht and Weill, and theatrical. It was very different than what the other singer-songwriters of the time were doing. There was also a darkness to it, which I really, really loved, because that was the kind of material that I was drawn to."

Though the album was recorded and mixed in about two weeks, Ackles worked for two years on its conception and "immensely complex" orchestral arrangements. Of Ackles' four albums, it was the only one recorded in England rather than in America. He used musicians from the London Symphony and a Salvation Army band chorus ("'The only trouble is, it's not the same as the American Salvation Army, so they were elongating all their a's, and he kept saying, "No no no, you've got to get rid of that accent"'"). Elektra gave Ackles his biggest budget to date to complete the project and advertised it pre-release as "The Album of the Year." Elektra sent a pre-release copy to Chris Van Ness, the music editor of Los Angeles Free Press, who wrote an enthusiast review comparing it to The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Elektra then sent a copy of the review to the press, whose reviews, including the Sgt. Pepper comparison, followed the lines of Van Ness's original. Melody Maker called it a classic and British music critic Derek Jewell of The Sunday Times described it as "the Sgt. Pepper of folk." But sales were again disappointing; it reached only #167 on the US charts. And Ackles himself felt he couldn't agree with Van Ness's "comparison to Sgt. Pepper" and his "overpraising".

Later career
After three albums for Elektra, Ackles left the label. He was signed to CBS/Columbia Records by legendary record executive Clive Davis, then president of the company and a long-time Ackles admirer. As he tried to create his first album for Columbia he felt the pressure of expectations engendered by American Gothic's glowing reviews. All too aware that his last album had been called "a milestone in pop and a study in excellence" and "a new direction in pop music" and himself "'an important artist whose work eludes categorisation,'" Ackles began to second-guess himself. "[E]very idea he came up with he discarded, thinking, 'This is not as good as American Gothic.'" He withdrew from the recording studio and produced Five & Dime at home on a four-track recorder. Uncharacteristically he brought in "a modest and simple record" on time and under budget. But before Five & Dime was released, Clive Davis was abruptly dismissed by CBS over an expenses dispute. With the loss of the only executive who had championed it, the new Ackles album fared poorly. It was perfunctorily released—the same month Davis was—only in the US, and Columbia would not finance a tour to promote it. Columbia did not renew his contract and Ackles, hurt and frustrated, did not search for another record deal.

Personal life
After leaving Columbia Records in 1973, Ackles concentrated on fulfilling his publishing contract with Warner Bros., writing songs to order for the company's artists. As had been the case in Ackles's early Elektra days, none of the songs were recorded by the artists to whom they were pitched. He worked on musical theater and screenplays from the home base he shared with his wife and son, a six-acre horse farm in Tujunga, near Los Angeles. He sold some screenplays to television; one that was broadcast was Word of Honor (1981) starring Karl Malden and Ron Silver.

In 1981, his car was hit by a drunk driver. Ackles's left arm was nearly severed and his left thighbone "virtually pushed out through his back." He remembered his wife "standing outside the operating theater, shouting, 'Don't cut off his arm! He's a piano player!'" He spent six months in a wheelchair, eventually receiving a steel hip. Though by 1984 he was able to play piano for short periods, his arm's nerves never recovered, and he "may have been in considerable pain for the rest of his life."

In the 1980s he returned to USC, first in administration, then teaching musical theater. At USC in 1997 he directed productions of Good News and The Threepenny Opera, and in the 1990s completed Sister Aimee, a musical based on the life of Aimee Semple McPherson, which was performed in Los Angeles in 1995 and in Chicago in 2004. He and Rob Dickins of Warner Music UK discussed recording Sister Aimee. He was the executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Society of Fund-Raising Executives (now the National Association of Fundraising Professionals) and was a part of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop in Los Angeles (now the Academy of New Musical Theatre).

Ackles died of lung cancer on March 2, 1999, at the age of 62.

Legacy
When Elvis Costello was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003, he cited Ackles in his speech as one of his major influences. In the November 2000 issue of Vanity Fair magazine, Costello identified two of Ackles's albums among his "500 Greatest Albums Ever," describing Ackles as "perhaps the greatest unheralded songwriter of the late 60s."

When Phil Collins was on the British BBC radio show Desert Island Discs, he selected Ackles's song "Down River" as one of his eight all-time favorite songs. He said of Ackles: "He taught me that writing songs didn’t have to be moon/spoon/June. That you could write intelligently about more serious subjects."

Elton John and Elvis Costello—two of Ackles's most fervent admirers—chose "Down River" to perform as their first-ever duet together for the finale of the premiere episode of Costello's TV series Spectacle: Elvis Costello with....

Interviewed in 1990 for the booklet accompanying his To Be Continued retrospective box-set, Elton John recalled his incredulity when he discovered that Ackles had been selected to be his co-headlining opening act for his American debut at the Troubadour club in Los Angeles in August 1970. "I could not believe that I was on the same stage with someone like David Ackles who opened for me at the Troubadour. David Ackles was one of my heroes."

At the Troubadour John made a point of watching Ackles play every night. He was "flabbergasted" to discover that Ackles was far better known in England than in the United States, or even L.A. He dedicated 1970's Tumbleweed Connection to Ackles with the line, "to David with love." Almost thirty years later, though Ackles had not recorded since 1973, John said, "He's one of the best America has to offer."

Ackles's songs were occasionally played by others. In 1968, Julie Driscoll & the Brian Auger Trinity had a minor UK hit with Ackles's song "Road to Cairo." This song was also recorded by Howard Jones in 1990 on Elektra Records' compilation Rubáiyát. Martin Carthy performed "His Name is Andrew," on the 1971 album Landfall, and Spooky Tooth's 1970 album The Last Puff included their version of "Down River," which the Hollies also released in 1972 on their album Romany.

His first three albums were reissued in 1994 and again in 2000. The 1994 Elektra reissues generated modest sales and a number of praise-filled articles, which raised hopes that Ackles was on the verge of a new career as a rediscovered cult favorite. Not long before his death in 1999, there was a resurgence of interest in the UK.

After his death, there were obituaries in several major British newspapers that eulogized Ackles's talent.

Discography

 * David Ackles (Elektra Records, September 1968)
 * Subway to the Country (Elektra Records, January 1970)
 * American Gothic (Elektra Records, July 1972)
 * Five & Dime (Columbia Records, October 1973)

title: David Ackles


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File talk:Hurricane Katrina Eye viewed from Hurricane Hunter.jpg

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What an awesome and scary image. sikander 00:57, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

I wish only not so many people died.....

that is a tight eye that looks like the diameter of the eye is 200 feet 6:31 20 september 14 2005

oh hell no! that's MILES across!


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Louis Phélypeaux

Louis Phélypeaux is the name of:

 * Louis Phélypeaux, seigneur de La Vrillière (1598–1681)
 * Louis Phélypeaux, marquis de La Vrillière (1672–1725), his grandson
 * Louis Phélypeaux, comte de Saint-Florentin (1705–1777), his son
 * Louis II Phélypeaux de Pontchartrain (1643–1727)

title: Louis Phélypeaux


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