2008 – Unreleased material Jimi Hendrix wrote and recorded with twin brothers Arthur and Albert Allen — a.k.a. the Ghetto Fighters — may finally be released through software/multimedia company we-R-you. The Allen brothers, who now go under the names TaharQa and Tunde Ra Aleem, first met Jimi in the mid-60s and worked with Hendrix on recordings that would ultimately wind up on posthumous releases like Rainbow Bridge, War Heroes and Cry Of Love. Among the material the Aleem brothers have unearthed is previously unheard recordings, a feature screenplay and a cartoon drawing of Hendrix drawn by Hendrix himself. “Jimi was a true visionary whose creativity went far beyond music,” says TaharQa Aleem. “He saw the future and while he may not have understood computers or known about digital technology and virtual worlds, he knew that things like this were coming and created material that would work in that world.” The unearthed material will be released through we-R-you in segments, as “each element needs to be released in its own time and way,” says the company’s chief branding and marketing officer Allen DeWinter.
2004 – Although already quite animated, “American Idol” judge Simon Cowell makes the transition to cartoon form on another Fox television series, “The Simpsons.” The outspoken talent evaluator parodies himself in the episode, titled “Smart & Smarter,” as a tough admissions committee member at a school where the Simpsons hope to enroll their baby daughter Maggie.
2001 – Hip-hop rockers Limp Bizkit and cartoon indie-beat band Gorillaz are the big winners at the eighth annual MTV Europe Music Awards. Limp Bizkit lands a one-two punch, winning in the group and album categories for their “Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water.”
2000 – The Backstreet Boys’ online alter egos, the Cyber Crusaders, debut online with a party at Hard Rock Live in Orlando, Fla. Pioneering Marvel Comics artist Stan Lee’s Stan Lee Media designed 22 online cartoons featuring the Backstreet Boys’ likenesses, which can be viewed at the Backstreet Project Web site.
1965 – The Beatles’ Saturday-morning cartoon series premieres on ABC. It’s canceled in 1969.
The series premiered on ABC on Saturday, September 25, 1965 at 10:30 am. Each show was a half-hour long and consisted of two “adventures” and two sing-a-long songs. Lyrics were flashed on the screen so that viewers could join in. The show was an instant success.
The show was produced by King Features Productions. The voices of the Beatles cartoon characters were supplied by voice actors Lance Percival (Paul and Ringo), and Paul Frees (John and George). Animation was done overseas at TVC of London and Astransa, an Australian company. TVC is also the company that produced the animated movie “Yellow Submarine”. The scripts were relatively easy to develop, as the episodes were based on popular Beatles songs.
The cartoons remained on ABC for three more years, with the final two seasons being reruns of previous episodes. After receiving previously unheard of daytime television ratings in its first season, its second season, however, lost ratings to CBS’s Saturday morning line-up. Apparently The Beatles couldn’t compete with the likes of “Space Ghost”, “Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles”, “Mighty Mouse” and “Mighty Heroes”.
In the fall of 1968 the series was moved to Sunday mornings, where it remained until its final broadcast on September 7, 1969.
There were a total of 39 episodes made. They have been rebroadcast in the past by MTV.
A Word With Richard Jones
I was fortunate enough to get into contact with Richard Jones, and artist from the ARTRANSA studio in Sydney. Richard detailed what he knew about the tunes, a few stories behind the scenes, and what ended up happening to ARTRANSA. Here are his answers to some fairly broad questions:
1. Where did the cartoons originate?
I was never sure. Some attributed the idea to the Beatles themselves, though I suspect that they probably originated in the bowels of King Features during one of their “How do we make more bucks?” meetings.
2. How did I become involved?
At the time I was 18 years old and living in a small country town called Quirindi in northern New South Wales. The only thing I wanted to do was to animate.
I had been pestering ARTRANSA PARK TELEVISION in Sydney about a job for 2 years. Sending letters, gags, drawings, cells made out of plastic shirt box topes, finally I wore them down and they agreed to give me a job for their next television series.
I received a telegram from Graham Sharpe, “Starting Beatles series – need you Sydney next week”.
When I arrived in Sydney, Artransa was putting the finishing touches to the Beetle Baily and Krazy Kat cartoons. I remember it was several months before we started on the Beatles. I punched a hell of a lot of paper cell in that time!
3. Who proposed the idea?
No idea. (Actually it was Al Brodax.)
4. Sources for modelling Beatles characters.
We watched interviews with the Beatles. We had discussion meetings with Abe Goodman as to what he required from us. We watched the film A Hard Days Night. We drew and discussed mannerisms and movement from model sheets supplied from the states. We discussed guitar types and Ringo’s rings. We also did some pencil tests.
5. Procedures for making the cartoons.
As I remember, we worked two animators on a title with an inbetweening. Cel paints were imported from the US, as they were unobtainable here and there had to be colour continuity.
We received storyboards, voice and music tracks from the US.
I do not remember if the tracks were read, direction timed and charted here.
The layout backgrounds commenced
Animation
Inbetweening
Trace and paint in one area, about a dozen girls headed by Zora Janjic.
Oxberry 35mm animation camera, one main operator.
Rushes and reshoots.
Editing, added canned music and FX.
Answer print
Release prints.
6. The cartoons were made at ARTRANSA PARK TELEVISION, French’s Forest. I believe there was some subcontracting to Ron Campbell and Zoran Janjic.
7. The scripts were written and storyboarded in the States by King Features, or associates, subject to Beatle representative approval. I have no proof of this; it is what I was told.
8. We did not have any say in the scripts, they were taken as read by the time we had received them. Sometimes we were allowed to draw incidental characters.
I remember one episode where an animator had drawn a bosomy flying bat lady. There was some discussion about the shape of the offending creature and androgyny was decided on. My friend had to take to his scenes with an eraser. He was not amused.
9. Do I have any favourite episodes?
I don’t remember half the episodes. I guess A HARD DAYS NIGHT. It was my first animation. The song is one that was popular at the time and easily identified with the Beatles.
10. Was there to be four one-hour Beatles specials?
There were always rumours around the studio and I seem to remember one about specials. Abe Goodman was the consummate businessman and everyone’s uncle, he would always tell us about the great year we would have next year. ARTRANSA lived a hand to mouth existence; it needed US specials to survive. There was dissent among animators in America because work came to Australia, this maybe one of the reasons much of the work we were promised did not eventuate.
11. Why didn’t the cartoons last longer?
The cartoons were for the time, I do not think they had any lasting value, apart from collectors like yourself (Darren English). The stories, design and animation were adequate, but crude. As animators, we were all pretty green. I believe as with most animation, it was a case of ‘make a buck while you can’. It was fun while it lasted.
Richards full interview will be published in the upcoming Beatle cartoons book.
BEATLES MONTHLY STORY ON CARTOONS
The Beatles Monthly magazine recently featured a new item on the Beatles cartoons stating that Apple now owns the rights to the series. Apple is looking at releasing a video compilation of the cartoons. The date of this release is unclear.
MOJO STORY ON BEATLES CARTOONS
The October 1996 edition of Mojo magazine included a 40 page Beatles special. Included was an interview with Neil Aspinal, the complete words to Revolution #9, an interview with Ron Nasty (from the Rutles), and an interview with Paul McCartney.
Most importantly, for me anyway, was an article the magazine did on the Beatles Cartoons.
Mojo states that Apple now owns the Copyrights for the series. Fans can only hope that Apple would buy the series so that they could release it in some format.
Tragically someone at Kings features sanctioned the incineration of many of the scripts from the series a few years ago.
Featured within the article are character templates of the Beatles. My scanner is down and out, so if someone can scan this for me, that would be cool!
1949 – Rick Springfield (Richard Springthorpe) is born in Sydney, Australia. His biggest hit is the million-selling No. 1 single “Jessie’s Girl” in 1981. He wins a Grammy for the song as Best Male Rock Vocal Performance.
Rick Springfield (born Richard Lewis Springthorpe on August 23, 1949 in Sydney) is an Australian-American songwriter, musician and actor. As a musician he is most famous for the 1981 #1 single “Jessie’s Girl”, which became a Grammy Award-winning landmark of 1980s pop-rock and helped establish the emerging music video age. Also an actor, Springfield’s best known role is that of the character Dr. Noah Drake on the daytime drama General Hospital. He originated the character from 1981-1983 and then returned to play him again from 2005 until present.
Background
Springfield grew up in a military family and frequently moved as his father was posted to various military bases throughout Australia and Great Britain. Springfield started playing piano at age 9. He began playing the guitar at age 13 and writing songs at 14.
[edit] Musical career
In 1967, Springfield dropped out of high school to begin his professional music career. His first appearance in a band was as a singer/guitarist in the band Rock House. In 1968, the band changed the name to MPD, Ltd, then embarked on a tour of Vietnam to entertain the troops stationed there.[1]
In 1969, when Springfield returned to Australia, he formed a band named Wickedy Wak with MPD bandmates Danny Finley and Paul Shannon, along with a keyboardist who went by the name of Ray Wight. Later that year, he joined the band Zoot. Zoot became one of the most popular Australian groups of the late 1960s. Another notable member of Zoot was Beeb Birtles, who in 1975 went on to form the Little River Band. In May 1971, when Zoot broke up, Springfield began a solo career. He had a #1 hit single in Australia, “Speak to the Sky.”
After his success in Australia, the 22-year-old Springfield relocated to Hollywood, California in 1972.[1] Capitol Records signed him, and he recorded his first album Beginnings. “Speak to the Sky” was re-released as a single in the US, and reached #14 in the Billboard Top 100. Exposure on American Bandstand, as well as being regularly featured in teen fan magazines such as 16 magazine and Tiger Beat, sparked interest amongst teenage girls. In 1973 a Saturday morning cartoon called Mission: Magic! was centered around Springfield and ran for one year, with a soundtrack album also released.
According to the 2005 A&E documentary Rick Springfield: Behind The Image, radio stations became suspicious of the album “Beginnings” and refused to play it, because of rumors that the record company, Capitol Records, was paying people to purchase it. Capitol denied the rumor, but Springfield was subsequently dropped from the label. However, in 1973 he was signed by Columbia Records, who released his second album Comic Book Heroes (1974). It received very good reviews from Rolling Stone Magazine, but it failed to chart. Springfield was dropped from that label as well, and plans to release an album entitled Springfield were also scrapped.
In 1976, Springfield released a third album Wait for Night under the Chelsea Records label. But while he was out touring to promote the album, the record company went bankrupt. Despite one single, “Take A Hand”, grazing the Top 40, the album still fell off the charts. Throughout the rest of the 1970s, Springfield performed in various clubs on the Sunset Strip and throughout Los Angeles, but was unable to maintain a career at the top of the charts.
After a break of several years to do some acting (see section below), Springfield returned to music in 1981 with the album Working Class Dog. Most notable on this album were the singles “Jessie’s Girl”, which went to #1 on the Billboard charts, and “I’ve Done Everything for You” which was written by Sammy Hagar, and reached #8 on Billboard. Springfield won a Grammy in 1982 for “Best Male Rock Vocal Performance” for “Jessie’s Girl”. Springfield was also nominated for a second Grammy in 1982 and a third Grammy in 1983. His subsequent release in 1982, the album Success Hasn’t Spoiled Me Yet, also contained a string of top 40 hits including the #2 hit “Don’t Talk to Strangers” and the ballad “What Kind of Fool Am I?”
His 1983 album Living in Oz contained more serious subject matter, and more of a hard-rock sound. The album went platinum on the strength of the hits “Human Touch”, “Souls”, and “Affair of the Heart”. That same year he won an American Music Award for “Favorite Pop/Rock Male Artist” along with John Cougar Mellencamp.
His 1984 single “Love Somebody” (from the soundtrack album to the Hard to Hold movie he starred in that year) was his last top ten hit in the U.S. to date, peaking at #5 on the Billboard singles chart. He stopped touring in 1985, for the birth of his first son, Liam. Also in 1984, Mercury Records released Beautiful Feelings which were unreleased sessions Rick recorded in 1978 but never released. The LP was remixed and additional instrumentation was added without Rick’s involvement. Rick attempted to block the release of this LP, but was unsuccessful. Springfield later purchased an ad in several music industry magazines revealing the true nature of this LP, and he did not authorize it’s release and his new LP (the afordmentioned “Hard To Hold”) would be coming out soon. Despite the controversy, “Beautiful Feelings” reached number 78 on the LP charts, and a single, “Bruce”, a song about people mistaking Rick for Bruce Springsteen, hit number 27 on the Hot 100.
Springfield was one of several performers who participated in the Live Aid charity concert. After releasing the album Tao in 1985, Springfield chose to take a break from recording to spend more time with his family, and to deal with the depression that had affected him since his adolescence.[2]
In 1987, Springfield returned to the studio and released the album Rock of Life. The next year, he was seriously injured in an ATV accident. Since he was unable to play the guitar for six months, the planned tour to promote his album was canceled. It would be nearly a decade before Springfield would return to the studio to record the albums Sahara Snow (1997) and Karma(1999).
From 1999 onward, he has held several concert tours throughout North America. In February 2004, he released the critically acclaimed album “Shock/Denial/Anger/Acceptance” (in short S/D/A/A) on his own “Gomer Record” label. It went up to #8 on the Top Independent Albums chart, and #22 on Top Internet Album Sales chart.
In 2005, Springfield released The Day After Yesterday – a collection of his covers of “songs [he] wish[es] [he] had written.”
On April 28, 2006, Springfield performed a medley of his hits at the 33rd Daytime Emmy Awards, and received an enthusiastic response, which included a standing ovation from his acting peers. Springfield’s latest release is a live concert DVD entitled Live in Rockford.
In late-August 2007, Rick took part in the Countdown Spectacular 2 concert series in Australia. It was the first time Rick had performed live in Australia for some 35 years.
Curiously the one global chart market Springfield failed to break into with any great success was the British chart scene, despite having lived in the UK for a period and having a huge following there. This seeming failure was due more to timing than lack of popularity as the genre of soft rock that Springfield was part of remained largely unsuccessful in the new romantic and ska dominated British charts of the early 80s, which also saw the likes of Olivia Newton John and British artists Sheena Easton and Def Leppard fail to enjoy any great success in the period. He is often likened to the modern British act Robbie Williams who has suffered a similar fate in the United States despite global appeal and a decidedly strong American fan base. retrospectively the soft rock explosion in late 80s Britain has ensured that, despite not being a big hit at the time, Jessie’s Girl, Springfield’s biggest UK hit, is today regarded as an 80′s classic with regular airplay in the UK.
In August 2008, Rick released Venus in Overdrive which debuted on Bilboard at #28. He also performed the first single “What’s Victoria’s Secret” on General Hospital as Eli Love.
[edit] Acting career
Because of various issues regarding the management of his recording career and uncertainty with immigration paperwork, in the 1970s Springfield decided to branch off into acting. He had already starred in the cartoon series Mission: Magic, produced by Filmation in 1973, where he appears in the animated format, along with the teacher Miss Tickle and her teenaged students. In 1978, he became one of the last contract actors signed to Universal Studios, and appeared in several guest roles in series such as The Incredible Hulk and The Rockford Files. He also had a brief role as Zac in the 1978 movie Battlestar Galactica, and a small recurring role on the soap opera The Young and The Restless.
In 1981, Springfield became a soap opera star on General Hospital. He had signed a contract with RCA Records and already recorded the album Working Class Dog, which neither he nor his agent had expected would do very well, which is why Springfield took the soap role. But the song “Jessie’s Girl” went to #1, and Springfield ended up both playing the role of Dr. Noah Drake from 1981 through 1983, while simultaneously going on tour with his band. The success of the song boosted the ratings of the show, which according to Springfield “became the biggest show on TV for that summer,” and the fame from the show likewise boosted the sale of the song.[1]
In 1984, Springfield made one full length feature film Hard to Hold.[2] It was considered a box office failure, but the movie did produce a successful soundtrack with a top ten song “Love Somebody.”
Despite the fact that he played a young rock star in Hard to Hold, in real life Springfield was already in his 30s, had become a husband and father, and was growing uncomfortable with the teen idol image he portrayed.
Throughout the 1990s, Springfield acted in several made-for-TV movies, and appeared in television shows such as Suddenly Susan. In 1992, he starred in the suspense detective series Human Target. From 1994 to 1996, he also starred in another detective series, High Tide.
In addition to the roles on television and in film, Springfield also acted in musical theatre. In 1995, he was a member of the original Broadway cast of the musical Smokey Joe’s Cafe.[3] This Tony Award-nominated musical featured the songs of rock & roll songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. From February 2000 through December 2002, Springfield performed in EFX Alive![4]at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada to critical acclaim.[citation needed]
In 2001, he appeared in the film Dying to Dance, which also starred another General Hospital actor, Kimberly McCullough (Robin Scorpio). Springfield also played the role of Nick Knight in the original Forever Knight TV movie, a role later taken up by Geraint Wyn Davies.
[edit] General Hospital
See also: Noah Drake and Eli Love
In December 2005, Springfield was asked by the General Hospital producers to return to the show, and he returned to his role as Dr. Noah Drake after a 23-year absence.[5][6] His run was subsequently extended, although as of 2007 he remains a guest star on recurring status, and not a full contract cast member.[7] In July 2007, a new storyline was introduced with another character also played by Springfield, Eli Love, “a 1980s rock star” who just happens to look exactly like Dr. Drake. The storyline requires Drake, who hates musicians, to fill in for an injured Eli Love at a charity concert. In the summer of 2008, he returned as both Noah Drake and Eli Love. On July 29 2008, he performed his latest single “What’s Victoria’s Secret” on the show.
[edit] Personal life
In 1974, Springfield dated and lived with then 15-year-old actress Linda Blair. He considered it his first “grown up” relationship, despite nearly 10 years difference in their ages.[8][9]
He is married to Barbara Porter (October 27, 1984). They met in 1980 while she was working as a receptionist at the recording studio where he recorded his 1981 album Working Class Dog. They have two sons: Liam, born in 1985, and Josh, born in 1989.
In 1985, Springfield took break from his musical career to spend more time with his family, and to deal with the depression that had affected him since his adolescence.[3] He had also wrestled with depression in the 1970s, when the serious illness of his father (who died on April 24, 1981) and career troubles caused him to “hit the wall” and contemplate suicide.[1]
In 2006, Rick Springfield became a citizen of the United States, but also retains his Australian citizenship.
[edit] Awards
* 1982 Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for “Jessie’s Girl”
* 1983 American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Male Artist along with John Cougar Mellencamp
[edit] Discography
[edit] Studio albums
* Beginnings (1972) #35 US
* Comic Book Heroes (1973)
* Mission Magic (1974)
* Wait for Night (1976)
* Working Class Dog (1981) #7 US
* Success Hasn’t Spoiled Me Yet (1982) #2 US
* Living in Oz (1983) #12 US
* Hard to Hold (1984) #16 US
* Tao (1985) #21 US
* Rock of Life (1988) #55 US
* Karma (1999) #189 US
* Shock/Denial/Anger/Acceptance (2004)
* The Day After Yesterday (2005) #197 US
* Venus in Overdrive (2008) #28 US
[edit] Other releases
* Beautiful Feelings (1984) US #78 (New instrumentation of songs originally recorded in 1978, published without Rick’s accept)
* Sahara Snow (1997)(With Tim Pierce and Bob Marlette)
* The Greatest Hits ALIVE (2001)
* Platinum & Gold Collection: Rick Springfield (2003)
* Written in Rock–Anthology (2005)
* Live in Rockford (2006) DVD concert
* The Early Sound City Sessions (2007) Original recordings from 1978 that later became Beautiful Feelings in 1984
[edit] Singles
Year Song US Hot 100 US MSR US A.C. UK Singles Album
1972 “Speak to the Sky” 14 – – – Beginnings
1972 “What Would the Children Think” 70 – – – Beginnings
1974 “American Girls” 98 – – – unreleased Springfield album
1976 “Take a Hand” 41 – – – Wait for Night
1981 “Jessie’s Girl” 1 10 – 43 Working Class Dog
1981 “I’ve Done Everything for You” 8 – – – Working Class Dog
1981 “Love Is Alright Tonight” 20 40 – – Working Class Dog
1982 “Don’t Talk to Strangers” 2 11 30 – Success Hasn’t Spoiled Me Yet
1982 “What Kind of Fool Am I” 21 – – – Success Hasn’t Spoiled Me Yet
1982 “I Get Excited” 32 – – – Success Hasn’t Spoiled Me Yet
1983 “Affair of the Heart” 9 23 – – Living in Oz
1983 “Human Touch” 18 34 – 23 Living in Oz
1983 “Souls” 23 – – – Living in Oz
1984 “Love Somebody” 5 – – 95 Hard to Hold
1984 “Bop ‘Til You Drop” 20 – – – Hard to Hold
1984 “Don’t Walk Away” 26 – – – Hard to Hold
1984 “Taxi Dancing” (duet with Randy Crawford) 59 – 16 – Hard to Hold
1984 “Bruce” 27 – – – Beautiful Feelings
1985 “Celebrate Youth” 26 – – 80 Tao
1985 “State of the Heart” 22 – – – Tao
1988 “Rock of Life” 22 – – 83 Rock of Life
2004 “Beautiful You” – – 28 – Shock/Denial/Anger/Acceptance
2008 “What’s Victoria’s Secret” – – – – Venus in Overdrive
1946 – Freddie Mercury of Queen is born in Zanzibar, Tanzania.
Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara; September 5, 1946 – November 24, 1991) was a Zanzibar-born British musician, best known as the lead singer and co-founder of the rock band Queen (inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001). He was noted for his vocal abilities, his charisma, and his live performances. As a songwriter, he composed many international hits, including “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Killer Queen”, “Somebody to Love”, “Don’t Stop Me Now”, “We Are the Champions” and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”. He is often referred to as the best vocalist of all time, and one of the greatest songwriters of all time. In addition to his work with Queen, he also led a solo career with minor success, and was occasionally a producer and guest musician (piano or vocals) for other artists. Mercury, who was of Indian Parsi descent and who grew up in India, has been referred to as “Britain’s first Asian rock star.” However, he has also been criticised for having kept his ethnicity, as well as his sexual orientation and HIV status, a secret from the public.
Biography
Mercury was born in Stone Town on Zanzibar off the coast of Tanzania. His parents, Bomi and Jer Bulsara,
Mercury attended St. Peter’s School, a boarding school for boys in Panchgani near Bombay (now Mumbai), India. At St. Peter’s, he was a bright student who excelled at several sports. He was especially adept at boxing, with a strong ‘left hook’. At school, he formed a popular school band, called The Hectics, for which he played the piano. A friend from the time recalls that he “had an uncanny ability to listen to the radio and replay what he heard on piano.” It was also at St. Peter’s where he began to call himself “Freddie”. Mercury remained in India for most of his childhood, living with his grandmother and aunt. He completed his education in India at St. Mary’s (ISC) High School in Mazagon before returning to Zanzibar.
At the age of 17, Mercury and his family fled from Zanzibar as result of the 1964 Zanzibar Revolution. The family moved into a small house in Feltham, London. Mercury enrolled at Isleworth Polytechnic (now West Thames College) in West London where he studied art. He ultimately earned a Diploma in Art and Graphic Design at Ealing Art College, later using these skills in order to design the Queen crest. Mercury remained a British citizen for the rest of his life.
Following graduation, Mercury joined a series of bands and sold second-hand clothes in the Kensington Market in London. He also held a job at Heathrow airport. Friends from the time remember him as a quiet and shy young man who showed a great deal of interest in music.
In April 1970, Mercury joined with guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor who had previously been in a band called Smile, and despite reservations from the other members, Mercury chose the name “Queen” for the new band. He later said about the band’s name, “I was certainly aware of the gay connotations, but that was just one facet of it.” At around this time, he also legally changed his name.
Influences
As a child, Mercury listened to a considerable amount of Indian music, and one of his early influences was the Bollywood playback singer Lata Mangeshkar, whom he had the opportunity to see live in India.
Career
Singer
Regarded as one of the greatest singers in rock music, Freddie Mercury possessed a very distinctive voice, including a recorded range of four octaves (E2 to E6). Although his speaking voice naturally fell in the baritone range, he delivered most songs as a tenor. Biographer David Bret described his voice as “escalating within a few bars from a deep, throaty rock-growl to tender, vibrant tenor, then on to a high-pitched, perfect coloratura, pure and crystalline in the upper reaches.”
US rock singer Billy Squier, with whom Mercury wrote two songs for in the mid-1980s (‘Lady with the Tenor Sax’ and ‘Love is the Hero’) said in an interview (Source: Life is Real) that Mercury indeed ‘sang sharp’.
Songwriter
Mercury wrote ten out of the seventeen songs on Queen’s Greatest Hits album: “Seven Seas of Rhye”, “Killer Queen”, “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Somebody to Love”, “Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy”, “We Are the Champions”, “Bicycle Race”, “Don’t Stop Me Now”, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and “Play the Game”.
The most notable aspect of his songwriting involved the wide range of different genres that he used, which included, among other styles, rockabilly, heavy metal and disco. As he explained in a 1986 interview, “I hate doing the same thing again and again and again. I like to see what’s happening now in music, film and theatre and incorporate all of those things.”
Live performer
Freddie Mercury with a Brazilian flag during the Rock in Rio concert, 1985.
Mercury is noted for his live performances, which were often delivered to stadium audiences around the world. His “bottomless microphone stand” gig was one of his many notable acts on stage. He displayed a highly theatrical style that often evoked a great deal of participation from the crowd. A writer for The Spectator described him as “a performer out to tease, shock and ultimately charm his audience with various extravagant versions of himself.”
One of Mercury’s most notable performances with Queen took place at Live Aid in 1985, during which the entire stadium audience of 72,000 people clapped, sang, and swayed in unison. Queen’s performance at the event has since been voted by a group of music executives as the greatest live performance in the history of rock music. The results were aired on a television program called “The World’s Greatest Gigs”.
Over the course of his career, Mercury performed an estimated 700 concerts in countries around the world with Queen. A notable aspect of Queen concerts was the large scale involved.
Instrumentalist
Freddie Mercury playing guitar during a live concert with Queen in Frankfurt, 1984.
Freddie Mercury playing guitar during a live concert with Queen in Frankfurt, 1984.
Mercury played the piano in many of Queen’s most popular songs. Examples of piano-based Queen songs include “Killer Queen”, “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy”, “We Are the Champions” and “Don’t Stop Me Now”. He used concert grand pianos and, occasionally, other keyboard instruments such as harpsichord. From 1979 onwards, he also made extensive use of synthesisers in the studio. Queen guitarist Brian May claims that Mercury was unimpressed with his own abilities at the piano and used the instrument less over time. Although he wrote many lines for guitar, Mercury possessed only rudimentary skills on the instrument. Nevertheless, he wrote the song “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” on the guitar (it has been said that he wrote it while taking a bubble bath in his room at the Munich Hilton hotel), and often played it during live performances of the song.
Solo career
In addition to his work with Queen, Mercury put out one solo album, a duet with Montserrat Caballe and several singles. Although his solo work was not as commercially successful as most Queen albums, the two off-Queen albums and several of the singles debuted in the top 10 of the UK Album Charts. His first solo effort involved the contribution of a song called Love Kills to a 1984 album dedicated to the 1926 Fritz Lang film Metropolis. The song, which was produced by Giorgio Moroder, debuted at the #10 position in the UK charts.
Mercury had two full albums outside the band, Mr. Bad Guy and Barcelona, released in 1985 and 1988, respectively. The former was a pop-oriented album that emphasised disco and dance music. “Barcelona” was recorded with the opera singer Montserrat Caballé, whom he had long admired. Although it debuted in the top ten of the UK Album Charts, In particular, the album was heavily synthesizer-driven in a way that was not characteristic of previous Queen albums.
Barcelona, recorded with Spanish soprano Montserrat Caballé, combined elements of popular music and opera. Many critics were uncertain what to make of the album, with one critic referring to it as “the most bizarre CD of the year.” where the song received massive air play as the official hymn of the 1992 Summer Olympics held in Barcelona one year after Mercury’s death. Ms. Caballé sung it live at the opening of the Olympics with Mercury’s part played in a screen.
In addition to the two solo albums, Mercury released several additional singles, including his own version of the hit The Great Pretender by The Platters, which debuted at the #5 spot in the UK in 1987.
Personal life
In the early 1970s Mercury had a long-term relationship with a girlfriend named Mary Austin (whom he had met through guitarist Brian May). He lived with Austin for many years. However, by the mid-1970s, the singer began an affair with a male record executive at Elektra Records; this ultimately resulted in the end of his relationship with Austin.
By 1980, Mercury began to frequently visit gay bathhouses and clubs where he met many short-term partners.
Although he cultivated a very flamboyant stage personality, several sources refer to Mercury as having been very shy in person.
Death
According to his partner Jim Hutton, Mercury was diagnosed with AIDS in the spring of 1987. Toward the end of his life, he was routinely stalked by photographers, while the daily tabloid newspaper The Sun featured a series of articles claiming that he was seriously ill.
On November 22, 1991, Mercury called Queen’s manager Jim Beach over to his Kensington home, to discuss a public statement. The next day, November 23, the following announcement was made to the press on behalf of Mercury:
Following the enormous conjecture in the press over the last two weeks, I wish to confirm that I have been tested HIV positive and have AIDS. I felt it correct to keep this information private to date to protect the privacy of those around me. However, the time has come now for my friends and fans around the world to know the truth and I hope that everyone will join with my doctors and all those worldwide in the fight against this terrible disease. My privacy has always been very special to me and I am famous for my lack of interviews. Please understand this policy will continue.
A little over 24 hours after issuing the statement, Mercury died on November 24, 1991 at the age of 45. The official cause of death was bronchial pneumonia resulting from AIDS. Although he had not attended religious services in years, Mercury’s funeral was conducted by a Zoroastrian priest. Singers Elton John, David Bowie, and the remaining members of Queen attended the funeral. He was cremated at Kensal Green Cemetery.
In his will Mercury left the vast majority of his wealth, including his home and recording royalties, to Mary Austin, and the remainder to his parents and sister. He further left £500,000 to his chef Joe Fanelli, £500,000 to his personal assistant Peter Freestone, £100,000 to his driver Terry Giddings, and £500,000 to his partner, Jim Hutton.
Criticism and controversy
HIV status
Mercury has been criticised for the fact that he hid his HIV status from the public for many years, waiting until the day before he died to admit that he had AIDS. It has been suggested that he could have raised a great deal of money and awareness by speaking truthfully and honestly about his situation and his fight against the disease.
Ethnicity
Mercury has also been criticised for having kept his Indian origins a secret from the public. As a journalist from The Times observed, “Freddie himself always played down his Indian origins. In the few interviews he gave, he remained deliberately unclear about them.”
Other controversies
Mercury and Queen were widely criticised in the 1980s for the fact that they broke a United Nations cultural boycott by performing a series of shows at Sun City in 1984, an entertainment complex in Bophuthatswana, a homeland of (then) apartheid South Africa. As a result of these shows, Queen was placed on a United Nations list of blacklisted artists and widely criticised in magazines such as the NME.
A further controversy ensued in August 2006, when an organisation calling itself the Islamic Mobilization and Propagation petitioned the Zanzibar government’s culture ministry, demanding that a large-scale celebration of what would have been Mercury’s sixtieth birthday be cancelled. The organisation issued several complaints about the planned celebrations, including that Mercury was not a true Zanzibari and that he was bisexual, which is not in accordance with their interpretation of sharia. The organisation claimed that “associating Mercury with Zanzibar degrades our island as a place of Islam.” The planned celebration was cancelled.
Legacy
Several popularity polls conducted over the past decade indicate that Mercury’s reputation may in fact have been enhanced since his death. For instance, in 2002 he appeared in the 58th spot in a list of the “100 Greatest Britons”, sponsored by the BBC and voted for by the public.
Continued popularity
In the UK, Queen have now spent more collective weeks on the UK Album Charts than any other musical act (including The Beatles),
The extent to which Mercury’s death may have enhanced Queen’s popularity is not clear. In the United States, where Queen’s popularity had lagged in the 1980s, sales of Queen albums went up dramatically in 1992, the year following his death. The movie Wayne’s World, which featured “Bohemian Rhapsody,” also came out in 1992.
Tributes
A statue in Montreux, Switzerland (by sculptor Irena Sedlecka) has been erected as a tribute to Mercury. Beginning in 2003, fans from around the world gather in Switzerland annually to pay tribute to the singer as part of the “Freddie Mercury Montreux Memorial Day” on the first weekend of September. The statue itself stands 3 metres high overlooking Lake Geneva and was unveiled on November 25, 1996 by Freddie’s father and Montserrat Caballé. A Royal Mail stamp was issued in honour of Mercury as part of the Millennium Stamp series. A plaque was also erected at the site of the family home in Feltham where Mercury and his family moved upon arriving in England in 1964. Others carried tributes to “the” singer of all time: Robbie Williams and George Michael. In the anime Cromartie High School, a character also named Freddie is based on Mercury in his appearance and rock star qualities. There are also a number of quilt panels within the AIDS Memorial Quilt made in tribute to Freddie, first publicly appearing in the fall 1992 showing of the Quilt on the Mall in Washington DC. The satirical cartoon series House of Rock featured a house in the afterlife inhabited by Freddie Mercury and other deceased stars such as Kurt Cobain and John Lennon.
Importance in AIDS history
Freddie Mercury’s death represented an important event in the history of AIDS.
Discography
Main article: Freddie Mercury discography
See also: Queen discography
Instruments used by Mercury
Grand pianos:
* Baldwin SD10 Concert Grand
* Bechstein D Concert Grand at the Trident Studios in London.
* Bechstein S Baby Grand
* Bösendorfer Imperial Concert Grand
* Kawai RX7 Concert Grand
* Steinway D Concert Grand
* Steinway S Baby Grand
* White Baby Grand (unknown brand)
* Yamaha C1 Baby Grand
* Yamaha C7 Concert Grand
* Yamaha CFIIIS Concert Grand
* Yamaha SF Concert Baby Grand (Zissou Edition)
1944 – One of rock’s maddest geniuses, Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, is born in Great Bookham, England.
George Roger Waters (born 6 September 1943 in Great Bookham, Surrey) is an English rock musician. He is best known as the bass player, main songwriter, and a lead vocalist of the English rock band Pink Floyd from 1964 to 1985. Following his split with Pink Floyd in the 1980s, Waters began a moderately successful solo career, releasing three studio albums, one soundtrack, and staging one of the largest concerts ever, The Wall Concert in Berlin in 1990. In 2005 he released an opera, Ça Ira, and joined Pink Floyd at the Live 8 concert in London for their first public performance with Waters in 24 years.
Biography
Early years (1943–1965)
Born in Great Bookham, Surrey, Waters grew up in Cambridge. His father Eric Fletcher Waters fought in World War II and died in combat at Anzio in 1944, when Waters was only five months old. Waters would refer or allude to the loss of his father throughout his work, from “Corporal Clegg” (A Saucerful Of Secrets, 1968), through “Free Four” (Obscured By Clouds, 1972) and the sombre “When the Tigers Broke Free”, first used in the movie version of The Wall.
Waters and Syd Barrett attended the Morley Memorial Junior School on Hills Road, Cambridge, and later both attended the Cambridgeshire High School for Boys (now Hills Road Sixth Form College), while fellow band member David Gilmour attended The Perse School on the same road. He met Nick Mason and Rick Wright while attending the Regent Street Polytechnic school of architecture. He was a keen sportsman and was fond of swimming in the River Cam at Grantchester Meadows. At 15 he was chair of YCND in Cambridge.
Pink Floyd years (1965–1985)
In 1965, Roger Waters co-founded Pink Floyd along with Syd Barrett, Richard Wright and Nick Mason. Although Barrett initially did most of the songwriting for the band, Waters wrote the song “Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk” on their debut LP, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. The album was a critical success and positioned the band for stardom. Barrett’s deteriorating mental health led to increasingly erratic behaviour, rendering him unable to continue in his capacity as Pink Floyd’s lead singer and guitarist. Waters attempted to coerce his friend into psychiatric treatment; this proved unhelpful, and the band approached David Gilmour to replace Barrett at the end of 1967. Even the band’s former managers felt that Pink Floyd would not be able to sustain its initial success without the talented Barrett. Filling the void left by Barrett’s departure, Waters began to chart Pink Floyd’s new artistic direction. The lineup with Gilmour and Waters eventually brought Pink Floyd to prominence, producing a series of albums in the 1970s that remain among the most critically acclaimed and best-selling records of all time.
In 1970, Waters collaborated with British composer Ron Geesin, who co-wrote Pink Floyd’s title suite from Atom Heart Mother, on a soundtrack album, Music from “The Body”, which consisted mostly of instrumentals interspersed with songs composed by Waters. Within Pink Floyd, Waters became the main lyrical contributor, exerting progressively more creative control over the band: he produced thematic ideas that became the impetus for concept albums such as The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here, for which he wrote all of the lyrics and some of the music. After this, Waters became the primary songwriter, composing Animals and The Wall largely by himself (though continuing to collaborate with Gilmour on a few tracks).
Waters’ bandmates were happy to allow him to write the band’s lyrics and guide its conceptual direction while they shared the opportunity to contribute musical ideas. This give-and-take relationship began to dissolve: a consequence of the band’s collective ennui, according to Waters. Songwriting credits were a source of contention in these years; Gilmour has noted that his contributions to tracks like “Another Brick in the Wall, Part II”, with its guitar solo, were not always noted in the album credits. Nick Mason addresses the band infighting in his memoir, Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd, characterizing Waters as egomaniacal at times. It was while recording The Wall that Waters decided to fire Wright, after Wright’s personal problems began to affect the album production. Wright stayed with the band as a paid session musician while Waters led the band through a complete performance of the album on every night of the brief tour that followed, for which Gilmour acted as musical director.
In 1983, the last Waters–Gilmour–Mason collaboration, The Final Cut, was released. The sleeve notes describe it as being a piece “by Roger Waters” that was “performed by Pink Floyd”. Gilmour unsuccessfully tried to delay production on the album until he could author more material; Waters refused, and in 1985, he proclaimed that the band had dissolved due to irreconcilable differences. The ensuing battle between Waters and Gilmour over the latter’s intention to continue to use the name Pink Floyd descended into threatened lawsuits and public bickering in the press. Waters claimed that, as the original band consisted of himself, Syd Barrett, Nick Mason and Richard Wright, Gilmour could not reasonably use the name Pink Floyd now that it was without three of its founding members. Another of Waters’ arguments was that he had written almost all of the band’s lyrics and a great part of the music after Barrett’s departure. However, through agreement, Gilmour and Mason won the right to use the name and a majority of the band’s songs, though Waters did retain the rights to The Wall (save for three of the songs that Gilmour co-wrote), Animals, and The Final Cut, as well as ownership of the Pink Floyd pigs.[citation needed]
Early solo years (1985–2005)
After his departure from Pink Floyd, Waters embarked on a solo career producing three concept albums and a movie soundtrack which did not garner impressive sales. His solo work has managed critical acclaim and even some comparison to previous work with Pink Floyd. His first solo album, 1984′s The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, was a project about a man’s dreams across one night. The list of musicians helping Waters during recording included guitarist Eric Clapton and jazz saxophonist David Sanborn. Conceived around the same time as The Wall, the concept was shown and demos played to the Pink Floyd members, but they chose to proceed with The Wall over The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, rejecting the latter as “too personal”. Gilmour was later to claim that this was not as obvious a task as might first seem, as, in his opinion, both demos were “unlistenable” and “sounded exactly alike.” Longtime Pink Floyd engineer Nick Griffiths, however, says otherwise: “They were seriously rough, but the songs were there.” The album, accompanied by Gerald Scarfe artwork that some claimed was sexist, received mixed reviews, with Kurt Loder describing Pros And Cons Of Hitch Hiking in Rolling Stone as a “strangely static, faintly hideous record”, adding that “Waters sounds like the kind of guy who’d bring Hershey bars and nylons along on a first date.” On the other end of the spectrum, Mike DeGagne of Allmusic praised the album for its “ingenious symbolism and his brilliant use of stream of consciousness within a subconscious realm”, rating it four out of five stars. The resulting concert tour featuring a set design by Marc Brickman and Mark Fisher of Park Display, and, on the first leg, Clapton on lead guitar, was not a success.
In 1986 Waters contributed songs and a score to the soundtrack of the movie When the Wind Blows, based on the Raymond Briggs book of the same name. His backing band, featuring Paul Carrack, was credited as The Bleeding Heart Band. Waters’ then legal wranglings with Gilmour over the Pink Floyd brand are alluded to on the soundtrack album’s “Towers of Faith”, where the vocal transforms from “This land is my land”, to “This sand is my sand”, to “This band is my band”.
In 1987 Waters released another concept album, Radio K.A.O.S., about a man named Billy who can hear radio waves in his head. Waters followed the release with a supporting tour, also in 1987. Though applauded by many for its contemporary sound[citation needed], the album did not garner the impressive sales he had achieved in Pink Floyd. Years later, Waters himself would express dissatisfaction at the album, expressing distaste for the production, and particularly regretting his decision to trim the album from a double to a single, losing much of the concept in the process.[citation needed] This was possibly attributable to the fact that he was now competing with a reformed Pink Floyd who were touring to support their comeback release, A Momentary Lapse of Reason.
After the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, Waters staged The Wall Concert in Berlin on July 21, 1990 to commemorate the end of the division between East and West Germany. The concert took place on Potsdamer Platz, part of the former “no-man’s land” of the Berlin Wall, and featured many guest superstars: The Band, Bryan Adams, Cyndi Lauper, Van Morrison, Sinéad O’Connor, The Scorpions, Marianne Faithfull, and Joni Mitchell. It was one of the biggest concerts ever staged with an attendance of over 300,000 and was watched live by over five million people worldwide. However, the initial funds raised from the concert barely covered expenses.
Two years later, Waters released 1992′s Amused to Death, about the corrupting, desensitising nature of television. The title drived from the Book “Amusing Ourselves to Death of Neil Postman. It is Waters’ most critically acclaimed solo recording, with music critics comparing it to later Pink Floyd work, such as The Wall (Waters himself describes the record as the third in a thematically-linked trilogy, after Dark Side Of The Moon and The Wall). The album had one hit, “What God Wants, Pt. 1″ which hit #4 on Mainstream Rock charts. Jeff Beck played lead guitar on the album. There was no tour in support of this record, because the most part of the songs is impossible to performe live. Roger Waters always declared the necessary of a link between the songs and the show. One of the songs (“Perfect Sense Part II”) is about a attack on a oil rig with a nuclear torpedo, and this would be impossible to perform as a entire show. Although Waters would later perform several songs from this record nearly eight years later on his In the Flesh tours.
In 1999 Waters embarked on the In the Flesh tour which saw him performing some of his most famous work, both solo and Pink Floyd material. The tour was a success in the US, and after Waters had booked mostly smaller venues (after the let-down in attendance from his 1987 tour), tickets sold so well that most of the concerts had to be upgraded to larger venues. With Gilmour’s Pink Floyd retiring after 1994, and many Floyd albums selling at the pace of Beatles records, Waters was in great demand. The tour eventually stretched across the world. Tickets were at such high demand, that the tour had to be spanned over three years. Almost every show was sold out with some venues garnering more sales than Pink Floyd shows of early touring years.[citation needed] One concert was released on CD and DVD, named In the Flesh Live, after the tour. During this tour he played two new songs from his next solo album, “Flickering Flame” and “Each Small Candle”, as the final encore to the show. In June of 2002 Waters played the Glastonbury Festival performing many classic Pink Floyd songs.
Waters, performing live in 2006
Miramax Films announced in mid-2004 that a production of The Wall was to appear on Broadway with Waters playing a prominent part in its production. Reports stated that the musical contained not only the original tracks from “The Wall”, but also songs from Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and other Pink Floyd albums, as well as new material. On the night of 1 May 2004, the overture for Ça Ira was pre-premièred on occasion of the Welcome Europe celebrations in the accession country of Malta, performed over Grand Harbour in Valletta and illuminated by light artist Gert Hof.
In September 2004, Waters released two new tracks on the Internet, “To Kill The Child” and “Leaving Beirut.” Both of these tracks were inspired by the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Waters, who currently resides in the U.S., has said that the songs were written immediately after the start of the war, but he delayed releasing them until just before the 2004 Presidential election. The lyrics to “Leaving Beirut” contain strong attacks on U.S. President George W. Bush and U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair. After the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and subsequent tsunami disaster, Waters performed “Wish You Were Here” with Eric Clapton during a benefit concert on the American network NBC.
Later solo years (since 2005)
Roger Waters performing on his Dark Side Of The Moon Live tour at the Members Equity Stadium in Perth, Australia in 2007
In February of 2005, it was announced on Roger Waters’ website that his opera, Ça Ira, had been completed after 16 years of work. It was released as a CD/DVD set by Sony Classical on September 27, 2005 with Baritone Bryn Terfel, soprano Ying Huang and tenor Paul Groves. The original libretto was written in French by the late Étienne Roda-Gil, who set the opera during the early French Revolution. From 1997 Waters rewrote the libretto in English.
On July 2, 2005 Waters and Pink Floyd reunited for a performance at the Live 8 concert. They played a six-song, 23-minute set, including “Speak to Me/Breathe”/”Breathe (Reprise)”, “Money”, “Wish You Were Here”, and “Comfortably Numb”. Waters remarked shortly after Live 8 to the Associated Press that, while the experience of playing as Pink Floyd again was positive, the chances of a bona fide reunion would be “slight”, considering his and Gilmour’s continuing musical and ideological differences. During an interview with Rolling Stone, Waters further denied the possibility of a future Pink Floyd tour, saying “I didn’t mind rolling over for one day, but I couldn’t roll over for a whole fucking tour.” He has since stated on a radio interview that he would be interested in the possibility of recording a new album with the rest of Pink Floyd as long as he had creative control. However, David Gilmour has said on several occasions that he is retired from extensive touring, shedding more doubt on the possibility of a Pink Floyd reunion tour.
However, more recently, Roger has become more open to the idea of a Pink Floyd reunion tour, stating during the BBC documentary “Which One’s Pink”, “It was really cool, I’d like to do more of it”, and at the end of the program, stated “I don’t think it will happen but I’d like…well, you can ask David when you speak to him.”
Waters is known to be working on two new solo albums; one has the working title of Heartland. Two new songs that might appear on this album have been released on Flickering Flame: The Solo Years Vol. 1: “Each Small Candle” and “Flickering Flame”. The other of the two albums deals with the theme of love, much in the vein of Pros and Cons. A work-in-progress, which may appear on this album and was dubbed “Woman” by bootleggers, was heard during the sound checks for the In the Flesh tour. However, in a recent telephone interview, he confirmed that the release of his next project has been delayed due to not having a concept to draw all the individual songs together into one piece.
Solid state laser system designed by Marc Brickman that depicted Dark Side of the Moon album art, used on Waters’ latest tour.
Solid state laser system designed by Marc Brickman that depicted Dark Side of the Moon album art, used on Waters’ latest tour.
Roger Waters toured Europe and North America during 2006 for his The Dark Side of the Moon Live Tour. As part of his performance he played a complete run-through of the 1973 Pink Floyd classic, The Dark Side of the Moon, as the second half of the show. The first half was a mix of Floyd classics and Waters’ solo material. Elaborate staging designed by Marc Brickman, complete with projections, and a full, 360 degree quadrophonic sound system were used. This new Waters’ solo tour is expected to be as successful as his previous In the Flesh tour. His former Pink Floyd bandmate, Nick Mason joined Waters on some of the tour dates. Richard Wright was invited to participate on the tour as well but he declined the offer to work on solo projects. There is also a 2007 leg of the Tour, starting in January in Australia, followed by New Zealand and going through Asia, Europe, South America, and finally North America in June.
Waters’ former bandmate Nick Mason began patching their relationship in 2002. After speaking to Mason and Bob Geldof about a possible Pink Floyd reunion at Live 8, Waters contacted Gilmour by phone and e-mail, and it appears that they have buried the hatchet since the historic concert and now communicate on a friendly basis. Waters has made overtures to Richard Wright, as well. Syd Barrett, who died on Friday 7 July 2006, remained an emotional subject for most of his friends and former colleagues. Waters said in interviews before Barrett’s death that it would be difficult and inappropriate for him to try to insert himself back into his old friend’s life. Waters performed another Dark Side of the Moon concert in the summer of 2007.
On July 7, 2007, Waters played at the American leg of the Live Earth concert, an international multi-venue concert aimed to raise awareness about global climate change, featuring the Trenton Youth Choir and his trademark inflatable pig. Waters has also recently become a spokesperson for Millennium Promise, a non-profit organisation that helps fight extreme poverty and malaria, and wrote a commentary for CNN’s website on June 11, 2007 about the topic. After wrapping up a performance at the Coachella Festival in April, Waters will continue his The Dark Side of the Moon Live tour in 2008.
Waters has made his views about the 2008 United States Presidential election clear. During his concert appearance at the Coachella Festival, he released the trademark Pink Floyd inflatable pig into the air with the words “Don’t be led to the slaughter” written on one side, next to a cartoon of Uncle Sam holding meat cleavers. “Fear builds walls” was written on the pig’s other side and “Impeach Bush” on the pig’s behind. On the pig’s belly was Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama’s name with a check mark beside it. Waters has referred to Hillary Clinton, another Democratic candidate, as “ghastly”. During an interview on the subject of the 2008 Presidential election Waters also revealed his atheism, saying: “Please, God – I’m an atheist so maybe I shouldn’t be asking God – but let Barack Obama finally win the Democratic nomination and elect a person who seems to be not just enormously intelligent but also deeply humane and seems to have an imagination.”
Pink Floyd songs composed by Roger Waters
* “Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk” from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967).
* “Julia Dream” from Single B-side to “It Would Be So Nice” (1968).
* “Let There Be More Light” from A Saucerful of Secrets (1968).
* “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” from A Saucerful of Secrets (1968).
* “Corporal Clegg” from A Saucerful of Secrets (1968).
* “Cirrus Minor” from Soundtrack from the Film More (1969).
* “The Nile Song from Soundtrack from the Film More (1969).
* “Crying Song” from Soundtrack from the Film More (1969).
* “Green is the Colour” from Soundtrack from the Film More (1969).
* “Cymbaline” from Soundtrack from the Film More (1969).
* “Grantchester Meadows” from Ummagumma (1969).
* “Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict” from Ummagumma (1969).
* “If” from Atom Heart Mother (1970).
* “Biding My Time” from Relics (1971).
* “San Tropez” from Meddle (1971).
* “Free Four” from Obscured by Clouds (1972).
* “Money” from Dark Side of the Moon (1973).
* “Brain Damage” from Dark Side of the Moon (1973).
* “Eclipse” from Dark Side of the Moon (1973).
* “Have a Cigar” from Wish You Were Here (1975).
* “Welcome to the Machine” from Wish You Were Here (1975).
* All tracks on Animals except “Dogs” (1977).
* All tracks on The Wall except “Young Lust”, “Comfortably Numb” , “Run Like Hell” and “The Trial” (1979).
* All tracks on The Final Cut (1983).
* “Embryo” from Works (1983).
Hits and awards
Waters’ solo singles have seen little chart activity; “What God Wants, Pt. 1″ reached #35 in the UK in September 1992. His first major solo album, The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, has been certified Gold by the RIAA, and his opera Ça Ira reached #1 on both the UK and U.S. Classical Charts. Waters has also been inducted into the U.S. and UK Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Pink Floyd, and received a “Media Event of the Year” award for mounting The Wall Live in Berlin.
Solo discography
For his work with Pink Floyd, see Pink Floyd discography between 1967 and 1983
28 November 1970 Music from The Body (with Ron Geesin)
30 April 1984 The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking
15 June 1987 Radio K.A.O.S.
10 September 1990 The Wall – Live in Berlin
7 September 1992 Amused to Death
5 December 2000 In the Flesh – Live
13 May 2002 Flickering Flame: The Solo Years Volume 1
26 September 2005 Ça Ira
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