Hey Fellers, in honor of Keith Silverstein's upcoming 53rd Birthday, I got this (complete with the inclusion of Can You Feel It by the Jacksons) and well, have a very, VERY Happy Early 53rd Birthday to him, once again as always, Fellers! ;)
Rolling Stone Magazine Top 200 Singers - The Omissions List
Once in awhile, I’ll do a music themed blog post and boy do I have a post for you. Rolling Stone Magazine opens 2023 with a list that no one asked for. Their 200 Singers list is an all time low for the once flourishing magazine. When you include auto-tuned singers like Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Ariana Grande, Lana Del Ray and dull as dishwater singers (again, my opinion) like Morrissey, Courtney Love, Michael Stipe, Bono, Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Vedder, you lose credibility in my book. Here are the singers of different backgrounds, genres, and vocalizations (in alphabetical order) that Rolling Stone failed to include on their inept list:
Jon Anderson
Julie Andrews
Paul Anka
Tina Arena
Charles Aznavour
Michael Ball
Jimmy Barnes
The Bee Gees (Barry, Maurice and Robin Gibb)
Pat Benatar
Tony Bennett
Andrea Bocelli
Jay Black
Colin Blunstone
Michael Bolton
Gary Brooker
Jack Bruce
Eric Burdon
Maria Callas
Eric Carmen
Paul Carrack
Enrico Caruso
Shirley Cesar
Peter Cetera
Eric Clapton
Petula Clark
Joe Cocker
Nat King Cole
Phil Collins
Perry Como
Burton Cummings
Bobby Darin
Sammy Davis Jr.
Neil Diamond
Judith Durham
The Everly Brothers (Don and Phil)
John Farnham
Dan Fogelberg
Marie Fredriksson
Art Garfunkel
Judy Garland
Vince Gill
Ian Gillan
Lou Gramm
Daryl Hall
Johnny Hallyday
Morten Harket
George Harrison
Russell Hitchcock
Noddy Holder
Mick Hucknall
Billy Joel
Brian Johnson
Tom Jones
Eddie Kendricks
Carole King
Johnny Maestro
Steve Marriott
Dean Martin
Michael McDonald
Meat Loaf
Ethel Merman
Klaus Meine
Liza Minnelli
Jim Morrison
Anthony Newley
Harry Nilsson
Luciano Pavarotti
Gene Pitney
Leontyne Price
Maddy Prior
The Righteous Brothers (Bobby Hatfield and Bill Medley)
King looked up from the book he was reading. "I don't know."
Garland's brows shot up. Considering how much King had been thinking about this, Garland had expected a more satisfactory answer. Tomorrow was Christmas, and Garland had somehow ended up as Queen's secret Santa. He'd never spoken to the girl before and was clueless about what she might want as a gift. He'd thought her brother, King, might be able to point him in the right direction, but the longer he stayed in the guy's company, the more he questioned the belief.
"You don't know what your sister likes?" Garland asked incredulously.
King said, his voice still contemplative, "Queen likes a lot of things. Stolen Beyblade parts, destruction, strong opponents, you get the idea."
Garland rolled his eyes. "Good for her. For me? Not so much. How exactly am I supposed to gift her any of those things?"
King shrugged. "Easy, mate. I'd suggest theft, arson and kidnap. In that order."
"It was a rhetorical question. Can you recommend a normal gift, please?"
A moment passed in silence. Garland glanced outside the window, his arms crossed. Not for the first time, he wondered why he'd thought it was a good idea to take part in this secret Santa game at all.
King clapped his hands together, jolting Garland out of his thoughts. "Oh, I know! Get her a flamethrower. She's always wanted one that fits in her handbag."
Garland frowned. "Did you hear me mention 'normal'?"
"Yeah, why?"
Garland sighed. "Forget it. How about I get her a coffee mug?"
King looked at Garland like he was insane. "God, no. The kitchen is already overflowing with them. If you want to buy cutlery, buy a knife. We're running short of kitchen knives."
Garland tried to picture running into Queen tomorrow, a gift-wrapped present at hand. He imagined telling her he was her secret Santa, and then her proceeding to open the present: knives draped in another layer of gift wraps, with 'Merry Christmas' written over them. Yeah, definitely not in the Christmas spirit.
"I don't want to buy cutlery," Garland amended. "What about a scrapbook?"
"No, it'll get scrapped in a day. Queen doesn't do art." King leaned forward and grinned. "Tell you what? Get a smoke grenade. She'd love the special effects, and it'd come in handy if she ever needed to rob a bank."
Garland stared at King for a second. How did they always come back to the subject of weapons? Garland didn't know if he should be concerned for the twins' sanity, or question his sense of humour. Maybe he was missing the joke here.
In a last, desperate attempt, Garland said, "Come on, King. She must like something that isn't lethal. Think."
King sighed and ran a gloved hand through his dark hair. "Well, she likes eyeliner, I think? Maybelline eyeliner, mind you. You can get her one if you're determined to hand out boring gifts."
Garland exhaled. "Thank you. That was all you had to say."
Nashville recording session guitarist Hank Garland died of a staph infection at age 74.(I Got Stung, Stuck On You, Marie’s The Name His Latest Flame, Little Sister, I Need Your Love Tonight, (Now And Then There’s) A Fool Such As I, A Big Hunk O’ Love and I Feel So Bad by Elvis Presley, plus hits for Patsy Cline, Brenda Lee, Mel Tillis, Marty Robbins, the Everly Brothers, Roy Orbison and Conway Twitty)
BREONNA TAYLOR AND TYRE NICHOLS ARE REMINDERS OF LESSONS NEVER LEARNED.
"The public execution of Black folks will never be normal.”
The inhumane shootings, beatings and treatment by police officers are reminiscent of the history surrounding this nation’s Culture of Violence and Trauma impacting Black Americans.
BY: GEORGE ADDISON
“I can’t bring myself to watch yet another video, not because I don’t care, but because we’re all just a few videos away from becoming completely desensitized. The public execution of Black folks…
The first DLC pack for Stranger of Paradise - Trials of the Dragon King- came out today, earlier than expected, and it really comes out swinging with “alright in order to start this DLC you’ll need to have progressed significantly into Chaos difficulty, and you will be gear checked by the Warrior of Light”.
Then you meet Bahamut and he goes “Oh cool, you got deep enough in Chaos difficulty to talk to me? Good, because you’re gonna need it for this new difficulty mode, which adds another 100 levels of stats and also the Heat system from Hades. Get moving, scrub.”
For most games I’d be a little disappointed but for my man JACK GARLAND I’ll walk through hell and back again, I will.
"To all intents and purposes she may be counted among the kings of France"
The hour that struck the death of Louis VIII was arguably the most critical in the history of the Capetian family. The new king, one day to be St Louis, was still a child. The trend of events in the previous two reigns had brought the higher nobility to realise that its independence would soon be seriously threatened. But a unique opportunity was raised to the regency of the queen-mother, Blanche of Castile, on the pretext that she was a woman and a foreigner. Yet this was not the first occasion on which the king's widow had acted as regent, nor the first on which a queen had played a part in politics. Philip Augustus had been the first Capetian not to involve his wife in the government of his realm. Before his time the queens of France had often intervened in affairs of state. Constance of Arles, not content with making married life difficult for Robert the Pious, had wanted to change the order of succession to the throne. She had led the opposition to Henri I, provoking and upholding his brothers against him, and she was perhaps responsible for the separation of Burgundy from the royal domain, to which Robert the Pious had joined it. Anna of Kiev, after the death of her husband Henri I, had been one of the regents, and it was only her second marriage, to Raoul de Crépy, that took her out of politics. Bertrada de Montfort's influence over Philip I had been notorious, and so had her hostility to the heir to the throne, whom she had even been accused of trying to poison. Adelaide of Maurienne, despite a physical personality before which Count Baldwin III of Hainault is said to have recoiled, had held considerable sway over Louis VI, procuring the disgrace of the chancellor, Etienne de Garlande, and egging on Louis to the Flemish adventure from which her brother-in-law, William Clito, was to profit so much. Eleanor of Aquitaine- as St Bernard had complained- had more power than anyone else over Louis VII as long as their marriage lasted. Louis VII's third wife, Adela of Champagne, had appealed to the king of England for help against her son Philip Augustus when he had sought to free himself of the tutelage of her brothers of Champagne. Later, reconciled with Philip, Adela had been regent during his absence from France on crusade. From the beginnings of Capet rule, the queens of France had enjoyed substantial influence over their husbands and over royal policy.
But Blanche of Castile was to play a greater role than any of her predecessors. To all intents and purposes she may be counted among the kings of France. For from 1226 until her death in 1252 she governed the kingdom. Twice she was regent: from 1226 to 1234, while Louis IX was a minor, and from 1248 to 1252 during his first absence on crusade. Between 1234 and 1248 Blanche bore no official title, but her power was no less effective. Severe in personality, heroic in stature, this Spanish princess took control of the fortunes of the dynasty and the kingdom in outstandingly difficult circumstances. For in 1226 there arose the most redoubtable coalition of great barons which the House of Capet ever had to face. Loyalty to the crown, so constant a feature of the past, seemed to be in eclipse. This was at any rate true of the barons who revolted, for they appear to have tried to seize the person of the young king himself- an attempt without parallel in Capetian history.
Blanche of Castile threw herself energetically into the struggle over her son and his throne. Taking her father-in-law, Philip Augustus, as her model, she won over half her enemies by craft, vigorously gave battle to the rest, and enlisted the alliance of the Church, including the Pope himself, and of the burgess class, which in marked fashion took the side of the royal family. Blanche was able to fend off Henry III of England, who tried to take the opportunity of recovering his ancestral lands, lost by John to Philip Augustus. She broke up the baronial coalition and reduced to submission the most dangerous of the rebels, Peter Mauclerc, Count of Brittany, and Raymond VII, Count of Toulouse. She adroitly took advantage of her victory to re-establish- this time definitively- the royal power in the south of France: her son Alphonse was married to the daughter and heiress of Raymond of Toulouse. The way was now open for the union of all Raymond's rich patrimony with the royal domain.
The Capetian monarchy emerged all the stronger from a crisis which had threatened to overwhelm it. Blanche felt it her duty not to rest on her laurels. After her son came of age she continued to make herself responsible for good and stable government. By the force of her example she drove home the lessons which Philip Augustus seems to have wanted to press upon his grandson when they had talked together. To Blanche's initiative must be credited the measures taken to suppress the dangerous revolt of Trencavel in Languedoc, as also those taken to defeat the coalition broken up after the battle of Saintes. On these occasions Louis IX did no more than carry out his mother's policy. When he went off on crusade, Blanche one more officially shouldered the government of the kingdom. She maintained law and order, prevented the further outbreak of war with England, and successfully pressed on with the policy which was to lead to the annexation of Languedoc. Likewise it was she who refurnished her son's crusade with men and money, and she took all the steps necessary for the safety of the kingdom when Louis was captured in Egypt.
Robert Fawtier- The Capetian Kings of France- Monarchy and Nation (987-1328)