Adele, a singer who touches millions

Music

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Adele, a singer who touches millions
Through moving songs such as “Someone Like You,”  Adele has shown the world that you can be successful without wearing extravagant outfits [1] or doing sexy dances

Adele had a fabulous 2011. Her second album, “21”, was the biggest-seller in the UK and in several other countries last year. The album includes two of the biggest hits of 2011: “Someone Like You,” and “Rolling in the Deep.” In November, Adele had surgery on her vocal cords. To recover fully from the surgery [2], she will have to go a few months without singing. Adele does not wear extravagant outfits or do sexy dance routines at her shows. She has won over the world through her ​​beautiful voice and her emotional interpretations. Adele tends to write songs about heartbreak [3]. In 2008 she released her first album, “19”, when she met the love of her life. In 2009, however, she was abandoned by the man she loved. Adele used music as her therapy and composed several songs ‘inspired’ by the end of her relationship. “Someone Like You” is one. Adele Laurie Blue Adkins was born in Tottenham, in London, on May 5, 1988. Her mother, Penny Adkins, was left by her boyfriend during the pregnancy and had to raise [4] her only daughter alone.

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Matéria publicada na edição de fevereiro da Revista Maganews.
Áudio – David Hatton

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Vocabulary1 outfit – roupa / vestimenta
2 surgery – cirurgia
3 heartbreak – exp. idiom. = desilusão amorosa
4 to raise - criar

Lena Horne, 1917-2010: A Star Who Broke Racial Barriers

Photo: AP

Singer and actress Lena Horne who broke racial barriers as a Hollywood and Broadway star

Credits: All credits of this entry for VOA SPECIAL ENGLISH, used only Educational purpose. 

Source: http://www.voanews.com/learningenglish/home/Lena-Horne-1917-2010-A-Star-Who-Broke-Racial-Barriers-131919363.html

BARBARA KLEIN: I’m Barbara Klein.

STEVE EMBER: And I’m Steve Ember with PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English. Today we remember the singer and actress Lena Horne. She helped break racial barriers by changing the way black women were represented in film. During her sixty-year career performing, Lena Horne electrified audiences with her beauty and rich, emotional voice. She used her fame to fight social injustices toward African-Americans.

(MUSIC)

BARBARA KLEIN: That was Lena Horne singing her most famous song, “Stormy Weather.” She sang this song in a nineteen forty-three musical movie of the same name. In the nineteen forties, Lena Horne was the first African-American in Hollywood to sign a long-term contract with a major movie studio. Her deal with MGM stated that she would never play the role of a servant.

During this period, African-American actors were mostly limited to playing servants or African natives. Lena Horne refused to play roles that represented African-Americans disrespectfully.

AP

Grammy Award winner Lena Horne poses with record producer Quincy Jonesand Dan Morgenstern of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences

STEVE EMBER: But this refusal also limited her movie career. Horne was generally only offered the role of a nightclub singer. Her characters did not interact with white characters in these movies. This way, her part could be cut from the version of the movie that played in the American South. During this time, racial separation laws were in effect in the South.

Lena Horne later wrote that the movie producers did not make her into a servant, but they did not make her into anything else either. She said she became a butterfly pinned down and singing away in Movieland.

BARBARA KLEIN: Lena Horne once said that World War Two helped make her a star. She was popular with both black and white servicemen. She sang on army radio programs and traveled to perform for the troops. During one event, she noted that German prisoners of war were permitted to sit closer to the stage than black soldiers. She criticized the way black soldiers were treated by the army. These experiences led to Lena Horne’s work in the civil rights movement.

LENA HORNE: “When I went to the South and met the kind of people who were fighting in such an unglamorous fashion, I mean, fighting to just get someplace to sit and get a sandwich.  I felt close to that kind of thing because I had denied it and had been left away from it so long. And I began to feel such pain again.”

(MUSIC: “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen”)

AP

Lena Horne performs at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1954

STEVE EMBER: Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was born in Brooklyn, New York in nineteen seventeen. Her mother, an actress, was away for much of Lena’s childhood. Lena’s grandmother helped raise her. Her grandmother was a social worker and women’s rights activist.

At the age of sixteen, Lena found work as a dancer at the famous Cotton Club in New York City. After taking voice lessons, she soon began performing there as a singer.

BARBARA KLEIN: At the age of nineteen, Lena Horne moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and married Louis Jones. Her marriage did not last long. But she had two children, Gail and Edwin.

In nineteen forty, Lena Horne became the first African-American to travel and perform with an all-white jazz band. She also made records and performed at New York City’s Café Society jazz club. This was the first nightclub in the United States without racial separation. Many jazz clubs during this period had black performers. But few allowed black people to watch the shows in the audience.

STEVE EMBER: Lena Horne became very popular. After performing at a club in Hollywood, California, she caught the attention of filmmakers.  She soon began making movies. Lena Horne said that she was able to make movies because she was the kind of black person that white people could accept. But she said this was the worst kind of acceptance. It was for the way she looked, not for how good she was or how hard she worked.

AP

Lena Horne at the 65th Annual Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles, California in 1993

BARBARA KLEIN: In nineteen forty-seven, Lena Horne married Lennie Hayton. He was a music writer for the MGM movie studio and was white. The couple married secretly in Paris, France. They did so because it was illegal at the time for people of different races to marry in the United States. They did not announce their marriage for three years.  Lena Horne later said that she first became involved with Lennie Hayton because she thought he could be useful to her career.  He could help get her into places that a black manager could not. But she says she began to love him because he was a nice man.

(MUSIC: “Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man of Mine”)

STEVE EMBER: Lena Horne’s movie career slowed down in the nineteen fifties. But she continued recording and performing live and on television. Her nineteen fifty-seven album, “Lena Horne at the Waldorf Astoria,” became a best-seller.

She also became increasingly involved in civil rights activities. She protested racial separation at the hotels where she performed. She took action so that she and her musicians would be permitted to stay in those hotels. Black musicians at the time generally stayed in black neighborhoods.

Lena Horne also sang at civil rights gatherings. She took part in the March on Washington protest in nineteen sixty-three. It was during this event that Martin Luther King Junior gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.

BARBARA KLEIN: Lena Horne performed in a strong and expressive way.  One expert said she was not warm and friendly like white, male singers at the time. Instead, she was a fierce, black woman.

AP

The beautiful singer and actress is shown here in 1974 at the age of 57

Lena Horne once said she felt a need to act distant on stage to protect herself. She said when white audiences saw her, they were busy seeing their own idea of a black woman. She chose to show them a woman whom they could not reach. She said: “They get the singer, but they are not going to get the woman.”

(MUSIC: “I Want to Be Happy”)

STEVE EMBER: Lena Horne continued making records throughout the nineteen sixties, seventies and eighties.  In nineteen eighty-one she returned to Broadway in New York with the show “Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music.”

The show ran for over a year, before traveling around the United States and Europe. It earned her a Tony Award and two Grammy Awards.

BARBARA KLEIN: Lena Horne died in two thousand ten at the age of ninety-two. At the age of eighty, she said this about her career: “My identity is very clear to me now. I am a black woman. I’m free.” She said she no longer had to be a “first” to anybody.

She said she did not have to act like a white woman that Hollywood hoped she would become. She said: “I’m me, and I’m like nobody else.”

(MUSIC: “The Lady is a Tramp”)

STEVE EMBER: This program was written and produced by Dana Demange. I’m Steve Ember.

BARBARA KLEIN: And I’m Barbara Klein. Transcripts, MP3s and podcasts are at voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English

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WHERE ARE THEY NOW? NIKKA COSTA

Source: http://www.speakup.com.br

Language level: A2 Pre-Intermediate

Standard: British accent

Speaker: Jason Bermingham

Nikka Costa was child pop star during the early 1980s. She seemed to disappear soon after that, but in actual fact she has continued with her professional singing career.

Nikka Costa’s real name is Domenica Costa and she was born in Tokyo on June 4^th, 1972. She came from a musical family: her father, Don Costa was a composer and arranger, and her mother, Terry Ray Costa, was a singer. Her parents were friends with Tony Renis, an accomplished singer and producer who was a big success in Europe. Renis recognised the Costa daughter’s talent and helped launch her career.

INTERNATIONAL HIT

Nikka’s most famous hit came in 1981, when she was just eight years old. “(Out Here) On My Own” was a big hit in Brazil, but also in many other countries. Indeed the only country where it wasn’t a hit was in the United States, where Nikka lived. The single wasn’t released there. This was because Nikka’s parents wanted their daughter to have a normal childhood and not be ruined by success. In the USA the song was recorded by Irene Cara.

A couple of years later tragedy struck: Nikka was only 11 when her father died. Nikka withdrew from music altogether, although she did make a return, as a teenager, at the Sanremo Festival in 1990. As part of a trio she sang “All for the Love.” The 1990s saw only album release, but Nikka seemed to make another comeback in 2001 with the album, Everybody’s Got Their Something. The little track was used for the TV series, Buffy, while another song, “Push & Pull,” was used for the soundtrack of the Johnny Deep Movie, Blow. Her album, 2005’s Can’t Never did Nothin’, was also  well received and featured guest appearances from Prince and Lenny Kravutz. Her latest album, Pebble to a Pearl, was described by the critic David Wild as “her most direct and convincing music statement yet.”

FUNKY LADY

Like many artists today, Nikka Costa has not had a good relationship with record labels. She has said that being with a major label was like being “on the deck on the Titanic.” Today she has her own label and its name refers both to her musical style and to her attitude towards the record industry: it’s called “Go Funk Yourself Records.”

GLOSSARY

In actual fact: na realidade.

Hit: Sucesso

Childhood: Infância

Struck: golpeou, abalou.

Withdrew from music altogether: retirou-se totalmente da música.

The title track: A canção, título.

Soundtrack: Trilha Sonora.

Featured guest appearence: Contava com a contribuição de convidados.

Pebble to a Pearl: “De pedrinha à pérola.

Her most...musical statement yet: sua mais convicente produção musical até agora.

Record labels: Selos gravadoras.

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Ray Charles, 1930-2004: Singer, Songwriter and Musician Extraordinaire

Source: Voice of America Special English
www.manythings.org/voa/people 

This is Faith Lapidus. And this is Doug Johnson with PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English.  Today we begin a two-part report about singer, songwriter, and musician Ray Charles.  His work will continue to have a lasting influence on American music.

(MUSIC)

Ray Charles spent almost sixty years as a professional musician.  Millions of people around the world enjoy his recordings.  If Ray Charles only played the piano, he would have been considered one of the best.  If he had only sung his music, his voice would have made him famous.  If he had only played jazz music, the world would have listened.  But Ray Charles did all these things and more.

 He played and sang rock-and-roll and rhythm-and-blues songs.  He sold millions of country and western records, too.  His work brought together different kinds of music and different kinds of music fans.  His influence on much of America's popular music cannot be truly measured.

(MUSIC:  "One Mint Julep")

That was Ray Charles and "One Mint Julep."  He recorded that song in nineteen sixty-one on an album called "Genius Plus Soul Equals Jazz."  It is one of the many hundreds of records he recorded.

Ray Charles Robinson was born in nineteen thirty in Albany, Georgia.  When he was six years old, he began to suffer from the eye disease glaucoma.  The disease made him blind.  He left the world of sight forever and turned to the world of sound.  He learned to love sounds, especially music of all kinds.

Ray Charles taught himself to play the organ, alto saxophone, clarinet and trumpet.  Yet there was a special relationship between him and the piano.  Here is part of the song "Worried Mind."  The style is country and western, with a heavy influence of blues.  Listen to his work on the piano, an instrument he truly loved.   You can almost see him smiling.

(MUSIC)

Ray Charles was fifteen years old when his mother died.   Within a year, he had left school to work.  He began playing piano professionally in African American eating and drinking places in the state of Florida.

A year later, he moved to the opposite corner of America: Seattle, Washington.  While in Seattle, he made forty records.  But none was a success.

At that time, Ray Charles was trying to play the piano and sing like the famous performer Nat King Cole.  But he quickly learned there was only one Nat King Cole.  No one wanted to hear a copy, not even a good copy.

So Charles started looking for his own musical sound.  He began to experiment.  He tried mixing blues and jazz.  He used some jazz styles with the music that later was known as rock-and-roll.  His experiments soon became popular with many black Americans.

He played at dances around the country.  He also sold some records, mostly to black people.  Few white Americans had heard of a blind musician named Ray Charles.

By the middle of the nineteen fifties, he had his own band.  It was one of the most popular black dance bands in the country.  A group of women sang with the band.

One night, Charles began playing a simple song.  He told the women to sing in a style known as call and response.  In this style, the lead singer asks a question or sings some words.  The other singers answer.  This kind of singing was brought to America by black slaves from Africa.  It has remained very popular in black church music.

At the dance that night, Ray Charles put together simple piano music, traditional call and response and rock-and-roll.  The result was a revolution in American music.  Soon after, Ray recorded that song. It is called "What'd I Say?"

(MUSIC)

"What'd I Say?" sold millions of copies.  Ray Charles no longer just played at small dances for black people.  He performed in large theaters for big audiences of every color.  He had found a sound like no other.  His style of music was filled with excitement.  And those who listened shared in that excitement.

By the end of the nineteen fifties, Ray Charles had recorded many hit songs.  Most of his music was black rhythm-and-blues or soul music.  Yet white Americans were listening, too.

Charles did not want to play just one kind of music, even if it was extremely popular.  He began experimenting again, this time with jazz.  One album, "Black Coffee," is considered by experts to be one of his very best jazz recordings.  It shows that his piano work can express many different feelings.  Here is the song "Black Coffee" from that album.

(MUSIC)

Ray Charles continued to make rhythm-and-blues and jazz records.  But that was still not enough for him.  He had always loved country-and-western music.  So he decided to record a country album.

Music industry experts said he was making a mistake.  They told him not to do it.  They said he would lose many fans.  The fans, they said, would not understand or like this kind of music.  Ray Charles did not listen to the experts.  He took a chance. And he was right.  The public loved his country-and-western songs.  You can hear some of these country-and-western songs next week, when we bring you the second part of our report about Ray Charles.

(MUSIC:  "Making Whoopee")

This program was written by Paul Thompson.  It was produced by Lawan Davis.  I'm Doug Johnson. And I'm Faith Lapidus.  Join us next week for the second part of our program on Ray Charles on PEOPLE IN AMERICA, in VOA Special English.