Patsy Cline, 1932-1963: Fans Were 'Crazy' About This Young Country Music Star

Photo: patsy_cline_com

Source: www.voanews.com I recommend the VOA special English, in particular for beginners and intermediate learners do not forget to promote this for friends. By the way, promote Education doesn't mean promote Spam, I never do that, do you like to access my blog, simple telling for friends twit me. 

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: I’m Shirley Griffith.

DOUG JOHNSON: And I’m Doug Johnson with People in America in VOA Special English.  Today we tell about a young woman named Virginia Patterson Hensley. No one but her family would remember that name. The world remembers her as Patsy Cline.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: That song is called "Walkin' After Midnight." It was Patsy Cline's first big hit record. She recorded it in nineteen fifty-seven. It became number three on the list of country music hit recordings and number twelve on the list of most popular music.

Patsy had worked for many years to make that first successful record. She began singing when she was a young girl in her home town of Winchester, in the southern state of Virginia. Patsy sang anywhere she could. She sang at weddings and dances. She sang at public eating places for eight dollars a night. Those who knew her said she worked hard to improve her singing.

In nineteen fifty-four she won a country music competition near her home. She was twenty-two years old. She was asked to appear on a country music television program in Washington, D.C. She also sang on radio programs in the Virginia area and recorded some records.

DOUG JOHNSON: In nineteen fifty-seven, Patsy Cline appeared on a national television show in New York City. It was on this program that millions of people first heard her sing. She sang "Walkin' After Midnight," a song she had recently recorded. Her appearance on the television program helped make that record a major hit.

Patsy continued to record more songs. Within two years she had another major hit. It was called "I Fall to Pieces.” By this time Patsy's voice had already become something special. She had learned to control not only the sound but the feelings expressed in her songs. It was the slow, sad love songs that her fans enjoyed most, songs like "I Fall to Pieces."

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Patsy Cline's recording of "I Fall to Pieces" became her first number one country music hit. It was also a hit with fans of popular music. Patsy was a major star. She also had begun performing at the country music theater, the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee.

Those who knew her after she became a recording star say Patsy Cline was a very good friend. She liked to help young musicians. Later, many of these young musicians became important stars themselves.  One of Patsy's biggest hit songs also helped two of these young musicians become known. The song is called

"Crazy." It was written by an unknown musician who later became a major country music star. His name is Willie Nelson.

If you listen carefully to Patsy Cline's recording of "Crazy," you can hear the beautiful piano playing of another young musician, Floyd Cramer. He also became a major recording star. Listen to Patsy and Floyd perform Willie Nelson's song, "Crazy."

DOUG JOHNSON: On March sixth, nineteen sixty-three, Patsy Cline was killed in the crash of a small airplane. She was only thirty years old. She was flying home to Nashville. She had taken part in a special concert in Kansas City to raise money for the family of a country music radio performer who recently had died.

Reuters

Patsy Cline's husband and daughter pose with the country music singer's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Patsy Cline was buried near her home town of Winchester, Virginia. Thousands of people came to her funeral. Ten years after her death, she became the first woman performer elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: In nineteen eighty-five, Hollywood producers made a movie about the life of Patsy Cline.  It was called "Sweet Dreams. " Popular actress Jessica Lange played Patsy. No one really could sound like Patsy Cline. So the producers used her old records in the movie. Ms. Lange moved her mouth so she appeared to be singing. People who had never heard of Patsy Cline saw the movie and enjoyed her singing. They began buying her records. Today, her records still sell thousands of copies each year as new fans discover her.

We leave you with a song Patsy Cline recorded only a month before she died. It sounds almost as though she was singing in Special English. The song is called "Faded Love."

DOUG JOHNSON: This program was written by Paul Thompson.  It was produced by Lawan Davis. I'm Doug Johnson.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: And I’m Shirley Griffith.  Join us again next week for People in America in VOA Special English.

Do you Remeber? By Phil Collins

Source: http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=206

Author: Judith Jekkel for more information visit the site and do the exercise and check out the answers.

Now watch the video and do the following exercises.

Choose the words that you can hear.

We never talktalkedhave talkedhad talked about it

But I hear the blame was mymeminemain

I wouldshouldwillcould call you up to say I'm sorry

But I wouldn't want to waistwastevastwaits your time

'Cos I love you, but I can't lakemakefaketake any more

There's a looklucktookbook I can't describe in your eyes

If we wouldshouldcouldwood try, like we tried before

When you kept on tellselltellingselling me those lies

Tell me

Do you remember...?

Match the beginning and the end of the following lines

There seemed no                 A looked it told me

'Cos it seemed                    B let me know

And the way you                 C way to make up

It's a look I know                D over to my side

You could've come               E your mind was set

You could've                       F to see the distance between us

You could've tried                G  I'll never forget

But it seemed                     H too far for you to go.

Tell me

Do you remember...?

Tick the words that you can hear.

Through  though all of my life

In spite of all the paint   pain

You know people are funny sometimes  some times

'cos they just can't weight  wait

To get heard  hurt again

Tell me

Do you remember...?

Write in the words that you can hear. The images may help.

There are things  won't recall

Feelings we'll  find

It's taken so   to see it

Cos we never seemed to have the  

There was always something  important to do

More important to say

But "I  you" wasn't one of  things

And now it's too 

Do you remember...?

Tell me now

Lisa See: The China Sydrome

Source: Speak Up

Standard: American accent

Language level: Intermediate

Even though she has red hair, American author Lisa See is of Chine origin. More importantly perhaps, she has made China the subject of her books. Last year saw the publication of Snow flower and Secret Fan, which became a bestseller in the United States. Set in rural China in the nineteenth century, it tells of the hardships endured by women in a society in which foot-binding was still the norm. The novel also describes the secret language – “nu shu” –that women used for communicating with each other. Yet when Lisa See met with Speak Up, she talked about the China of today. We asked her how many prejudices westerns still had about the country:

Lisa See:

(Standard: American accent)

A lot, I think, a lot! You know, I think people hear, “Oh, this will one day be a superpower, an economic superpower,” but I don’t think people have a concept of what that really means and how much China has changed and how different it is today. Today a city like Shanghai is the most modern city in the world, in the whole world, and yet in the countryside, in some ways it’s still like it was or 100 or 300 years ago. So in one country you have this very old way, but also a very modern way and I think it’s very hard for people outside of China to see how these differences integrate and how they actually have an effect on the outside world.

INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS

We also asked her about the contradiction between economic wealth and the lack of political freedom:

Lisa See:

Shoot, you’re exactly right: it’s very hard to reconcile how people there think about human right human, rights and then this great economic freedom, but what I think is happening is that the economic richness that is occurring right now and this huge growth is actually having an effect on individual rights. So, for example, the used to say…or the government says, “no satellite dishes,” but today, in…even small remote villages, there’ll be a satellite dish for the whole village, so that they’re seeing outside images from other parts of China, from other parts of the world, so I think, as much as China sometimes tries to keep closed and keep people separated, that because of television, the internet, cell phones, this kind of communication is going on, not only just within China, but between China, and people in China, and the outside the world…is actually changing how the people think about freedom, individual thought, individual choice and that’s a kind of like a grass roots revolutions.

WELCOME, STRANGER

In conclusion we asked what she liked most about China:

Lisa See:

The countryside is so beautiful, the people –even very, very poor people, these peasants, have so much a kindness to them and an openness and…welcoming so that, you know, I travel to very remote areas and, when I walk into a village, people come out, they want o have me come and have tea, they want to share their food and they have almost nothing. And that…let me just say you would never find that in the United States ever, no-one would ever invite a strange in like that.


Did you like this? Please promote it for friends. Have a wonderful weekend.

Family Album, 28

Source: Family Album

Gaza Strip, Palestine

                            Source: www.speakup.com.br

Palestine Links

Around a million Palestinians live the Occupied Territories – the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem – which Israel conquered in 1967. Over a million more live as second-class citizens in Israel, left behind from the expulsion of at least 70,000 Palestinians in 1948. For those in the Occupied Territories, life is a nightmare reminiscent of the worst excesses of colonialism.

Middle- to upper-class Brazilians have become accustomed to living behind fences and walls. But imagine if these walls and guards were not keeping criminals out but keeping you in. That is the daily reality for the Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation. In recent years, Israel also been building a Separation Barrier as illegal by the International Court of Justice, this wall snakes around Palestinian population centres, leaving valuable agricultural land – and Jewish colonial settlements constructed since 1967 –on the new ‘Israeli’ side.

The Separation Barrier is an example of the differing interpretations of the conflict. For many Israeli citizens, and many of Israel’s supporters, the Barrier means security.

I have visited Palestine/Israel several times over the last four years, spending a total of around 10 months, seeing at fist hand what normal life is like for the Palestinians. ‘Normal’ includes besieged cities and villages, Jewish-only roads, mass land confiscation, more than 600 military checkpoints, roadblocks and other obstacles, a ‘permit’ system controlling all Palestinian movement, detention without trial, assassination, and daily military raids.

THE BRAZILIAN CONNECTIONS

Although seemingly worlds apart, Brazil and Palestine are connected. Ever since the creation of a Zionist state in 1948, Palestine-in-exile have established themselves around the world, including in South America. Brazil is estimated to be home to around 80.000 Palestinians, a community represented by the newly-renamed Federation of Brazilian Arab Palestinian Organizations (FEPAL). In January the group held their national congress in Porto Alegre, a city chosen because almost one third of Brazilian Palestinians hail from Rio Grande do Sul.

In 1975 Brazil recognised the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), whose current ambassador is Mayad Bamie. Moreover, many Brazilians are campaigning for justice for Palestine. Recently, the youth congress of Brazil’s largest trade union, CUT, decided to support the international Boycott Divestment Sanctions movement, aimed to pressure Israel to comply with international law. The congress also called on the Brazilian government to cut trade relations with Israel.

Another high-profile case is that of the Rio Cartoonist Carlos Latuff, whose ‘We are all Palestinians’ graphic series, whit its comparison of the Palestinian plight to the experiences of the Chiapas Indians in Mexico, black South African under apartheid, and the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto, among others, got worldwide coverage.

Bs: If you support for friend and peace in Gaza Strip, please twit it for friends.

Winchester

Source: Speak Up

Language level: Basic

Standard: American accent

Winchester

Winchester, a beautiful city in the south of England, will host Mayfest 2007 from May 11^th to 20^th. This is a folk festival with dancing, music and street entertainment. Saturday 19^th is a day for the family. You can take part in workshops about Ceildh, a Scottish form of dancing, and learn to write songs, sing and dance. On Saturday there will be a service at the United Church, followed by a Blue session at a pub along the banks of the River Itchen.

SONGS AND FILMS

Winchester’s most famous attraction is the Cathedral. In 1996 the New Vaudeville Band even recorded a hit song, “Winchester Cathedral,” which was later sung by Frank Sinatra and Petula Clark. You can visit the Cathedral’s beautiful gardens, climb the tower for spectacular views, or explore the crypt. Some of the scenes in Ron Howard’s film The Da Vince Code, were shot here, so you can see the Cathedral’s exhibition “Cracking the Code,” were shot here, a tour of images and icons similar to those mentioned in the book.

WRITERS AND PLACES

Next visit the 12^th century Great Hall, the last remnant of Winchester Castle, and see its legendary Arthurian Round Table. After that you can follow Keats Walk along the River Itchen past the buildings that inspired his poem “Ode to Autumn:” these include Winchester College, Wolvesey Palace and St Cross Hospital. Another famous writer, Jane Austen, lived at Chawton House, where she wrote the novel Pride and Prejudice. Today it is a museum. You can visit her grave at Winchester Cathedral. 

winchester Mayfest:

For more info visit: http://www.winmayfest.co.uk

E-mail: info@winmayfest.co.uk

Tickets available from:

Box Office, The Theatre

Royal Winchester

Tel: 0044(0)1962 84040

Winchester Cathedral

Visit: http://www.winchester-cathedral.org.uk

Tel: 0044(0) 1962 857225

Jane Aunten's House

Chawton, Alton, Hampshire

GU341SD, England

Tel: 0044 (0) 1420 83262

American History: Nation Grows More Conservative in '20s

Source: www.voanews.com 

BOB DOUGHTY: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION – American history in VOA Special English.

Americans experimented with many new customs and social traditions during the nineteen twenties. There were new dances, new kinds of clothes and some of the most imaginative art and writing ever produced in the United States.

But in most ways, the nineteen twenties were a conservative time in American life. Voters elected three conservative Republican presidents: Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. And they supported many conservative social and political policies.

This week in our series, Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe continue the story of American conservatism during the nineteen twenties.

KAY GALLANT: One such policy concerned immigration. Most Americans in the nineteen twenties had at least some ties through blood or marriage to the first Americans who came from Britain. Many people with these kinds of historic ties considered themselves to be real Americans, true Americans.

Americans traditionally had welcomed newcomers from such western European countries as Britain, France, or Germany. But most of the people arriving in New York City and other harbors in the nineteen twenties were from the central, eastern and southern areas of Europe.

Some Americans became afraid of these millions of people arriving at their shores. They worried that the immigrant newcomers might steal their jobs. Or they feared the political beliefs of the immigrants.

Calvin Coolidge

HARRY MONROE: Pressure to control immigration increased following the world war. Congress passed a bill that set a limit on how many people would be allowed to enter from each foreign country. And, the Congress and President Calvin Coolidge agreed to an even stronger immigration law in nineteen twenty-four.

Under the new law, limits on the number of immigrants from each foreign country depended on the number of Americans who had families in that country. For example, the law allowed many immigrants to enter from Britain or France, because many American citizens had families in those countries. But fewer people could come from Italy or Russia, because fewer Americans had family members in those countries.

The laws were very difficult to enforce. But they did succeed in limiting the number of immigrants from certain countries.

KAY GALLANT: A second sign of the conservative feelings in the nineteen twenties was the nation's effort to ban the sale of alcoholic drinks, or liquor. This policy was known as Prohibition, because it prohibited -- or banned -- alcoholic drinks.

Many of the strongest supporters of Prohibition were conservative Americans living in rural areas. Many of them believed that liquor was evil, the product of the devil.

A number of towns and states passed laws banning alcohol sales during the first years of the twentieth century. And in nineteen nineteen, the nation passed the eighteenth amendment to the federal constitution. This amendment, and the Volstead Act, made it unlawful to make, sell or transport liquor.

HARRY MONROE: Prohibition laws failed terribly from the start. There was only a small force of police to enforce the new laws. And millions of Americans still wanted to drink liquor. It was not possible for the police to watch every American who wanted to buy a drink secretly or make liquor in his own home.

Not surprisingly, thousands of Americans soon saw a chance to make profits from the new laws. They began to import liquor illegally to sell for high prices.

Criminals began to bring liquor across the long, unprotected border with Canada or on fast boats from the Caribbean islands. At the same time, private manufacturers in both cities and rural areas began to produce liquor. And shop owners in cities across the country sold liquor with little interference from local police.

By the middle of the nineteen twenties, it was clear to most Americans that Prohibition laws were a failure. But the laws were not changed until the election of President Franklin Roosevelt in nineteen thirty-two.

KAY GALLANT: A third sign of conservatism in the nineteen twenties was the effort by some Americans to ban schoolbooks on modern science. Most of the Americans who supported these efforts were conservative rural Americans who believed in the traditional ideas of the Protestant Christian church. Many of them were fearful of the many changes that had taken place in American society.

Science became an enemy to many of these traditional, religious Americans. Science seemed to challenge the most basic ideas taught in the Bible. The conflict burst into a major public debate in nineteen twenty-five in a trial over Charles Darwin's idea of evolution.

HARRY MONROE: British scientist Charles Darwin published his books "The Origin of the Species" and "The Descent of Man" in the nineteenth century. The books explained Darwin's idea that humans developed over millions of years from apes and other animals.

Most Europeans and educated people accepted Darwin's theory by the end of the nineteenth century. But the book had little effect in rural parts of the United States until the nineteen twenties.

William Jennings Bryan led the attack on Darwin's ideas. Bryan was a rural Democrat who ran twice for president. He lost both times. But Bryan remained popular among many traditional Americans.

Bryan told his followers that the theory of evolution was evil, because it challenged the traditional idea that God created the world in six days. He accused scientists of violating God's words in the Bible.

Bryan and his supporters called on local school officials to ban the teaching of evolution. Some state legislatures in the more conservative southeastern part of the country passed laws making it a crime to teach evolution theory.

KAY GALLANT: In nineteen twenty-five, a young science teacher in the southern state of Tennessee challenged the state's new teaching law. The teacher -- John Scopes -- taught Darwin's evolution ideas. Officials arrested scopes and put him on trial.

Some of the nation's greatest lawyers rushed to Tennessee to defend the young teacher. They believed the state had violated his right to free speech. And they thought Tennessee's law againt teaching evolution was foolish in a modern, scientific society. America's most famous lawyer, Clarence Darrow, became the leader of Scopes' defense team.

Bryan and other religious conservatives also rushed to the trial. They supported the right of the state of Tennessee to ban the teaching of evolution.

The trial was held in the small town of Dayton, Tennessee. Hundreds of people came to watch: religious conservatives, free speech supporters, newsmen and others.

The high point of the trial came when Bryan himself sat before the court. Lawyer Clarence Darrow asked Bryan question after question about the bible and about science. How did Bryan know the Bible is true. Did God really create the earth in a single day. Is a day in the Bible twenty-four hours. Or can it mean a million years.

HARRY MONROE: Bryan answered the questions. But he showed a great lack of knowledge about modern science.

The judge found Scopes guilty of breaking the law. But in the battle of ideas, science defeated conservatism. And a higher court later ruled that Scopes was not guilty.

The Scopes evolution trial captured the imagination of Americans. The issue was not really whether one young teacher was innocent or guilty of breaking a law. The real question was the struggle for America's spirit between the forces of modern ideas and those of traditional rural conservatism. The trial represented this larger conflict.

KAY GALLANT: American society was changing in many important ways during the early part of the twentieth century. It was not yet the world superpower that it would become after World War Two. But neither was it a traditional rural society of conservative farmers and clergy. The nineteen twenties were a period of growth, of change and of struggle between the old and new values.

(MUSIC)

BOB DOUGHTY: Our program was written by David Jarmul. The narrators were Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe.

You can find our series online with transcripts, MP3s, podcasts and images at voaspecialenglish.com. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. Join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION -- an American history series in VOA Special English.

__

This is program #171