Happy birthday to Gwen Stephani, I hear she celebrated her birthday not to long ago. I wish her and No Doubt get back together, I like them as a group!

Dari Wikipedia bahasa Indonesia, ensiklopedia bebas

Afgan Syah Reza
Latar belakang
Nama lahir	Afgan Syah Reza
Lahir	27 Mei 1989 (umur 19) Indonesia
Genre	pop, soul, R&B, jazz
Pekerjaan	penyanyi
Tahun aktif	2008 - sekarang
Perusahaan rekaman	Sony-BMG
Orang tua	Lyod Yahya & Lola Purnama
Situs resmi	http://www.afgan-wannab.com/

Afgan Syah Reza (lahir di Jakarta, 27 Mei 1989; umur 19 tahun) adalah penyanyi Indonesia. Anak kedua dari empat bersaudara pasangan Lola Purnama dan Loyd Yahya ini merilis debut albumnya berjudul Confession No.1 di bulan Januari 2008. Album yang diisi dengan 13 lagu ini kental terasa dipengaruhi pop, soul, R&B, dan jazz dan mengandalkan lagu "Terima Kasih Cinta", "Klise", dan "Tanpa Batas Waktu". Sementara penggarapan video klip untuk lagu "Terima Kasih Cinta" dengan bintang Thalita Latief, dikerjakan oleh sutradara Jose Purnomo. Album ini diproduksi oleh Wanna B Production dan didistribusikan di bawah label PT Sony-BMG dan penggarapannya dibantu sejumlah musisi ternama antara lain Fajar LMN, Harry Budiman (produser Tangga), Deddy Dhukun, dan Dian Pramana Putra, dan Bebi Romeo sebagai komposer.^[1][2]

Afgan dibesarkan di tengah keluarga yang suka menikmati musik. Bahkan mahasiswa Fakultas Ekonomi Universitas Indonesia ini sejak SMU sudah sering didaulat untuk menyanyi, namun selalu menolak karena sifatnya yang pemalu. Karirnya diawali ketika bersama teman-temannya berkunjung ke WannaB Instant Recording Studio. Di studio ini mereka menyanyi dan merekamnya dalam CD untuk koleksi pribadi. Diluar dugaan ternyata suara emas Afgan terpantau oleh Produser WannaB yang langsung menawarinya rekaman. Awalnya sempat ragu tapi akhirnya diterima juga dan langsung masuk dapur rekaman. Ternyata album pertamanya disuka peminat musik dan mampu menempati posisi tertinggi di Chart radio dan TV terkemuka di Indonesia

Ingredients:

Nilla wafers
Banana slices
Peanut Butter

Creat a little sandwich by spreading peanut butter on the wafers.. then put banana slice in between. Dip it in batter and deep fry it following these instructions.

There are really only 2 periods I love of Elvis. 54'-56' Elvis and 68 comeback special Elvis. The rest is just fluff or deep fried fat with bad sunglasses.

56' Elvis

'68 Comeback Elvis

'68 Elvis formed the basis for how I wanted my backing group to be. It was loosey goosey, colored with inside jokes, and filled with plenty of fun. When I first started playing shows in Dallas, I played acoustic guitar with one drummer, forcing him to only use a snare with brushes.. no drumkit allowed! Eventually I added more members to the group resulting in The All-Nighters. If you have ever been to my live shows.. you can see that we try our best to capture the essence of the '68 comeback special.

I wish I had songs I could give away.... unfortunately I can't churn them out like the Beatles factory did.  Some of the songs they wrote for others were pretty craptastic.. but suprisingly many of these tunes became huge hits! Then there are the songs that maybe the Beatles shouldn't have given away. I obviously love the Mccartney tracks more, but his are definitely the stronger songs.

Funny Beatles factoid; when Paul would play World Without Love, as he sang the lyric "please lock me away", John would always be quick to respond "ok". Classic John.

World Without Love (Peter & Gordon)
[audio=http://boxstr.com/files/3760956_ipcdw/16%20World%20Without%20Love%20-%20Peter%20and%20Gordon.mp3]

Step Inside Love (demo w/cilla black)
[audio=http://boxstr.com/files/3760971_ozbue/30%20Step%20Inside%20Love%20%28demo%29%20-%20Cilla%20Black%20and%20Paul%20McCartney.mp3]

Come And Get It (Badfinger)
[audio=http://boxstr.com/files/3760984_qhyw2/24%20Come%20And%20Get%20It%20-%20Badfinger.mp3]

SUPER ADDED BONUS!

Paul wanted to give this song to Frank Sinatra but ol' Blue eyes thought that the song was a joke and reportedly said "Is this guy trying to have me?". Frank is pretty dumb cus this song could have been a Sinatra classic.

Mel Tillis' biggest hits include, "I Ain't Never", "Good Woman Blues", and "Coca-Cola Cowboy". Mel Tillis also has won the CMA Awards most coveted award, Entertainer of the Year. Mel Tillis' daughter is country music singer, Pam Tillis. Mel Tillis is also well-known for his speech impediment, which does not affect his singing voice.

Mel Tillis's stutter developed during his childhood, a result of a bout of malaria. As a child, Mel Tillis learned the drums, as well as guitar. At the age of 16, he won a local talent show, and soon joined the United States Air Force, and worked for the railroad. When young Mel Tillis was stationed in Okinawa, he formed a band called The Westerners, which played at local nightclubs. Mel Tillis attended the University of Florida.

After leaving the military in 1955, Mel Tillis worked a number of odd jobs and moved to Nashville, Tennessee the following year. Mel Tillis wrote "I'm Tired", a #3 country hit for Webb Pierce in 1957. Other Mel Tillis hits include "Honky Tonk Song" and "Tupelo County Jail". Ray Price and Brenda Lee also charted hits with Mel Tillis' material around this time. In the late-50s, after becoming a hit-making songwriter, he signed his own contract with Columbia Records in the late-50s. In 1958, he had his 1st Top 40 hit, "The Violet and a Rose", followed by the Top 25 hit, "Sawmill".

Although Mel Tillis charted on his own Billboard's Hot Country Songs list, he had more success as a songwriter. Mel Tillis continued to be Webb Pierce's songwriter. Mel Tillis wrote the hits, "I Ain't Never" (Mel Tillis' own future hit) and "Crazy, Wild Desire". Bobby Bare, Wanda Jackson, and Stonewall Jackson also covered his songs. Mel Tillis continued to record on his own. Some well-known songs from his Columbia years include "The Brooklyn Bridge", "Loco Weed", and "Walk on, Boy". However, he didn't achieve major success on the country charts on his own.

In the mid-60s, Mel Tillis switched over to Kapp Records. In 1965, he had his 1st Top 15 hit with "Wine". Other hits continued to follow, like "Stateside" and "Life Turned Her That Way" (which was later covered by Ricky Van Shelton in 1988, and went to #1). Mel Tillis wrote for Charley Pride ("The Snakes Crawl At Night") and wrote a big hit for Kenny Rogers & the 1st Edition called "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town". Mel Tillis also wrote the hit "Mental Revenge" for Outlaw superstar Waylon Jennings (and it has also been covered by the Hacienda Brothers, Linda Ronstadt, Gram Parsons, and Barbara Mandrell). In 1968, Mel Tillis achieved his 1st Top 10 hit with "Who's Julie". Mel Tillis also was a regular featured singer on The Porter Wagoner Show. Although success didn't come quickly or easily as a singer in the '60s, things would turn around for Mel Tillis a great deal in the '70s.

Mel Tillis finally achieved the success he always wanted with 2 Top 10 country hits, "These Lonely Hands of Mine" and "She'll Be Hanging Around Somewhere". In 1970, he reached the Top 5 with "Heart Over Mind", which peaked at #3 on the Hot Country Songs list. After this, Mel Tillis' career as a country singer went into full-swing. Hits soon came quite easily, like "Heaven Everyday" (1970), "Commercial Affection" (1970), "Arms of a Fool" (1970), "Take My Hand" (a duet with Sherry Bryce in 1971), and "Brand New Mister Me" (1971). In 1972, Mel Tillis achieved his 1st chart-topper with his version of his song "I Ain't Never". Even though the song was previously recorded and made a hit by Webb Pierce, Mel Tillis' version is the best-known version out of the 2. Most of these songs that were hits above were recorded under MGM Records, Mel Tillis' record company in the early part of the decade.

After the success of "I Ain't Never", Mel Tillis had another hit, which came close to #1 (reached #3) entitled "Neon Rose", followed by "Sawmill", which also came close at #2. "Midnight Me and the Blues" was another near-chart topper in 1974. Other hits Mel Tillis had under MGM include "Stomp Them Grapes" (1974), "Memory Maker" (1974), "Woman in the Back of My Mind" (1975), and his version of "Mental Revenge" (1976). In 1976, Mel Tillis signed on with MCA Records. Mel Tillis achieved his biggest success under MCA Records. It started with a pair of 2 #1 hits in 1976, "Good Woman Blues" and "Heart Healer". Thanks to this success, Mel Tillis won the CMA Awards's most coveted award, Entertainer of the Year, and was also inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame that year. Mel Tills achieved another #1 in 1978 with "I Believe In You", and then again in 1979 with "Coca-Cola Cowboy", which was put in the Clint Eastwood movie Every Which Way But Loose. Also in 1978, Mel Tillis co-hosted a short-lived variety series on ABC television, Mel and Susan Together with model Susan Anton. Other hits around this time included "Send Me Down to Tucson", "Ain't No California", and "I Got the Hoss". In mid-1979, Mel Tillis switched over to another record company once again, this time with Elektra Records.

After signing under Elektra in mid-1979, he continued to make hit songs, like "Blind In Love" and "Lying Time Again", both hits for Mel Tillis in 1979. Up until 1981, Mel Tillis remained on top his game as one of country music's most successful vocalists of the era. "Your Body Is an Outlaw", went to #3 in 1980, followed by another Top 10 hit, "Steppin' Out". "Southern Rains" was his last No. 1 hit, when it became a hit in 1981. That same year, he dueted with Nancy Sinatra on the Top 30 hit "Texas Cowboy Night". Mel Tillis remained with Elektra until 1982, before switching back over to MCA for a brief period in 1983. That summer, he scored a Top 10 hit with "In The Middle Of The Night" and had his last Top 10 hit with "New Patches" in 1984. By this time however, Mel Tillis built up a financial empire, thanks to investing in music-publishing companies, like Sawgrass and Cedarwood. Mel Tillis also appeared in movies, like The Villain (1979 film), Love Revival, W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings, The Cannonball Run and Uphill All the Way, a comedy western in which he starred with fellow country singer Roy Clark, among others. In 1979 he acquired radio station KIXZ (AM) in Amarillo, TX from Sammons-Ruff Associates, which converted from Top 40 to country music and became a force in the Panhandle region. A short time later Mel Tillis acquired Rock FM station KYTX, which changed calls to KMML (a play on Mel Tillis' stutter). Still later he operated WMML in Mobile, Alabama. All stations were sold in the fullness of time for a healthy return. Mel Tillis briefly signed with RCA Records, as well as Mercury Records, and later Curb Records in 1991. By this time, his chart success faded from view.

Since his heyday in the 1970s, Mel Tillis remained a songwriter in the 1980s, writing hits for Ricky Skaggs and Randy Travis respectively. Mel Tillis also wrote his autobiography called Stutterin' Boy, (the title comes from Mel Tillis' speech impediment). Mel Tillis appeared as the television commercial spokesman for the fast-food restaurant chain Whataburger during the 1980s. Mel Tillis also built a theater in Branson, Missouri, where he performed on a regular basis until 2002. In 1998, he teamed up with Bobby Bare, Waylon Jennings and Jerry Reed to form The Old Dogs. The group recorded a double album of songs penned entirely by Shel Silverstein. In July, 1998 Old Dogs Volumes 1 and 2 were released on the Atlantic Records label. A companion video, as well as a Greatest Hits album (composed of previously released material by each individual artist), were also available. In the 1990s, Mel Tillis's daughter, Pam Tillis, became a successful country music singer in her own right, having hits like "Maybe It Was Memphis" and "Shake the Sugar Tree". In June 1999 ABC news ran a story about Mel Tillis being frustrated by his speech impediment, and stated that he went on to grow in confidence using techniques from stutterfree and, although Mel Tillis has never spoken about this, many did note a small improvement in his problematic articulation about that time. Mel Tillis's speech problem is not evident in singing, only in talking.

Mel Tillis was inducted into the Opry by his daughter Pam. Along with being inducted into the Grand Ole Opry, it was announced on 7 August that year that Mel Tillis along with Ralph Emery and Vince Gill are the newest to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Mel Tillis has 6 children, they are: Mel Tillis Jr. (a songwriter), Pam Tillis, Carrie April Tillis, Connie Tillis, Cindy Tillis, and Hannah Tillis. Mel Tillis has 1brother, Richard, and 2 sisters, Linda and Imogene.

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Robert Merrill was an American operatic baritone. While there has been dispute of his birth year (some claim he was born in 1919), the social security index, his family, and his gravestone state that he was born in 1917.

Robert Merrill was born to tailor Abraham Miller, originally Milstein, and his wife Lillian, née Balaban, immigrants from Warsaw, Poland. Lillian claimed to have had an operatic and concert career in Poland (a fact denied by her son in his biographies) and encouraged her son to have early voice training: he had a tendency to stutter, which disappeared when singing. Robert Merrill was inspired to pursue professional singing lessons when he saw the baritone Richard Bonelli singing Count Di Luna in a performance of Il Trovatore at the Metropolitan Opera, and paid for them with money earned as a semi-professional pitcher.

In his early radio appearances as a crooner he was sometimes billed as Merrill Miller. While singing at bar mitzvahs and weddings and Borscht Belt resorts, he met an agent, Moe Gale, who found him work at Radio City Music Hall and with the NBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Arturo Toscanini. With Arturo Toscanini conducting, he eventually sang in 2 of the famous maestro's NBC broadcasts of famous operas, La traviata (with Licia Albanese, in 1946), and Un ballo in maschera (with Herva Nelli, in 1954). Both of those broadcasts were eventually released on both LP and CD.

Robert Merrill's 1944 operatic debut was in Verdi's Aida at Newark, New Jersey, with the famous tenor Giovanni Martinelli, then at the end of his long stage career.

Robert Merrill, who had continued his vocal studies under Samuel Margolis made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1945, as Germont in La Traviata. Also in 1945, Robert Merrill recorded a 78rpm record set with Jeanette MacDonald featuring selections from the operetta Up In Central Park; MacDonald and Robert Merrill did 2 duets together on this album. In 1952, his role in the musical comedy film Aaron Slick from Punkin Crick led to conflict with Sir Rudolf Bing and a brief departure from the Met in 1951. Robert Merrill sang many different baritone roles, becoming, after the on-stage death of Leonard Warren in 1960, the Met's principal baritone. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he appeared under the direction of Alfredo Antonini in performances of arias from the Italian operatic repertoire for the open air Italian Night concert series at Lewisohn Stadium in New York City. Robert Merrill was described by Time as "one of the Met's best baritones". The tenor-baritone duet "Au fond du temple saint" from the opera The Pearl Fishers by Georges Bizet, which he recorded with Jussi Bjorling, was always top of listener's polls for the BBC's Your Hundred Best Tunes. It was also No 1. in ABC's "The Classic 100 Opera", a poll in which Australians voted for the one moment in opera they could not live without. It is regarded as one of the most perfect tenor/baritone performances of all time. Robert Merrill also continued to perform on radio and television, in nightclubs and recitals. Robert Merrill retired from the Met in 1976. For many years, he led services, often in Borscht Belt hotels, on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.

In honour of Robert Merrill's vast influence on American vocal music, on 16 February,1981 he was awarded the prestigious University of Pennsylvania Glee Club Award of Merit. Beginning in 1964, this award "established to bring a declaration of appreciation to an individual each year that has made a significant contribution to the world of music and helped to create a climate in which our talents may find valid expression."

Relatively late in his singing career, Robert Merrill also became known for singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Yankee Stadium. Robert Merrill 1st sang the national anthem to open the 1969 baseball season, and it became a tradition for the Yankees to bring him back each year on Opening Day and special occasions. Robert Merrill sang at various Old Timer's Days (wearing his own pinstriped Yankee uniform with the number "1 1/2" on the back) and the emotional pre-game ceremony for Thurman Munson at Yankee Stadium on 3 August, 1979, the day after the catcher's death in a plane crash. A recorded Robert Merrill version is sometimes used at Yankee Stadium today. Robert Merrill preferred a traditional approach to the song devoid of additional ornamentation, as he explained to Newsday in 2000, "When you sing the anthem, there's a legitimacy to it. I'm extremely bothered by these different interpretations of it." Robert Merrill received the National Medal of Arts in 1993.

Robert Merrill married soprano Roberta Peters in 1952. They parted amicably; he had 2children, a son David and a daughter Lizanne, with his second wife, Marion, née Machno, a pianist. Robert Merrill liked to play golf and was a member of the Westchester Country Club in Rye, New York, for many years.

Robert Merrill wrote 2 books of memoirs, Once More from the Beginning (1965) and Between Acts (1976), and he co-authored a novel, The Divas (1978). Robert Merrill toured all over the world with his arranger and conductor, the world famous Angelo DiPippo who wrote most of his act and performed at concert halls throughout the world. Robert Merrill always donated his time on the Cerebral Palsy telethon with Dennis James.

Robert Merrill's epitaph states:

Like a bursting celestial star, he showered his family and the world with love, joy, and beauty.

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Wind It Up video:

Nhu Quynh

She sings at many concerts around the world.

Famous for modern songs, but her singing of traditional song are very good too.

See? Her voice is mostly soft, but it is hard and tough in a same time.

That's why she is a top class singer from Vietnam.

la baieti e simplu - esti facut ( chiar daca ochii se uita frumos unul la celalalt ) ? are taticu bani ? vrea sa te promoveze chiar daca esti prost ?  n`ai voce ? VINO la noi, depune`ti cv`ul cat mai repede si maine te punem sa canti pana si`n deschidere la aerosmith. nu rata ocazia unica de a face sex in spatele scenei cu fane care au impresia ca esti frumos

la fete treaba e mai najpa.. cerinte mai mari ; ele sunt finutze si trebuie sa prezinte material inainte de voce.

esti pitzipoanca ? ai poze multe si deosebit de modificate ? ai o tzatza buna ? ( preferabil 2, umflate, rotunde : silicon style ) ai o fata de invidiat ? ( de toti iti spun ca esti o ratata ) iti place sa razi ca proasta in gura mare ca sa te auda toti ? nu stii nici macar cat face 1 + 1 ? ai impresia ca a canta e simpatic ? vocea ta seamana cu o usa care scartaie ? nu`i nimic!

sansa ta unica e aici si acum.. noi facem din tine noua trupa andre ( nu conteaza ca esti una singura ) pentru mai multe informatii apeleaza cu incredere 0800-800-SUG-BANI. primele 10 participante trebuie sa fluture un san prin aer ( sa vedem cat de aerodinamica esti ) si sa arate cat de tare pot face botic in fata unui "pitic neastamparat". urmatoarele participante vor sustine atat proba oral cat si cea prin gat pat ( ne vei arata cat de frumoasa esti cand dormi ) NOI TE FACEM CEEA CE AI VISAT.  aviz : ai prieten ? da`i liber ! dupa ce ne batem joc de tine si de corpul tau dupa ce facem din tine un star va fi gelos.

nu vom opri vrajeala

Yuridia, born in 1986 in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico, is only 22. She started her successful singing career by coming 2nd in the hit reality show "La Academia".

Yuridia's debut Album is called "La voz de un Angel" (The voice of an angel - translated to english). It has become the 2nd best selling Album in 2006, and one of the fastest selling Albums in Mexican history.

There she was, singing for an audience at the Nevele Grande Resort in New York.

Jennifer Greer’s career as a musician was still years away from beginning, but a talent contest for young children staying at the resort had drawn her into performing. And, like a sign of her musical abilities that future audiences would come to know and love, she won.

But the win fell short on satisfaction.

As the fourth, third and second place finishers were announced, each went up to claim a prize from a pool of choices. By the time Jennifer’s name was called as the top-place finisher, the only prize left was a sewing kit with the resort’s name emblazoned on it.

The Cambridge-based singer and songwriter remembers the story with a laugh, thinking about what an 8-year-old girl would do with a prize sewing kit. Still, like the foreshadowing of her talent, the event also had a glimmer of other lessons.

She has released two CDs in the past six years, and is getting ready to record a third.  Her voice and piano playing have won the praise of critics, and her songs have earned accolades from magazines and radio stations. First and foremost, Jennifer expresses gratitude and appreciation for all of those things. At the same time, like any artist, she wonders how and when those victories will snowball into bigger goals, such as expanding her audience.

As the progress comes incrementally, Jennifer’s next step is to begin recording a new CD this month. Comparing the songwriting process to putting together the pieces of a puzzle, she said, “my job and greatest joy is to figure out how all the pieces unfold and come together.”

This time around, she is planning a style that is more aggressive and more direct than before.

Her prior release, The Apiary, drew comparisons to jazz influences, as well as the likes of Tori Amos and Norah Jones. All of that is valid, but Jennifer cites Joni Mitchell as her primary influence.

Other influences include Fiona Apple -- “the textures are right there, you feel like you’re in the room [with her]” -- and Stevie Wonder -- “the songs are so joyful, they’re pure rhythm.” In fact, her passion for rhythm and mile-deep groves is underscored in her crowning of Led Zeppelin as “the best band ever.”

That power, accentuated with “thick, heavy drums” is something she wants to explore in the new CD. And like the overall sound, the writing process on this CD is different than before, too.

“I write more slowly now. I do much more editing. I can take one hour on a line of lyrics,” she said with a laugh. The spontaneity is still there, but the work now involves “lots of fine-tuning,” she said.

And, in another departure from prior works, “very few of my songs are about myself anymore,” she said. Sparks of inspiration now are more likely to come from characters in books and movies, current events, interactions with friends, and her fly-on-the-wall observer skills.

Even with a variety of sources providing ideas, she noted that “the lyrics are the hardest thing for me to do.” Not that it was always that way.

From the time she was 12 until she reached 25, Jennifer was an avid, prolific writer of poetry. She had a book she was putting together, and getting ready to publish.

“And then it just evaporated,” she said. That creative river of words that she had been pouring onto paper suddenly, and inexplicably, went dry.

“I was beyond puzzled. I was deeply upset,” she said. “I was quite certain that poetry was what I was going to do with the rest of my life.”

But the void created when the poetry disappeared was getting filled by something else.

“Where I had been hearing words, I started hearing sounds,” Jennifer said. That drove her back to playing the piano -- something she hadn’t done for years. The move meant winning back a way to express her art.

With the victories she has notched in the years that followed, it seems the change in creative direction has worked well for her. But, she wouldn’t mind if her creative fountain started spouting words again, instead of music.

“I’m hoping when I’m old the writing will come back with a force,” she said.

FIRST TIME

“The first song I ever wrote was to my dead hamster.” The late ‘Sally’ inspired an emotional and musical outpouring from a very young Jennifer. “I was devastated. I didn’t even go to school the next day.”

WORST TIME

The challenges of playing live can keep even the best performers on their toes -- or their faces. At one particular gig, Jennifer was tortured by a loose bolt in a mic stand. As she sat at her piano, playing and singing her songs, the mic slowly began to succumb to gravity. Not wanting to interrupt her song, Jennifer kept going, following the mic’s descent with her face. By the song’s end, her mic and face were buried in the piano.

Listen to Jennifer talk about some of her songs on the extras page.

"Some fans screamed out, 'Prince!' when they saw her, SBS reports. "But when they got close enough to ask for an autograph, they realized he was a she."

AWKWARD!

Chad Vangaalen @ Zaphod, originally uploaded by blurasis.

Chad Vangaalen played to a packed show at Zaphods on Oct 2nd.

He just released his new album "Soft Airplane".
It was a wonderful show.

Motion pictures featuring Bruce Willis have grossed US$2.55 to US$3.04,000,000,000 at North American box offices, making him the 7th highest-grossing actor in a leading role, and 8th highest including supporting roles. Bruce Willis is a 2-time Emmy Award-winning, Golden Globe Award-winning, and 4-time Saturn Award-nominated actor and has publicly shown his support for the United States armed forces.

Bruce Willis is the son of a Kassel-born German mother, Marlene, who worked in a bank, and David Willis, an American soldier. Bruce Willis was the oldest of 4 children (his siblings are Florence, David, and Robert). After being discharged from the military in 1957, Bruce Willis' father took his family back to Penns Grove, New Jersey, USA where he worked as a welder and factory worker. Bruce Willis' parents separated in 1972 while Bruce Willis was in his teens. Bruce Willis was always an outgoing youngster, although he grew up with a stutter. Bruce Willis attended Penns Grove High School in his hometown. Finding it easy to express himself on stage and losing his stutter in the process, Bruce Willis began performing on stage and his high school activities were marked by such things as the drama club and school council president.

After high school, Bruce Willis took a job as a security guard and he also transported work crews at the DuPont Chambers Works factory in Deepwater, New Jersey, USA. Bruce Willis quit after a colleague was killed on the job,and became a regular at several bars. Bruce Willis learned to play the harmonica and joined an R&B band called Loose Goose. After a stint as a private investigator (a role he would play in the television series Moonlighting as well as in the 1991 film, The Last Boy Scout), Bruce Willis returned to acting. Bruce Willis enrolled in the drama programme at Montclair State University, where he was cast in the class production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Bruce Willis left school in his junior year and moved to New York City, USA.

Bruce Willis returned to the bar scene, only this time for a part-time job. After countless auditions, Bruce Willis made his theater debut in the off-Broadway production of Heaven and Earth. Bruce Willis gained more experience and exposure in Fool for Love, an appearance on television's Miami Vice, and in a Levi's commercial.

Bruce Willis left New York City and headed to California to audition for several television shows. Bruce Willis auditioned for the TV series Moonlighting (1985–89), while competing against 3,000 other actors for the position and was selected to play David Addison Jr. The starring role helped to establish him as a comedic actor, with the show lasting 5 seasons. During the height of the show's success, beverage maker Seagram hired Bruce Willis as the pitchman for their Golden Wine Cooler products. The memorable ad campaign paid the rising star between $5 and $7,000,000 over 2 years. In spite of that, Bruce Willis chose not to renew his contract with the company when he decided to stop drinking alcohol in 1988. One of his 1st major film roles was in the 1987 Blake Edwards film Blind Date alongside Kim Basinger and John Laroquette. However, it was his then-unexpected turn in the film Die Hard that catapulted him to fame. Bruce Willis performed most of his own stunts in the film, and the film grossed US$138,708,852 worldwide. Due to its box office success, the film would eventually tender 3 sequels, with the most recent entry, Live Free or Die Hard,released in June 2007. Following his success with Die Hard, he had a supporting role in the drama In Country as Vietnam veteran Emmett Smith, for which he received a Golden Globe Award nomination for "Best Performance by an Actor in Supporting Role in a Motion Picture". Bruce Willis also provided his voice for a talking baby in Look Who's Talking and its sequel.

In the late-1980s, Bruce Willis enjoyed moderate success as a recording artist, recording an album of pop-blues entitled The Return of Bruno, which included the hit single "Respect Yourself", promoted by a Spinal Tap-like rockumentary parody featuring scenes of him performing at famous events including Woodstock. Follow-up recordings were not as successful, though Bruce Willis has returned to the recording studio several times. In the early 1990s, Bruce Willis' career suffered a moderate slump starring in flops such as The Bonfire of the Vanities, Striking Distance and a film he co-wrote entitled Hudson Hawk, among others. Bruce Willis starred in a leading role in the highly sexualized thriller Colour of Night (1994), which was very poorly received by critics but has become popular on video. However, in 1994 he had a supporting role in Quentin Tarantino's acclaimed Pulp Fiction, which gave a new boost to his career. In 1996, he was the executive producer of the cartoon Bruno the Kid which featured a CGI representation of himself. Bruce Willis went on to play the lead roles in 12 Monkeys and The 5th Element. However, by the end of the 1990s, his career had fallen into another slump with critically panned films like The Jackal, Mercury Rising, and Breakfast of Champions, saved only by the success of the Michael Bay-directed Armageddon which was the highest grossing film of 1998 worldwide. The same year his voice and likeness were featured in the PlayStation video game Apocalypse.

In 1999, Bruce Willis then went on to the starring role in M. Night Shyamalan's film, The Sixth Sense. The film was both a commercial and critical success and helped to increase interest in his acting career. Bruce Willis once had to appear in the sitcom Friends without pay, because he lost a bet to Matthew Perry, his co-star in the comedy The Whole 9 Yards and its sequel The Whole 10 Yards. Bruce Willis won a 2000 Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his work on Friends (in which he played the father of Ross Geller's much-younger girlfriend). Bruce Willis was also nominated for a 2001 American Comedy Award (in the Funniest Male Guest Appearance in a TV Series category) for his work on Friends. Bruce Willis was originally cast as Terry Benedict in Ocean's Eleven (2001) but dropped out to work on recording an album. In Ocean's Twelve (2004), he makes a cameo appearance as himself. Bruce Willis recently appeared in the Planet Terror half of the double feature Grindhouse as the villain, a mutant soldier. This marks Bruce Willis' 2nd collaboration with director Robert Rodriguez, following Sin City.

Bruce Willis has appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman several times throughout his career. Bruce Willis filled in for an ill David Letterman on his show 26 February, 2003, when he was supposed to be a guest. Bruce Willis interviewed Dan Rather in what he would later call "the most serious conversation of my entire life". On many of his appearances on the show, Bruce Willis stages elaborate jokes, such as wearing a day-glo orange suit in honour of the Central Park gates, having one side of his face made up with simulated buckshot wounds after the Harry Whittington shooting, or trying to break a record (parody of David Blaine) of staying underwater for only 20 seconds. On 12 April, 2007, he appeared again, this time wearing a Sanjaya Malakar wig. Bruce Willis' most recent appearance was on 25 June, 2007 when he appeared wearing a mini-turbine strapped to his head to accompany a joke about his own fictional documentary entitled An Unappealing Hunch (a wordplay of An Inconvenient Truth). Bruce Willis also appeared on Japanese Subaru Legacy television commercials, optimizing the car for sale, with the backing music of Jade from Sweetbox, "Addicted" and "Hate Without Frontiers". Tying in with this, Subaru did a limited run of Legacys, badged "Subaru Legacy Touring Bruce", in honour of Bruce Willis. Bruce Willis has appeared in 4 movies with Samuel L. Jackson (National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1, Pulp Fiction, Die Hard with a Vengeance, and Unbreakable) and both actors were slated to work together in Black Water Transit before dropping out. Bruce Willis also worked alongside his eldest daughter, Rumer, in the 2005 film Hostage. In 2007, he appeared in the thriller Perfect Stranger, opposite Halle Berry, the crime/drama film Alpha Dog, opposite Sharon Stone, and marked his return to the role of John McClane in Live Free or Die Hard.

Bruce Willis appeared on the 2008 Blues Traveler album North Hollywood Shootout, giving a spoken word performance over an instrumental blues-rock jam on the track "Free Willis (Ruminations from Behind Uncle Bob's Machine Shop)".

Bruce Willis' future projects include 3 other films that will debut between 2008 and 2009. Bruce Willis will join the Assassination of a High School President, which is a 2008 comedy where he will be a Catholic school principal and his real-life eldest daughter, Rumer, will star as a student investigating missing SAT tests. Bruce Willis' 2 2009 films will include the drama Morgan's Summit, where he will depict a late night radio host who promotes kindness, but changes his demeanor after a brutal crime causes him to seek revenge and The Last Full Measure, a drama film based on a true story about a Vietnam War veteran. Bruce Willis has also signed on to play Kane in a film adaptation of the game Kane & Lynch: Dead Men.

Bruce Willis was slated to play U.S. Army general William R. Peers in director Oliver Stone's Pinkville, a drama about the investigation of the 1968 My Lai massacre. However, due to the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike, the film was cancelled and Bruce Willis instead joined the film, The Surrogates, which is based on the comic books of the same name.

At the premiere for the film Stakeout, Bruce Willis met actress Demi Moore who was dating actor Emilio Estevez at the time. Bruce Willis married Demi Moore on 21 November, 1987 and had 3 daughters (Rumer Glenn Willis (born 1988), Scout LaRue Willis (1991) and Tallulah Belle Willis (1994)) before the couple divorced on 18 October, 2000. The couple gave no public reason for their breakup. Bruce Willis reacting on his divorce stated "I felt I had failed as a father and a husband by not being able to make it work" and credited actor Will Smith for helping him get through the divorce. Bruce Willis and Demi Moore currently share custody of the 3 daughters they had during their 13 year union. Since their breakup, rumors persisted that the couple planned to re-marry, but Demi Moore has since married the younger actor Ashton Kutcher. Bruce Willis has maintained a close relationship with both Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, even attending their wedding. Since his divorce he has dated models Maria Bravo Rosado and Emily Sandberg and also was engaged to Brooke Burns, until they broke up in 2004 after dating for 10 months. In 2007, he was spotted dating Playboy Playmates Tamara Witmer and Karen McDougal on different occasions. Bruce Willis is currently dating girlfriend Emma Heming. Bruce Willis has expressed interest in getting married again and having more children.

Bruce Willis was, at one point, Lutheran (specifically Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod); but no longer practices, based on a statement he made in the July 1998 issue of George magazine:

“Organized religions in general, in my opinion, are dying forms", he says. "They were all very important when we didn't know why the sun moved, why weather changed, why hurricanes occurred, or volcanoes happened", he continues. "Modern religion is the end trail of modern mythology. But there are people who interpret the Bible literally. Literally!" he says incredulously. "I choose not to believe that's the way. And that's what makes America cool, you know?”

In early 2006, Bruce Willis, who usually lives in Los Angeles, moved into an apartment located in the Trump Tower in New York City. Bruce Willis also has a home in Malibu, California, a ranch in Montana, a beach home on Parrot Cay in the Turks and Caicos, and multiple properties in Sun Valley, Idaho.

Bruce Willis owns his own motion picture production company called Cheyenne Enterprises which he started with his business parter Arnold Rifkin in 2000. Bruce Willis also owns several small businesses in Hailey, Idaho including The Mint Bar and The Liberty Theater and is a co-founder of Planet Hollywood along with actors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. Bruce Willis' dog, a Yorkshire Terrier is named Wolf Fishbein ("Wolfie") after a character in the Woody Allen movie Deconstructing Harry.

Bruce Willis, an avid New Jersey Nets fan, made controversial comments on 29 April, 2007 during a live broadcast of a Nets home playoff game vs. the Toronto Raptors on TSN by saying a catch phrase from his Die Hard films, "Yipee-ki-yay motherfucker", at the end of the interview. Reacting to the backlash, he later blamed his actions on jet lag, stating: "Sometimes I overestimate my ability to function under duress with less than enough sleep".

On 5 May, 2007, someone using the screen name "Walter_B" started posting detailed responses onto Ain't it Cool News, where people were discussing the fact that Live Free or Die Hard received a PG-13 rating, instead of an R rating like the earlier 3 Die hard films.The responses included detailed information on Live Free or Die Hard, which was yet to be released; the theme of the Die Hard film series, direct criticisms of other movie crews and casts, and many movie trivia answers. "Walter_B" was Bruce Willis himself, directly posting his opinions. Many people were skeptical that "Walter_B" was indeed Bruce Willis, but on 9 May, Bruce Willis revealed his identity on a video chat session.

Bruce Willis is an avid fight fan and often attends boxing matches. Bruce Willis has attended both the Floyd Mayweather, Jr. v Ricky Hatton and Joe Calzaghe v Bernard Hopkins fights, which have come to be known as the 'British Invasion' fights, after the popularity of the 'British Invasion' bands of the 1960s to the late 1970s in America.

Having begun to suffer from Male Pattern Baldness at a relatively young age (his receding hairline is visibly starting by Die Hard), Bruce Willis chose to shave his head once the loss was too severe to stylistically hide. However, he has worn a hairpiece or a toupee for several of his roles - but only when the character is known to have hair (such as in Sin City). Bruce Willis is one of the very few actors in Hollywood who has not pursued hair replacement in his personal life, and this has endeared him to the millions of men who themselves suffer from hair loss.

Bruce Willis is close friends with Matthew Perry.

In 2007, Bruce Willis stated he was not in favour of war in Iraq, but instead liked, “to support the young men and women who are over there participating in the war.” Bruce Willis has endorsed every Republican presidential candidate except Bob Dole in 1996, because Dole had criticized Demi Moore for her role in the movie Striptease. Bruce Willis was an invited speaker at the 2000 Republican National Convention,and continues to vocally support gun ownership. Bruce Willis has criticized the religious right and its influence on the Republican party. In February 2006, Bruce Willis appeared in Manhattan to talk about 16 Blocks with reporters. One reporter attempted to ask Bruce Willis about his opinion on current events but was interrupted by Bruce Willis in mid-sentence:

“ I'm sick of answering this fucking question. I'm a Republican only as far as I want a smaller government, I want less government intrusion. I want them to stop shitting on my money and your money and tax dollars that we give 50 percent of... every year. I want them to be fiscally responsible and I want these goddamn lobbyists out of Washington. Do that and I'll say I'm a Republican... I hate the government, OK? I'm apolitical. Write that down. I'm not a Republican.”

In several June 2007 interviews, he declared that he still maintains some Republican ideologies but is currently an independent. In an interview for the June 2007 issue of Vanity Fair, Bruce Willis said he was skeptical that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and suggested that some people involved in the assassination are still in power today.

In 2006, he proposed that the United States should invade Colombia in order to end the drug trafficking. In several interviews with USA Weekend, Bruce Willis has said that he supports large salaries for teachers, and says that he is disappointed in the United States' foster care and treatment of Native Americans. Bruce Willis also stated that he is a big supporter of gun rights:

"Everyone has a right to bear arms. If you take guns away from legal gun owners, then the only people who have guns are the bad guys." Even a pacifist, he insists, would get violent if someone were trying to kill him. "You would fight for your life."

Throughout his film career, Bruce Willis has depicted several military characters in films such as The Siege, Hart's War, Tears of the Sun, and Grindhouse. Growing up in a military family, Bruce Willis has been publicly supportive of the United States armed forces. In 2002, Bruce Willis' youngest daughter, Tallulah, suggested that he purchase Girl Scout cookies to send to troops. Bruce Willis purchased 12,000 boxes of cookies, and they were distributed to sailors aboard USS John F. Kennedy and other troops stationed throughout the Middle East at the time. In 2003, Bruce Willis visited Iraq as part of the USO tour, singing to the troops with his band, The Accelerators. Some reports from military officials suggest that Bruce Willis tried to enlist in the military to help fight the 2nd Iraq war, but he was turned away because of his age. It was believed he offered $1,000,000 to any civilian who turns in terrorist leaders Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi; in the June 2007 issue of Vanity Fair, however, he clarified that the statement was made hypothetically and not meant to be taken literally. Bruce Willis has also criticized the media for its coverage of the war, complaining that the press were more likely to focus on the negative aspects of the war:

“I went to Iraq because what I saw when I was over there was soldiers — young kids for the most part — helping people in Iraq; helping getting the power turned back on, helping get hospitals open, helping get the water turned back on and you don't hear any of that on the news. You hear, 'X number of people were killed today,' which I think does a huge disservice. It's like spitting on these young men and women who are over there fighting to help this country.”

Bruce Willis has said that he wants to "make a pro-war film in which American soldiers will be depicted as brave fighters for freedom and democracy." The film will follow members of Deuce 4,the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry, who spent considerable time in Mosul and were decorated heavily for it. The film is to be based on the writings of blogger Michael Yon, a former United States Army Special Forces Green Beret who was embedded with Deuce 4 and sent regular dispatches about their activities. Bruce Willis described the plot of the film as "these guys who do what they are asked for very little money to defend and fight for what they consider to be freedom." Bruce Willis does not appear to have spoken publicly about his plans for this movie since 2005.

Since March 2008,Bruce Willis has been playing the role of the 'Child Catcher' in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the London Palladium.

In 1996, Roger Director, a writer and producer from Moonlighting wrote a roman à clef on Willis titled A Place to Fall. Cybill Shepherd wrote in her 2000 autobiography, Cybill Disobedience, that Bruce Willis was angry at Director, because the character was written as a "neurotic, petulant actor."

In 1998 Bruce Willis participated in Apocalypse, a Sony Playstation game. The game was originally announced to feature Bruce Willis but was soon discovered he appeared as a sidekick, not as the main character. The company reworked the game using Bruce Willis' likeness and voice and changed the game to use him as the main character.

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Nick Reynolds, who as a college student grabbed a guitar, donned a broad-striped button-down shirt and quickly helped propel the 1950s folk music revival to the top of the pop music charts as a founding member of the Kingston Trio, died Wednesday in San Diego. He was 75.  Reynolds had been hospitalized in recent weeks with acute respiratory disease, his son, Josh Reynolds, said Thursday.  The group’s recording of the tragic 19th century folk ballad “Tom  Dooley” went to No. 1 in 1958 and earned Reynolds and his partners Dave Guard and Bob Shane a Grammy for best country and western performance at the first Grammy Awards ceremony. In that inaugural year, the Grammys had no categories dedicated to folk music, which was booming on  college campuses around the country. The following year, the group’s  album “The Kingston Trio at Large” picked up a second Grammy for its members. That album spent 15 weeks at No. 1 in 1959.  “The first thing that turned me on to folk singing was Odetta. . . . From Odetta, I went to Harry Belafonte, the Kingston Trio, little by little uncovering more as I went along,” Bob Dylan once said.  Reynolds typically handled the middle part of the trio’s scintillating three-part harmonies, sometimes adding bongos, congas and other percussion accents. Although the group’s music generally shied away from the politicized content of such forebears as Woody Guthrie and the Weavers, its commercial breakthrough in the late  1950s represented a clean-cut alternative to the sexualized rock ‘n’ roll of Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and others that had American teens in its grip. And it helped set the stage for folk-rooted protest singers such as Dylan, Joan Baez and Peter, Paul & Mary.  “It really started with the Weavers, in the early ’50s,” Reynolds said in a 2006 interview, referring to the New York-based quartet that included Pete Seeger. “We were big fans of theirs, but they got blacklisted in the McCarthy era. Their music was controversial. Suddenly, they couldn’t get any airplay; they couldn’t get booked into the big hotels, nothin’.  “We played their kind of music when we were first performing in colleges. But when we formed the trio . . . we had to sit down and make a decision: Are we going to remain apolitical with our music? Or are we going to slit our throats and get blacklisted for doing protest music? We decided we’d like to stay in this business for a while. And we got criticized a lot for that. . . . If Bob Dylan or Joan Baez had come out at that time, they’d have been dead in the water. But four or five years later, [their music] became commercially viable.” The trio also charted hits with “Tijuana Jail,” “M.T.A.” and Seeger’s “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” a protest song that became popular with anti-Vietnam War activists and that the group eventually sang on the White House lawn as President Lyndon Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird Johnson, looked on.  Nicholas Wells Reynolds was born July 27, 1933, in San Diego to Stewart Shirley Reynolds, a Navy captain, and Jane Keck Reynolds. The family, including sisters Barbara and Jane, often engaged in singalongs led by their father, a guitarist with an affinity for old folk songs. It was in these sessions that Reynolds developed his facility with intricate vocal harmonies that became one of the hallmarks of the Kingston Trio’s music. “Nobody could nail a harmony part like Nick,” Shane once said. “He could hit it immediately, exactly where it needed to be, absolutely note perfect, all on the natch. Pure genius.”  After graduating from Coronado High School in 1951, he attended the University of Arizona and San Diego State before enrolling at Menlo College near San Francisco.  During a particularly dull accounting class at Menlo, he noticed a student dead asleep and later introduced himself to Bob Shane.  “He nudged me and said ‘Hey, I’m Nick Reynolds — have you got a car? Mine just blew up.’ … We started singing the first day we met,” Shane said Thursday.  “He was my very, very best friend. It’s a big loss.” Shane had played music with Guard in their native Hawaii, and when Guard decided to reconfigure his Kingston Quartet, which he had started while studying at nearby Stanford, he drafted Shane and Reynolds. Guard left the trio in 1961 to form his own group, and was replaced by singer-songwriter John Stewart, who went on to have a significant solo career.  Reynolds left the group in 1967 after the British Invasion rendered the folk style effectively antiquated in the minds of pop music fans, and moved his family to Oregon, where he stayed until the 1980s. He teamed up with Stewart again for the 1983 album “Revenge of the Budgie,” which also featured Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham, and in 1991 he joined Shane in a reconstituted version of the Kingston Trio. Reynolds continued performing with Shane until he retired a second time in 2003. Shane bought the rights to the Kingston Trio name in 1976 so he could use it exclusively, and the act has continued to tour with three latter-day members since Shane’s retirement following a heart attack in 2004.  In recent years, Reynolds and Stewart had hosted a “Trio Fantasy Camp” in Arizona, where folk music fans would learn to play and sing many of the trio’s hits and other folk standards. Shane hosted it in August, renaming it the “The Kingston Trio Fantasy Camp” and said he will continue it in memory of Reynolds and Stewart, who died in January of a massive stroke.  - Randy Lewis (Los Angeles Times)

George "Wydell" Jones, 71, who wrote the doo-wop hit “Rama Lama Ding Dong” and performed it as a member of the Edsels, died of cancer Sept. 27 at his home in Youngstown, Ohio, his son, Steffon Jones, told the Associated Press.  The song -- originally released as "Lama Rama Ding Dong" -- peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1961. The Youngstown-based Edsels also included Harry Green, Larry Green, Jimmy Reynolds and Marshall Sewell.   During their heyday, which lasted about as long as that of the Ford model for which they were named, the Edsels performed at the Apollo Theater in New York and appeared on "American Bandstand." George Jones Jr. was born in Richmond, Va., and as a child moved to Youngstown, where his father worked in a steel mill.   After high school, Jones joined the Air Force, where he sang in a vocal group with other servicemen.  - Los Angeles Times