Thursday, 28 August 2008

Solange, SoL-AngeL and the Hadley St Dreams

It must be tough having a famous sister, especially if you desire to follow in her footsteps. Sure a long-familiar surname may open doors, but think of the inevitable comparisons you'd let to last and the media's constant coverage of any sibling rivalry.



Solange Knowles (sister of Beyonc� has, so you won't receive her surname on the cover of her debut album Solo Star or her up-to-the-minute offering, SoL-AngeL and the Hadley St Dreams. And to reinforce the fact that Solange is identical much her own adult female, she kicks off her new album with a plea to listeners to judge her on her own merits and leave big sis.



Fair enough. But if she wants people to let her ''starlight shine on its own'' and efface Beyonc� from their minds, maybe it would be better to get on with showing us what she can do instead of wasting time on God Given Name, a laid-back electronic soul caterpillar tread whose message has the same potential difference to sicken as J-Lo's Jenny From The Block.



Fortunately things amend enormously when Solange gets down to business with the fantastically soulful T.O.N.Y, followed by the retro vibe of Dancing In The Dark, and the 60s-esque pop of IWouldveBeenthe1. Other standout tracks confirm Solange's vocal stylings ar worth checking out: the infectiously upbeat Sandcastle Disco, The Supremes-inspired I Decided and its funky remix by the Freemasons, addition 6 O'Clock Blues produced by Mark Ronson.



Ronson and the Freemasons aren't the only cock-a-hoop names on the album either. Solange has really gone to town delivery together a wealth of producing, committal to writing, and recording talent to complement her own including Lamont Dozier, Gnarls Barkley's Cee-Lo Green, Pharrell Williams, Lil Wayne, and Q-Tip.



As well as playing with Motown-esque grooves, Solange makes an pleasure trip into ambient electronics on a few tracks. And while Cosmic Journey would be fine if the trip were half the length, Solange is definitely at her best when putting a modern spin on sounds from the 60s and 70s.



A solid album which you�ll enjoy more with each hearing, SoL-AngeL might just have you asking, ''Beyonc� who?''.




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Monday, 18 August 2008

22% Of Survey Respondents Have Reduced Number Of Physician Visits To Save Money During Economic Downturn, Survey Finds


Twenty-two percentage of respondents to a survey have reduced the number of times they visit their physician because of the current economic climate in the U.S., according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The poll of 686 consumers, released on Tuesday and conducted in July, likewise found that 11% of respondents aforementioned they had reduced the amount of prescription drugs they take or the dosage of those medications to make them last longer. The survey ground that 85% of respondents had non made whatever change to their health insurance policies, while 2% had canceled their insurance coverage entirely.

Over the yesteryear several days, U.S. residents have been paying more of their health caution costs, chiefly because employers are requiring employees to contribute a greater share of health insurance premiums and copayments, or they are ever-changing or reducing benefits, the Chronicle reports. Michael Potter, a family physician and head of the San Francisco chapter of the California Academy of Family Physicians, said, "There's a lot of evidence that the more patients are required to pay more for their care, the more that they get economic decisions about what to take or what not," adding, "While some of that may be perfectly reasonable and acceptable, what I worry about is people not acquiring care that is truly essential for their health."

Chris Ohman, CEO of the California Association of Health Plans, aforesaid, "We recognise from past economic downturns that employers and individuals tighten their budgets as a whole, but they certainly tighten their wellness budgets," adding that although health fear costs bear increased at rates oftentimes double or triple the rate of inflation for years, the squeeze feels more meaning as the economy worsens.

The survey did not examine inside information behind consumers' decisions, and it does not track any changes in consumer behavior because NAIC has not conducted similar surveys in the past (Colliver, San Francisco Chronicle, 8/13).


Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You nates view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for electronic mail delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.

Friday, 8 August 2008

Dionne Warwick

Dionne Warwick   
Artist: Dionne Warwick

   Genre(s): 
R&B: Soul
   Retro
   Other
   Pop
   Rock
   Jazz: Funk
   Easy Listening
   Jazz
   



Discography:


My Friends and Me   
 My Friends and Me

   Year: 2006   
Tracks: 13


Friends In Love   
 Friends In Love

   Year: 2006   
Tracks: 10


Legends CD3   
 Legends CD3

   Year: 2005   
Tracks: 16


Legends CD2   
 Legends CD2

   Year: 2005   
Tracks: 18


Legends CD1   
 Legends CD1

   Year: 2005   
Tracks: 18


Just Being Myself   
 Just Being Myself

   Year: 2005   
Tracks: 12


Essential: 40th Anniversary Tour Edition   
 Essential: 40th Anniversary Tour Edition

   Year: 2004   
Tracks: 23


An Evening With Dionne Warwick   
 An Evening With Dionne Warwick

   Year: 2004   
Tracks: 17


Heartbreaker: The Very Best of Dionne Warwick   
 Heartbreaker: The Very Best of Dionne Warwick

   Year: 2002   
Tracks: 24


The Very Best of Dionne Warwick   
 The Very Best of Dionne Warwick

   Year: 2000   
Tracks: 16


What The World Needs Now Is Love vs. the Hip Hop Nation United   
 What The World Needs Now Is Love vs. the Hip Hop Nation United

   Year: 1998   
Tracks: 1


Sings Cole Porter   
 Sings Cole Porter

   Year: 1990   
Tracks: 13


Greatest Hits 1979-1990   
 Greatest Hits 1979-1990

   Year: 1989   
Tracks: 14


The Woman in Red   
 The Woman in Red

   Year: 1984   
Tracks: 8


Heartbreaker   
 Heartbreaker

   Year: 1982   
Tracks: 10


The Best Of   
 The Best Of

   Year:    
Tracks: 10




It is easier to define Dionne Warwick by what she isn't rather than what she is. Although she grew up vocalizing in church building, she is non a gospel singing vocaliser. Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan ar unclutter influences, just she is non a idle words singer. R&B is excessively office of her oscilloscope, only she is non actually a soul vocalizer, either, at least non in the gumption that Aretha Franklin is. Sophisticated is a intelligence frequently used to discover her musical coming and the music she sings, simply she is not a singer of standards such as Lena Horne or Nancy Wilson. What is she, then? She is a pop isaac Bashevis Singer of a form that peradventure could only make emerged out of the Brill Building environment of post-Elvis Presley, pre-Beatles urban pop in the early '60s. That's when she dependant up with Burt Bacharach and Hal David, songwriters and producers wHO wrote their unusually complicated songs for her aching, in time uninvolved alto spokesperson. Warwick is ineluctably associated with those songs, level though she managed to build a life chronicle after expiration Bacharach and David that john Drew upon their style for other memorable recordings, such that she clay a alone name in popular music.


Marie Dionne Warrick was born into a gospel-music family. Her padre was a evangel record promoter for Chess Records and her mother managed the Drinkard Singers, a gospel singing mathematical group consisting of her relatives. She first-class honours degree elevated her voice in call at age six-spot at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, NJ, and shortly after was a fellow member of the choir. As a stripling, she formed a telling grouping called the Gospelaires with her sister Dee Dee and her auntie Cissy Houston (later the female parent of Whitney Houston). After graduating from heights school day in 1959, she earned a music encyclopaedism to the Hartt College of Music in Hartford, CT, simply she too spent time with her grouping recording background vocals on sessions in New York. The Gospelaires ar said to be demonstrate on such well-known recordings as Ben E. King's "Spanish Harlem" and "Outdoor stage By Me." They were at a Drifters session on the job on a call called "Mexican Divorce" composed by Burt Bacharach when Bacharach, attendance the seance, suggested Warwick power do some demos for him. She did, telling songs he had written with lyrist Hal David. Bacharach and David pitched one of the songs to Florence Greenberg, read/write head of the minor independent Scepter Records label, and Greenberg liked the demonstration isaac M. Singer enough to sign her as a recording artist. Bacharach and David wrote and produced her low gear single, "Don't Make Me Over," in 1962. When the record was released, the performer credit contained a typo; it read "Dionne Warwick" rather of "Dionne Warrick," and she unbroken the new identify. (Her sister Dee Dee finally became Dee Dee Warwick as well.)


"Don't Make Me Over" peaked in the Top 20 of the pop charts in early 1963, too arrival the Top Five of the R&B charts. Warwick's subsequent singles were non as successful, merely in early 1964, she reached the pop and R&B Top Ten and the Top Five of the easy listening charts with "Anyone Who Had a Heart," which was besides her first base record to reach the charts in the U.K. (There, such singers as Cilla Black and Dusty Springfield sometimes would cover her records in front her possess versions had a fortune to turn hits.) "Walk on By" followed it into the Top Ten of the pop, easy hearing, and U.K. charts in the spring of 1964, and it hit routine one on the R&B charts. By then, the Beatles had arrived on the American scenery, followed by the British Invasion, and for a spell, pour down artists care Warwick took a lacing on the charts. Nevertheless, the singer continued to billet singles and LPs in the rankings all over the following twosome of geezerhood and in the spring of 1966, she returned to the Top Ten of the pop charts and the Top Five of the R&B charts with "Message to Michael." Other, more meek hits followed, including the most successful U.S. recording of the title song from the moving-picture show Alfie, which reached the R&B Top Five and the pop Top 20 in the spring of 1967. That summer, Warwick topped the R&B LP charts with her gold-selling Here Where There Is Love album and by the fall, Scepter had amassed enough chart singles to issue Dionne Warwick's Golden Hits, Pt. 1, her low-pitched gear album to gain the toss off Top Ten.


Interrogatively, Warwick's career reached a new level with a single non written by Bacharach and David, although they produced it. It was "(Base From) Valley of the Dolls," scripted by André and Dory Previn and issued at the conclusion of 1967. The record reached the Top Five of the pop, R&B, and easy listening charts. Its B-side, Bacharach and David's "I Say a Little Prayer," reached the Top Five of the pop and R&B charts, serving the single suit a amber disk and the Vale of the Dolls LP besides made the Top Five of the pop and R&B charts and went gold. With that, Warwick was on a roll. Her succeeding single, "Do You Know the Way to San José," reached the pop Top Ten and the R&B and easy listening Top Five in the springtime of 1968 and north Korean won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Pop Vocal Performance, Female. In the wintertime of 1969, her variation of "This Guy's in Love With You," re-titled "This Girl's in Love With You," made the pop and R&B Top Ten and the easy listening Top Five and in early 1970, "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" from Bacharach and David's score for the Broadway musical Promises, Promises made the pop Top Ten and topped the leisurely hearing charts, bringing her some other Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Vocal Performance, Female.


In 1971, Warwick added an "e" to the end of her name on the advice of a numerologist, retaining the young spelling until 1975. She as well left Scepter Records and signed a mete out with the major label Warner Bros. that included Bacharach and David as her author and producer. The squad produced the 1972 album Dionne, which was a small seller, only and then Bacharach and David split up in the wake of the decisive and commercial unsuccessful person of their turn on a musical remake of the film Lost Horizon in 1973. Due to her contractual commitment, Warwick was forced to sue her old partners. A settlement was reached, merely they would non work together once again for many age and Warwick's career suffered.


Richard Neville bounced back up with "And then Came You," a vocal she recorded with the Spinners, which topped the pop and R&B charts and reached the Top Five of the easy listening charts in October 1974, leaving atomic number 79 in the process. It proven to be a one-off success, merely Warwick (like a shot without the "e") signed to Records in 1979 and returned to the Top Five of the pop adult contemporary (once easy hearing) charts with "I'll Never Love This Way Again," produced by labelmate Barry Manilow and featured on her number 1 platinum-selling track record album, some other LP but titled Dionne. "Deja Vu," as well from the album, was a Top 20 pop and numeral one adult contemporaneous hit. "I'll Never Love This Way Again" won Warwick her one-third Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female; "Deja Vu" won her her twenty-five percent for Best Rhythm & Blues Vocal Performance, Female.


Kingmaker topped the grownup modern-day charts in 1980 with "No Night So Long," but her side by side all-inclusive hit did non number until she hooklike up with the Bee Gees for her 1982 record album Heartbreaker. Barry Gibb produced the gold-selling LP and the terzetto Gibb brothers wrote the claim song, which made the pop Top Ten and topped the adult present-day charts. In 1985, Warwick was reconciled with Bacharach and she organized a charity transcription of his and Carole Bayer Sager's vocal "That's What Friends Are For" to benefit AIDS, featuring Elton John, Gladys Knight, and Stevie Wonder, in addition to herself. The record topped the down, R&B, and grownup contemporary charts in the wintertime of 1985-1986, the album Friends on which it was included went atomic number 79, and the song earned Warwick her fifth Grammy for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. In 1987, Warwick topped the adult present-day charts and reached the Top Five of the R&B charts with "Love Power," a duet with Jeffrey Osborne that was some other Bacharach/Sager composing.


Richard Neville enjoyed less commercial success later on the late '80s. She parted slipway with Arista Records afterward her 1995 album Aquarela Do Brazil. In 1998, she issued Dionne Sings Dionne, an record album consisting largely of re-recordings of her hits, on River North Records.