Whats Buzzing in the Streets – Page 71

Herbie Hancock

Herbie Hancock was born on this date in 1940. He is an African American musician, composer, and arranger.
From Chicago his parents weren’t professional musicians but lovers of the art form. His father was a bathtub singer and mother played a little piano. Hancock was always interested in music as a very young child, and began music lessons at seven. At the age of 11 he performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. As a teenager at Hyde Park High School Hancock formed his own jazz band. He attended Grinnell College, majoring in engineering for two years, and then changed his major to music. He graduated from Grinnell in 1960 with a major in music composition where during he won an award for the best musical composition with a suite for six woodwinds.
After graduation, he left Iowa for New York City and at age 20, hooked up with trumpeter Donald Byrd. Byrd introduced him to Blue Note Records where Hancock recorded his first solo album in 1963, Taking Off, which included appearances by Freddie Hubbard and Dexter Gordon. This album contained his first Top 10 hit, “Watermelon Man.” Soon Hancock got the attention of the legendary Miles Davis, who invited Hancock to join his new group. While working with Miles, Hancock was introduced to and developed an interest in funk, particularly James Brown and Sly Stone. After working with Davis for several years Hancock decided to form his own band — the Headhunters– a sextet that included Julian Priester, Buster Williams and Eddie Henderson.
With this group Hancock began to pioneer what would later be called fusion as he, through his original compositions, melded ideas of funk and rock with jazz. Hancock took this opportunity to introduce himself to synthesizers. The innovative Headhunters (1973) was the first album on which Hancock used a synthesizer. Up to that point his work was acoustic with the exception of a Rhodes Electric Piano. The album, which became the largest-selling jazz album in history, contained “Chameleon,” another of Hancock’s crossover hits. Incorporating synthesizers at this pace was mitigated by Hancock’s experience with electronics and aptitude for the subject. After a few years, Hancock returned to his roots as an acoustic pianist with the V.S.O.P. Quintet, a recreation of Miles’ band (without Miles), and several other jazz artists. In 1983, Hancock released Future Shock, which was both a pioneer electronic piece but also a hit on both R&B and dance charts. The single “Rock It” won Grammy for best R&B Instrumental, and the album went gold.
Hancock released Dis is Da Drum in 1994, which reverberates with West African rhythms. In 1997 Hancock released 1+1, a duet session with saxophonist Wayne Shorter. The following year he reunited with his old Headhunter band mates, to record, Return of the Headhunters. Since then he has recorded Future2Future LIVE DVD. and THE HERBIE HANCOCK BOX. A definitive 4-CD retrospective spanning 17 years, sampling 25 albums & Herbie’s vast musical world! In 2003, Hancock with Michael Brecker and Roy Hargrove traveled as “Directions In Music (Celebrating Miles Davis & John Coltrane)”.
In June 2010 Hancock released The Imagine Project. On June 5, 2010 Hancock received an Alumni Award from his alma mater, Grinnell College. On July 22, 2011, at a ceremony in Paris, Hancock was named UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for the promotion of Intercultural Dialogue. In 2013 Hancock joined the University of California, Los Angeles faculty as a professor in the UCLA music department where he will teach jazz music. On December 8, 2013 he was given the Kennedy Center Honors Award for achievement in the performing arts with artists like Snoop Dogg and Mixmaster Mike from the Beastie Boys performing his music.
Hancock appeared on the 5th Flying Lotus studio album, You’re Dead, released in October 2014.
Hancock is the 2014 Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University. Holders of the chair deliver a series of six lectures on poetry, “The Norton Lectures”, poetry being “interpreted in the broadest sense, including all poetic expression in language, music, or fine arts.” Previous Norton lecturers include musicians Leonard Bernstein, Igor Stravinsky and John Cage. Hancock’s theme is “The Ethics of Jazz.”
Since 1972, Hancock has practiced Nichiren Buddhism as a member of the Buddhist association Soka Gakkai International. As part of Hancock’s spiritual practice, he recites the Buddhist chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo each day.
In 2013, Hancock’s dialogue with musician Wayne Shorter and Soka Gakkai International president Daisaku Ikeda on jazz, Buddhism and life was published in Japanese.

Written by Dianne Washington

Joe Louis

On this date in 1981 Joe Louis, heavyweight boxing champion, dies at the age of 66. He held the world title for a record 12 years and won 68 of his 71 professional fights.

Grace Jones

Grace Beverly Jones (born May 19,1948) is a Jamaican singer, songwriter, supermodel, record producer, and actress. Born in Jamaica, she moved when she was 13, along with her siblings, to live with her parents in Syracuse, New York. Jones began her modelling career in New York state, then in Paris, working for fashion houses such as Yves St. Laurent and Kenzo, and appearing on the covers of Elle and Vogue. She worked with photographers such as Jean-Paul Goude, Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin, and Hans Feurer, and became known for her distinctive androgynous appearance and bold features.
In 1977, Jones secured a record deal with Island Records, initially becoming a star of New York City’s Studio 54-centered disco scene. In the early 1980s, she moved toward a new wave style that drew on reggae, funk, post-punk and pop music, frequently collaborating with both the graphic designer Jean-Paul Goude and the musical duo Sly & Robbie. Her most popular albums include Warm Leatherette (1980), Nightclubbing (1981), and Slave to the Rhythm (1985). She scored Top 40 entries on the UK Singles Chart with “Pull Up to the Bumper”, “I’ve Seen That Face Before”, “Private Life”, and “Slave to the Rhythm”. In 1982, she released the music video collection A One Man Show, directed by Goude.
Jones appeared in some low-budget films in the US during the 1970s and early 1980s. In 1984, she made her first mainstream appearance as Zula in the fantasy-action film Conan the Destroyer alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sarah Douglas, and subsequently appeared in the 1985 James Bond movie A View to a Kill as May Day. In 1986, she played a vampire in Vamp, and acted in and contributed a song to the 1992 Eddie Murphy film Boomerang. She appeared alongside Tim Curry in the 2001 film Wolf Girl. For her work in Conan the Destroyer, A View to a Kill, and Vamp, she was nominated for Saturn Awards for Best Supporting Actress.
In 1999, Jones ranked 82nd on VH1’s 100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll, and in 2008, she was honored with a Q Idol Award. Jones influenced the cross-dressing movement of the 1980s and has been an inspiration for artists including Annie Lennox, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Lorde, Róisín Murphy, Brazilian Girls, Nile Rodgers, Santigold, and Basement Jaxx. In December 2016, Billboard magazine ranked her as the 40th most successful dance artist of all time.
Written by Dianne Washington

Sugar Ray Robinson

On this day in 1989, Sugar Ray Robinson, five-time winner of the world middleweight boxing championship and unbeaten welterweight champion, dies.
Sugar Ray Robinson (born Walker Smith Jr.; May 3, 1921 – April 12, 1989) was an American professional boxer who competed from 1940 to 1965. Widely considered the greatest pound-for-pound boxer of all time, Robinson’s performances in the welterweight and middleweight divisions prompted sportswriters to create “pound for pound” rankings, where they compared fighters regardless of weight. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990. In 2002, Robinson was ranked number one on The Ring magazine’s list of “80 Best Fighters of the Last 80 Years”.
Robinson was 85–0 as an amateur with 69 of those victories coming by way of knockout, 40 in the first round. He turned professional in 1940 at the age of 19 and by 1951 had a professional record of 128–1–2 with 84 knockouts. From 1943 to 1951 Robinson went on a 91 fight unbeaten streak, the third longest in professional boxing history. Robinson held the world welterweight title from 1946 to 1951, and won the world middleweight title in the latter year. He retired in 1952, only to come back two and a half years later and regain the middleweight title in 1955. He then became the first boxer in history to win a divisional world championship five times (a feat he accomplished by defeating Carmen Basilio in 1958 to regain the middleweight championship). Robinson was named “fighter of the year” twice: first for his performances in 1942, then nine years and over 90 fights later, for his efforts in 1951.
Renowned for his flamboyant lifestyle outside the ring, Robinson is credited with being the originator of the modern sports “entourage”. After his boxing career ended, Robinson attempted a career as an entertainer, but it was not successful. He struggled financially until his death in 1989. In 2006 he was featured on a commemorative stamp by the United States Postal Service.
Written by Dianne Washington

Kenny “Baby Face” Edmonds

Kenneth Brian Edmonds (born April 10, 1959), known professionally as Babyface, is an American singer, songwriter and record producer. He has written and produced over 26 number-one R&B hits throughout his career, and has won 11 Grammy Awards.
Edmonds was born on April 10, 1959, in Indianapolis, Indiana, to Marvin and Barbara Edmonds. Barbara was a production operator at a pharmaceutical plant. Edmonds, who is the fifth of six brothers (including future After 7 band members Melvin and Kevon Edmonds, the latter of whom went on to have a modestly successful solo career), attended North Central High School in Indianapolis, Indiana, and as a shy youth, wrote songs to express his emotions. When he was in eighth grade, Edmonds’ father died of lung cancer, leaving his mother to raise her sons alone. At this stage, Edmonds became determined to have a career in music.
Edmonds later played with funk performer Bootsy Collins, who tagged him “Babyface” because of his youthful look. He also performed in the group Manchild (which had a 1977 hit “Especially for You” with band member Daryl Simmons) as a guitarist. He played keyboards in the light-funk and R&B group the Deele (which also included drummer Antonio “L.A.” Reid, with whom he would later form a successful writing and producing partnership). One of his first major credits as a songwriter for outside artists came when he wrote the tune “Slow Jam” for the R&B band Midnight Star in 1983. The tune was on Midnight Star’s 1983 double-platinum No Parking on the Dance Floor album, and while it never was a single, it received massive radio airplay and the song is still played on quiet storm radio stations. Babyface remained in the Deele until 1988, when both he and Reid left the group.
His album Playlist consists of eight cover songs and two original works. It was released on September 18, 2007. It was the first album on the newly re-launched Mercury Records label.
On February 4, 2014, he released a Grammy Award-winning duet album with Toni Braxton titled Love, Marriage & Divorce on Motown Records.
In the late 1980s, he contributed to the creation of new jack swing, writing and producing music for the likes of Bobby Brown, Karyn White, Pebbles, Paula Abdul and Sheena Easton.
In 1989, Edmonds co-founded LaFace Records with Reid. Three of the label’s early artists TLC, Usher, and Toni Braxton were very successful. TLC’s second album CrazySexyCool, for which he wrote and produced some of the hits, became the best selling album of all time by an American girl group. Under his direction, TLC was able to sell more than 60 million albums worldwide, and a combined total of 75 million records. Toni Braxton’s first two albums, Toni Braxton (1993) and Secrets (1996), for which he wrote the majority of the songs, went on to sell a combined total of over 10 million copies in America alone.
Babyface helped form the popular late-1990s R&B group Az Yet. Edmonds also helped to mold and work with some of his then-wife Tracey Edmonds’ acts, such as Jon B and producer Jon-John Robinson.
Edmonds has worked with many successful performers in contemporary music. “I’m Your Baby Tonight” (1990), produced for Whitney Houston, was his first No. 1 Top 40 hit in the US. He also wrote and produced Boyz II Men’s 1992 “End of the Road” and 1994 “I’ll Make Love to You”, both of which established records for the longest stay at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. He co-wrote, co-produced, and provided backing vocals on Madonna’s 1994 Bedtime Stories, which featured the seven-week No. 1 hit “Take a Bow”, and shared billing with Eric Clapton on the chart-topping Grammy winner “Change the World” from the Phenomenon soundtrack. He also wrote and produced the No. 1 hit “Exhale (Shoop Shoop)” for Whitney Houston as well as the rest of the critically acclaimed 10 million-selling Waiting to Exhale soundtrack in 1995, which spawned additional hits for Houston, Brandy and Mary J. Blige.
Additionally, Edmonds has produced and written music for many artists including Carole King, Patti LaBelle, Chaka Khan, Aretha Franklin, Madonna, Janet Jackson, Faith Evans, Al Green, Beyoncé, Diana Ross, Sheena Easton, Toni Braxton, Michael Jackson, Michael Bolton, Paula Abdul, Eric Clapton, Pebbles, Tevin Campbell, Bobby Brown, Whitney Houston, Brandy, Mary J. Blige, Tamia, Shola Ama, 3T, Sisqó, Dru Hill, Fall Out Boy, Céline Dion, Samantha Jade, Backstreet Boys, Honeyz, Katharine McPhee, Mariah Carey, Vanessa L. Williams, Chanté Moore, En Vogue, Zendaya, Kenny G, Kristinia DeBarge, Lil Wayne, Japanese singer Ken Hirai, P!nk, Colbie Caillat, Marc Nelson, TLC, Ariana Grande, Ella Henderson, Jessica Mauboy, Xscape, K-Ci & JoJo, NSYNC, Jordin Sparks and Phil Collins among others. He received three consecutive Grammy Awards for Producer of the Year from 1995 to 1997.
Babyface was in the studio for about two years with Ashanti to produce her album The Declaration (2008).
He worked on the Lil Wayne album Tha Carter III (2008), on the Kanye West-produced “Comfortable”. He also worked with R&B singer Monica for her sixth studio album Still Standing (2010).
In 2013, Babyface served as producer for Ariana Grande’s debut album Yours Truly, producing the majority of her songs, including her second single, “Baby I”.
In September 2014, Babyface collaborated with Barbra Streisand on her album Partners, performing a duet on the track “Evergreen” and background vocals for other album tracks.
Babyface also collaborated with Foxes on her sophomore album, All I Need (2016), producing and co-writing “Scar”.
In July 2016, Babyface along with Bruce Roberts and Carole Bayer Sager helped write the song, “Stronger Together” sung by Jessica Sanchez. The song was played after Hillary Clinton’s speech at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. The song’s title is named after the slogan that the Clinton campaign uses as a show of uniting behind the Democratic nominee. The song was one of the top trending songs on Shazam that week. The song was widely perceived as positive by the listeners, and even received praise by celebrities like Jennifer Lopez and Kim Kardashian.
In 1994, he appeared and performed on an episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 entitled “Mr. Walsh Goes to Washington (Part 2)”.
In the mid-1990s, Edmonds and his then-wife Tracey Edmonds expanded into the business of motion pictures, setting up Edmonds Entertainment Group and producing films such as Soul Food (1997), Josie and the Pussycats (2001), and also the soundtrack for the film The Prince of Egypt (1998), which included contributions from numerous artists, including Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston. They also executive produced the BET reality series College Hill (2004-2009). Edmonds also worked with David Foster to compose “The Power of the Dream”, the official song of the 1996 Summer Olympics, performed by superstar Céline Dion. Linda Thompson provided the lyrics.
Babyface also participated as a duet partner on the Fox reality show Celebrity Duets (2006).
He was portrayed by Wesley Jonathan in the 2015 Lifetime biopic Whitney and is portrayed by actor Gavin Houston in the Lifetime biopic based on Toni Braxton entitled Un-Break My Heart, which premiered on the network in early 2016.
On August 30, 2016, Babyface was revealed as one of the celebrities who will compete on season 23 of Dancing with the Stars. He was partnered with professional dancer Allison Holker. He and Holker were eliminated on the fourth week of competition and finished in 11th place along with Vanilla Ice and Witney Carson.
Edmonds founded his record label Soda Pop Records in 2009. Since founding the label he has signed R&B icons K-Ci & JoJo, releasing their first album for the label entitled My Brother’s Keeper. In 2013 Babyface secured a distribution deal with E1 Music for the label.
Babyface married his first wife, Denise during his young adult years. In 1990, Babyface met Tracey Edmonds when she auditioned for the music video for his song “Whip Appeal”. They married on September 5, 1992, and have two sons, Brandon and Dylan. On January 7, 2005, Tracey filed for divorce in Los Angeles County Superior Court, citing irreconcilable differences. In October 2005, Babyface and Tracey announced that they were ending their marriage of thirteen years.
In 2007, Babyface began dating his backup dancer Nicole “Nikki” Pantenburg (former backup dancer for and personal friend of Janet Jackson). In 2008, Babyface and Nicole welcomed a daughter. The pair married on May 17, 2014.
In 2015, Babyface donated money to the presidential campaign of Republican Senator Marco Rubio.
In 1999, a 25-mile (40-km) stretch of Interstate 65 that runs through Indianapolis was renamed Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds Highway.
Written by Dianne Washington

Stevie Wonder

Little Stevie Wonder.
Stevland Hardaway Morris (né Judkins; born May 13, 1950), known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and multi-instrumentalist. A child prodigy, he is considered to be one of the most critically and commercially successful musical performers of the late 20th century. Wonder signed with Motown’s Tamla label at the age of 11, and he continued performing and recording for Motown into the 2010s. He has been blind since shortly after birth.
Among Wonder’s works are singles such as “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours”, “Superstition”, “Sir Duke”, “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” and “I Just Called to Say I Love You”; and albums such as Talking Book, Innervisions and Songs in the Key of Life. He has recorded more than 30 U.S. top ten hits and received 25 Grammy Awards, one of the most-awarded male solo artists, and has sold over 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the top 60 best-selling music artists. Wonder is also noted for his work as an activist for political causes, including his 1980 campaign to make Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a holiday in the United States. In 2009, Wonder was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace. In 2013, Billboard magazine released a list of the Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists to celebrate the US singles chart’s 55th anniversary, with Wonder at number six.
Written by Dianne Washington

Jimmy Ruffin

James Lee Ruffin (May 7, 1936 – November 17, 2014) was an American soul singer, and elder brother of David Ruffin of the Temptations. He had several hit records between the 1960s and 1980s, the most successful being the Top 10 hits “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted” and “Hold On (To My Love)”was born in 1936 in Collinsville, Mississippi, to Eli, a sharecropper, and Ophelia Ruffin. He was approaching his fifth birthday when his younger brother David was born. As children, the brothers began singing with a gospel group, the Dixie Nightingales.
In 1961, Jimmy became a singer as part of the Motown stable, mostly on sessions but also recording singles for its subsidiary Miracle label, but was then drafted for national service. After leaving the Army in 1964, he returned to Motown, where he was offered the opportunity to join the Temptations to replace Elbridge Bryant. However, after hearing his brother David, they hired him for the job instead so Jimmy decided to resume his solo career. Ruffin recorded for Motown’s subsidiary Soul label, but with little success.
In 1966, he heard a song about unrequited love written for The Spinners, and persuaded the writers that he should record it himself. His recording of “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted” became a major success. The song reached #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #6 on the R&B Chart. It also initially reached #8 in the UK singles chart, rising to #4 when it was reissued in the UK in 1974. “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted” remains Ruffin’s best-known song. It was the lead single from his debut album Jimmy Ruffin Sings Top Ten (released as The Jimmy Ruffin Way in the UK), which was released on the Motown’s Soul subsidiary label in 1967. Follow-up singles in America were successful, with “I’ve Passed This Way Before” and “Gonna Give Her All The Love I’ve Got” reaching the top of the US Charts in late 1966 and early 1967.
Ruffin’s second album, Ruff ‘n’ Ready, was released in 1969. It contained the song “Don’t You Miss Me a Little Bit Baby”, which made the lower parts of the Billboard Hot 100 (#68) and was a Top 30 hit on the R&B Charts, peaking at #27. As a solo artist, it would prove to be Ruffin’s last significant chart appearance in America for many years, and his very last significant charting record for Motown in the US. The song was also released as the B-Side to “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted” when it was reissued in 1974.
As Ruffin found success in the United States difficult to sustain, he began to concentrate instead on the British market. In 1970, “Farewell Is A Lonely Sound”, “I’ll Say Forever, My Love” and “It’s Wonderful (To Be Loved By You)” each made the UK Top Ten, and he was voted the world’s top singer in one British poll. He also teamed up with brother David to record the album I Am My Brother’s Keeper, a modestly successful 1970 album for Motown that included the songs “When The Love Hand Comes Down”, “Your Love Was Worth Waiting For” and a cover of Ben E. King’s “Stand by Me”. His third solo album for the label, The Groove Governor, was released in 1970, and did not fare as well as his previous two albums.
Following the success of his initial hits, Ruffin found it hard to maintain an identity, as most of his songs were later covered by other Motown artists, most prominently “Everybody Needs Love”, a hit when covered by Gladys Knight & The Pips for their 1967 debut album of the same name, “Maria (You Were The Only One)”, a hit for Michael Jackson and “If You Let Me,” a minor hit for Eddie Kendricks. In addition, he had recorded the first version of The Temptations hit “Beauty Is Only Skin Deep”.
He then left Motown, and recorded for the Polydor and Chess labels, where he recorded “Tell Me What You Want.” In 1980, Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees produced his album Sunrise and the hit single “Hold On To My Love”, which reached #10 in the US and #7 in the UK, on the RSO label.
In the 1980s, Ruffin moved to live in Great Britain, where he continued to perform successfully. In December 1984 he collaborated with Paul Weller of The Style Council for his benefit single “Soul Deep”, produced to raise money for the families of striking miners affected by the UK miners’ strike. This went under the name of The Council Collective and Jimmy appeared with Paul on Radio 1 to say he is involved because his father worked down the mines and “he understands the suffering.”
In 1986 he collaborated with the British pop group Heaven 17, singing “A Foolish Thing To Do” and “My Sensitivity” on a 12″ EP record. He took part in recording for Ian Levine’s Motown revival label, Motorcity Records, in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He recorded duets with both Maxine Nightingale and Brenda Holloway. Later, Ruffin hosted a radio show in the UK for a time, and became an anti-drug advocate following the 1991 drug overdose death of his brother David. Ruffin was portrayed by Lamman Rucker in the 1998 mini-series The Temptations.
Following the 2010 release – on CD for the first time – of his 1970 album I Am My Brother’s Keeper, Ruffin had been writing and recording songs for a new album that he had planned to release during 2013. It was not finished at the time of his death.
In 2012, a compilation album titled There Will Never Be Another You, including his hit songs “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted”, and “Hold On To My Love”, had been released.
Ruffin lived in the area of Las Vegas, Nevada. On October 17, 2014, it was reported that he was gravely ill and had been taken into an intensive care unit at a Las Vegas hospital. He died on November 17, 2014, in Las Vegas, aged 78.
Ruffin is buried at Palm Memorial Park Northwest Cemetery, Las Vegas, Clark County, Nevada in the Garden of Eternal Life Section.
His siblings are Davis (David) Eli, Rita Mae (Marie), Rosa, and Quincy B (all deceased). His children are Arlet, Philicia, Jimmie Ray (deceased), Jimmie L., Ophelia and Camilla.
Written by Dianne Washington

Billy Dee Williams

Billy Dee Williams (born William December Williams Jr.; April 6, 1937) is an American actor, artist, singer, and writer. He is best known for his role as Lando Calrissian in the Star Wars film franchise, as well as acting in the movies Brian’s Song, Nighthawks, The Last Angry Man, Carter’s Army, and for playing Harvey Dent in Tim Burton’s Batman (1989).
Williams was born in New York, the son of Loretta Anne (1915-), a West Indian-born elevator operator from Montserrat, and William December Williams, Sr. (1910-2008), an African-American caretaker from Texas. He has a twin sister, Loretta, and grew up in Harlem, where he was raised by his maternal grandmother while his parents worked at several jobs. Williams graduated from The High School of Music & Art (later merged with the High School of Performing Arts to become the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art) in Manhattan, where he was a classmate of Diahann Carroll, who would later play the wife of his character Brady Lloyd on the 1980s prime-time soap opera Dynasty.
Williams first appeared on Broadway in 1945 in The Firebrand of Florence. He returned to Broadway as an adult in 1960 in the adaptation of The Cool Word. He appeared in A Taste of Honey in 1961. A 1976 Broadway production, I Have a Dream, was directed by Robert Greenwald and starred Williams as Martin Luther King, Jr. His most recent Broadway appearance was in August Wilson’s Fences, as a replacement for James Earl Jones in the role of Troy Maxson in 1988.
Williams made his film debut in 1959 in The Last Angry Man, opposite Paul Muni, in which he portrayed a delinquent young man. He rose to stardom after starring in the critically lauded blockbuster biographical television movie, Brian’s Song (1971), in which he played Chicago Bears star football player Gale Sayers, who stood by his friend Brian Piccolo (played by James Caan), during Piccolo’s struggle with terminal cancer. The film was so popular that it was given a theatrical release. Both Williams and Caan were nominated for Emmy Awards for best actor for their performances.[6]
Having broken through, Williams became one of America’s most well-known black film actors of the 1970s, after starring in a string of critically acclaimed and popular movies, many of them in the “blaxploitation” genre. In 1972, he starred as Billie Holiday’s husband Louis McKay in Motown Productions’ Holiday biopic Lady Sings the Blues. The film was a box office blockbuster, becoming one of the highest grossing films of the year and received five Academy Award nominations. Diana Ross starred in Lady Sings the Blues opposite Williams; Motown paired the two of them again three years later in the successful follow-up project Mahogany.
The early 1980s brought Williams the role of Lando Calrissian, which he played in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Calrissian’s charm proved to be popular with audiences. He reprised the role when he lent his voice for the character in the 2002 video game Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, as well as the audio dramatization of Dark Empire, the National Public Radio adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back, and two productions for the Star Wars: Battlefront series: Star Wars: Battlefront II and Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron. Between his appearances in the Star Wars films, he starred alongside Sylvester Stallone as a cop in the 1981 thriller Nighthawks.
He co-starred in 1989’s Batman as district attorney Harvey Dent, a role that was planned to develop into Dent’s alter-ego, the villain Two-Face, in sequels. Unfortunately for Williams, that never came to pass; he was set to reprise the role in the sequel Batman Returns, but his character was deleted and replaced with villain Max Shreck. When Joel Schumacher stepped in to direct Batman Forever, where Two-Face was to be a secondary villain, Schumacher decided to hire Tommy Lee Jones for the role. There was a rumor that Schumacher had to pay Williams a fee in order to hire Jones, but Williams said that it was not true: “You only get paid if you do the movie. I had a two-picture deal with Star Wars. They paid me for that, but I only had a one picture deal for Batman.”
After The Walt Disney Company acquired ownership of Lucasfilm in 2012, plans for a sequel trilogy to the Star Wars films were announced. On April 29, 2014, Disney announced a cast list for Star Wars Episode VII, set decades after Episode VI. The confirmed cast included the actors who portrayed Han Solo, Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker, along with Chewbacca, C-3PO and R2-D2, but Calrissian’s character was omitted. Fans made their displeasure known on social networks immediately.
Williams’s television work included a recurring guest-starring role on the short-lived show Gideon’s Crossing. He is also well known for his appearance in advertisements for Colt 45 (a brand of malt liquor) in the 1980s and early 1990s, for which he received much criticism. Williams responded indifferently to the criticism of his appearances in the liquor commercials. When questioned about his appearances, he allegedly replied by saying, “I drink, you drink. Hell, if marijuana was legal, I’d appear in a commercial for it.”
In the 1984-1985 season of Dynasty, he played Brady Lloyd opposite Diahann Carroll.
Williams was paired with actress Marla Gibbs on three situation comedies: The Jeffersons (Gibbs’s character, Florence, had a crush on Williams and challenged him on everything because she thought he was an imposter); 227 (her character, Mary, pretending to be royalty, met Williams at a banquet); and The Hughleys (Gibbs and Williams portrayed Darryl’s parents).
In 1992, he portrayed Berry Gordy in The Jacksons: An American Dream.
In 1993, Williams had a guest appearance on the spin-off to The Cosby Show, A Different World, as Langston Paige, a grumpy landlord, in a backdoor pilot for his own series. He appeared as himself on Martin where he provided Martin with advice on getting back together with Gina.
Williams made a special guest appearance on the hit sketch comedy show In Living Color in 1990. He portrayed Pastor Dan in an episode of That ’70s Show. In this episode entitled “Baby Don’t You Do It” (2004), his character is obsessed with Star Wars, and uses this to help counsel Eric Forman (himself a Star Wars fan) and Donna Pinciotti about their premarital relationship. Williams made a cameo appearance as himself on the television series Lost in the episode “Exposé”. He also appears regularly on short clips on the Jimmy Kimmel Live! as a semi-parody of himself. In February 2006, he guest starred as himself in the season 5 episode “Her Story II” of Scrubs, where he plays the godfather of Julie (Mandy Moore). Turk hugs him, calling him “Lando”, even though he prefers to be called Billy Dee.
He played Toussaint Dubois for General Hospital: Night Shift in 2007 and 2008. Williams reprised his role as Toussaint on General Hospital beginning in June 2009. Also in 2009, he took on the role of the voice of Admiral Bitchface, the head of the military on the planet Titan in the Adult Swim animated series Titan Maximum. In July 2010, Williams appeared in the animated series The Boondocks, where he voiced a fictionalized version of himself in the episode “The Story of Lando Freeman”.
In February 2011, Williams appeared as a guest star on USA Network’s White Collar as Ford, an old friend of Neal Caffrey’s landlady June, played by Diahann Carroll. In February 2012, Williams was the surprise guest during a taping of The Oprah Winfrey Show spotlighting Diana Ross. Ross and Williams were reunited after having not seen each other in 29 years. In October 2012, Williams appeared as a guest star on NCIS in Season 10 Episode 5 titled “Namesake”, as Gibbs’ namesake and his father’s former best friend, Leroy Jethro Moore. On January 9, 2013, Williams appeared as himself in a cameo role on Modern Family, Season 4 / Episode 11 “New Year’s Eve”.
It was announced on March 4, 2014 that Williams would be competing on the 18th season of Dancing with the Stars. He partnered with professional dancer Emma Slater. The couple had to withdraw from the competition on the third week due to an injury to Williams’s back.
In spite of his absence from Episode VII, Williams returned to the role Lando Calrissian in a 2015 episode of Star Wars Rebels.
In 1961, Williams ventured into the music industry when he recorded a jazz LP produced by Prestige Records entitled Let’s Misbehave, on which he sang several swing standards. The album, which was a commercial success at the time, made Williams eligible for an appearance in the legendary Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever (1983).
Williams voiced Lando Calrissian in the video game Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast and Star Wars Battlefront as well as the spin-off Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron (however, the Battlefront appearances were archive footage and his voice-appearance in Elite Squadron is left uncredited or unknown). He also played a live-action character, GDI Director Redmond Boyle, in the game Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, which was released in March 2007. This made him the second former Star Wars actor to appear in a Command & Conquer game, with the first being James Earl Jones as GDI General James Solomon in Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun.
In 2008, Williams reprised his role as Lando Calrissian to appear in a video on FunnyOrDie.com in a mock political ad defending himself for leader of the Star Wars galaxy against vicious attack ads from Emperor Palpatine. Williams is currently a cast member of Diary of a Single Mom, a web based original series directed by award-winning filmmaker Robert Townsend. The series debuted on PIC.tv in 2009.
Before he began acting, Williams attended the National Academy of Fine Arts and Design in New York. In the late 1980s, he resumed painting. Some of his work can be seen at his online gallery BDW World Art. He has had solo exhibitions in various galleries around the United States, and his work hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, the Smithsonian Institution and the Schomburg Museum. The covers of the Thelonious Monk Competition programs since 1990 are by him.
Williams has been married three times. His first marriage was to Audrey Sellers in 1959. They were divorced some years later, after which he apparently became quite depressed: “[…] there was a period when I was very despondent, broke, depressed, my first marriage was on the rocks.” They have a son, Corey Williams.
In 1968, Williams married model and actress Marlene Clark in Hawaii. Their marriage lasted only two years and they officially divorced in 1971.
He married Teruko Nakagami on December 27, 1972. She brought a daughter, Miyako (b. 1962), from her previous marriage to musician Wayne Shorter. They have a daughter Hanako (b. 1973). They filed for divorce in 1993, but were reported to have reconciled in 1997.
Written by Dianne Washington

Bobby Hutton Black Panther Party

Robert James Hutton, or “Lil’ Bobby” (April 21, 1950 – April 6, 1968) was the treasurer and first recruit to join the Black Panther Party.
Bobby Hutton was one of three children, born in Jefferson County, Arkansas, to John D. Hutton and Dolly Mae Mitchner-Hutton. When he was three years old, his family moved to Oakland, California, after they were visited by nightriders intimidating and threatening blacks in the area.
Hutton met Black Panther Party founders Huey Newton and Bobby Seale at the North Oakland Neighborhood Anti-Poverty Center, a “government-funded agency that employed local youth to work on community service projects.” In October 1966, the 16-year-old Hutton became the first member and the first treasurer of the Black Panther Party. In May 1967, Hutton was one of thirty Panthers who traveled to the California state capitol in Sacramento to demonstrate against the Mulford Act, a bill that would prohibit carrying loaded firearms in public. The group walked into the state assembly armed; Hutton and four other Panthers were arrested.
On the night of April 6, 1968, Bobby was killed by Oakland Police officers after Eldridge Cleaver led him and twelve other Panthers in an ambush of the Oakland Police, during which two officers were seriously wounded by multiple gunshot wounds. The impetus for the police ambush was the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4. The ambush, which Cleaver admitted he led, turned into a shoot-out between the Panthers and the Oakland police at a house in West Oakland. About 90 minutes later Hutton and Cleaver surrendered after the police tear-gassed the building.
Despite the fact that he had instructed Bobby to strip down to his underwear to demonstrate that he was unarmed, Eldridge Cleaver stated that police shot Bobby more than twelve times as he was surrendering. While the police maintained that Hutton attempted to run away and ignored orders to stop. Eldridge Cleaver stated that Bobby was shot by the police with his hands up. According to Eldridge Cleaver, one Oakland police officer who witnessed the shoot-out later told him: “What they did was first-degree murder.” Cleaver and two police officers were also wounded. Bobby Seale, a fellow Black Panther has since speculated that the police shot Bobby Hutton thinking they were shooting him.
Hutton’s funeral was held on April 12 at the Ephesians Church of God in Berkeley, California. About 1,500 people attended the funeral and a rally held afterwards in West Oakland was attended by over 2,000 people, including a eulogy by actor Marlon Brando. He was buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, but did not have a gravestone until 2003, 35 years after his death.
Bobby Hutton’s death at the hands of the Oakland police was seen by those sympathetic to the Black Panther Party as an example of police brutality against blacks. At the time, Cleaver falsely claimed that the Oakland police had attacked the Panthers; he did not publicly admit to having ambushed the police and seriously wounding two officers until 1980. Hutton was the first Panther to die and “immediately became a martyr for the cause of black power.”
DeFremery Park in West Oakland, California, was unofficially named after Bobby Hutton not long after his death. “Lil’ Bobby Hutton Day” has been held annually at the park since April 1998. Organized by family members and former and current Black Panther Party members, the memorial event features speakers, performers, and art works commemorating Hutton’s black consciousness and dedication to the party.
Written by Dianne Washington

Ron Dunbar dies

Songwriting legend Ron Dunbar passes. Man, we are losing all our good ones. SIP Ron and thanks for the music and the memories.
(April 4, 2018) In the annals of soul music, there are the great ones who became household names, and then there were legends behind the scenes, who were instrumental in bringing fans some of the greatest music of all time. Ron Dunbar was a giant in the latter category, and he gave us songs that will live for generations to come. He has died at age 77.
Dunbar was a songwriter and producer supreme, best known for his work with the post-Motown Holland-Dozier-Holland label Invictus and with the P-Funk world of George Clinton. Over the period of 1970-75 Dunbar co-wrote countless classics, including “Band of Gold” for Freda Payne, “Give Me Just a Little More Time” for the Chairmen of the Board, “Mind, Body and Soul” for The Flaming Ember, and “Patches,” which ultimately hit #1 for Clarence Carter and won a Grammy Award for Dunbar and General Johnson. [Note: That Grammy Award became the subject of a 2011 episode of the television show Pawn Stars, where someone tried to sell it]
As the Invictus and Hot Wax labels went under in the mid-70s, Dunbar went on to work with Clinton and his crew, co-writing such funk hits as “Agony of De Feet” for Parliament and “Never Buy Texas From a Cowboy” for the Brides of Funkenstein. By the 1990s Dunbar became an independent producer again and also worked with the Holland brothers.
Ron Dunbar played a huge role in one of the most important eras of soul music history, and the wonderful songs he wrote are familiar to three generations of music fans. He will be missed, but his will always remain intact.