June 26: Singer and actress, Ariana Grande, is 18 years-old today.

Grande was born and raised in Boca Raton, Florida. Her older brother is actor-producer Frankie Grande. She studies voice with Eric Vetro.

As a child, Grande began performing at Boca Raton’s former Little Palm Theatre for Young People. A few years later, she started to perform in Fort Lauderdale Children's Theater (FLCT). When she was 10, Ariana co-founded the youth singing group, Kids Who Care, in South Florida, which performed for charitable fund-raising events, raising over $500,000 for charities in 2007 alone.

In 2008, Grande played the role of Charlotte in the musical 13 on Broadway, for which she won a National Youth Theatre Association Award. When she joined the musical, Grande took a leave of absence left her high school, North Broward Preparatory School, which sent materials to her for study with tutors.

Grande played the role of Miriam in the first reading of the forthcoming musical Cuba Libre composed by Desmond Child. In the Summer of 2009, as a member of the charitable organization, Broadway in South Africa, Ariana performed and taught music and dance to children in Gugulethu, South Africa.


In 2009, she was cast as Cat Valentine on the Nickelodeon television series Victorious. Then she dyed her hair in the words of Ariana "red velvet cupcake" or Magenta. In 2009 and 2010, Grande performed at Birdland jazz club in New York City with Miranda Sings.

(Continued below video and Amazon portals ...)

(Press album cover for direct link to the entire Amazon Website):

-----

Grande is currently working on her solo music career while filming Victorious. She has worked with pop music’s Grammy Award-winning composers such as Diane Warren, Desmond Child, Billy Steinberg, and Matthew Gerrard. She has also collaborated with Grammy Award-winning producer Ken Lewis, and most recently Rock Mafia on original songs they co-wrote together.

She has covered many popular songs such as "Love The Way You Lie," "Born This Way/Express Yourself,""Grenade," Katy Perry's Teenage Dream, and "Vienna" (originally by Billy Joel). She sang an original song called "Suitcase" live and has also recorded a song called "Stick Around" with Graham Phillips, written by Peter Stengaard and Leslie Satcher.

Grande has been a soloist with a number of symphonies including South Florida’s Philharmonic, Pops and Symphonia Orchestras, and has had repeated appearances singing at NYC’s own Birdland. Ariana performed the National Anthem for the first LIVE ESPN broadcast of the Anthem for the Florida Panther’s hockey league.

Her favorite cereal is Cocoa Puffs.

####

June 25: British musician and actress Betty Curse - AKA Megan Burns - is 25-years old today.

Megan Burns was born in Liverpool, England. When she was three years old, her father left her and her mother. At age 11 her grandmother sent her to a drama class. When she was 14, she received a part in the film Liam, and won the Marcello Mastroianni award at the Venice film festival for her performance. Two years, later she appeared in the zombie film, 28 Days Later, where she played Hannah, one of the survivors.

In the 90’s she was part of an unsuccessful girl pop group. Burns has since worked as a singer under the pseudonym Betty Curse, a name chosen by Island Records, who gave her a “goth pop” image and a music identity that catered to a younger crowd.

(Continued below video and Amazon portals ...)

(Press album cover for direct link to the entire Amazon Website):

-----

Her first single release was a double A-side, "Met on the Internet" and "Excuse All the Blood," released in May 2006. Her first album Hear Lies was released in October 2006 via iTunes. Her CD, Here Lies Betty Curse, was released in April 2007. The album's first single, "God This Hurts," was released in August 2007, shortly followed by "Girl with Yellow Hair" the following November. the single was written by Betty with Davey McManus, frontman and founder of The Crimea.

In 2006 she performed and won on a Halloween special of the children's television programme The Slammer with "Girl With Yellow Hair."

Betty's popularity grew via word-of-mouth support since her launch. Yahoo named her ‘Emerging Artist Of The Month’ for August 2006. Kerrang Radio playlisted her last single, the download release of “God This Hurts," on their daytime schedule. Kerrang TV and MTV 2 picked up on her very first video, for the track “Excuse All The Blood."

Online, NME.com and Kerrang.com gave exclusives to her previous two videos, and Myspace.com put her on their front page as one of their Features Artists.

She has since been dropped from Island Records.





####

June 25: Australian lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Juanita Stein of UK-based Howling Bells is 34-years-old today.

Juanita Stein was born in Melbourne, Australia and moved to Sydney at an early age. Her father Peter Stein is a songwriter and musician; mother Linda Stein is a former stage and television actress.

Juanita was five years old the first time she was in a music recording studio. She contributed vocals to one of her father’s songs. The experience, she said, shaped her life and pointed her towards a career in music. Juanita was brought up listening to all kinds of music but the first song she remembers hearing was Bob Marley's "Buffalo Soldier." She says her artists were Juliana Hatfield, Lemonheads and Nirvana.

Her brother Joel remembers her dedication to learning songs when she was young. "She would sit in her room and learn old Beatles songs with the door shut until three in the morning. This was when she was about twelve. I would hear her voice at night."

She attended Moriah College in Sydney, where one of her classmates was Australian singer and actor Ben Lee. Stein obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Literature while she also studied Theatre Performance and an electronic music course. Jimmy Brandon, who was later a member of indie-pop group Waikiki with Juanita and her brother Joel was also schooled there.



(Continued below video and Amazon portals ...)

(Press album cover for direct link to the entire Amazon Website):

-----

Juanita Stein wrote and played music while at university, mainly folk music, in duets and trios. She tired of singing other people's songs and in 1999 she and Joel formed the band Waikiki. The name was chosen randomly from an encyclopedia.

They advertised for a drummer to join them stating their influences were Mazzy Star, Radiohead and the Beatles." Glenn Moule joined the siblings to record and release a five-track EP Presents in 2000. Juanita Stein used the pseudonym Kikisun on the EP, on which she sang lead vocals and played bass.

The trio were later joined by guitarist Jimmy Brandon, who Juanita met in college, and released an album, I'm Already Home, in 2002. Brandon left the band in 2003 and was replaced by bass player Brendan Picchio, at which time Juanita Stein moved to  rhythm guitar.

After four years, the band decided to change direction. Rather than doing so in Australia, they decided to move to the U.K. and form a new band. In early 2004 the group re-formed as the indie rock band Howling Bells. The band is comprised of Juanita as vocalist and rhythm guitarist and brother Joel on lead guitar and keyboards. Other members of the band are Glenn Moule on drums and Picchio on bass.

Juanita said the moved to the U.K. on pure faith. They did not find instant success. Joel Stein later said: "We stole to eat when we first moved to Britain. We went from being semi-comfortable in Sydney to living almost in poverty."


They released their self-named debut album Howling Bells in 2006. Howling Bells was recorded in the middle of winter in Liverpool and Juanita said it affected the tone of the record.

After completing recording, but many months before the release of Howling Bells, talent agency A&R Worldwide, in its July 5, 2005 newsletter selected the band as its "Pick of the Week"; calling the band's sound as "an enigmatic alternative/pop sound which can be described as a modern-day Mazzy Star on a soundclash with Radiohead."

The band's style of music was described by Mojo as "blues-noir desolation", and by The Guardian as "bruising, narcotised rock'n'roll."

In 2008, Howling Bells signed a deal with London-based record label Independiente and recorded their second album Radio Wars, mainly at The Sound Factory in Los Angeles, California. Three songs were recorded at Air Studios in London and one at Sing Sing Studios, Melbourne.

Radio Wars was released in the UK in March 2009 and, after signing to Nettwerk Music Group, in the USA in July 2009. Radio Wars signalled a change in direction; the band's music had become brighter and more accessible, and placed a greater emphasis on keyboards. Reviews were mixed.

Howling Bells planned to release their third album in 2010.

Juanita Stein's songwriting is inspired by many other artists and also by films. Her musical influences have included Bjork, Kate Bush, Air, Siouxsie Sioux, The Slits and Magazine. She cites the films Leon, Frankie and Johnny, Jaws, Edward Scissorhands, Chinatown and Vivre Sa Vie as amongst her inspirations.

In addition to Howling Bells, Juanita Stein has performed with several other musical artists.


####

June 25: Carly Simon- "You're So Vain" - is 66-years-old today.

Did you know?


In 1976, Carly made her only appearance on Saturday Night Live. It was a pre-taped performance—a rare occurrence on that show—because Simon suffered terrible bouts of stage fright. In the appearance, she sang two songs: "Half A Chance" and  "You're So Vain."

-----

Carly Elisabeth Simon was born in New York City, New York, and raised in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx. Her father was Richard L. Simon (co-founder of Simon & Schuster), a pianist who often played Chopin and Beethoven at home. Her mother was a civil rights activist and singer. She attended Riverdale Country School. She also briefly attended Sarah Lawrence College and joined Alpha Gamma Delta, before dropping out to pursue music.

Simon's career began with a short-lived music group with her sister Lucy as The Simon Sisters. They had a minor hit in 1964 called "Winkin', Blinkin', and Nod," and made three albums together before Lucy left to get married and start a family. Later, Carly Simon collaborated with eclectic New York rockers Elephant's Memory for about six months. She also appeared in the 1971 Milos Forman movie Taking Off, playing an auditioning singer, and sang "Long Term Physical Effects," which was included in  the soundtrack for the movie.

Her solo music career began in 1971, with the self-titled Carly Simon on Elektra Records. The album contained her breakthrough top-ten hit "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be." It was followed quickly by a second album, Anticipation. The title song from that album, written about a romance between Simon and Cat Stevens (now known as Yusuf Islam,) was a significant hit, reaching #3 at Easy Listening radio and #13 on Billboard's Hot 100.

With Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam)

The next single release - also reportedly written about Stevens, though perhaps about future husband James Taylor, whom she had known since childhood - was "Legend In Your Own Time" which failed to make much of an impact on the charts. After their brief liaison during 1970–1971 ended amicably, Stevens wrote his song "Sweet Scarlet" about Simon, who also had highly publicized relationships with Warren Beatty, Mick Jagger, Kris Kristofferson and James Taylor during this period.

Carly With James Taylor

In 1973 Simon scored the biggest success of her career with the classic global smash "You're So Vain." It hit #1 on the U.S. Pop and Adult Contemporary charts, and sold over a million copies in the United States alone. It was one of the decade's biggest hits and propelled Simon's breakthrough album No Secrets to #1 on the U.S. album charts, where it stayed for six consecutive weeks.

 

(Continued below video and Amazon portals ...)

 

(Press album cover for direct link to the entire Amazon Website):

-----

The album achieved Gold status that year, but by the album's 25th anniversary in 1997, the album had been certified Platinum. "You're So Vain" received Grammy Award nominations for Record Of The Year, Song Of The Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female. Additionally, in 2008, it was listed at #72 on the Billboard Hot 100's list of the top 100 songs from the chart's first 50 years, August 1958 through July 2008.

The subject of the song itself has become one of the biggest enigmas in popular music, as this track also carries one of the most famous lyrics: "You're so vain/I bet you think this song is about you." Simon has never publicly admitted who the song is about. On August 5, 2003, she auctioned off the information to the winner of a charity function for a grand total of US$50,000, with the condition that the winner (a television executive, Dick Ebersol on NBC's Today Show) not reveal who it is.

Later in 1973, the follow-up single, "The Right Thing To Do," was another sizable hit, reaching #4 Adult Contemporary and #17 Pop. That same year Simon performed on Lee Clayton's album Lee Clayton and co-sang on the song "New York Suite 409" and on Livingston Taylor's album Over the Rainbow and sang with both Livingston and his famous brother, and Carly's husband at the time, James Taylor, on the songs "Loving Be My New Horizon" and "Pretty Woman."

In 1974, Simon followed the smash No Secrets album with Hotcakes, which reached #3 on Billboard's Album Chart and was certified Gold, though it did not match the sales of No Secrets.

Hotcakes included two top ten singles, "Mockingbird," a duet with James Taylor that peaked at #5 on Billboard's Pop Singles chart, and "Haven't Got Time For the Pain," which hit #2 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart. In 1975, Elektra released her first greatest-hits album, The Best of Carly Simon, which became Simon's all time best selling disc and eventually reached Triple-Platinum status in the U.S.

Simon's record sales declined considerably with 1975's Playing Possum and 1976's Another Passenger. Playing Possum was a Top Ten album, with a Top 40 single "Attitude Dancing" and two other charting singles, but Another Passenger produced only one single, "It Keeps You Running," which barely scraped into the top 50.


In 1977, Simon had a surprise international hit with "Nobody Does It Better," the theme to the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me. "Nobody Does It Better" remains Simon's second-biggest U.S. hit, after "You're So Vain." It was 1977's biggest Adult Contemporary hit, where it held at #1 for seven straight weeks. It also received Grammy nominations for Song Of The Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance Female.

In 1986, Simon signed with Arista Records and soon rebounded from her career slump. Her first album for Arista, Coming Around Again, gave Simon another international hit with the title track (which was featured in the film Heartburn), returning her to the Billboard Pop Top 20 and the U.K. Top 10 (It also garnered her a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance). The album also featured the Top 10 Adult Contemporary hits "Give Me All Night," "The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of," "All I Want Is You" and a cover of "As Time Goes By" (featuring Stevie Wonder on harmonica). The album itself was her first Gold release in nine years, and went Platinum in 1988.

Simon underwent a mastectomy, chemotherapy, and reconstructive surgery for breast cancer during 1997 and 1998. There had been a lump in her breast for several years before then, but her doctors had advised her against surgery. She said that she felt "a little angry with myself" over the fact that she didn't insist on taking it out sooner.

####

June 25: Harold Melvin of the Blue Notes - "If You Don't Know Me By Now" - was born on this date in 1939...

... he died on March 24, 1997 at the age of 57.

Soul, R&B, doo-wop, and disco group, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes were one of the most popular Philadelphia soul groups of the 1970s. Despite group founder and original lead singer Harold Melvin's top billing, the Blue Notes' most famous member was Teddy Pendergrass, their lead singer during the successful years at Philadelphia International.

In the early 1950s, the group began as The Charlemagnes in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They had several hits on Gamble & Huff's Philadelphia International label between 1972 and 1976. They performed and recorded until Melvin's death in 1997. The group changed their name to "The Blue Notes" in 1954, with a lineup consisting of lead singer Harold Melvin, Bernard Wilson, Roosevelt Brodie, Jesse Gillis, Jr., and Franklin Peaker.

The group recorded for a number of labels without success from its inception into the 1960s. The 1960 single "My Hero" was a minor hit for Val-ue Records, and 1965's "Get Out (and Let Me Cry)" was an R&B hit for Landa Records. During this period, the group's lineup changed frequently, with Bernard Wilson leaving the act to start a group called "The Original Blue Notes," and Harold Melvin bringing in new lead singer John Atkins.

In 1970, the group recruited Teddy Pendergrass as the drummer for their backing band. Pendergrass had been a former member of The Cadillacs, and was promoted to lead singer when John Atkins quit the group the same year.

Teddy Pendergrass

With Melvin and Pendergrass, they scored several major R&B hits over the next four years. Among the Blue Notes' most important and successful recordings are love songs such as their breakout single, "If You Don't Know Me By Now" in 1972, "I Miss You," "The Love I Lost," and "Don't Leave Me This Way," and socially conscious songs such as "Wake Up Everybody" and "Bad Luck." "Bad Luck" holds the record for longest-running number-one hit on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart: eleven weeks.

(Continued below video and Amazon portals ...)

(Press album of MP3  cover for direct link to the entire Amazon Website):

-----

Despite success, the Blue Notes' lineup continued to change regularly. In 1974, Melvin brought in Jerry Cummings to replace Lloyd Parks, and female singer Sharon Paige was added to the lineup. While at the top of their success in 1976, Pendergrass quit after an argument over money and unsuccessfully lobbying to have Melvin rename the act "Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes featuring Teddy Pendergrass." Pendergrass went on to a successful solo career, cut short by a 1982 car accident that paralyzed him.

Melvin replaced Pendergrass with David Ebo, and the Blue Notes departed Philadelphia International for ABC Records in 1977. "Reaching for the World" became the group's final major single. Harold Melvin , Jerry Cummings, and new members Dwight Johnson, David Ebo and William Spratelly moved to MCA Records. In 1980 they recorded two commercially successful albums.

Harold Melvin continued to tour with various lineups of Blue Notes until suffering a stroke in 1996. Melvin died on March 24, 1997 at the age of fifty-seven. Brown died on April 6, 2008 at the age of sixty-three of a respiratory condition. In addition, three former members of the group would die during the year 2010. First Teddy Pendergrass died on January 13, 2010 at the age of fifty-nine from complications of colon cancer.

Six months later, original member Roosevelt Brodie, who was the second tenor for the original Blue Notes, died July 13, 2010 at the age of seventy-five due to complications of diabetes. And just five months later in that year, Bernard Wilson died on December 26, 2010 at the age of sixty-four from complications of a stroke and a heart attack. Pendergrass' predecessor, John Atkins, and successor David Ebo, are also deceased.

-----

Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes are arguably the most-covered Philly soul group in history. Many of their hits have been re-recorded by many other artists. Several members of various incarnations of the Blue Notes continue to tour as "Harold Melvin's Blue Notes." Melvin's widow currently manages Harold Melvin's Blue Notes featuring lead singer, Donnell "Big Daddy" Gillespie, Anthony Brooks, Rufus Thorne, John Morris and Sharon Paige.

For his album This Note's for You, singer Neil Young named his back-up band, The Blue Notes, without permission from name rights holder Harold Melvin. Melvin took legal action against Young over use of the Blue Notes name, forcing the singer to change the name of the back-up band to "Ten Men Workin'" during the balance of the tour that promoted the This Note's for You album.

#####