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Cousy, Bob

(Encyclopedia)Cousy, Bob (Robert Joseph Cousy) ko͞oˈzē [key], 1928–, American basketball player, b. New York City. During his career with the Boston Celtics (1951–63), Cousy established a reputation as the N...

Feller, Bob

(Encyclopedia)Feller, Bob (Robert William Andrew Feller), 1918–2010, American baseball player, b. Van Meter, Iowa. Famous for his blazing fastball, he also had extraordinary curveballs and sinkers in his repertoi...

Charters, Samuel Barclay

(Encyclopedia)Charters, Samuel Barclay, 1929–2015, American musical historian and author, b. Pittsburgh. In the 1950s he studied jazz and blues in New Orleans and traveled through the South, where he recorded neg...

Waters, Muddy

(Encyclopedia)Waters, Muddy, 1915–83, African-American blues singer and guitarist, b. Rolling Fork, Miss., as McKinley Morganfield. As a teenager he began singing and playing traditional country blues on harmonic...

Scorsese, Martin

(Encyclopedia)Scorsese, Martin skôrsāˈzē, –sĕzˈē [key], 1942–, American film director; b...

Johnson, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Johnson, Robert, 1911–38, African-American blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter, b. Hazelhurst, Miss. A sharecropper's son, he grew up absorbing the music of Delta bluesmen, learning the harmonic...

Guthrie, Woody

(Encyclopedia)Guthrie, Woody (Woodrow Wilson Guthrie), 1912–67, American folk singer, guitarist, and composer, b. Okemah, Okla. Guthrie was an itinerant musician and laborer from the age of 13. Deeply involved in...

Hammond, John Henry

(Encyclopedia)Hammond, John Henry, 1910–87, American record producer; blues, jazz, and rock promoter; and music critic, b. New York City. A member of the wealthy Vanderbilt family, he entered the music business i...

Pennebaker, D. A.

(Encyclopedia)Pennebaker, D. A. (Donn Alan Pennebaker), 1925–2019, pioneering documentary filmmaker, b. Evanston, Ill. His first film, Daybreak Express (1958), is a five-minute short detailing New York's doomed T...

Simon, Paul

(Encyclopedia)Simon, Paul, 1941–, American singer, songwriter, and guitarist, b. Newark, N.J. A polished and intelligent folk-rock lyricist and performer, he first gained fame as half of Simon and Garfunkel (with...

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