Clarence “Pinetop” Smith (June 11, 1904 – March 15, 1929), was an American boogie-woogie style blues pianist. His hit tune “Pine Top’s Boogie” featured rhythmic “breaks” that were an essential ingredient of ragtime music, but also a fundamental foreshadowing of rock and roll.[2] The song was also the first known use of the term “boogie woogie” on a record, and cemented that term as the moniker for the genre.
Smith was born in Troy, Alabama and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. He received his nickname as a child from his liking for climbing trees. In 1920 he moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he worked as an entertainer before touring on the Theatre Owners Booking Association (T.O.B.A.) vaudeville circuit, performing as a singer and comedian as well as a pianist. For a time, he worked as accompanist for blues singer Ma Rainey and Butterbeans and Susie.
In the mid-1920s, he was recommended by Cow Cow Davenport to J. Mayo Williams at Vocalion Records, and in 1928 he moved, with his wife and young son, to Chicago, Illinois to record. For a time he, Albert Ammons, and Meade Lux Lewis lived in the same rooming house.
On December 29, 1928, he recorded his influential “Pine Top’s Boogie Woogie”, one of the first “boogie woogie” style recordings to make a hit, and which cemented the name for the style. It was also the first recording to have the phrase ‘boogie woogie’ in the song’s title.[6] Smith talks over the recording, telling how to dance to the number.[2] He said he originated the number at a house-rent party in St. Louis, Missouri. Smith was the first ever to direct “the girl with the red dress on” to “not move a peg” until told to “shake that thing” and “mess around”. Similar lyrics are heard in many later songs, including “Mess Around” and “What’d I Say” by Ray Charles.
Medal of Honor is a 1999 first-person shooter video game, developed by DreamWorks Interactive and published by Electronic Arts for PlayStation. It is the first installment in the Medal of Honor video game series. The gameplay features the combined arms warfare of World War II, as the player completes various missions for the Office of Strategic Services.
Medal of Honor’s concept, production and story were created by American film director and producer Steven Spielberg, who had a deep interest in World War II and found further inspiration from watching his son play GoldenEye 007. While in development, the game experienced controversy due to the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, and was criticized by the Congressional Medal of Honor Society for turning a serious topic into a video game. Game producer Peter Hirschmann convinced Medal of Honor Society president Paul Bucha that the project was made with serious and honorable intentions, saving the project from cancellation, and earning Bucha’s endorsement.
Medal of Honor was released to universal acclaim, and has been credited with popularizing the trend of World War II shooters. The game was followed by Medal of Honor: Underground, leading to a widely successful series.
Craig Morgan Greer (born July 17, 1964) is an American country music artist. A veteran of the United States Army as a forward observer and current member of the United States Army Reserve, Morgan began his musical career in 2000 on Atlantic Records, releasing his self-titled debut album for that label before the closure of its Nashville division in 2000.
In 2002, Morgan signed to the independent Broken Bow Records, on which he released three studio albums: 2003’s I Love It, 2005’s My Kind of Livin’, and 2006’s Little Bit of Life. These produced several chart hits, including “That’s What I Love About Sunday”, which spent four weeks at the top of the Billboard country charts while also holding the No.
1 position on that year’s Billboard Year-End chart for the country format. A greatest hits package followed in mid-2008 before Morgan signed to BNA Records and released That’s Why later that same year. After exiting BNA, Morgan signed with Black River Entertainment and released This Ole Boy in 2012, followed by A Whole Lot More to Me in 2016. (ref Wikipedia)
In the Florida Everglades, a pair of larger-than-human, intelligent Leech are living in an underwater cave. They begin dragging local people down to their cave where they hold them prisoner and slowly drain them of blood.
One of the first people to be so taken is the local vixen, Liz Walker, played by Yvette Vickers. After a couple of gratuitous displays of flesh (Vickers appeared as the centerfold in the July 1959 issue of Playboy), and some running around on her husband (Bruno VeSota), Liz finds herself a prisoner of the leeches along with her current paramour. Game warden Steve Benton (Ken Clark (actor)) sets out to investigate their disappearance. Aided by his girlfriend Nan Grayson (Jan Sheppard) and her father, Doc Grayson, he discovers the cavern.
When the villagers of Kleinschloss start dying of blood loss, the town fathers suspect a resurgence of vampirism, however police inspector Karl Breettschneider remains skeptical. Scientist Dr. Otto von Niemann, who cares for the victims, visits a patient who was attacked by a bat, Martha Mueller. Martha is visited by a mentally challenged man
named Herman, who claims he likes bats because they are soft, like cats and nice. On the Doctors journey home, he meets Krinen, one of the townsfolk, who claims to have been attacked by the vampire in the form of a bat, but withheld his story from the town in order to not spread fear. Dr. von Niemann encourages Kringen to tell the townsfolk of his story. Kringen becomes suspicious that mentally-challenged Herman Glieb may be the vampire due to his obsession with bats. Herman lives with bats and collects them off the street.
Dr von Niemann returns to his home, which also houses Breettschneider’s love Ruth Bertin, hypochondriac Gussie Schnappmann, and servants Emil Borst, and Gorgiana. Fear of the vampire and suspicion of Glieb quickly spreads around the town, and people start fearing him. Ms Mueller is killed that night. The analyses of Dr. von Niemann and another doctor, Dr. Haupt, conclude that the death is the same as all of the previous deaths; blood loss, with two punctures in the neck caused by needle sharp teeth. Gleib enters the examination and upon seeing the dead body, runs away screaming.
Next morning, Glieb enters Dr. Von Niemann’s garden, where Dr. Von Niemann, Breettschneider, and Bertin are discussing vampires inside the house. The town fathers enter the house and announce that Kringen is dead and Gleib missing. An angry mob hunts down Gleib and chases him through the countryside and into a cave, where he falls to his death. That night, Dr. von Niemann is seen telepathically controlling Emil Borst, as he picks up sleeping Gorgiana and takes her down to Dr. von Niemann’s laboratory, where a strange organism is seen. They then drain her blood from her neck. Schnappmann then discovers Gorgiana’s body in her bed. Dr. Von Niemann and Breettschneider investigate and find Ms Mueller’s crucifix, which Glieb handled the night Dr. von Niemann visited her. Breettschneider is becoming more convinced of the presence of vampires in the village as no other plausible explanations for the deaths can be found. As Glieb was seen in the garden that morning, the two conclude he is guilty.
Upon hearing of Glieb’s death, however, Breettschneider’s conviction is erased. Dr. von Niemann tells Breettschneider to go home and take sleeping pills, but gives him poison instead, intent on draining his blood. Bertin discovers Dr. von Niemann telepathically controlling Borst, who is at Breettschneider’s house. It is revealed that Dr. von Niemann has created life, and is using the blood to fuel his organism. He ties Bertin up in his lab. Borst supposedly enters with Breettschneider’s body on a trolley. Dr. von Niemann walks over to Borst, who is revealed to be Breettschneider (who didn’t take the pills) in costume, with the real Borst on the trolley. Breettschneider pulls a gun on Dr. von Niemann, and walks over to untie Bertin. Dr. von Niemann then wrestles Breettschneider, who drops the gun. As the two fight, Borst picks up the gun and shoots Dr. von Niemann.
Fay Wray and Lionel Atwill had been in the successful film Doctor X (film) the previous year and had already wrapped up work on Mystery of the Wax Museum for Warner Bros. This was quite a large scale release and would have a lengthy post-production process. Seeing a chance to exploit all the advance press, poverty row studio Majestic Pictures Inc. contracted Wray and Atwill for their own “quickie” horror film, rushing The Vampire Bat into production and releasing it in January 1933.
Majestic Pictures had lower overheads than the larger studios, who were struggling at the time during the Great Depression. Part of the reason that The Vampire Bat looked almost as good as any Universal Studios Pictures horror film is because Majestic leased James Whale’s castoffs, the beautiful “German Village” backlot sets left over from Frankenstein (1931 film) (1931) and the interior sets from his film The Old Dark House (1932), plus some location shooting at Bronson Caves.
Completing the illusion that this was a film from a much bigger studio, Majestic hired actor Dwight Frye to populate scenes with Wray and Atwill. A stock musical theme by Charles Dunworth, “Stealthy Footsteps”, was used to accompany the opening credits. The Vampire Bat ruse worked well for Majestic, which was able to rush the quickie film into theaters less than a month before Warner’s release of Mystery of the Wax Museum. According to The Film Daily of January 10, 1933, the film’s running time was 63 minutes, like most extant prints.
