Profile Playlist: Neil Diamond

Neil Leslie Diamond (born January 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter with a career spanning over five decades from the 1960s until the present.

As of 2001, Diamond had sold over 115 million records worldwide including 48 million in the United States alone. He is considered to be the third most successful adult contemporary artist ever on the Billboard chart behind Barbra Streisand and Elton John. His songs have been covered internationally by many performers from various musical genres.

Diamond was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011. Additionally, he received the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000 and in 2011 was an honoree at the Kennedy Center Honors. He has eight number one hit singles with "Cracklin Rosie", "Song Sung Blue", "Desiree", "You Don't Bring Me Flowers", "Love On The Rocks", "America", "Yesterday's Songs", and "Heartlight".

Diamond continues to record and release new material and maintains an extensive touring schedule as well.

Read More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Diamond

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I Am I Said

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht0zsE9GPrs

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Play Me (Live)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKdDdzdMUW4

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Love On The Rocks From the film, "The Jazz Singer" with Neil Diamond

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbvxP08FlMs

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Hello Again

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3Id4_t2izk

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Heartlight - written by Neil Diamond, Carole Bayer Sager and her then-husband Burt Bacharach and recorded by Diamond in 1982

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzNnFARrdg0

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Neil Diamond – Classic Playlist:

1. Solitary Man

2. Shilo

3. Cracklin’ Rosie

4. Soolaimon

5. Play Me

6. I Am, I Said

7. Be

8. I’ve Been This Way Before

9. Longfellow Serenade

10. If You Know What I Mean

11. September Morn

12. Forever In Blue Jeans

13. Love on The Rocks

14. Scotch on The Rocks

15. Hello Again

16. Yesterday Songs

17. Heartlight

18. Brooklyn Roads (Live)

19. I Am I Said (Live)

20. All I Really Need Is You (Live)

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Profile: Ernie Kovacs (1919-1962)

Ernie Kovacs (January 23, 1919 – January 13, 1962) was an American comedian and actor.

Kovacs' uninhibited, often ad-libbed, and visually experimental comedic style came to influence numerous television comedy programs for years after his death in an automobile accident. Such iconic and diverse shows as Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, Saturday Night Live, The Uncle Floyd Show, Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, The Electric Company, and TV hosts such as David Letterman and Craig Ferguson have been influenced by Kovacs. Chevy Chase thanked him during his acceptance speech for his Emmy award for SNL. Chase appeared in the 1982 documentary called Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius, speaking again of the impact Kovacs had on his work.

On or off screen, Kovacs could be counted on for the unexpected, from having marmosets as pets to wrestling a jaguar on his live Philadelphia television show. When working at WABC (AM) as a morning-drive radio personality and doing a mid-morning television show for NBC, Kovacs disliked eating breakfast alone while his wife was sleeping in after her Broadway performances. His solution was to hire a taxi driver to come into their apartment with his own key and whose job was to make breakfast for them both, then take him to the WABC studios.

While Kovacs and his wife Edie Adams received Emmy nominations for best performances in a comedy series in 1957, his talent was not formally recognized until after his death. The 1962 Emmy for outstanding electronic camera work and the Directors' Guild award came a short time after his fatal accident. A quarter century later, he was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. Kovacs also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in television. In 1986, the Museum of Television & Radio (now the Paley Center for Media) presented an exhibit of Kovacs' work, called The Vision of Ernie Kovacs. The Pulitzer Prize winning television critic, William Henry III wrote for the museum's booklet:

Kovacs was more than another wide-eyed, self-ingratiating clown. He was television's first significant video artist. He was its first surrealist... its most daring and imaginative writer. He was... television's first and possibly only auteur. And he was a genius. In commercial terms, a genius is any entertainer... who finds a new way to make money. Kovacs never fit that description. Kovacs' genius lay in the realm of art. There, a genius is someone who causes an audience to look at the world in a new way.

Read More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Kovacs

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VIDEO: Ernie Kovacs – Tribute presented by Carl Reiner

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4VVpOxfAQo

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Ernie Kovacs - Between the Laughter – TV Movie starring Jeff Goldblum as Ernie Kovacs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86WafFyoKII

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Playlist 012112: Be The One

It's you, it's you, it's all for you / Everything I do / Tell you all the time / Heaven is a place on earth with you / Tell me all the things you wanna do / I heard that you like the bad girls / Honey, is that true? / It's better than I ever even knew / They say that the world was built for two / Only worth living / If somebody is loving you / Baby now you do - "Video Games", Lana Del Rey

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You give me the sweetest taboo /  That's why I'm in love with you /  You give me, you're giving me the sweetest taboo /  Too good for me /  You've got the biggest heart / Sometimes I think you're just too good for me /  Every day is Christmas, and every night is New Year's Eve /  Will you keep on loving me /  Will you keep on, will you keep on /  Bringing out the best in me - "The Sweetest Taboo", Sade

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Lana Del Rey – Video Games

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO1OV5B_JDw

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Sade - The Sweetest Taboo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcPc18SG6uA&ob=av2e

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Aaliyah - At Your Best (You Are Love)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i0XGs39BrQ

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Etta James – At Last

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1uunRdQ61M

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Moby - Be The One

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_GBSiCLT9M

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VIDEO: Sade - Your Love Is King (LIVE)

Sade - Your Love Is King (LIVE)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCT18u7RsRc

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Profile: Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 [O.S. January 6, 1705 – April 17, 1790) was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. He invented the lightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove, a carriage odometer, and the glass 'armonica'. He formed both the first public lending library in America and the first fire department in Pennsylvania.

Franklin earned the title of "The First American" for his early and indefatigable campaigning for colonial unity; as an author and spokesman in London for several colonies, then as the first United States Ambassador to France, he exemplified the emerging American nation. Franklin was foundational in defining the American ethos as a marriage of the practical and democratic values of thrift, hard work, education, community spirit, self-governing institutions, and opposition to authoritarianism both political and religious, with the scientific and tolerant values of the Enlightenment. In the words of historian Henry Steele Commager, "In a Franklin could be merged the virtues of Puritanism without its defects, the illumination of the Enlightenment without its heat." To Walter Isaacson, this makes Franklin "the most accomplished American of his age and the most influential in inventing the type of society America would become."

Franklin, always proud of his working class roots, became a successful newspaper editor and printer in Philadelphia, the leading city in the colonies. He was also partners with William Goddard and Joseph Galloway the three of whom published the Pennsylvania Chronicle, a newspaper that was known for its revolutionary sentiments and criticisms of the British monarchy in the American colonies. He became wealthy publishing Poor Richard's Almanack and The Pennsylvania Gazette. Franklin gained international renown as a scientist for his famous experiments in electricity and for his many inventions, especially the lightning rod. He played a major role in establishing the University of Pennsylvania and was elected the first president of the American Philosophical Society. Franklin became a national hero in America when he spearheaded the effort to have Parliament repeal the unpopular Stamp Act. An accomplished diplomat, he was widely admired among the French as American minister to Paris and was a major figure in the development of positive Franco-American relations. For many years he was the British postmaster for the colonies, which enabled him to set up the first national communications network. He was active in community affairs, colonial and state politics, as well as national and international affairs. From 1785 to 1788, he served as governor of Pennsylvania. Toward the end of his life, he freed his slaves and became one of the most prominent abolitionists.

His colorful life and legacy of scientific and political achievement, and status as one of America's most influential Founding Fathers, have seen Franklin honored on coinage and money; warships; the names of many towns, counties, educational institutions, namesakes, and companies; and more than two centuries after his death, countless cultural references.

Read More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin

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VIDEO: Walter Isaacson: "Benjamin Franklin: An American Life"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpNcBBi4gFo

In this University of Pennsylvania program, Walter Isaacson, president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, discusses the life of one of Americas most influential figures: Benjamin Franklin. In his recent book, "Benjamin Franklin: An American Life," Isaacson reveals the personal life of Benjamin Franklin and all the intricate details of this revolutionary leaders life that have made him unique among a group of leaders. The presentation was given at the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.

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