Black History: Toni Braxton

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Toni Michele Braxton (born October 7, 1967) is an American R&B singer-songwriter, pianist, musician, record producer, actress, television personality, and philanthropist. Rising to fame in the beginning of the 1990s, Braxton quickly established herself as an R&B icon and became one of the best-selling female artists of the 1990s decade, garnering her honorific titles such as the "Queen of R&B" and being recognized as one of the most outstanding voices of this generation.

Her self-titled debut studio album was released in 1993. It sold over 10 million copies worldwide, spawning such hits as "Another Sad Love Song" and "Breathe Again" and earning Braxton threeGrammy Awards, including Best New Artist. Released in 1996, her second album, Secrets, continued her acclaim and mega success, selling over 15 million copies globally. The album spawned theBillboard Hot 100 No. 1 hits "You're Makin' Me High" and "Un-Break My Heart", which became her signature song and the second top-selling single of all time by a female artist. Braxton won two Grammy Awards for Secrets. In 2000, her third album, The Heat, was released. It sold over 4 million copies and included the hit single "He Wasn't Man Enough", for which Braxton won a Grammy Award. She then released three more studio albums – More Than A Woman (2002), Libra (2005) and Pulse (2010), experiencing personal and label conflicts in between these releases. In 2014, Braxton and long-time collaborator Babyface released a duet album entitled Love, Marriage & Divorce, which earned the duo a Grammy Award in early 2015.

Throughout her career, Braxton has sold over 66 million records, including 40 million albums, worldwide. She has won seven Grammy Awards, nine Billboard Music Awards, seven American Music Awards and several other awards. Aside from her success in music, Braxton has become a television executive producer and personality, being involved in the 7th season of the reality show Dancing with the Stars and in a reality series entitled Braxton Family Values, where Braxton is Executive Producer and star since 2011 on WE tv. Braxton is also an Executive Producer of the spin-off show, starring her younger sister, Tamar-The Tamar & Vince show on WEtv. On September 18, 2011, Braxton was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.

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Perry Blackwell

I love the 1959 movie "Pillow Talk" which starred Doris Day and Rock Hudson. One of the reasons why it's in my top movie selection is because of the Singer/Actress Perry Blackwell. She only had one scene in the movie and she sang for most of that scene, but what she did with her expressions and mannerisms spoke much much more. She was also in the 1960 movie "Dead Ringer" with Bette Davis and Karl Malden. There is not much info on her available, but I did discover via a message written by her daughter, that she is a classically trained Pianist and self taught organist. She played Hammond Organ for years. Also she played with Sonny Stitt, Wes Montgomery Bros. , Roy Milton and Louis Jordan. She worked many gigs around such people as Nancy Wilson, Aretha Franklin, Quincy Jones, Joe Williams, Freddie Hubbard, Jackie Wilson and Red Foxx. She worked on the New York jazz scence for a few years, Best known for her 7 year stint at The Parisian Room in Los A

Madam C. J. Walker

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Black History : Nina Simone

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Nina Simone (born Eunice Kathleen Waymon ; February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003) was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist. She worked in a broad range of musical styles including classical , jazz , blues , folk , R&B , gospel , and pop . The sixth child of a preacher's family in North Carolina , Simone aspired to be a concert pianist. Her musical path changed direction after she was denied a scholarship to the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia , despite a well-received audition. Simone said she later found out from an insider at Curtis that she was denied entry because she was black. So as to fund her continuing musical education and become a classical pianist, she began playing in a small club in Philadelphia where she was also required to sing. She was approached for a recording by Bethlehem Records, and her rendering of " I Loves You, Porgy " was

Son of Ellis

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