Word: singer
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Growing up in Panama City, Blades listened to a polyglot hit parade that included singer Frankie Lymon, as well as Elvis Presley, the Platters and the Beatles. Following in the footsteps of his conga-playing father, Blades started singing with local Afro-Cuban bands. He enrolled in law school at the University of Panama, "to please my parents," and passed the bar. But a short visit to New York City left the young attorney torn between the courtroom and the recording studio. The final verdict favored music, and by 1974 Blades was back in Manhattan for good. "This...
...following year Blades launched his film career with Crossover Dreams, in which he starred as Rudy Veloz, a Latin boxer and aspiring singer who makes it big in English-speaking America. The role proved uncannily prescient. The one- two punch of good reviews for Crossover Dreams and a growing chorus of critical acclaim for Buscando America attracted ever larger numbers of English-speaking fans. Blades acknowledges his bilingual audience by making sure the lyrics to his songs are always printed on the jackets in Spanish and English...
...singer, actor and politico has a knack for being different things to different people, and yet he's always true to himself...
...sense, not a Greek one. Whenever Holiday travelled with an orchestra, black or white, she faced extreme prejudice and racism. While with Count Basie's orchestra in the South, she was forced to darken her skin with grease paint so the audience would not think she was a white singer working for a black band. When she was with Artie Shaw's orchestra, she was forced leave the stage after her songs were over because it was not "proper" for her to sit down onstage with whites...
...that she deserves. In 1981, Baltimore unveiled a statue of Lady Day four blocks west of the black ghetto where she grew up; in 1986 a "Billie Holiday" star was placed on Hollywood's Walk of Fame; and this January, Maryland has started its first annual Billie Holiday Jazz Singer's Competition...